WIP Wednesday - Plus Runner

I'm keeping this one short and sweet. I started this during the summer sometime. I followed a pattern (sort of) from Modern Quilting, my new favorite magazine. These shots were taken in Hutchinson at the Quilt Haven on Main. A few of us ladies spent a weekend sewing in their upstairs sewing haven. What an amazing space and hospitable owners! 

Shimmer

 Currently, this long beauty is sandwiched together and ready for quilting. I bought satiny thread which should look marvelous. Billy Crystal would think so anyway. Ha!

The squares are big, so the whole thing actually runs off my table.

WIP Wednesday

Hello Everyone!

I just realized it's Wednesday. Here's a few projects that are in process.

 

When you buy a $200 dry steam iron you must sew an Elizabeth Hartman quilted tote. Pretty sure this is the 'quilters motto'. Fabric is Notting Hill.

 

 My friend, Tori, inspired me to work on these tiny paper-pieced tulips. The fabric is Priory Square from Katy Jones. It'll be a spring wall quilt. Not saying which spring ;).

 

 And my impromptu baby quilt. Making double HSTs can be rewarding and fun as long as you remember that out of each set comes a righty and a lefty.

 Instead of the tradional 9 patch block, I decided to sew these guys in strips. Currently, I'm 3 strips in and realized that I've ironed the seams all the same direction. Naturally, I will correct this so the cross seams nestle all snug as a bug-like. The charm pack is Fresh Cut. Moda.

WIP Wednesday - Baby Quilt

Happy Thanksgiving Recovery! By now we're getting back to the routine, but still eating leftovers. At least we are. Today we discovered that lefse can't survive on the counter for 6 days. Booo! Luckily, we still had a package in the fridge.

Did anyone cyber shop for fabric on Monday? I did! And it came today, fastest shipping ever, Winter Creek Cloth! I purchased two bundles, one a fat-eighth of Bridgette Lane and the other is Textures by Angela Walters. Both are not the usual quilting cotton. They're thin and slippery. I have yet to figure out how to know what type of fabric I'm getting, but I love it still.

I've had in the back of my brain the stirring of a baby quilt for a special lady I know from church. She and I share a love of fun, colorful fabric, so I wanted to make sure whatever I made was up to snuff! Then I realized if I mixed the Bridgette Lane with some solids I had what would make the perfect set-up.

 

For the design I was looking for something fast, given that I'm supposed to be sewing a quilt for a guy at work. What came to mind was Amy Smart's Fabulously Fast Quilts and I just happened to have a copy! Score. I choose the Butterfly Quilt.

 

She wasn't kidding about it being fast. I sewed strips into banners, sewed them to white strips the same size, cut them into squares and then diagonally and wallah! You have cute blocks that can be arranged anyway you want. I did this bunch in 2 hours flat.

 

I have Sewn Together quilt club on Friday/Saturday so hopefully I'll finish this little guy. May I say that I'm quite pleased with myself and with Amy?!

WIP Wednesday/Goal Achieved

On my Goal page, I noted a design wall was needed. Every quilter knows that having a place to view your designs is essential to any project. It could be a fancy padded wall with grid lines, a DIY ceiling tile wall covered in flannel, or even a clean kitchen floor (like my Mom uses!). In the past, I've used the queen-sized guest bed and then taken pictures from a chair placed at the foot of the bed. There's a funny story about a friend who came to stay and didn't dare ask why a chair was in such a position! Note to self: always put the chair away when company comes over. But now I don't have to worry about mistaken assumptions. I have the best design wall known to quilters everywhere: The plastic tablecloth! I learned about this at last weeks Sewn Together meeting. It has many great qualities:

1. It's cheap. More money for fabric!
2. It's stickier than flannel.
3. You can roll it up with your blocks on it and bring it with you to meetings. Your friends will love this when you show up at dinners with your tablecloth roll.  
4. You could roll it up like a window shade to hid secret projects.
5. The color of the front shows through a little so you can imagine different backgrounds. Mine has a light blue tint perfect for the Christmas quilt going up next.
6. It only takes a few tacks to hold it up so there's way less damage to your walls.

If anybody still is wanting to make a ceiling tile wall, I have tiles up for grabs! One panel is already wrapped in flannel. Also in today's pictorial, you'll notice a DIY zipper holder. I attended the Sewing and Quilt Expo in MN on Saturday and couldn't resist this bag of zippers. Guess how many zippers you can fit in a quart sized ziplock? 49! For only $7. Insane! Notice how I hung them in color order. Jeni Baker would be so proud.

And on the design wall are the Avairy 2 blocks. Which design do you like best for this throw-sized quilt? Consider these rough drafts, of-course.

All the star blocks were made from the awesome tutorial
 series on www.freshlemonsquilts.com.

WIP Wednesday - Paper Piecing

Hello!
Over on my Bucket List page I've been checking Paper Piecing off the list. I had been wanting to try this for months and even took printed sheets with me on my last trip home thinking my mother and I would try it out. Well, that time was spent on other things and it got pushed off. Well, this week I felt inspired to try it out with my fat quarters of Aviary 2. That collection has stretched over many projects!

Whirly Star

I love how that turned out, so tonight I whipped up another star from Faith's Solstice Stars series, www.freshlemonsquilts.com. This one isn't paper pieced, but it still had techniques that were new to me. You can see my iPad with the series notes from Faith's website. The directions were clear and the dimensions worked perfectly.


Another Star (seriously, that's the name)



Here's the two stars on my Design Wall...well, one section of the DW.

Wednesday WIP!

Hello! I'm so glad to be a part of the online communities WIP displays! I have about 25 unfinished projects - I mean - Works In Progress - neatly stored at home. For my 50th birthday my sister-in-law gave me a $100 JoAnn's gift card and I spent it on a multi-colored chest of drawers. It's so pretty and efficient.
So this is one of those projects. A Christmas quilt made from a slice of Figgy Pudding.

For Christmas 2014!