Swoon!

When I heard that my cousin was diagnosed with Hodgkin Lymphoma I wanted to make her something super sunny, happy and warm that she can have while she's feeling like shit and also later on when she's eventually feeling better. This is what I came up with! I used the Swoon pattern, but made the block 16 inches instead of 24 inches.


I quilted it at on my friend Sandie's long-arm with an orange peel type pattern - so fun! I hope she loves it as much as I loved making it for her!

It was such a beautiful day in Seattle yesterday - this is Puget Sound with some snow-capped Olympic Mountains in the background.

Yum! :)

Blogger's Quilt Festival

I was so excited to see that it's time for another Blogger's Quilt Festival over at Amy's Creative Side! Last time I was literally the last one to enter (procrastinate much?) but this time there are still a few hours left to enter! haha

I finished this quilt just in time for my friend's wedding in October. One of my favorite parts of quilting is putting together a palette of prints. For this quilt I just wanted to use a pattern that would really feature the fabrics in a simple and classic way.

My friend's house is filled with a lot of earth tones and is very cozy. This is not my normal color scheme but I LOVE how it came out. What I did not love so much? Machine piecing hexagons! It was sooo time consuming, but so worth it in the end.

I also tried pebble quilting for the first time on a large quilt which was also very time consuming, but definitely the right choice for this quilt. This was a labor of love and I hope they love it forever!

Thanks for looking!

Some people say quilting and alcohol don't mix...

I disagree! First of all, people say you shouldn't use the "heavy machinery" of a sewing machine while drinking wine, but it's worked for me for years. :) Anyway, that's not what this post is about. 4th of July weekend I had a long drive back to Seattle from Spokane and did some research ahead of time about where to shop for fabric along the way. Awesomely, the tiny center of Ritzville, WA has a quilt shop/liquor store combo. I had no need for booze at that point, but it was kind of a funny and unique thing. And I was so happy to find fabric there that is tough to find for a great price to boot. So, here's to you, Wildflowers Quit Shop Liquor Store. Cheers!

Flying geese top done!

I felt really happy to get this top done in the last week. I have a little ritual about showing off finished quilt tops that I couldn't do, so showing it off in blogland will have to do. I don't typically love a flying geese block, but I think the scale and the prints themselves, on the white background, give it a more fun and fresh feel.

I also realized that it's a little too big for my full sized bed, but would be great for a queen! I'm still thinking about how I'll quilt it. I'd take suggestions.... :)

I love to lay out

Awhile back we had a quiet night at the SMQG sew-in and I took advantage of the balcony to lay out some quilty stuff. Everyone said, wow you've been productive, but since then I have pieced these together and haven't done much else. It's been a tough month and I'm looking forward to some therapeutic blogging following some therapeutic quilting following all the therapeutic fabric shopping I have been doing. hah.

I love these big chunks of pips mixed in with some of my fave coordinating prints!

This strip of herringbone-esque blocks was kind of a headache. It was one of the few times where it didn't feel quite right and instead of giving up on it I ripped stuff out, redid it and came out with a much happier product. I'm having some doubts about my original intention for this, but for now I have a very colorful strip of fabric. :) Let me say, if I didn't love my solids collection so much I probably would have just scrapped this. haha.

My WIPs

I finished all my flying geese blocks and I'm loving how they came out. A year ago I never would have thought I would make this quilt or be so excited about it! I started squaring them up - just a teeny bit off each side, and then decided I would go insane trimming 128 blocks. So I'm just going to do my best and piece them together on the fly (no pun intended). Next challenge - the layout. This is going to be a big quilt!



And these are my herringbone blocks. I'm having a hard time with the layout and just hit a point where I couldn't look at them any longer. So they are packed away for now until I hit that rare patient moment when I'll take them out and sew them all up.

Flying geese blocks

As I've probably said before, one of my favorite things to do is create stacks of fabric from my stash. I get a lot of joy out of it - for the 30 minutes before I start panicking about what to make with it. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by all of the quilts out there in the blogosphere. It can seem like the line between "being inspired by" and "copying" is thin so when I see something I like, it sort of just feels like it's just another thing that I CAN'T make now. So anyway, I decided to make a traditional block with fabrics that I love. I started making these flying geese blocks using this tutorial with a larger scale block.

Here are a few, and I have many many more to go. The unfinished size is about 11.5X6. I found out (for once not the hard way) that directional prints don't really work with this method. Because the original square ends up being cut in quarters diagonally, none of the prints would end up going in the same direction. That kind of thing bothers me, so half my original stack is now out. Oh well.

I also think I'm going to limit the color palette to blues and greens, but I could change my mind... :)