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Sunday, January 25, 2015

Mini quilt swap!

I mentioned this before, but I'm in the Schnitzel and Boo Mini Quilt swap, round 3. And I sent my quilt, and it was received, so here it is:


I used Camille Roskelley's mini spools pattern, because my partner had her listed as the designer she liked the most. But, seeing that her partner in round two gave her a mini made with this houses pattern, I added another column to shake it up, and because she had a quilt with apples where one had a bite taken out of it as a favorite on her mosaic, I put in a naked spool.

I tried to keep to designers she specified, but coral and brown went a bit astray. I used sketch for the spools cause it's my favorite basic, and comes in many shades of brown and grey.

I quilted with swirls, another favorite, using 40wt aurifil in a cream color, yet another favorite, and bound it with mint raindrops...

Here's the back:





I used this momo scissor print to fill up some empty space, and I pieced another spool with some additional Basic Grey scraps I found. And my label, of course. Although it is 2015 now, I swear I did have this finished in 2014!


For extras I sent some charms and a coordinating spool of aurifil, because I love it. I sent a box of cards, too, but they did not make it into the picture.

Now I just have to wait anxiously for my partner to send me mine! I have been following the swap as best I can, but I still have no idea which quilt is mine!

Sunday, January 18, 2015

In progress

I've been doing a lot of something in the sewing room this week, but nothing is getting finished.

Here is something I'm working on:






I've begun piecing this Red Ridinghood hexagon quilt, then finally did the quilt math behind it and realized I was way short on fabrics. Sadly, this print is way out of stock, so I went for some green unicorns:



And I decided to fussy cut because the unicorns are kind of large, so the risk of featuring butts with random cuts is too much.

Another project I am starting is cutting two collections of Cotton + Steel prints (and a few Rashida Coleman-Hale pre-C+S prints tossed in) and most of the C+S basics into small bits to make the Arabian Nights Quilt from A Quilter's Mixology. This is before:


This is with all them cut, but with subcutting still to come:


And I have two rows started on my fugitive flower quilt:





I haven't decided the order of the rows, or which backgounds will go with which petals, so that's why I am doing this in such a piecemeal manner.


Sadly my last good rotary cutter blade ran over a pin this morning, so I am stymied in my mad cutting (and paper piecing) marathon. I guess I should go back to piecing that Red Ridinghood quilt?

Sunday, January 11, 2015

small steps

Well, I have been sewing, but for swaps, and while one is done, it seems like next week would be better to post it, and the other is not really ready to show yet. (Though you can see both on Instagram.) Mostly I've been procrastinating starting on two large quilt projects by working on smaller ones...

There are two things I did accomplish that I can show you, the first is this:


Some small person I know discovered the existence of metallic fabric last weekend and her life would not be complete if she did not have a metallic fabric skirt. You may know that I loath the stuff, but what can a person do in the face of desire, but buy a yard of pink pearlized quarter dot, and a half yard of Metallic Sparkleflower (a half yard because I need the rest of it for something else, but never mind...) And make the world's easiest skirt, even if it does take an hour to hem.

The other thing I did was write my 2015 resolutions, though there are more things I want to add in specific, this hits the basic points:


And once I got that written I started on the list of quilts I want to make, which was something I have been trying to get started for weeks, but just ended up looking sadly at a piece of paper.

Yesterday I went to Joann's and bought thread to match all the fabric I'd bought for garments sewing (maybe I should say "most"?) which I did not already possess a reasonable thread choice for, and luckily it was 50% off on thread because it ended up being quite a bit:

Uh, you should see the piles of fabric this corresponds to!
(The spool of Aurifil I got at an LQS yesterday, and doesn't really belong in the picture. I don't use Aurifil to make clothes, being 100% cotton, it doesn't really stand up to the abuse... however, I did need more grey thread for piecing quilts.)

And I did see a friend yesterday! And drew something in my sketchbook, though it was a mess of random doodles. But it was a start. I guess that is what January is about.