MQG Madrona Road Challenge

This is the quilted pillow I made with the Madrona Road fabric provided by Michael Miller for The Modern Quilt Guild’s challenge.  You can see all the amazing projects here.

For the pattern I used the freezer paper method with templates.  Each block has 2 y-seams which was a first for me.  I used black, cream, and light gray Perle cotton to hand quilt inside each star.  Then I also quilted in the ditch with my machine.

The finished pillow measures 19” x 21”.  Have a fantastic Friday and weekend!  Linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts Finish It Up Friday.

Two Pillow Finish

This past week I’ve finished up two Christmas pillows. 

Katie of SwimBikeQuilt posted a modern Christmas tree wall-hanging/pillow on the Free Spirit blog this week.  The tutorial was easy to follow. 

It was amazing to see how the texture of the straight line quilting changed the total look of the Christmas tree.  I decided to bind the pillow after adding the envelope back.  This gray polka dot fabric is one of my favorites. 

This Ho Ho Ho pillow is straight from the book “Pretty in Patchwork Holidays” by Quilt Dad.  I am giving away a copy of the book and 16 fat quarters here, and there are a few more hours to enter the giveaway.

The fabrics are mostly Connecting Threads and a few favorites from my stash thrown in.

I used Finca Presencia Perle thread size 8 to quilt around each letter.  I didn’t have an embroidery hoop at first, but I bought one after doing two of the letters and it made the stitching a lot easier.

The Santa buttons were the perfect finishing touch!

The pattern suggests using linen for the back, but I substituted this cute bird fabric I’ve had in my stash.

So now I think our living room is sufficiently decorated for the holidays!

What have you been working on?  Any Christmas projects?  Linking up to Finish It Up Friday on Crazy Mom Quilts.  Have a wonderful weekend!

Finish It Up Friday

I just started a new project a few nights ago and already have the top almost finished!

My husband and kids helped me lay out all the blocks last night.  It was truly a family affair which was kind of fun.  It was also interesting to hear my husband talking about what he likes in quilts.  Turns out, it’s a lot like what he likes in ties, which is not really my style.  I also took photos of how I keep my layout straight in my mind.

I put a tiny post-it on the left-most block in the row.  Then I stack them all from left to right and pin the post-it through all the layers.

Then I can transport and store all the blocks in my sewing room without the fear that my kids will trample them and mix up the order.  One thing I have not figured out, though, is how to chain stitch in order.  My brain just cannot do it.  In fact, although I *always* stack from left to right, I still write “L-R”  on the sticky note just to keep my brain straight and avoid any panic attacks!

I also thought I’d share one of my bee blocks for September.  I am glad that month is over.  Both bee blocks I had to make were paper-pieced which is not my favorite.  Bea really liked this design, so maybe a similar quilt is in my future, but these blocks that use strips seem to use twice as much fabric as the finished product which kind of aggravates me, although they are pretty.

On a totally unrelated note, my kids are really into these Bizu bracelets.  Have your daughters seen them at school yet?  My daughter is in first grade and all the kids seem to have them.

Linking up to Finish It Up Friday on Crazy Mom Quilts.  I am off to get some exercise on this beautiful day.  I have lost over 30 pounds since May.

Have a wonderful day!

This week’s finishes

I have two finishes for this week.  I finally put the binding on this quilt and blogged about it here.

And then I made a special little fishy mat for my daughters’ room.  They have an ant farm (which has lasted much, much longer than the 5-6 weeks as stipulated in the directions—more like 4 months now).  The deal was they could get a betta for their room after all the ants died.  It looks like that is never going to happen, so we went ahead with our fish plans.  (ps.  If you ever get an ant farm and the ants happen to be harvester ants which can bite/sting, tell your babysitter NOT to let the kids go to their room without supervision.)

I used just various fabrics from my stash.  The solids are quilter’s linen (not really linen) by Robert Kaufman.  I got a rainbow of colors from Fabric.com a few weeks ago and have been trying them out.   I didn’t measure it, but the finished dimensions are about a foot square.

I fmqed all over (because I still have not bought a new walking foot) and binded and backed it with el cheapo fabric from Joanns that I bought when I was first starting out sewing.  The quilting is done in light pink thread, but it pretty much just looks white against the top fabrics.  My oldest daughter wanted to know what all those squiggles are supposed to be.  She thinks they look kind of like coral, so I told her that’s what I was aiming for…lol!

We got a new fish on Wednesday, dubbed him “Feather Fin,” and he is doing well, enjoying his much more spacious home.

I am linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts today.