Wish upon a star

   Name: Wish Upon A Star

Design: Wonky stars

Size: 53" by 62"

Quilted: by me with Aurifil 50 wt in white, irregualr grid

Fabric:  Various prints in blue  and low volume and white background fabrics

Binding and Backing: Pieced back in blues and dark blue floral binding all from the stash.

I finished this one on the weekend.  It is a commission quilt destined to be a retirement gift.  I was asked to make a lap quilt in blues.  And here it is.  Scrappy blue wonky stars.  4" squares.  I used a mixture of low volume and white background fabrics and then put it altogether.  I quilted the dickens out of it in Aurifil 50 wt in white.  I used an irregular grid and I am smitten.  It is something that Latifah Safir does.  I was inspired.  It gives great texture!

The back is pieced because I am trying to use up stuff that is lingering.
All done and ready to deliver.  And I might add that it is done before my self imposed deadline!

Blogger's Quilt Festival: My Scrappy Entry

    Name: Grape Juice

Design:  Quarter Log Cabin by Liz Katsuro

Size:  64" by 80"

Fabric: Purple, bright pink and low volume scraps 

Quilted: by me with Aurifil 50 wt in Dove grey, straight lines

Binding:   Kona Eggplant

Backing:  an awesome vintage sheet in purple

Hello!  If you are popping over from the Blogger's Quilt Festival, welcome!  I decided to enter this quilt, Grape Juice, in the festival, scrappy category, this year.  Oh my.  I do love this quilt but there were times that I had to walk away. Even my husband told me to leave it alone and come back to it later. He reminded me that quilting is supposed to be fun.  And it wasn't fun at that moment, let me tell ya! I won't give the whole long story but if you want to read the whole story about how I realized after finishing the quilt completely.  Completely.  That several blocks in the bottom row had been placed incorrectly, throwing off the pattern.  Argh.  Anyway, it is all fixed and lovely in purple scrappy-ness.

If anyone is interested in the pattern, it is a free tutorial by Liz Katsuro.  I made the quilt with a huge variety of scraps all in a similar colour palette as well as a bunch of low volume scraps and bits and pieces.  To add to the scrappy vibe, I backed the quilt with a fabulous vintage sheet.  I am pretty sure that I picked this one up at a thrift shop a few years ago but it might have come from one of my aunts.  Wherever I got it, it was the perfect back and was a good heavy 100% cotton sheet. Nice! I  quilted this in Aurifil 50 wt in gray, with lots and lots of straight lines to give it texture.

So there it is.  Grape Juice.  Scrappy.  And with a story of frustration, persistence and satisfaction at making it right.  Entering this in the Scrappy Category of Amy's Blogger's Quilt Festival.

Already December?????

How did that happen?  It was summer time just yesterday and now it is December!  I spent Saturday with a bunch of my guild at a curved piecing workshop.  It was great!  And I did pick up a few tricks and that is a good thing.

I made these oven mitts last weekend for Husband.  His oven mitts were looking a little sad and he asked me to mend them.  And I did that but noticed that the batting was starting to be thin and they were definitely worse for wear.  My grey scrap container was overflowing so I made some slab blocks big enough to cut out the oven mitts.  Added some batting and some insulbrite. Quilted it.  Binding and we were good to go.  They have been test driven and he has not burned himself with them so they have passed the test.    Officially, scrap project #3.

Linking up with Leanne for Scraptastic Tuesday!  Don't forget to enter the Sew Mama Sew giveaways!

It was like sourdough starter

I made a baby quilt like this last year and my future daughter in law will gift it to a friend's new baby boy soon.  I knew that I had cut to many squares the last time and I cleverly stored all the squares together in a spot where I could actually find them.  I thought it might be a good idea to get another baby boy quilt into inventory.  Let me just say that having the fabric already cut makes a quilt go together pretty darn quickly.  I am calling this a scrap project because it was made out of leftovers.  I had to add a few squares but not too many.  It was sort of like sourdough starter but with scraps.  Sometimes you have to add a little "je ne sais quoi" to the sourdough starter to get the thing going.  That is what I did here.  Just added a few squares and I was good to go.  I also managed to use a leftover chunk of batting and some leftover flannelette for the backing.

Officially this is now finished but I have not yet taken pictures of the completed quilt.  Officially I am calling this a scrap project and I am linking up with Leanne for Scraptastic Tuesday.

Happy Valentine's Day

I made a few little Valentine's for my family.  Just about coaster size.  The half square triangles finished at 1" square.  Just tiny!  Popped in the mail for everyone but Husband.  I am sure our son will think I have lost my mind.  Mum already received her's and it made her so happy!

Happy Valentine's!  The smell of sugar and vanilla will permeate the school with a sea of candy and cupcakes.

Festival of Scrappiness

Rachel at Stitched In Color is hosting the "Festival of Scrappiness!"  I have entered two of my quilts made from scraps.  My Wonky Scrappy Little Star quilt which I made in January.  I love it!

And I put my Granny square quilt top in too though I may be stretching it a bit.  While it is totally a scrap quilt, I have not sandwiched it yet.  I am not sure if it qualifies.  Eek!

Pop on over to Rachel's blog and check out all the fabulous scrappy projects.  If you have made a scrappy quilt, why don't you enter?  It just has to have been finished in 2012.  So exciting!

On the sewing front, I made a cover my new iPad.  Actually, I made 2.  The first one was an epic fail.  Really nicely constructed but about 1/2" too small.  I tried to fix it but then it just looked like I tried to fix it.  I tried again and I quite like the second attempt.   Photos tomorrow.  I am learning how to use my iPad and would appreciate any helpful hints from iPad users out there in blog land.  I need to know about some good apps!

Who spilled the bucket of crayons? A quilt finish...

I am calling this quilt "Who spilled the bucket of crayons?"  It is an explosion of colour.  It is a scrap quilt and I have been working on it for many months but I put on a big push just lately for 2 reasons.  Number 1, it is part of my must finish list for the Finish it up Challenge sponsored by Meg.  Number 2, it is summer and I am on holidays and have so much more quilting time.  I did get quite bored with staring at my box of scraps and sewing endless strips to squares of loose leaf paper.  The other depressing fact of sewing with scraps is that despite making 80 paper pieced string blocks, the stinking box of scraps does not seem that diminished.  How does that happen?????  I am over the moon with the result now that it is all finished.  I really am tickled with visiting the bits of all the quilts I have made over the past year in this scrappy quilt.  I was showing it off to a friend yesterday and she was looking for her quilt.  She found it.  She looked for Daughter's sunflower quilt.  Found it. I see my mum's quilt and on and on.  That makes it fun. I spy, quilting style.

The quilt is backed with a 100% cotton vintage sheet.  This is in the spirit of the scrappy quilt and not buying anything but the batting.  I bound the quilt in leftovers from Daughter's purple Christmas gift quilt along with another bit of purple in my stash.  I had to make the binding a bit scrappy because I was a bit short with the leftover purple. My quilt advisor, aka Husband, suggested purple for the binding.  He has great colour sense and I probably would not have gone in that direction but it totally works. I quilted straight lines on either side of the blocks.  The back shows the square grid that formed.  It is a big quilt.  64" x 84".  And it is finished! It will be a quilt for us and will warm a number of people when visiting or watching TV.  It feels really great to say this is a finish.

A big giant Happy Birthday to Daughter who is now 22!!!!!  Love you, Bug!


And I will be linking up to Sew Modern Monday and tomorrow, to Fabric Story Tuesday!  Check out the other quilty fun!

    

Did someone say rain?

Good grief!  It has poured today.  Never mind that, the Fraser River is at flood stage which is most strange for this time of year but it has been a strange year.  What does one do when it pours?  I spent the day in what Husband is referring to as my quilting catacombs.  Yes, I quilt downstairs but it is far from catacomb-like!  So HUGE progress today.  I completed all 80!  Yes, all 80 paper pieced scrappy string blocks.  Wahoo!  I am really sick of making them .  It will be a frosty Friday before I decide to make another one of these projects.  If I start one, somebody slap me!  The crazy thing is that the scrap box (which I just happened to notice, used to contain Tequila, and came to me from my mother's house.  What?)  does not seem to have diminished at all in scrap contents.  It still appears full and yet I have just made enough blocks for an 80" x 100" quilt!!!!!

 This box of scraps became...

 These messy blocks that are waiting to be pressed and trimmed.

 And created tiny little trimming scraps... what to do with these now?

And finally a stack of 80 blocks!!!!

UFO...

I have a UFO.  This was actually the first quilt I put together last May when I started quilting again but it is yet unfinished.  I know it is because I am hand quilting it and I am a little ADHD with that.  I have not been working at it because I got a little bored with it.  I also got onto a knitting kick and that took up my evening handwork time.  And I got on the hexie wagon but then I picked it up the other day and thought, okay, this isn't too bad.  I just have to do it!  I really love this pattern.  It is "French Roses" by Heather French and it is soft edge applique.  Super easy to put together.  I could have machine quilted it being careful not to quilt down the soft edges but I put this together before I was brave enough to try machine quilting.  I used soft dusty romantic prints.  I was going for that soft, romantic, aged look but my fabulous local quilt shop put it together with brights and it looked lovely too!

Totally scrappy. I can hardly wait to throw it in the wash to get all fuzzed and crinkled.

It was meant to be...

Craigslist is my friend.  Back in September, I found a listing for a Janome 6260 QC for $300.  Be still my beating heart.  I fired off an email to the lister but there was already someone interested.  The lady promised to let me know if the deal fell through!  Short story.  She is mine.  Husband and I drove for hours in blasted rush hour traffic, construction zones and rain.  The lady had bought the machine on a whim and had used it to hem pants a few times over the past few years.  The quilting table and all the quilting feet, walking foot etc.  were still in the original sealed packaging!!!!  Let me tell you, it was gleeful.  Husband says it was meant to be and the machine was destined to be mine.  He is such a sweetie!

Having this lovely new to me machine has made a huge difference to my machine quilting.  And I quickly finished up nursey student daughter's scrappy purple quilt and used sulky variegated thread in lovely purple/violet tones to squiggle away in free motion loveliness.  She received it for Christmas.  She is happily snuggled under it at university.  It will keep her warm for her last semester!

I used this recipe from the Moda Bakeshop, "Blissful Confection." And I used the same pattern to make up a quilt for son and girlfriend for Christmas.  I used a layer cake-Moda's Urban Couture by Basic Grey. Son had given it to me for my birthday!  Clever boy.  This was a perfect colour for their apartment.  And I had more practice with free motion quilting... They received this quilt for Christmas too.  Happiness.  All of a sudden I had 4 quilts completed!  Wahoo!