Salt Air & tulips in the kitchen

My Salt Air table runner has been done for awhile now, but it has taken me almost two weeks to get a decent picture of it.



I was grocery shopping when I realised what the problem was; the runner needed a vase of tulips to go with it :)

I made my table runner as part of curves class taught by Rachel of Stitched in Color.  This was my first try at improv curves, and I loved it!  I will definately be doing more of this someday!

For fabric, I used a charm pack of Salt Air by Moda that I won in a giveaway from A Girl in Paradise.  The batting I pieced together from leftover scraps.  And the backing and binding I also pulled out of my stash.  I had this marbled tan-ish fabric I bought for a specific reason, but I can't remember what it was.  Obviously, I never ended up using it for that.  The right side of the fabric was too dark so I turned it over and used the backside, which was the perfect creamy off-white.  I was so happy to be able to put this project together entirely from my stash!

I FMQed this quilt using Free-Motion Quilting with Angela Walters.  I really love this book! 
If you want to read more about the making of this table runner, and see some close-ups of the quilting, you can read {this post}.

I will be doing some linking here:
A Stitch in Time
Submarine Sunday #20
Sew Many Ways
New to Me in 2013
Quilt Story
Freemotion by the River
Better off Thread
You Flew
Made by Me
First Friday Finishes
TGIFF
Whoop Whoop Friday

Salt Air & Waves, an update in pictures

This is where I'm at, handstitching the binding on what will be a table runner.



I made a practice sandwhich before I FMQed the actual project {I usually skip that}



the swirly quilting design comes from Free-Motion Quilting with Angela Walters {love that book!}



{the backside of the table runner}



I pieced together batting scraps for both the table runner & the practice sandwhich



I do love handstitching the binding! {and Wonder clips truely are wonderful!}

PS - I tried to do a wordless post, but I guess i just talk too much :)  i'll share more about this when it is done.  meanwhile, there will be some linking going on...
Design Wall Monday
Little Quilt Monday
Quilt Story's Fabric Tuesday
Show and Tell Tuesday

some improve curves

I'm working on a project from the second week of Curves Class involving improv curves.  The top is done, and I just need to baste, FMQ, and bind.

I used a sharm pack of Salt Air by Moda, and I love how the improv curves mimic ocean waves and extend the theme of the fabric! :)



I pulled these AMH Innocent Crush fabrics out of my stash for the Triple Zip Along!  Yesterday I cut them up, and hopefully today I will sew it all together!

Hopefully I will be able to get a bit of sewing time this week to turn these WIPs into finishes!

What sewing did you do this weekend?
i'm linking up to Design Wall Monday over at Patchwork Times!

It's Done! IT'S DONE!!!

My Drunkard's Path Quilt is DONE!  And you better believe I'm doing some serious celebrating!

I took it out for pictures, just like I promised :)

That's my Mom, modeling the quilt for me at the beach :)
Here it is crumpled up & loved, like a quilt should be:

it measured 60"x60" when the blocks were pieced together, and I was conserned that might be too small for cuddling under, so I added a 3" border of Kona Coal all around, bringing it up to 66" square.  That boarder is the main reason I didn't go with the striped layout I had been considering - I thought it would look odd beside the end stripe with the Coal background. 

The fabrics are Happy Mochi Yum Yum {so much more awesome than my photos show} & Kona Coal.  Some blocks have repeating fabrics like that one up there, and some don't.  I was trying to create some visual interest, similar to an antique scrap quilt, with only six fabrics and the background grey.  I think it worked well, if I do say so myself :)

I quilted with a light grey thread in random straight lines.  I'm not in love with the quilting, but it meant I didn't have to mark the top first, which was a big plus.  I ran out of spray halfway through basting {again} and I just wanted this up off my kitchen floor.  As much as I love my quilts, after 24 hours on the floor, they start to get in the way ;)

The backing is to die for.  A flannel shirting from Joann's, it is so soft I can't stop stroking it!  this quilt may have even gone to church with me.  ahem.
I started this quilt as part of a QAL with Needle and Spatula & OCD.  If a DP is on your list, but you haven't taken the plunge yet, you really should go check out their instructions.

Oh, and I've even made a lable this time! {usually when I finish a quilt, I'm so ready to be done I don't make a lable} I used a leftover DP unit and 'embroidered' {i'm using that term lightly, since I have no skills in this area whatsoever} the date & my initials in the grey.  It hasn't found it's way onto the quilt yet, but soon ;)

I'll be linking this baby up at:
Sew Modern Monday,  Manic Monay, Quilt Story, Whatever Goes Wednesday, Whoop Whoop Friday, TGIFF @ The Niffty Stitcher,  Crazy Mom Quilts, & A Stitch In Time March Finishes
Whew! thats alot of partying, but I think this quilt is worth it ;)  {did I mention this is the first quilt I've made for ME? this babys not going anywhere! haha}
Go check out what everyone is sewing :)

March Fresh Sewing Day & Small Blog Meet-Up

This winter has been surprisingly snow-free over here in New Hampshire, so we are celebrating March 1st with our biggest snow storm since October! I'm excited at the possibility of getting out on my snowshoes finally!

Want to see what I spent February sewing?

I put my Happy Mochi DP blocks together and added a 3" border of Kona Coal to stretch this quilt a little bit bigger.  I scrubbed my kitchen floor Cinderella style and laid out the whole sha-bang to baste it.  That's when I noticed the backing was too small.  Who would have thought flannel shirting would shrink in the wash? (pretty much everyone but me)  A frantic trip to Joann's later, I had the last bit of this flannel off the bolt, just enough to fix my backing.  Whew!

Every step of this quilt is taking far longer than I expect it to - it's only 66" square(ish) {seriously, does anyone out there ever actually end up with square quilts? On second thought, I don't want to know the answer to that :) }

 

The Curious Quilter is hosting a Postage Stamp Quilt 2012 event.  I made a February goal of sewing 50 pairs of squares toghether, which I did (yay!)  My Dad firmly believes quilts should be scrappy, so I'm making this one for him with 2.5" squares, and each fabric used no more than twice.  My goal is to make it bed sized, but if I need to modify that to finish sometime this century, I will  :)

I also made a tote bag for my Mom this month,

and a Pink Penguin fabric basket that my Mom was seriously hinting should be hers. 

She doesn't know it yet, but it will be hers eventually.  But that is part of a surprise I'm working on...

So that is what I've been sewing this February, how about you?

P.S. - when I finally finish my DP I promise to take it outside for some proper pictures, instead of the rotten indoors-at-night-pictures I keep making you all suffer through.

Done! Finished! Crossed off the UFO List!

I'm so happy to have this done!  I originally started it five {?} years ago as a block of the month at a not-so-local quilt shop.  I chose this colorway with the intention of gifting the finished quilt to my MIL.  I kept up with my blocks while the program was running, but when the shop was sold I fell off the bandwagon.  {the first owner gave the kits for the remaining blocks to the BOM participants when the shop sold} 

 Anyway, when I made my UFO list in January, I only had about six of these blocks put together.  This quilt had me doing my first ever set-in seams, as well as my first curved seams and first paper piecing. 

The first time I put the top together, it was so crooked, I had to rip apart the blocks, sashing, and cornerstones so I could better trim the blocks down to the same size.   It was a bloody masacre of points, but it had to be done since the bottom two rows were an inch+ wider than the top rows.  {sigh}  At least the top fits together now.

Here is a shot of the backing.  I thought about using the backing for the front border instead, so a strip of the cheater piecing and floral would frame the piecework, but decided to leave well enough alone, mostly because I would have been in need of new and bigger backing fabric.

I quilted it on my home machine, making a grid of straight lines.  And I am using the word 'straight' loosely. You see, I didn't mark the lines.  Instead, I just eyeballed it.  Sometimes my eyeball got a bit wonky  ;)

Well, it was an interesting challenge to work with fabrics I would never have choosen for myself, but after spending a whole lot of time with this quilt lately, I needed something a bit brighter.

Like this

Ever since my first glimpse of it, I've been determined to get my hands on some Happy Mochi Yum Yum  :)

I don't have any plans for it yet.  I bought one of each print so I could see the scale of the prints for myself, especially those two on the far right.  For some reason I expected them to be larger than they are.  

So, just incase you have been wondering about the scale of the Happy Mochi Yum Yum prints too, here are a couple photos to help you out :)

I hope you can read the tape measures well enough to get the idea anyway.  I'd make the photos bigger, but then they run over my side bar and just make a mess of the place ;)

Have a great weekend!

a picture or two

I finished this three or four days ago, but haven't had a chance to show it to you until now. 

I've been using those short pins on the right for ages, but The Quilting Fairy used the long pins on the left when I asked for some help.  I've been using them ever since, because I can leave them in until the needle is right next to them, and still pull them out from under the presser foot.

I followed advice, and used a ton of pins(18ish).  By the time I was ready to sew them, my Grandmother's Fans had a bite an anglerfish would be pround of! :)

Happy Monday!

A Fairy Tale

Once upon a time, in a log cabin deep in the woods, lived a little girl with her brother, mother, and father.  Most evenings the mother's knitting needles went click, click, click as she turned skeins of wool into beautiful sweaters for her family.  Many days the sewing machine whirred while the mother made clothes and other things for her family. 

And the mother gave yarn and needles to the little girl, but the little girl would not learn how to knit.  The mother filled a round metal sewing box with needles, thread, and other things.  She brought the little girl into town, to the big white church with the tall steeple (the kind of steeple all churches ought to have).  There, many girls learned to sew from a kind lady, but the little girl didn't like to sew. 

What was the mother to do?

 By and by, the little girl grew and went away to college.  But she did not learn to knit, and she did not learn to sew.  At college, she met Prince Charming, and they married soon after graduation.  In all the boxes she brought with her to her new home was the round sewing box full of pins and things.

 Not long after, the girl (we can't call her little anymore, can we?) received a special gift from her mother and father.  It was a sewing machine.  What would she do with a sewing machine?  Prince Charming thought she could now do all the mending (hehehe). 

Now, the girl's mother and aunts had learned to quilt.  So the girl learned to quilt from them.  And she took the pins her mother gave her so long ago out of the round tin, and used them for all of her piecing.  (She still didn't do any mending) 

Then one day, she sewed her first curved seam, a Grandmother's Fan, but it came out all puckered.  What was she to do?  With help from some very nice people, and a Quilting Fairy, she tried again. Much better!  But, she didn't use her old pins this time.  Her old pins were short and stubby, and had nearly no head at all.  They got lost in the seams of the Grandmother's Fan.  The new pins she used were long, with great big heads.  What would she do with her short stubby pins now?  She still has them, of course.

Now the girl makes quilts and things for her three sons, and Prince Charming too.  And they live happily in the woods (but she still doesn't knit).

I met the Quilting Fairy!

Honest.  Instead of a magic wand, she uses thread snips.  With just two little snips and a tug, she turned this

into this

I had to restitch to secure the cut thread, but it went a lot easier the second time around.

Well, the Dinner Fairy hasn't shown up yet, so I guess I'll have to go cook some food myself  ;)   Happy Quilting!
(Ok, I just noticed the second picture is of a different fan, but we can pretend I took the correct picture, right?)