Fairy Flight finished!

Actually, it's been complete for a few weeks now. I've just been waiting to post about it until we could make a visit up north and give it to baby Grace. The opportunity finally came on Thursday when we traveled up there to attend a barbeque. We got to see many friends for the first time in a long while. It was a lot of fun, and we finally got to meet little Grace. I wish we had some pictures, but I was a loser and forgot the camera at home. On the bright side though, I did manage to wrangle my husband and get some pictures of the quilt taken just before we left.


I went a little crazy with the girlie florals and pinks. But how often do I have an excuse to do that? (Not often!) But, because the front was so busy, it really gave me a chance to practice my quilting without fears of it being too visibly ugly. Here's a close-up of the quilting from the back side.


I'm really proud of those vines in the borders-- I did those freestyle with no marking. Crazy!

Here's the back:


I never consider my quilts complete until they have a label:


Usually I hand-write/draw all of my labels. This time I mixed it up a little by appliqueing a fairy on there. The fairy and all of the floral fabrics on the front of the quilt are from the "Flower Fairy" collection by Rose & Hubble. The collection showcases the wonderful art of Cicely Mary Barker.

Hopefully, the quilt will offer lots of happy comfort and warmth as Grace grows.

Weekend Progress

Despite being sick (nasty cold, caught from the boy) (am I doomed to catch everything he gets???), I managed to have a rather productive quilty weekend. Yay!

Firstly, I got caught up on my Dear Baby Jane blocks, fixing K-7 and completing C-3. On the downside, I keep thinking about C-3 and its wonkiness. At first, I was determined to keep it as is, trying to convince myself that it had character (rather than just plain wonkiness). But I keep obsessing thinking about it. I think this means that I will need to revisit it. Probably not re-do it (because I'm too lazy for that!), but maybe try and fix it so it isn't quite as off kilter in that one particularly bad row.

Then, I got my homework done for the Reversible Embroidered Quilt. (Hmm... I really do need to think of a better name for it.) It is now complete but for binding (which I'll be learning how to do in class on Wednesday) and label. I've attempted to show the quilt's reversible nature by showing the front and back in this picture:


Finally, I got Fairy Flight basted and quilted. Huzzah! All that's left now is the binding (which I've begun) and the label (which I'm thinking I'll wait until baby is born and named before making). Hopefully, I'll finish the binding this week so I can share some pictures.

Tonight is more freelance work. But I'm hoping to at least start on the latest Dear Baby Jane block, B-2. Though Anina has provided some excellent guidance on this one, I'm still feeling intimidated at the prospect of handpiecing it. In fact, at the moment I'm trying hard to remember why it is I decided to handpiece this quilt. :)

Gah! Basting.

Though I have been procrastinating on basting "Fairy Flight," I have not been completely idle. I did attempt to mark the top, but the fabric was just too busy. So I've prepped my Golden Threads paper with my motifs (we'll see how it works... I tried it one other time, and seem to recall being annoyed with it, but it can't hurt to try again), and have chosen a border design that I think I can "free-hand" (since I couldn't mark it). Now I just need to get going and baste it. Ugh. It's small, and so should be relatively quick. Even so, I just haven't managed to get myself motivated. Maybe tonight?

Meanwhile, as I procrastinated on one project, I worked on another. I've been very productive making flowers for my Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt. I counted, and this week I've made 10 flowers! Many of these were stitched as I viewed the BBC production of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. No matter how many times I see the film (or read the book)(one of the few books that I have read more than once, and would happily read again), I never tire of it. Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth are wonderful as Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy (mmm... Mr. Darcy). And what better Valentine's movie-watching fare? (Keith and I will be able to celebrate "for real" next weekend as the grandparents babysit!)

57 flowers made so far! Only 11 full, and 8 half-flowers to go! Then I'll begin work on the "path" connecting them all together. Or maybe more? I'll have to do some math because I'm using 2" hexagons and the pattern is either referencing 1" or 3" hexagons. I can't tell. Hmmm... maybe I should have calculated this sooner. :P

Another year...

...another year older. Thirty-four! Eeep! But I received some wonderful well-wishes and some amazing gifts. Yay! I also got a chance to work on the fat quarter quilt and have completed the top:


I'm calling it "Fairy Flight."

In the pattern, the blocks are actually is laid out 4 x 8. But there was a sample in the book that showed a quilt laid out 5 x 7, and I liked the size of it a little better. It just seemed more pleasingly proportioned to me. So I carefully cut my fat quarters and was able to squeeze out 35 blocks, allowing me to do the larger layout. The downside is that the symmetry is lost. But I like the overall proportion better, so I think it's a fair trade-off.

Next up: marking and basting. I've decided I'm going to practice my quilting on this one by doing some patterns. This quilt seems like a good opportunity because the prints are so busy that if the quilting sucks, no one will really notice! :P I'm planning on doing a design in the open center areas (between the chains) where the blocks join together as well as some border quilting. We'll just have to see how the plan actually unfolds.

Shopping the stash

Saturday night, after my last post, I decided to go ahead and start on a small quilt. So I went shopping... in my stash! I think I spent two or three hours auditioning potential fabric combos before making a decision. And that's not even including the time I spent trying to find a pattern to use. :P

Shopping the stash is really kind of a milestone for me. I do use my stash, but typically I pick one fabric and then take it to the fabric store and find additional fabric to coordinate with it. Oftentimes, the end result of this is that the stash actually increases rather than diminishes. Trying to pull all of the fabrics for a quilt in its entirety from my stash is no easy task. The main challenge is that my stash consists of lots of cool prints, and not very many "helper" prints (you know, like those tone-on-tones, Moda marble-types, or simple, small scale prints that could compliment a variety of different big/bold/conversational prints). The lesser challenge is that, though (mostly) organized by color, my stash is kind of a mess. This means I have to pull out an entire stack and look through it all, because who knows what cute little fat quarter might be buried between the giant 2 yard cuts?

However, I met the challenge and found 6 fat quarters (which happen to be coordinates from the same collection), a coordinate, and a border fabric. I even think I've got the perfect fabric for the backing (though I haven't measured to see if I have enough... but, I can always piece it if need be). Woot!

At this point, all of the blocks are pieced and I have begun to put the top together. I'm using a pattern from M'Liss Rae Hawley's book, Fat Quarter Quilts. It's an Irish chain design she calls "Road to Ireland." It makes me think of my friend Mikki because it's the same pattern she used to make her very first quilt. :) So far, it is very girly—very different from my usual style. Makes putting it together even more fun!