testing

First, I just want to make a little plug.   Voting has opened for the Totally Groovy QAL and you should check it out! There are some really beautiful quilts.  And of course I wouldn't mind if you vote for mine :) So I have no finished projects to show you this week.  The only thing I finished was a passport sleeve I made for my cousin who just found out she was accepted into a study abroad program. Other than that, I have been spending a lot of time with my rotary cutter getting some new projects started.   My current WIPs: Habitat quilt for my sister.  I have to admit, I am really worried about how my sister will feel about this quilt.  She is pretty particular.  I love the fabrics, I just hope that she does too.  I ended up going with the Fire Drill  pattern from Elizabeth Hartman's most recent book.  I finished trimming the last blocks this morning and I am going to start putting the blocks together today. Hopefully I will be quilting this one by this time next week. Quilt

I have had a few people ask me about working with Moda Snuggles as a quilt backing.  Before I made this quilt  I was nervous that I was going to have problems with the fabric stretching, but I had trouble finding any information about the fabric online.  I thought I would share my experience with you in case you are interested in giving this a try.  I have never used other types of minky fabrics so I can't compare snuggles with other brands, but the Moda version is wonderful! What is Moda snuggles? It is a 60" wide, polyester fabric that is similar to minky.  It is fuzzy and soft and is great for a quilt for a baby or a child, or for an adult too :)  I really appreciate that it is so wide because I was about to use a 2 yard cut for my daughters quilt without having to piece any of the snuggles together. Does it need to be prewashed? No! Did you use batting? Yes.  I saw a few places online where people had said that they had skipped the batting, but I really like the weight tha

I was featured on Follower Friday over at Knotted Thread today!

Yay!  It's that time again! The last Blogger's Quilt Festival was shortly after I started my blog and made me feel so warm and fuzzy to be a tiny part of the quilting community, so I have been anxiously awaiting another round. I debated which quilt to enter, but in the end I decided on my Remixed Geese quilt.  Forgive me if you are a regular reader of my blog because I just posted about this a couple weeks ago (the original post is here )!  I recently made my daughter this quilt using Ann Kelle's Remix line and a variety of solids. I really love this quilt because it is so cheerful. It makes me happy to tuck my daughter in with it every night and I find myself "borrowing" it sometimes during the day.  I backed it with Moda Snuggles and it is so soft and just the right weight.   My inspiration was this mini quilt .  My daughter (Harper) had already picked out the fabrics she wanted and had asked for triangles, so I thought this would be perfect.   I free motion qui

But you should go check out Paper Thread fabrics . They are clearing out all of their inventory and everything is at least 50% off.  I just put in an order for some Nursery Versery (only $10/yard, that's a good price for Heather Ross!) and some quilt batting.  They also have some Anna Maria Horner, Tula Pink, Lizzy House, etc and lots of patterns.  Their stock is already dwindling down but there are some good things left! I just thought I would pass on a good deal!  I have bought from this website before and it is one of my favorites :)

Well the big finish for this past week was my queen size wonky cross quilt.  I have been working on this on and off for several weeks and you are probably sick of seeing it by now, but it is now complete! I also made this Christmas tree table runner for my parents.  It is in the mail and should be arriving at their house today. And guess what . . . that completed all of my current WIPs!  So of course I had to start 3 more.   My current WIPs: Habitat quilt.  This is going to be a twin sized quilt for my little sister as a high school graduation present and I am finally cutting into my precious Habitat stash so she better like it!   Quilt for my son.  I pulled some fabric this week and decided to use Ed Emberley's Happy Drawing fabrics.  I only have a few of the prints, so I ordered a couple more and I am waiting for those to get here before I start cutting into the fabric.  I will probably narrow this down before I make the quilt, but this is what is currently on the table. Echo/Bel

My parents were in town visiting last weekend: I showed them some of the things that I was working on and it occurred to me that I should make them some sort of holiday related gift for Christmas.  Unlike me, they are very into decorating their house for the holidays.  I am still on a little bit of a triangle kick and I had so much fun working with Laurie Wisbrun's Brrr! fabrics last time that I thought I would include those in a table runner. It ended up a little bit wide (I think the finished size was 20x42") so I added some sleeves to the back in case they wanted to hang it instead.  I am going to send to them a little early so they can actually use it for Christmas, so it is headed for the post office today.   Last week I received a package from Caitlin  in our Wish Circle swap.  She did an absolutely fantastic job making something that I love and she sent along some beautiful scraps.  Thank you so much Caitlin! For the swap I had Kirsten , who is a mother of 3 little boys

If you haven't already checked it out, Alyce over at Blossom Heart Quilts is hosting a blogger bundle competition with Randi at Fresh Squeezed Fabrics .  I think these kinds of competitions are SO MUCH FUN.  As much as I enjoy all aspects (or at least most aspects) of making a quilt, picking out fabrics is definitely the best part. I wanted to make a mosaic using some of my favorite prints right now.  I knew that I wanted to use the Cosmo Cricket text print ; I love that it has all of these positive words and phrases and it is such a pretty shade of pink.  I also wanted to use an Oh Deer print (because it is so cute!), this Madrona Road print (which I love but I haven't been able to justify buying), and then some coordinating prints and a  solid . I am calling my mosaic Sunshine Road because I love all of the happy colors and words.  I am trying to focus more on the positive things in life and this group of fabrics feels very positive to me :)

Today I finished up the queen sized wonky cross quilt I have been making for my sister- and brother-in-law for Christmas.  In my husband's family we rotate who we have for Christmas each year, and this year we have Denise and John.  Denise (my husband's sister) dropped a major hint that she would like a queen sized quilt for Christmas this year.  My first reaction was that I wasn't up for it, but then I thought . . . why not? Denise and John are great and it makes me happy to make something for someone when I know that it is something they want.  She requested a quilt made up of different shades of blue and neutrals.  My plan was to make the quilt completely from fabrics in my stash (I have way too much fabric), and I was actually pretty successful.  I only bought 4 quarter yard cuts to kind of even the blues out since most of what I have is aqua and turquoise. I have been wanting to try some wonky cross blocks for a while.  They are pretty easy and don't have much fabr

First, I just want to say that I am really enjoying participating in the weekly WIP posts.  It is very helpful in keeping me focused and motivated on what I am working on, and I love seeing what everyone else is doing! With all of the posts about Sewing Summit this week (I wish I could have been there!) it has really made me think about how wonderful the quilting community is and how grateful I am to be a very tiny part of it.  Thank you so much for visiting my blog; I started it to try to meet new people and share what I am working on, and I am so very glad to have this space. Finished projects: Remixed geese quilt for my daughter.  I have been slowly working on this for several weeks but I had a sudden burst of energy to finish this one up.   October do good stitches blocks.  They are scrappy chevron blocks made from this tutorial .  Ongoing projects: Wonky cross quilt.  I finished quilting this one last night (yay, it's queen size and took A LONG TIME) and sewed the binding on t

I just finished my october blocks for the do good stitches wish circle.   Sonya  was in charge this month and she chose scrappy herringbone blocks made using the tutorial at Bijou Lovely . I did have one issue when making them.  In Holly's tutorial she uses a 6.5x24.5" ruler to trim her blocks.  Apparently I wasn't paying very good attention because I trimmed my blocks with my 6x24" ruler and my first attempt at these blocks were too small.  Boo!  Luckily these are pretty easy to put together! These are headed to the post office this afternoon!

A few weeks ago I started this quilt on a little bit of a whim.  I wanted something to work on that was really fun and I wanted something that my daughter could be involved in.  She requested rainbow colors and triangles, and I had just seen this quilt , so I thought I'd give flying geese a try. I have been collecting these Ann Kelle Remix prints since they were first released.  They are so vibrant and fun.  I let my daughter pick the prints that she wanted (she pretty much chose everything that had pink or flowers on it) and then we picked some coordinating solids from my stash. I also wanted to give something else a try: I backed this quilt in Moda Snuggles .  This was a little bit scary because I have read that others have had issues using minky-like fabric because it stretches, but I am happy to report that it was much easier to work with than I anticipated.  I spent longer-than-normal making sure that everything was basted well and I ended up with a nice, smooth, pucker-free q

Completed this week: Pillow Talk Swap pillow.  I am going to have a hard time sending this away :( Halloween baskets for my kids Brrr mini quilt, along with a tutorial In progress: Wonky cross quilt.  My original plan was to finish this before working on anything else, but I haven't touched it this week.  Oops. Flying geese quilt for my daughter.  I finished piecing the top yesterday and then basted the quilt last night.  Woohoo!  I showed it to my daughter yesterday after I finished the quilt top and she said, "I love it, it's so rainbow-ish."  She had asked for a rainbow quilt so I guess that's a success. To be started: Do good stitches blocks for October.  We are making these blocks . Scrap quilt.  It has to happen, the scrap bin is overflowing everywhere.   Graduation quilt for my sister.   I now have 3 swap projects completed that need to be mailed in the upcoming week.  I really enjoyed working on them and will definitely be doing more swaps in the future, b

After I posted a photo of my pillow talk swap pillow, a couple of people asked how I put all of those triangles together.  So I thought I'd write a little how-to using some Brrr (I adore those polar bears!). Don't be afraid, this really doesn't require math. It does require a little planning. Here we go . . . Instead of "blocks" we are going to base this on triangles.  I used 12" triangles, which is made IMMENSELY easier by this ruler . It is a little pricey, but if you plan on working with 60 degree triangles again in the future, it is well worth it.  The ruler is amazing.  To plan your triangles, you can make up a grid of triangles in Photoshop or you can print one here .   Forgive my amateur Photoshop skills.  I considered each small triangle as 2" and then drew in the larger triangles.  But instead of placing them in an even grid like this: I offset the diagonal columns.   I think this is more interesting.  Since you are going to assemble the diagona