Easy as 10

The fourth in my roll o' fabric quintet:

This is "Easy as 10" from the book, Simple Quilts from Me and My Sister Designs: Easy as 1, 2, 3.

I checked this book out from the library and haven't invested in my own copy yet-- but I need to! I also made "Easy as 11" from this same book. The instructions for both quilts were straightforward and very easy to follow, and both were quick to put together. And there are a number of other fun designs in the book as well!

On this one, I tried to add to the quilt by quilting in a secondary design-- the interlocking diamonds around the squares. I think it worked pretty well. I also quilted flowers in the center of each colored square (using the fabulous Free-Motion Quilting with Angela Walters as inspiration). Through the paisley bands, I stitched a figure 8 design, but it is kind of hidden in the print. Throughout, I used Aurifil Mako 50/2 in White (#2024).

This is the last of that retro pepto-pink fabric... woo!

And there is the happy Project Linus label. I'm loving the orange binding too. It is finished by machine using the Red Pepper Quilts Binding Tutorial.

Easy as DONE!

Easy as 11

Here's the next in my recent roll o' fabric quilt quintet:

"Easy as 11" from Simple Quilts from Me and My Sister Designs: Easy as 1, 2, 3.

This is such a simple, but fun, design. Mine looks maybe a little odd, as it is square rather than the intended rectangle. I had to omit a couple of rows to make it work with the amount of fabric I had. This one finished at 47.5" x 47.5".

What I was most excited about in quilting this one up were the solid stripes. I knew my quilting would show up really well on those, so I wanted to try and do some fun stuff. I took inspiration from Natalia Bonner's book, Beginner's Guide to Free-Motion Quilting, as well as Free-Motion Quilting with Angela Walters. I ended up using 4 different designs, including a viney thing in the green stripes, swirls in the blue stripes, flowers in the pink stripes, figure 8s in the orange stripes, and then wide drops in the one coral stripe.

Then I stippled over the background areas. I used Aurifil Mako 50/2 in Dove (#2600) over the stripes and Superior Threads King Tut 40/3 in Parchment (#971) over the background areas.

There's that repro pink backing again. And you can see the Project Linus label down in the lower left corner. I managed to sneak in one of my last remaining bits of background fabric into the binding along with the bright and happy Kona Lagoon.

I have had so much fun working with all of these bright happy fabrics!

Catching up

This weekend is the annual Tri County Quilt Tour. I've participated every year and my husband even took today off so I could go. But I find myself feeling like my time is better spent at home, working on what I have. I think I have reached a total saturation point with fabric and projects right now. Heaven knows, there is no shortage of projects here!

I haven't blogged in a bit, but I have been doing stuff...

Last weekend I made another name pillow (from the "Personalized Name Pillow" pattern by Kimberbell Designs):

They are such a good gift-- fun to make and always so well received.

And the dreaded roll o' fabric? It's gone!!!!

Look at that empty roll! It took eight quilts (and 6 years!), but I finally used it all. Huzzah! Just that little strip of fabric remaining now-- I figure I'll use that in the binding of one or two of them.

I realize now that I haven't shared a pic of the final top I made from the roll. All I have is a kind of bad instagram pic:



But you get the idea? This is another design from the book, Simple Quilts from Me and My Sister Designs: Easy as 1, 2, 3. This is "Easy as 11." I had to change it up a bit as I ran out of fabric-- so I dropped a couple of rows and mine ended up at 48" square. It may not be the most aesthetically pleasing size for this design (it really does look better as a rectangle), but it works.

I've managed to quilt up four of my five recent roll o' fabric quilts. Today I basted the remaining one:

Since I am hoping to spend some quality time in the quilt cave today, I went ahead and wrote up a to-do list to help keep me focused.

And look at that-- one thing checked off the list already. Woo!

Next up: quilting!

Weekend warrior!

I'm not sure what got into me, but last weekend was an epic quilty extravaganza! After finally getting around to completing my True Blue top (woo! but I don't have a picture of the top yet... hopefully soon!), I was feeling the need to start something new.

Knowing I wanted to start something fresh and small (i.e., something I can finish in a relatively quick manner), I wandered aimlessly through my stash of patterns and fabrics. Then I stumbled across a roll o' fabric. I acquired the roll in 2009 from a Project Linus work party. There were actually two rolls, and my friend Evelyn threw down the gauntlet and issued a challenge: whoever can get through the roll first wins! I have no idea how much fabric is actually on this roll-- only that it is one, very long, continuous cut, approximately 5.5" wide from selvedge to cut edge. Shortly thereafter, I finished up three quilts (one, two, three) using the fabric and it felt like I hadn't even put a dent in the roll. The roll has been sitting on my floor (buried and out of sight) since that time.

So I spot this roll just sitting there on my floor and inspiration strikes. I immediately started pulling fabrics from my stash and put together this first top:

The design is from the book Simple Quilts from Me and My Sister Designs: Easy as 1, 2, 3 by Barbara Groves and Mary Jacobson of Me and My Sister Designs. This is the "Easy as 10" design. It only took a few hours to cut it out and put it all together.

Feeling motivated at this point, I decided to make another. I took a few more brights out of my stash (27 in all) and made another:

This design, "Floating Triangles," is from Skip the Borders: Easy Patterns for Modern Quilts by Julie Herman of Jaybird Quilts. It was definitely more involved than the first top, but overall, it too went together pretty quickly. In making the half-square triangles for this design, there was lots of trimming. So I decided to sew the trimmed corners together resulting in a pile of smaller (2.5") half-square triangles.

Now that I had this pile of 2.5" half-square triangles, clearly I needed to do something with them. So this time I created my own design to use them up:

And by the end of the weekend, I had finished up this top as well.

And check out the giant roll o' fabric now:

Woo! It finally looks like I'm making a dent!

Three tops! And I'm still feelin' the itch to make that roll disappear. I wonder how many more projects it's going to take?