Blogger's Quilt Festival Fall 2014

Finally! A break in the rain and I was finally able to take some pictures of my most recent finish just in time to post for Blogger's Quilt Festival Fall 2014:

This is from the Miss Rosie's Quilt Co. pattern, "True Blue". Since I chose to do mine in greens, I went ahead and named it "Verum Viridi" which, according to Google, is Latin for "True Green."

Anyway, there's lots of green in this one! And-- even better-- lots of stash used! The quilt measures about 80" x 80".

Through the center, I quilted leafy branches all over, inspired by the tutorial from A Few Scraps (she has so many awesome tutorials and ideas!!!).

Then I went into the first border and did a wavy thing... it is very inconsistent, but as there is so much inconsistency, it kind of looks like it is supposed to be that way. So I figure that works. Ha! The thread used in the center and inner border was Aurifil 50/2 in Light Sand (#2000)-- which was perfect as there was lots of layered stitching in some areas, and it never got too heavy looking.

Finally, in the outer border, I used a darker thread (Aurifil 50/2 in Sandstone #2370) and just did some straight lines to emphasize the piano key piecing action. I did the straight lines free-motion and actually used a ruler to help guide me as I stitched. It worked surprisingly well!

And the label... hoping my Latin is okay! Perhaps I should have gotten my Latin textbook from college out to confirm?

Thanks so much for stopping by to check out my entry. Have fun exploring all of the entries at Blogger's Quilt Festival!

And another new project:

Way back in the Spring, I posted about this as a potential project... a little bit of daydreaming at the time. But it is for reals now!

The pattern is called "True Blue" and is from Miss Rosie's Qult Co. I decided I needed to do it in greens. Because I have lots of greens. And I'm loving it so far! (I also love that I was able to cut up 9.5 yards of bits and scraps and not-quite-fat-quarters and clear them from the stash!)

Last night I managed to finish up all of the main blocks-- there are 100 total (64 are pictured above... my design wall isn't big enough to hold all of them). Now it is time to set this one aside for a bit so I can focus on Halloween. Finishing the blocks may have pushed me to the procrastinating edge, but I'm so glad to have a sense of closure on them. Now I can clear my sewing area and not worry about losing any bits or pieces. There's a lot to be said for that.

Next up: ponchos!

Attacking UFOs!

Consumed by UFO guilt, I have spent the last week focusing on those unfinished projects. And I've been productive!

I got the borders on my Spring Mystery Quilt:

The backing has also been made and now it is ready for basting.

Still in the UFO spirit, I pulled out my guild block exchange from 2011. For that I had requested everyone make "Mod Mosaic" blocks following Elizabeth Hartman's tutorial. I ended up with 11 bright and happy blocks.

I started by framing each block with a white border. Then my husband helped me tape a footprint on the wall of the intended size of the quilt.

I placed my blocks in the footprint and then started filling in the background (forgive the blurry cell phone picture). Many thanks to Elizabeth Hartman for the tutorial on making a floating blocks quilt!

Woo! Another finished top! I also completed the backing for this, so it too is ready for basting.

Finally, I went ahead and cut 5" squares from the fabric remaining from that project.

I made 9-patches and then did some slicing and dicing.

And now I have a completed disappearing 9-patch baby quilt top! I've also finished the backing for this one, so it is also ready for basting.

Phew!

What to tackle next? More UFOs? Or maybe I should baste 'em up and quilt some of these? Or is my guilt assuaged enough that I can finally start something new? Hmmm....

Pillow party!

Recently, Stacy Sews reviewed the Personalized Name Pillow pattern from Kimberbell Kids. Hers turned out so cute that I decided to go ahead and pick up the pattern for myself.

The pattern is good-- the instructions are very clear and there are lots of photos throughout to illustrate the steps. It is true that this project is not rocket science, and I didn't really need a pattern to tell me how to go about making one. However the pattern also includes an alphabet-- capital and lower case letters, perfectly sized and already reversed for fusible applique-- making it more than worth its $6.95 price tag. (I don't even want to think about how long it would take me to accomplish the whole sizing/reversing thing... ugh!)

I've made two pillows so far, both for preschool friends of Big Bear. First up was Nathan:

The only deviation I made from the pattern on this one was to use the minkee dimple dot fabric on the back (so I also used 1/2" seam allowances when I sewed the front and back together).

It ended up about 12" high and 21" wide.

For Kyra, I got a little more creative:

I decided to go for a more square look and use diagonal letters mostly because her name is so short, it would have resulted in a pretty tiny pillow otherwise. Then I added the flowers to just fill in some of the open space.

Again, I used dimple dot micro-fleece on the back. This one ended up about 15" high and 14" wide.

Making these pillows is quick, easy, and a lot of fun (and a great way to use some scraps!)! And the kids seem to like them too!

Sample book

Last spring my friendly neighbor, a former interior designer, offered me some of her old sample books. She gave me four books like the one below.


Initially, I was very excited. Books filled with pretty fabric? Oh, heck yeah! But upon closer inspection, I found that instead of clean and pretty samples, they were all paper backed and very securely bound. Below you can see how the back of each page looked.


At this point, I was a little put off. While I couldn't throw out this treasure trove, I also didn't want to deal with getting it to a usable state. So the books have sat (in a large pile on my already messy sewing room floor) for more than a year. Until today!

As I said, these books are very securely bound. I managed to tear apart the main outer cardboard bits, only to find some hardcore staples holding it together.


I used a berrypicker (an indispensable tool for removing upholstery staples) and pliers to remove the ten 2" long staples (six on the front, four on the back). Once I could free the individual samples, I had hoped that I would be able to easily remove the paper backing.


No such luck. What bits of paper I could remove tended to leave a nasty, sticky residue. So, I got out my rotary cutter with a pinking blade and hacked away at each page. I trimmed away all the paper bits to get usable pieces of fabric.


The above picture shows the resulting sample book carnage. You may be horrified to hear that I just threw all of this away. But that's what I decided to do. I really just don't have any use for all these paper-backed fabric bits. And I don't have anywhere to keep them. So I'm not going to keep them. (Can you tell I feel a little guilty about this?) (But I'm still not keeping them!)

And after all that ripping, pulling, tearing, and cutting?


Here is one book's worth of fabric bits. They range in size from about 2" x 3.5" to 4" x 6", plus one or two 6" x 8" pieces. It took about an hour of work to get one book dismantled.

So... what to do with these little bits of prettiness? I have been asking myself that very question. Here are my thoughts so far:

• Patchwork pillows
• Patchwork purse
• Cute little checkbook cover (like amandajean's)
• Nifty journal cover (like bloom's)
• Fabulous fabric basket (like Pink Penguin's)
• Patchwork futon cover? (because our futon could really use one)

Just thinking about the possibilities is really making me excited about these little sample bits. Two books down, two to go!