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Showing posts from May, 2013

single girl baby quilt

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I finally put my Single Girl pattern to good use.  One of my friends is expecting a baby girl and I just had to make something for her.  She isn't due for several more weeks, but she is going to be in town next week (she lives on the other side of the country) and I wanted to be able to give it to her in person. I had some small scraps from a quilt-that-I-can't-share yet (sorry, I hate not being able to share) and even though I desperately wanted to hoard them, they are really perfect for my friend.  Over the past couple weeks I have slowly been cutting out the Single Girl templates and then the fabrics so putting this quilt together over the holiday weekend went pretty quickly. I added a few prints and solids from my stash.  I ended up using the template for the inner arc to round my corners.  This is the first time I have tried rounded corners on a quilt and it went surprisingly smoothly.  I do wish that I had added a thin border to the sides, but it turned out that I wouldn&

Constellations Quilt

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A couple months ago my husband saw a photo of Constellations by Lizzy House on my Instagram feed and requested a quilt made with the collection.  If you have been reading my blog for a while you might remember that I already made my husband a quilt , but he rarely uses it because he thinks that it's too small. This time I wanted to make sure the quilt was big enough.  The finished size is about 80" square.  It is so big that we had a hard time getting a photo. Luckily my husband was willing to go with me to take a photo of it in front of his office building (I can't imagine why he would think that was embarrassing, ha ha).  I thought this would be appropriate because the street he works on is called Avenue of the Stars.  The cross street just down the block is actually called Constellation.   The quilt is backed with the black constellation print and bound in black Kona solid.  It seemed like the manliest option. I have been wanting to try spiral quilting and this seemed k

Oklahoma Tornado Relief

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Whenever there is a disaster like this, many people look for opportunities to help.  This seems to be especially true in the quilting community.  This morning I received an email from Amanda at the OKC Modern Quilt Guild  with some information on how we can help. They are looking for completed quilts to be donated to the people who have been affected by the tornado.  The quilts can be any size or style and they need to arrive by June 30th. A member of our do Good Stitches Wish Circle, Kirsten, lives in Moore.  Fortunately her house was not affected by the tornado, but she is knows several people who lost their homes and the OKCMQG is going to help her get quilts to those families. Please help spread the word and help if you are able!  You can read all of the details at the OKCMQG website .

wip wednesday

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I've just been plugging along with this Constellations quilt this week.  We are supposed to have a cool weekend coming up so I am hoping to finish it up before the temperature drops.  I made a little more progress since I took this photo and I am about 80% finished with the quilting.  I am going to hand quilt the stars so I will do that once I finish up the machine quilting. I also got started on a baby quilt for my friend.  A few months ago I bought Denyse Schmidt's Single Girl pattern and I am finally putting it to good use.  The cutting is going very slowly. The main project I need to get started on is presents for my daughter's teachers.  The school year is winding down right now and I am a bit lost . . . I think I'm going to go with mug rugs.  I made them bags for Christmas and now I can't think of anything else.  Any suggestions?

Blogger's Quilt Festival Spring 2013: Improv Circles Wall Quilt

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Welcome! I have enjoyed participating in the Blogger's Quilt Festival tremendously over the last year and I have been looking forward to its return. This year we can select 2 quilts to enter which somehow made the choice even more difficult. This Improv Circles quilt was really the first time I have just picked up the fabric and my rotary cutter and started making something.  Generally my process involves a lot of thought, a lot of Flickr perusing, and plenty of indecision.  It was so fun to just go somewhere unexpected with this quilt. When I started working on this, I intended to make an entire throw size quilt.  But by the time I made a few blocks I knew that I wanted this to be something that I could see every day.   Finished size: 30"x30" Materials:  Kaffe Fassett shot cottons Quilted by: Me Quilt category: Wall Hanging Thanks for stopping by, I am looking forward to checking out the other quilts that are shared in the festival! Previous Blogger's Quilt Festiva

Blogger's Quilt Festival Spring 2013: Bangles Quilt

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As soon as I found out that Sarah Fielke had a new book coming out, I preordered a copy on Amazon.  It does not disappoint.  I pretty much want to make every quilt in the book, so when I saw that Amanda was starting a banglealong on Instagram (check out #banglealong to see photos) I started picking fabric. I made this quilt for my niece who is 7, so I wanted something girly and just a little spunky.  All of those y-seams were a bit of a challenge, but they were definitely worth it and now they don't seam so scary anymore :)  I used the gray crosshatch print from Architextures for the hexagons, it is such a great print! I backed the quilt with one of my favorite prints from Lotta Jansdotter's Echo collection. Finished size: 53"x57" Pattern: From Sarah Fielke's Hand Quilted with Love   Quilted by: me Category: throw quilt Thanks for taking the time to check out my quilt, I can't wait to see what everyone else has to share! Previous Blogger's Quilt Festiva

wip wednesday

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I have not done a ton of sewing this past week since I am now addicted to watching Parks and Recreation on Netflix.  I love it so much.  But now I am almost out of episodes to watch, I am going to get to finishing up this quilt top for my husband. It is BIG.  The finished size will be 81" square. Future projects: I recently found out that one of my friends is expecting a baby girl and I am planning on making quilt for her.  It needs to be done soon because she lives on the other side of the country, but I would like to give it to her while she is visiting Southern California next month. End of the school year presents for my daughter's teachers. Super tote .  I can't resist anymore.  I just need to get some cording for the piping and then I will get to work on this one. 

virtual baby shower

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A few weeks ago, Kirsten  emailed and suggested that we do a virtual baby shower for a fellow member of the Wish Circle who is expecting a baby boy.  What a fantastic and thoughtful idea. Becky put together a mosaic for anyone who was able to participate and we planned to mail everything by May 1st so she could open all of the packages at the same time. I have been very short on time lately, but I still wanted to participate so I made a pair of pants from Lotta Jansdotter's Simple Sewing for Baby .  I used kind of a crazy fabric, but I just love this print for a little boy.  I also made a little knit hat. You can read more about the virtual baby shower on Becky's blog .   Between everyone in our circle we have quite a few kids, but this is the first baby to be born since our circle began last year.  Becky is such a great circle member and I am so excited for her!

giveaway winner

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Thanks so much to everyone who entered the giveaway.  I had a blast reading through all of your emails this past week.  The winner of the giveaway is: Congratulations Deanna !  I will be sending you an email for your mailing address. (The blog comments are numbered on a loop, so there are 200 on each page, that's why it says she was commenter number 10 but she was really commenter number 410.)

pillow talk swap

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I know that I've said it before, but I love the Pillow Talk Swap.  This round in particular, I love that my partner was very vague and open minded so I could pretty much go whichever direction seemed right. I was pretty sure that I wanted to do some paper piecing, so I was looking around flickr for some ideas when I saw this block  (she has some other great ones too).  The wonky border around he star really sold me. I think my favorite thing about the finished pillow is the star shape that the blocks created in the middle once they were sewn together.   I did shrink down the pattern a little bit (down to 80%) so the finished size of the pillow is about 19" square.   It is bound with Essex linen in navy.  The back of the pillow is essex yarn dyed linen in black and the zipper is hiding under the flap thanks to this tutorial (this is my favorite way to finish pillows).   I hope my partner loves it as much as I loved making it!

wip wednesday

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This week I have been working on a pillow for the Pillow Talk Swap.  This is the second time I have participated ( this is the pillow I made last time) and it is so much fun. 1.  A few days ago I found this paper pieced pattern , picked out some fabrics and got to work.  I shrunk the pattern down to 80% of the original size so this finished pillow will be about 19" square. 2.  My husband saw a photo of Lizzy House's Constellations fabric on my Instagram feed a few weeks ago and asked me to make him a quilt with it.  I am still contemplating what to do with it, but now that I'm looking at it I think that having the fabric sitting on my table influenced the colors I chose for the pillow :) I am so overwhelmed by the response from SMS Giveaway day.  I have loved reading all of the comments, I am sorry if I'm not able to reply to all of them.  It is so much fun to find so many wonderful new blogs out there.  If you came here looking for the giveaway post, you can find it

SMS Giveaway Day

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Hello and welcome if this is your first time visiting!  My name is Erica and for the past year or so I have documented my quilting and sewing projects here ont this blog.  I have been sewing for almost three years now and it has become quite the obsession!  These are some of my favorite projects since I started my blog last year: What is the giveaway? When I was considering what to giveaway today, I wanted to choose something that I loved and something from a shop that I love.  I decided to purchase a fat quarter bundle of Martha Negley's feathers from Westwood Acres .  I just love the colors in these prints, they are gorgeous. How to enter: Just leave me a comment letting me know what kind of quilt or sewing project you really want to make in the future.  Is there a particular pattern or technique you want to try?  I am looking forward to starting a Marcelle Medallion , I just need to finish up some other projects first. The details: The giveaway will close on May 10th at 5pm.  I

May blocks

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I spent a little time during nap time today working on my May Lucky Stars block. Despite having more pieces than the earlier blocks, it was fairly easy to put together.  The hardest part was figuring out which fabric corresponded to each number on the pattern.  Figuring that out gave me a bit of a headache, so I labeled mine in case anyone else was having trouble. Here are my blocks so far. I really look forward to having my turn to host in my Do Good Stitches circle and May is my month. I chose Rashida's Crazy Star block.  It's pretty quick to put together, and these 4 together make a nice big 20" block.   Tomorrow I will be participating in SMS giveaway day, so don't forget to come check out the giveaway!