Saturday, July 21, 2018

shower gift

What fun I'm having celebrating my best pal's daughter Megan this weekend, just weeks before her big wedding day! Today I was happy to finally give her the shower gift I made for her earlier this summer.
Four quilted placemats to match her aqua dishes and with a lesson learned from my friend Trae, I backed them all in Christmas fabric...
In fact Trae gave me that cute fabric! and I still have plenty left over for me.

Of course I wove Megan some pretty dish towels to match....
Waffle weave, 100% cotton yarn doubled in a 10 dent heddle.

I hope she enjoys them all for a long time!  What's your go to shower gift?

Wednesday, July 11, 2018

Solid Seven July blocks

This month the Solid Seven bee is making blocks for Briawna...
I actually got mine done early and shipped off to her already! Briawna asked us to make Wonky Log Cabin blocks in the style of the Gee's Bend Quilters. She requested clear, bright colors with a touch of black in each block. No pinks or purples as she is making this quilt to gift to her husband who saw some Gee's Bend quilts and was intrigued by them. This was really fun!

It was great to dig in my solid scrap bin and use up some of those little pieces.
And of course, the wonky log cabin piecing fit right in with my deep dive into improv this year. I may need to make a quilt like this one for myself.

Thursday, July 5, 2018

Be Calm

You might remember these tiny improv blocks I made way back in January. 

They sat in a box, forgotten for several months. A few weeks ago I came across them and decided they needed to become something. So I pulled out my low volume scrap bin and turned them into nine patches (each one measuring 3 1/2" square)
in my low volume bin I found some 60 degree triangles already sewn together (I wonder what those were for? I have no idea!). Some of the triangles were even improv pieced. Hmmmmm....
I was on a roll now. I added some x blocks...
and some improv polka dots
An instagram friend said my creation spoke "be calm" to her. I made improv letters so now it literally spoke it...
A little rearranging and some tumbling triangles down the side and I had a quilt top!
Far from my usual riot of color craziness, isn't it? But in this world of constant bad news, it's just the message I needed. Maybe you need it too?

Once I got the quilt top together, it NEEDED to be quilted. I had borrowed Jacquie Gering's Walk book from our guild library and found so many great tips in there for quilting small quilts with my walking foot. I started with vertical lines, 1/2" apart. my intention was to add horizomtal lines to create a grid. Again I was coaxed on instagram (thank you Debbie!) to add diagonal lines to the mix. She was right! It was exactly what I needed...

A faced binding finished it off. An unplanned project but I'm so glad I took the time to make it happen!