2017 Quarter 2 Finish-A-Long Goals

Posted on April 7, 2017 by Quilting is in my Blood

I will be rolling over one of the projects from my Quarter 1 goals. I finished assembling my Quatrefoil Bee Block Quilt and had it quilted by the amazing Amy Ellis of Amy’s Creative Side, but I still need to trim it and bind it (no pic yet of quilting).

img_2871

I have three new projects to list in this quarter’s Finish-A-Long. First is the Quasi-Random HST lap quilt for my great niece. It is at ThreadBear waiting to be quilted.

IMG_2959

The next one is the Blue Ombre HST lap quilt for my great-nephew, Jimmy. Both Rachel and Jimmy who are twins will be graduating from high school and celebrating their 18th birthday in June, and I will be hand-delivering their quilts to them when I fly to Michigan for a long weekend to be there for the celebration. For Jimmy’s quilt, I will be using the Ombre HST pattern by Sarah Goer. I have all the squares cut and plan to start sewing half-square triangles this weekend.

IMG_2970

The last project I hope to complete by the end of June are two Rainbow Hexies pillows for my office that use hexies from an Instagram rainbow hexie swap. Below are the 120 hexies that I made and recently shipped off for this swap:

IMG_2979

Linking up to 2017 Qtr Finish-A-Long Goals.

Posted in Quilting | Tagged , | 5 Comments

Rainbow Hexies–A DrEAMi Moment

Posted on April 6, 2017 by Quilting is in my Blood

When I was first bitten by the quilting bug in October 2014, I was like a kid in an amusement park wanting to do EVERYTHING–quilt-alongs, swaps, online bees, new block tutorials/blog hops, classes, conferences, workshops, etc. A 2017 goal has been to be more intentional in all areas of my life including nutrition, exercise, and my quilting passion. It has finally become clear to me that I can’t do EVERYTHING (a lesson I seem to need to learn multiple times!). But I’ve been wanting to replace the extremely dated pillows on the couch in my office for a few years and even made it a 2017 quilting goal back in December. When I saw Nicole@Modern Handcraft’s Hexie Pillow, I decided those were the kind of pillows I wanted to make to complement the Rainbow LOVE pillow I have on a chair in my office.

The Drop Everything and Make it (DrEAMi) moment for me was when I found out in February about a swap on Instagram for rainbow hexies in red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple (#rainbowhexieswap2). I signed up to make 120 rainbow hexies, and I will be getting 120 different rainbow hexies back made by many different people.

IMG_2979

I made about half of these when I was at a work conference last month. I totally get why people like English Paper Piecing when they’re away from their sewing machines. It sure helped me sit in a chair for lots of hours. I thread-basted my hexies which takes a little time. I’ve heard that glue basting is faster, and maybe I’ll try that method some day.

Do you like EPP, and if you do, what kind of basting do you prefer?

Linking up to MMM! Quilts: DrEAMi link-up #3.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Purple Mini Doxie

Posted on April 4, 2017 by Quilting is in my Blood

A year ago you NEVER would have heard the words “I’m starting to like paper piecing” come out of my mouth. I think words like “hate”, “frustrating” and maybe even stronger phrases came out of my mouth related to paper piecing. But I persevered and made a few small paper-pieced projects including a mini Bird in a Bird House for my sister, a Penny Layman mountain block at Glamp Stitchalot 2016 and two Wanta Fanta blocks and one Busy block as part of my 2016 Bee Hive commitment. This year I made a replacement Busy Block using red violet fabrics and a paper-pieced LOVE pillow that made me feel much more confident with my paper-piecing skills. So I decided to try an even more difficult paper-piecing pattern by Juliet of The Tartankiwi, her mini doxie pattern (for some reason I cannot go into her Etsy shop link as I write this post). I have to tell you that this paper-piecing project was quite a challenge for me, but I’m happy with the final result. I did print the pattern at 120% to make it a bit bigger (and easier for me).

IMG_2975

I added more of the light grey background and a darker grey border, and I quilted it with matchstick quilting to help smooth down the bumpy parts. Then I made it into a pillow cover as a birthday present for my stepdaughter who has a beloved dachshund named Pogo. I made her a quilt two years ago that also had dachshunds in it which I wrote about in a post entitled, My First Quilting Meltdown–Quilt #2. It’s nice to see how far I’ve come in my quilting journey, and I’m happy to report that sashing no longer sucks!!!

Linking up to Cooking Up Quilts: Main Crush Monday.

Posted in Quilting | Tagged , | 5 Comments

One Monthly Goal April 2017

Posted on April 1, 2017 by Quilting is in my Blood

My sister commented on my March ’17 OMG finish post that she assumed OMG meant the current digital shortcut until another commenter straightened her out, so I thought I would spell out OMG for my April post in case anyone else didn’t know that we quilters had appropriated the acronym for our quilty use. And one more thing about my March ’17 OMG which was finishing the quasi-random HST quilt top for my great-niece, Rachel. A big thank you to Patty of Elm Street Quilts who obtained so many wonderful quilting sponsors for all the months of 2017 for One Monthly Goal plus an awesome end of year drawing. She just notified me today that I won a $25 gift certificate from Fat Quarter Shop from the drawing of all the participants in the March ’17 OMG goal setting/finish. That just made my day!

My April ’17 OMG is to sew the quilt top for Rachel’s twin brother, Jimmy, who is also graduating in June and celebrating his 18th birthday. A few months ago I sent a Pinterest pin of a blue ombre baby quilt to my friend Sarah@Sarah Goer Quilts. Talented woman that she is, she used it as inspiration to write a pattern for an Ombre HST quilt in shades of grey, but she personally selected blue Kona cotton solids for me to make a lap quilt for Jimmy. The solids from lightest to darkest (and in numerical order) are Cloud, Blueberry, Stratosphere, Astral, Surf, Marine, Nightfall, and Nautical. Below is a pic of the 8″ squares I finished cutting this morning.

IMG_2970

I can’t wait to try out Sarah’s ombre pattern. I am so appreciative that she has done ALL the design work for me. I made a labeled swatch card for each color with the associated number that I think will make it easier for me to sew the half-square triangles according to the pattern.

Linking up to April ’17 OMG Goal-Setting.

 

Posted in Quilting | Tagged , | 8 Comments

Modified Fancy Forest Quilt

Posted on March 27, 2017 by Quilting is in my Blood

Earlier this month I finished the modified Fancy Forest Quilt I made for my sister-in-law, Sharon’s 65th birthday. Sharon is still a kid at heart and fell in love with the Fancy Foxes I made last year. When she saw the complete pattern, she also thought the Hazel Hedgehog and Thistle blocks were great, so I modified the design to be comprised of four foxes, three hedgehogs, and two thistles. The finished quilt is fairly small–32 by 42 inches. If Sharon decides she wants to hang this quilt on a wall, I will be happy to add a hanging sleeve when I see her next.

IMG_2963

I really love the backing fabric, and the pic below shows a portion of the back plus some of the cool quilting done by Michael at ThreadBear (and a stray thread–hate that when I spot a thread after I’ve put the quilt away!).

IMG_2965.JPG

This is my second finish of my 2017 Finish-A-Long Quarter 1 Goals. I’m also linking up with Cooking Up Quilts: Main Crush Monday.

Posted in Quilting | Tagged | 5 Comments

March ’17 OMG Finish

Posted on March 26, 2017 by Quilting is in my Blood

Two and a half years into my quilting journey, I continue to learn something with every single project. When I admired Libs Elliott’s random HST quilts, I did not focus on them being made with solid fabrics. And another great example of a random HST quilt is this one made by Anja@Anja Quilts, again made with solids. I think this Imprint collection by Katarina Roccella would probably have worked better with a simple hourglass or star pattern. All that being said, I am happy with my Quasi-Random Imprint HST quilt, but I spent a lot more time designing it than I thought I would.

IMG_2959

Taking a photo of it yesterday in Northern New Mexico’s spring time wind was crazy. I snapped this one pic and then the wind blew it over the fence to my neighbor’s yard. Luckily I had a reacher handy and was able to quickly snag it before it got carried off even further. This flimsy is now at my local quilt store, Thread Bear, waiting to be quilted. We haven’t made a decision yet on how it will be quilted. I’m thinking large spirals might soften all the angles or possibly an orange peel design. Please feel free to make quilting suggestions. I’ll be stopping by to talk with Michael at Thread Bear in a week or so.

Linking up to Elm Street Quilts: March ’17 Finishes

Posted in Quilting | Tagged , | 10 Comments

March 2017 OMG

Posted on March 3, 2017 by Quilting is in my Blood

My March 2017 One Monthly Goal is to sew the half-square triangles (HSTs) together for my great-niece, Rachel’s high school graduation quilt. I cut 144 six-inch squares from Katarina Rocella’s Imprint collection to sew together to make the HSTs. I wanted a random look for this quilt, so initially I blindly pulled two squares at a time out of a bag to form the HSTs. About a half-way through, I changed my strategy and started intentionally putting the squares together to provide more balance to the quilt. Below is a sampling of the HSTs in no particular order:

img_2829

My plan is to sew the HSTs into groupings of 16 that will form nine large 20 1/2″ square blocks that will then be sewn together to complete the 60″ square quilt top that I will have long-arm quilted next month.

It has been such a pleasure working with this gorgeous fabric collection, and the feel of the fabric is so luxurious. I’m saving even the smallest scraps of these fabrics!

Linking up to Elm Street Quilts: March ’17 OMG Link-Up.

 

Posted in 2017 Quilts, Quilting | Tagged | 2 Comments

Feb ’17 OMG Finish

Posted on February 25, 2017 by Quilting is in my Blood

My February 2017 One Monthly Goal was to make a quilt top out of the Quatrefoil bee blocks received from The Bee Hive and Stash Bee members (with Surprise Blocks from my friend, Sarah Goer, and four blocks made by me). I had hoped to make a 60″ square quilt, but a few of the blocks were too small, so my Quatrefoil quilt top is now four across and five down. It is a very nice lap quilt size, and I love the depth of color in the teal/turquoise petals and the different variations of lime corners that form diamonds. Down the road I plan to make a big pillow with four of the unused blocks after I have trimmed them down to about 12″ square.

img_2871

I finished this quilt top this morning, snapped a quick pic, and then got it packaged to ship to Amy Ellis of AmysCreativeSide.com. She had a one-day quilting sale that I was lucky enough to take advantage of. I’m asking her to quilt a mazes motif in a medium grey that I think will look especially awesome in the low volume sections. This is the first time I’ve ever shipped off a flimsy for quilting, but at least I’m only shipping it a couple states away. In the 1990s my mom used to send her quilt tops to the Philippines for quilting!

Have you ever sent off a flimsy for quilting before? If you did, were you a little nervous to entrust your precious quilt top to a courier or post office?

Linking up to Elm Street Quilts: Feb ’17 OMG Finishes.

Posted in 2017 Quilts | Tagged , , | 9 Comments

Feb ’17 OMG-Quatrefoil Bee Blocks

Posted on February 4, 2017 by Quilting is in my Blood

My February 2017 One Monthly Goal is to sew together my Quatrefoil bee blocks that I received from Bee Hive and Stash Bee hive members when I was queen bee this past August. I have enough blocks to sew a quilt top that is five blocks across by five blocks down. Two of the blocks I will be including were surprise blocks (pictured below) made by my friend, Sarah, of Sarah Goer Quilts.

img_2424

I’ve finally started to press out the mailing wrinkles, and some of the blocks will need to be squared up before sewing together the quilt top. I hope to start playing with the layout tomorrow.

Linking up to Elm Street Quilts: Feb ’17 OMG.

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments

A New Work in Progress

Posted on February 2, 2017 by Quilting is in my Blood

I purchased fat quarter bundles of Katarina Rocella’s gorgeous Imprint collection in both colorways about a year ago not knowing what I was going to make with them and recently decided to use this fabric in a half-square triangle (HST) lap quilt for my great-niece, Rachel, who will be turning 18 and graduating from high school in June.

img_2811

I’ve been very drawn to some of the random HST quilts I’ve seen on Pinterest like the ones made by the fabulous Libs Elliott who uses code to generate quilt designs. I will be using a much less sophisticated method of combining fabrics for this HST quilt. I have cut 144 six-inch squares from the 20 fat quarters (at least 7 from each), and I will blindly pick out two squares at a time to sew together out of a bin once I mix the squares up really well, not worrying about combining a light print with a medium or dark print. My only rule will be to not sew two of the same fabrics together, although a few interspersed squares might add some interest.

The quilt will be 12 five-inch finished squares across by 12 five-inch finished squares down. I hope to have all my HSTs made by the end of this month.

Linking up to My Quilt Infatuation: Needle and Thread Thursday.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged | 5 Comments