De-stash!

We had a grand de-stash at our Fraser Valley Modern Quilt Guild meeting on Thursday.  I took copious quantities of assorted crafty stuff to share and came home with a conservative pile of goodies.  I added much to my purple stash, added some other fabrics and a boat load of a really lovely home decor weight fabric.

I also came away with a fair collection of I Spy fabrics including some hockey prints.  I did not have any hockey prints!  And I was ever so well behaved this morning because I actually chopped up all the smaller pieces into 4" squares right away!

Cynthia shared some of the BOLT of vintage home decor weight fabric with me that she found on a thrifty adventure and Steam Trunk Cathy shared this crazy vegetable fabric and some Joe Boxer "Good to the Core" apple fabric with me.  It will probably become a picnic table cloth at some point.

I also won a charm pack!  Yahoo!  I have been on quite the winning steak of late.

Evidence of my good behaviour and good scrap management.

A Friday Finish on a Thursday...

 Quilt stats

Name:  Vintage Pinkness 

Design:  Mine, Economy blocks, 5.5"

Size:  38" by 48"

Fabric:  assorted stash fabric and scraps, Kona Baby Pink, pink stripe flannelette backing

Quilted: by me with Aurifil 50 wt in white

This is a baby quilt for a gift for one of our son's fiance's friends.  The baby is not yet born but the family knows she is a girl and her name will be Scarlet.  I was asked to make the quilt and was given free rein but the thought was that it should include some red.  Okay.  So this is what happened.  I started making Red Pepper Quilt's Economy blocks even before the big craze happened.  I am just so on it with trends!  Giggle.  But I alternated the blocks with solids in the palest of pinks.  Each block has a little whimsical square and I added a really sweet small scale pink print from Lecien for the border.  I just don't remember what it is called.  I have had it for quite awhile.  The binding is from Kate Spain's Christmas line.

And I quilted on either side of the blocks in Aurifil 50 wt in white and then added diagonals in each direction.  The diagonals really finished it perfectly.  The quilting has transformed this little quilt.  It went from being okay to being OKAY!  after the quilting.

First finish of the new year.  Linking up with Amanda Jean for Finish it up Friday.  And now I am off to guild.  De-stash night and I have a lot of stuff to get rid of!  So exciting!!!!

Working, working...

I popped these wee blocks in the mail the other day.  They are destined for a baby quilt project.  So fun.  And Economy blocks are all the rage right now.  These ones finished at 5.5" and were paper pieced using the tutorial and template available from Rita at Red Pepper Quilts.  Paper piecing these makes really accurate blocks!

I have also been working on the mini quilt for the Creative Stitches Challenge for my guild.  The modern quilting theme that my mini will demonstrate is alternate grid work but in making it, I have also used solids, ample use of negative space and bright, bold colours.  So there you go!

Here is a sneak peak of my mini as I was quilting it.

Linking up with the Needle and Thread Network and Lee at Freshly Pieced for Work in Progress Wednesday.

Another pillow...

This is a pillow I made for our clever son's lovely fiancée for Christmas.  Yes, people, you read it right, fiancée!!!  There is going to be a wedding!    Back to the pillow though, this is is a pattern from a book I won at quilt guild.   The pattern is for a quilt but I made a pillow.  It is very stained glass looking.  I used some scraps and some lovely linen/cotton blend for the sashing and the back.

And a little closer...

 and the back... which has a lapped zipper.

I was unsure what colour thread to use so I stuck a few tiny scraps on my test chunk of fabric plus batting.  I decided to use a lovely Aurifil 30 wt... 2315 was the colour.  It is a light yellow gold.  Yum.  I quilted it with lots of straight lines and quilted the bit on the back too.  The pillow was a big one.  About 22" square.  It made me happy.

Bee Blocks on the barn wall...

Here they are!  So pretty!  I made these Kaleidoscope blocks for Nicole  for That Stash Bee.  This is a free block pattern from Quilter's Cache and Nicole's colour choices just sing!  I have to say that I had moments of frustration when making these.  Lots of gnashing of teeth and grumpy stomping.  The really silly thing is that it was not about the block or the sewing it was about the darn printing of the template!  Seriously!  If I opened up the template and printed it, then I got the template at the size that Nicole wanted.  I did that and made one block which is 4 little blocks.  Then I went and printed out 4 more templates.  When I printed more templates, I saved the pdf file and printed it from my saved copy.  I happily made 4 more sections, making one more block.  But it was so much bigger!  OMG!  Are you kidding?  Simply by saving the template, the template became about 25% bigger and since I made the second block the next day, I did not clue in until the block was completed.  Long story is that I now have 4 of these blocks finished.  2 of them will be popped in the mail and then the super sized blocks (not that super sized but bigger) are the start of a really awesome quilt with a great colour scheme!!!

That is the story.

And some pillows...

I made this pair of pillows for daughter for Christmas.  She has requested pillows for their guest room.  A beachy sort of look.  I had already given her a quilt so the pillows needed to work with it.  The quilt was quite busy so the pillows couldn't be.  I decided to use some small scraps in the same colour palette but with lots of negative space.

So there they are.  Not matching.  Not even the same size but a pair nonetheless.  Quilted in straight lines in Aurifil 50 wt in white.  Lots of straight lines.  The pillows are backed in a natural linen/cotton blend from Robert Kaufman and a bit of a stripe.  Beachy.  And finished with an enclosed zipper which happens to be my new favourite pillow finish.

A Friday Finish.  Check.  Linking up with Amanda Jean for Finish it Up Friday.

A year in quilts...

Happy New Year!  I have had another quilt filled year!  I would add that if you are interested in any details about any of these pictures, I do have links at the top of the page for quilt finishes.

Linking up with Lynne at Lily's Quilts for Fresh Sewing Day!  And I just happened to receive her lovely book 500 Quilt Blocks for Christmas!  Yay!