Showing posts with label 2016 finish-a-long. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2016 finish-a-long. Show all posts

Saturday, December 31, 2016

fourth quarter of the finish along

Well, despite setting low goals for the fourth quarter finish along, knowing I was having surgery and all, I only finished two of the three items on my list. The third one is, however, well under way! I'll just add it to my first quarter goals for 2017 and be happy with that.

My first finish this quarter was my wonky dresden neighborhood quilt. I had so much fun with this one!
My second finish is my most recent bee quilt which has already been put to good use.

My Liberty plus quilt is still a work in progress.... although I am nearing the end of the piecing! I am thinking now that it may become a pretty pillow. We will know soon. This is the only goal I didn't reach in the finish along for the whole year. Pretty proud of myself for that.
How did you do with your quilty goals this year?

I'm linking up over at A Quilter's Table

Friday, October 28, 2016

back to my childhood! bee quilt finish

You all remember the 1970s right? Everything was neon bright, yellows, oranges, lime green? Ok, maybe some of you don't remember. You young things, you! But the rest of you know what I'm talking about. In the early 70s I was that preteen girl who wore smiley faces (for you young kids, you would call this an emoji) on her t-shirts. One year I was a smiley face for Halloween! Wish I had a picture of THAT! We moved into a new house when I was in the fifth grade. My bedroom was perfect, bright yellow walls, built in bookshelves under the eves. Everything was perfect EXCEPT for the butterfly wallpaper on the front wall. Yuck. It was very girly and not my style. 

One day, I asked my mom (please note she was on the telephone and distracted at the time) "if I tear down that ugly wallpaper, will you paint my wall orange while I'm at camp?" Not hearing me at all, she waved her hand at me, "yeah yeah" and went back to her call. That was all I needed! I ran upstairs and 15 minutes later I was back with armloads of ripped up wallpaper. That got her attention! But, she had promised. When I returned from camp a couple weeks later, my wall was bright orange.

Mom also helped me acquire an orange shag rug and a bright geometric quilt for my bed. She even painted my desk bright yellow. I was a happy girl.

40+ years and a generation later, both of my older kids LOVE orange (Steve had us paint his bedroom wall bright orange years ago. That's my boy!) and when we moved to this house a couple years ago, Ally had us paint one wall of her bedroom bright pink. They are my kids for sure.

To Ally's credit, her tastes are more subdued and mature than mine. She paired her pink wall with black and white, a color scheme she has carried with her to her new apartment. With her room empty, I decided it needed a new quilt to welcome her home on visits and other visitors in her absence.
Pardon the bad lighting, but here it is! She isn't terribly fond of the change, but her black bedding is tucked into the closet for her to use when she's here.

This is my latest bee quilt from my Sew Bee It group with the McKinney Modern Quilt Guild. I gave each of the girls fat quarters of three of the four colors (pink, orange, yellow and green) and a fat quarter of white and asked them to make me two different blocks from Sew Mama Sew's 2015 Modern block of the month. The blocks I received back were fantastic! Of course, since I have sixteen blocks, some are duplicates. Turns out none of the blocks are in triplicate which is perfect. And the blocks that are from the same pattern look so different from each other because of color placement. Can you even find the four duplicate blocks?

I used a simple setting, a row featuring each of the four colors with wide white sashing in between. My friend Diann added her magic on the longarm...

I love the modern triangles with the swirls to add some movement to an otherwise very angular quilt.
You might be able to see that she used a variegated thread, with citrusy orange, yellow & lime green which was the perfect choice. I made a scrappy binding, using all of the solids found in the quilt.

Also, this is finish #2 for me in the fourth quarter of the 2016 Finish Along. How is your quarter shaping up?

Thursday, October 20, 2016

wonky dresden neighborhood

Welcome to my Wonky Dresden Neighborhood! About a month ago I took this fun class from Martha Lindberg at Not Your Mama's Quilt Store. For me, one of the best parts of taking a class is seeing how different everyone's projects look just based on different fabric choice...

I started with a layer cake of all of the new grunge colors & I just love how mine came together. But everyone elses are so cool too! Makes me want to make another one. 

My finished quilt is 26 inches square.

And, I'm happy to say, this is my first finish for the fourth quarter in the Finish Along! 




Monday, October 10, 2016

NYC 2016

Last weekend I jaunted off to the Big Apple to visit my oldest daughter, Leigh Anne...
The main purpose of this visit was for the two of us to attend the She Is Free conference, hosted by her church, Liberty Church NYC. There's an incredible video here, if you want to see more about She Is Free. It was an incredible weekend!

We ate lots of great (gluten free!) food in NYC, of course. And on Sunday, after the conference had ended, I requested a trip to Purl Soho which Leigh Anne politely agreed to (she did not acquire the crafty gene sadly). I had been planning my purchase from Purl Soho and saving for it for quite a while. 

Isn't it beautiful? A fat eighth bundle of 56 different pieces of Liberty Lawn. OH. MY. GOODNESS. and since Liberty Lawn is 54 inches wide, a fat eighth is 9" X 27" which means even more incredible goodness! I plan to stretch this fabric and include it in many many projects. But I wasn't home long before I selected 30 prints and cut a 2 1/2" strip from each, prepping pieces for an English Paper Pieced plus quilt. 

I have dreamed of a liberty version of this quilt ever since I made my first EPP Plus quilt last year. When I finished prepping, I had a pile of tiny strips of Liberty on my cutting table and I couldn't bear to throw them away....
My friend Mahriam, the queen of "no scrap left behind" suggested I put them in a pretty jar! Brilliant. So off I went to Walmart where I got this cute, tiny jar for less than $3.
It was the perfect size! And now I will always have a little bit of Liberty making my studio a happy place...
I have added my EPP Plus Liberty quilt to my fourth quarter goals for the finish along.



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Saturday, October 8, 2016

Finish along fourth quarter goals

After an amazing third quarter, where I set my goals high (and reached them!) things are going to slow way way down in the fourth quarter here. I am scheduled for a knee replacement (did you know they make them custom now? pretty amazing) the first of November and my recovery, combined with the upcoming holidays will force me to take things easy in the sewing department.

That said, I do have some things I'd love to get done. So here goes....

1) Last month I took an awesome Wonky Dresden Neighborhood class from Martha Lindberg at Not Your Mama's Quilt Store. I love my resulting quilt top & am thinking of making it into a giant pillow. Or maybe a mini? Whichever, it needs to be quilted and completed.


2) These bee blocks have been waiting patiently to be made into a quilt top. My Bee mates did such a fabulous job on them and I plan to add a few more blocks to the mix and at least get the topper done and off to the quilter in quarter 4.


3) This deserves a whole post which I promise in the next day or two. A recent trip to NYC resulted in a beautiful bundle of Liberty Lawns. I promptly cut into them and prepped an English Paper Piecing project to do while I am off my feet. I think an EPP Plus Quilt entirely out of Liberty will be so yummy. 

So that's it. Anything else I get done will be gravy. What do you plan to get done by the end of the year? I'm linking up at A Quilter's Table.





Tuesday, October 4, 2016

2016 finish-along, third quarter finishes



Whew, I did it! When I set my goals for the third quarter I didn't even begin to imagine I'd finish them all, BUT I DID! Yay! Here are links to my finishes.....


My Small World is done! I'm really proud of this one. It was a major project & I enjoyed it so much.

My swap for the Triad meets Mckinney swap is done, delivered & appreciated! This was so much fun to do.

Ally's pillows are happily hanging out on her couch, or wherever college kids keep pillows! ha!

My girls have matching San Francisco Swing Dresses and they both love them. 

The Pow Wow quilt has been delivered to a sweet new baby boy in Ohio and he is enjoying it very much.

So there you have it. Third quarter was a huge success for me! I'm linking up over at A Quilter's Table.




Monday, September 5, 2016

My Small World - a finish!

Last year, the quilting world was in a tizzy. Everyone was searching for the special issue of Quiltmania that had Jen Kingwell's My Small World quilt pattern in it. Add me to that list. I searched every Barnes & Noble I had access to. Had friends looking. I couldn't find it anywhere. I was bummed. Then I heard that Jen Kingwell was going to release it as a stand alone pattern in the fall! Hooray! I bought it the day it became available. I thought "someday I'll make this" and I tucked it away. That was that. Or so I thought.....

Toward the end of the year, Nicole announced on Instagram that she'd be hosting a quilt along after the first of the year. I only hesitated a minute. The pattern is daunting.... but maybe, with the encouragement of other quilters. I could do it! Yes! Yes I could. I started digging in my fabric stash. Bought a few novelty prints that I knew I'd love to add and off I went!

Yesterday I put the final stitches in my binding. I'm so excited to share it with you!
My friend Sandy quilted it for me. I love how the swirls look like wind blowing through the sky...

I'm so happy I added that little rainstorm! And a smattering of yellow sunshine.
Those arched triangles were daunting! But I used @sewwhatsherlock's paper piece pattern for them and it worked like a charm!
I just love how you can add little fussy cut details to make this quilt your own. Some of my favorite details are my ballet studio and the Happiness Hotel in section one.
I used almost all fabric from my scrappy stash. Thought it would make a huge dent in my scrap bins but, no. There's still plenty in there.

This is my final finish in the third quarter of the 2016 Finish Along. A whole month early!  I'm so glad I tackled this project. It was great fun!


Thursday, August 25, 2016

Triad meets McKinney swap


I'm so happy I can finally share a finish (and one of my third quarter goals for the finish along!) Earlier this year, the McKinney Modern Quilt Guild (my guild, here in Texas) set up a mini quilt swap with the Triad Modern Guild in North Carolina. It was fun to be assigned a partner in another guild who I had never met! When I got Kim's info, I learned that she liked foundation paper piecing (among other things) and loved the colors "plum pink and pickle green" Hmmm! Not colors I had a lot of in my stash, so off I went shopping! Also, I had been dying to try lillyella's Take Wing pattern and this seemed like a great time to do that.

Now that Kim has received her quilt I can share it with you here! I love the way this turned out. The pattern stretched me (and perhaps proved to me that I have finally somewhat mastered paper piecing!). It's a complex pattern but totally doable if you take it one section at a time.
I took my lead from lillyella's pattern and machine quilted radiating lines around the butterfly, which matched my quilting skill level (aka beginner) and made the butterfly look like it was in motion which I loved.
I would love to make this pattern again and highly recommend it to all of you.

I can hardly wait for our September 6 meeting, where we will receive our minis from the swap!

Saturday, August 13, 2016

pillows


Another finish for my third quarter finish-along goals!Six pillows for Ally's apartment done and happily hanging out on her couch.
Fabrics are all black/white/gold cotton prints from Hobby Lobby (with added kona black in the patchwork pillow). Two 18" pillows, one 16", one 14" and two 12"x16" rectangles. They look so good in her happy new home!

Just one more finish to go for this quarter for me.... and it's a doozy! I've been cranking away on My Small World quilt & hope to have the topper done very soon.... whew!

Wednesday, August 3, 2016

matching dresses

I haven't made matching dresses for my girls since they were little. Really little. As in, say one and seven? I do believe the last matching dresses I made for them had bunnies on them. So when they asked me to make them matching San Francisco Swing dresses in gray I thought they were nuts. And then I thought, what the heck? I mean, they live clear across the country from each other so the likelihood of them wearing them together is slim to none. 

So, the dresses are made and delivered and they both love them! Yay! Ally & I went out for a bit of a photo shoot today. She found this quote on a building that made her smile....
And Leigh Anne sent me this great shot from New York City (seriously, they have THE BEST graffiti there!)
 These dresses are my third finish in the 2016 Finish along for this quarter. I'm really happy about that. Oh, and if you need a giggle, check out these shots of Ally....


Have a wonderful day!


Monday, July 18, 2016

Pow Wow baby quilt

This is my first documented finish for the third quarter of the Finish-along. I finished another before this but I can't share it just yet! Anyways, here it is, a baby quilt for the final KNOWN pregnant person in my life. It's a Pow Wow quilt by Cluck Cluck Sew. Baby's room is being decorated in black, white and gold. I used solid black Kona Cotton and white cotton with gold polka dots and triangles from Hobby Lobby. I chose to bind the quilt in black & white stripe which always makes me happy!
I did the quilting myself, just some straight lines & echo quilting in the white sections. I wish I had more confidence in quilting on my domestic machine, but this worked out pretty well.

I had grand plans for photographing this one. Our public library has some bright blue metallic walls which I figured would make the quilt really pop. And it would have. However....

The packing tape which I tried to bunch up and stick the quilt on the wall with stuck to EVERYTHING... my hands, the wall, my camera. Everything except the quilt! Ha. I got lots of shots of the quilt falling to the ground and gobs of tape stuck to the wall. sigh. So I went with the tried & true quilt holder-upper.

Hubby always does a great job, but it's not quite what I was going for! If I was more photo-editing savvy I'd photo shop out his fingers & legs. Oh well, you get the point. For the record, packing tape does not stick to quilts. At the advice of Debbie at A Quilter's Table I've ordered some industrial strength sticky velcro to try next time. Meanwhile, this little guy is in the mail.

Oh, another plus! All those flying geese (each "arrow" is made of 2 flying geese) yielded me 100 extra half square triangle blocks (2 1/2" square). Since Ally is decorating her new apartment in the same colors, I put these together into a pillow topper for her! Score! Also, I picked up a bunch of different black/white/gold fabrics to make more pillows. Stay tuned.