Half way through the year...

I can't believe that it is already June.  Where has this year gone?  So lets see, this month has been a bit all over the place, but I have had my sewing to help relax me and take my mind off of all that has been going on.  I feel like I am finally back in my groove from taking most of May off to heal.

A while ago I started an I-spy economy block quilt.  Most of the blocks were made and just hanging out on the bottom layer of my design wall for months.  I have been in a finishing kind of mood so I decided to finish up the last 5 blocks and sew them all into a top.

The I-spy center squares are 4" and came from my fave I-spy swaps hosted by Polly.  All the outer pieces came out of my scraps.  I love the mix of colors in this top.

The crabs on the newspaper might just be my favorite block, though I do love them all.  The next step is deciding on the backing and then quilting, which I already have planned.

June - A Lovely Year of FInishes

I am jumping back into A Lovely Year of Finishes hosted by my friend Melissa at Sew Bittersweet Designs and Shanna at Fiber of All Sorts.  I know I missed the last couple of months, though they were for good reasons I am ready to jump back into sewing which makes me so very happy.

So my goal is to complete my Michael Miller Challenge for the Modern Quilt Guild.  I finally finished my top so it needs to be backed, quilted, and bound before the deadline.

I know, not the best picture, but my camera has gone mia, ugh.  The back is already pieced so I need to clean off the dining room table to baste it.  Still on restrictions; no bending, lifting, twisting, reaching... so this will be interesting.  At least I am able to be back a my machine from almost a month off.

Stash Bee April

April's block for Stash Bee was super quick and easy to make.  Sally chose to design a block that she adapted from a traditional block called Roman Stripe.

 The directions for creating the block seemed to me to create a lot of waste, sewing together the red strips then, attaching the grey, and then cutting the HST's from the sewn grouping.  I decided to use the tube method so there was less waste and I was able to make more than twice as many HST's needed to create the block. With the same fabric that was used to create one block in the Roman tutorial I created two whole blocks along with a few left over squares I sent along to Sally.  And a bonus is it really looks like I have a larger mixture of HST's.

I really love the look of these blocks and how super quickly they went together.  I hope she likes them! 

Flight of the Seagulls take 2

I recently did a remake of my Flight of the Seagulls quilt that I made for Project Quilting in 2013.

The original quilt had a nautical feel with red, white, and blue fabrics.  The flying geese in the quilt and the colors are what helped it be named Flight of the Seagulls.  This time, though, I went with a soft gray and my 30's and 40's reproduction fabrics.  

The swirly gray is from PB Textiles and when I saw it in my LQS recently I had to have it, it matched perfectly with my reproduction fabrics.

As I created this version, I was so surprised how different it looked with just a change in fabric.  It seems so much more calm than the first version. 

I still have to figure out a backing and quilt it.  I am thinking maybe a swirly design in the grey background.  I am hoping to have it completed by the end of the summer.

Any Way the Water Goes

Dear Stella and Timeless Treasures hosted a challenge in the month of April.  It was called the Modern Traditional Challenge.  The rules were to interpret the theme Modern Traditional, use at least two fabrics from each Dear Stella and Timeless Treasures, and not use any solids.

So I started digging through my stash and came up with some prints form each maker.  Of course, it was a great excuse to pick up a few little pieces of other fabrics, too.

I decided to use flying geese so I drew up a new paper piece pattern that has 4 geese curving instead of the 3 that I used for other quilts in the past.

I added in some straight geese, too, with a crazy mixed up background of all the fabrics chopped up and sewn together.

There is such a mix of fabrics in this quilt, I think 15 in all.  It is bound with this fun Timeless Treasures stripe and backed with cherry Sketch.  And I even remembered to label it.

The mini quilt is free motion quilted in the background, leaving the colorful flying geese to pop.  It really gives me the feeling of schools of fish swimming around.  

Any Way the Water Goes

I even got my mom in on the challenge, she did a mini patchwork where she didn't have to match up any seams.  

Sailing Sideways

Any Way the Water Goes
20" x 20"
Dear Stella and Timeless Treasures fabrics from different lines
Pellon 80/20 batting

Sailing Sideways (by Rose)
20" x 20"
Dear Stella and Timeless Treasures fabrics from different lines
Pellon 80/20 batting

Eyes Crossed Spied Quilt Pattern

A little while back I jumped at the chance to test a pattern for Melissa at Sew BitterSweet Designs.  I had tested her All Framed Up quilt a while back (which was in the NJ Quiltfest show) and I loved how she wrote her pattern so I couldn't wait to try out another pattern.  

I have to say that I love how this pattern turned out.  It is really fun and sews up much faster than I had expected it to. (It looks a lot more complicated than it is and I love that about it!).   It took just a few days to go from cutting to completed top.  When I first saw the photo I loved the look of the pattern and already had the perfect fabric in my stash picked for it.  (Classic Jurassic plus some PB Textiles color weave and a couple others thrown in for good measure).  The directions were great, step by step and photos too, and it went together so smoothly!  She included a blank diagram in the pattern to color on your own for the layout.  

I would say this is great for advanced beginner to intermediate sewer because of the wat part of the block is sewn together, but the directions are so clear there was no problem at all.  .  

I have the backing chosen, a fun red and white chevron that I picked up for a great deal because it was considered Christmas fabric, but need some more time to get it quilted up.  I love how the bright colors pop against my old swing-set.  

This was a great pattern and think I may need to make a couple more as gifts,   

Jackie's Shower Quilt

I didn't realize how long it had been since I had written!  It has been a crazy month of deadlines and sewing and just other things that just came up.

I completed this quilt top as a shower gift for a friend that is getting married next month.  Her shower was this past weekend.  She loves all things beach and you could tell with her regestry that beach is her theme.

I pulled a selection of beachy feeling fabrics and started at them until I decided on a quick strip quilt with a little addition.  I cut strips of these main fabrics ranging from 4.5" to 7 inches wide and pulled some strips from another project that were 1.5 inches to 4 inches wide to add a little more variation to the quilt. 

Once I laid out all the fabrics in the pattern I wanted to use for the quilt I began to sew the strips together, but I wanted to add something. So, when a white thin strip was added, I cut through the sewn strips and added in a set of three pre-sewn strips vertically, then sewed the cut off section back on.

It added a little more color and some more interest to the quilt.  That pattern continued to the top of the quilt.  Once it was all together, which didn't take too long, I found a backing and set to basting this quilt.  (Because of course my deadline of the shower was just a few days away so it couldn't get put aside!)

Maggie decided she wanted to help baste the quilt.  She never comes in this room, but snuck in when I wasn't looking.  (She got kicked out after I took the picture)

I decided to do some straight line quilting on this quilt with some free motion squiggles in the white horizontal strips.

I bound it in one of my favorite fabrics from a Christmas line, a grey stripe with little colorful dots that pop out every once in a while.

It is backed in a solid light green sheet that is also being used on the back of another quilt in similar colors.

I machine bound it because of lack of time, but I have had a lot of practice so it doesn't look too bad at all.

And here it is all packaged up, ready for the shower in beachy colors.

 Jackie loved her quilt, it was a total hit at the shower.

Jackie's Shower Quilt
45" x 67"
multiple stashed fabrics used
Pellon 80/20 batting