Churn Dash Block!

I was invited to participate in the Designer's challenge for Issue 6 of Fat Quarterly magazine. The theme was Churn Dash and here's my block. I think it deserves to be part of a quilt, so I'm playing with that idea. I'm in love with the orange, teal and gray color combo!Be sure to check out Issue 6 for lots of wonderful ideas!!!

Swoon 7, 8, and 9

And three more makes nine! Block 7...And 8...
And 9... {It's not quite as pale as it looks in the bright sunlight}
I'm excited to put these together!

And to keep up my paper piecing skills, I made this paper pieced block - part of the Summer Sampler series. Just love the block ~ there will probably be more...

The perfect travel bag...

At least I hope so! In anticipation of an upcoming trip, I customized one of my favorite bag patterns - The Six pack Tote - and sized it to carry all my travel needs. The fabric is Outside Oslo by Jessica Jones in decorator weight.I think it's a good little travel companion!
A couple of new dresses are going with me. This one from Girl's World by Jennifer Paganelli, recommended by Mary Claire. It's a great book filled with tons of girly projects.
And this one Simplicity pattern 5695. Also a recommendation from Mary Claire.
And a cute pillow case. Could't resist this fabric.

New fabric in the house!

I've been eagerly anticipating the release of Heirloom by Joel Dewberry. His designs seem so classic and modern at the same time to me. I chose the Ruby color way and was not disappointed. Just gorgeous!I had fun pulling some Kona solids to coordinate. Beautiful colors!
As I was playing, I had a thought that maybe some Loulouthi would also go nicely. Spot on with these pieces. Don't know what I'll make, but for now I'm just staring at these beauties!
I also wanted to share a new find with you. A student in my Machine Quilting class pointed them out to me. Called a Pilot ball Frixion pen - it makes a clean black line on fabric, then rubs off or is removed completely with an iron. We tried it on several fabrics and it worked great for marking. I bought a pack of different colors at amazon.com. It may be a marking miracle we've been looking for!

Dresden Plate quilt finished!

When it's hot outside, what else can you do but keep sewing? I've managed to get another project to completion. I think I said it before - well, I know I have - love this quilt. It's my current favorite; if you're allowed to have favorite quilts.In case you missed it - I showed how to make the blocks here. There were a few changes from the original plan. I switched to solid centers and decided to use all white for the backgrounds. I had planned on using a variety of pastels for the background, but intuition told me after a few blocks that it just wasn't going to be right. Intuition is never wrong!
I'm pretty pleased with the quilting. You may remember I decided to hand quilt the centers with perle cotton. It took a couple of attempts and some unstitching before I found the perfect design to use there. I love how it mimics the Dresden block itself.
I stippled the background after some straight line quilting in the sashing. I was stumped as to how to quilt the plates and started searching on flickr for ideas. I found this and this and it was super easy.
The backing is Soul Blossoms with a strip of the solids to make the length.
I also struggled with the binding. I spent at least an hour auditioning different fabrics, including solids and stripes. I flipped the backing over the edge and found it was perfect. And luckily I was able to use the excess backing for the binding.
I feel like this quilt and I have been on a long road together! But i've enjoyed every minute of it! I discovered this last night. You may think it's a polka dot at first glance, but I'm guessing it's a drop of red wine. (Caution - don't drink and quilt!). Not sure how to get that out. Hmm... maybe I'll just leave it there to remember the good times we've had together.

Sewing for the Home...

I just got a new kitchen table. Yeah! A new table needs a new runner. Right? I kept it very simple using some DS fabric from Joann's and some white linen. Then I added my favorite zig zag fabric for the binding.Quilted using 1/2" spaced straight lines that I've been admiring on lots of modern quilts, but have been too lazy to try. It went much faster than I thought! And I love the look!
I also spruced up the family room with some new pillows. It's it great having a stash - when you get the redecorating bug, you just find something on your shelf?
Both pillows are made from Valori Wells' line "Nest". With more of that 1/2" straight line quilting.
I also put an invisible zipper in both pillows following this tutorial. So easy - I did the second one without reading the directions.
Yesterday this is what I bought at the grocery store. I think the check out clerk thought ~ this must be one depressed woman! Actually I'm having the quilting girls over tonight and it's the perfect treat for this hot weather!

Swoon 4, 5 and 6

Three more Swoon blocks down and three more to go!

Block #4...
Block #5 is the rebel block. Got a little shot of aqua!
Block #6 is a little subdued...
And this was a little practice block for another project. Yes, I have something up my sleeve!

I can Paper Piece!

I can Paper Piece! With no crying or swearing! On Wednesday I took a paper Piecing class from Marsha Bray. I've tried Paper Piecing in the past and was frustrated with the process. Marsha's method (that she learned from Judy Mathieson) requires no tearing out of paper and perfect coverage of your pieces every time.

We made 2 of these flower blocks in class and were instructed to make 2 more for homework to reinforce the technique. My 4 blocks completed...

Then I decided to try this block that I've had bookmarked for a while. You can find the free pattern here.
If you're in the St. Louis area and want to Paper Piece - take this class. Marsha teaches it at the Quilted Fox. I promise no crying or swearing! You'll thank me!

The joy of hand quilting...

It's been a really long time since I hand quilted and I'm enjoying the peaceful, relaxing process of hand stitching.Old fashioned simple tools...
New fashioned thread and colors. Beautiful Finca Perle Cotton from Joggles.com.

Joseph's Coat ~ the final chapter...

This is it! If you've been hanging around here for a while you've seen the progress on this quilt many times.

My plan was to do a big quilt even if it took me forever. In the end I decided that big would never get done; not even in forever. It's small, but I love it.
The quilt is from a tutorial by Don't Look Now. The whole method of putting this together as blocks and ending up without seam lines between the blocks is brilliant. How she came up with that I'll never know! It is tricky and unwieldy, but goes together perfectly. In the end, because of the size of mine, I could have done it on one piece of background fabric. My quilt is only 36" wide.

The directions called for a Floriani product called "Stitch and Wash Fusible". I'm not sure I had the correct product. I thought it was supposed to wash out, but mine did not. I washed the top and it softened, but did not dissolve.

Of course, then it needed a curved binding. I went to my old faithful book Happy Endings for directions on how to bind the curves. Worked perfectly!
For more Joseph's Coat inspiration and to see lots of quilters that have more stamina than me visit the Joseph's Coat flickr group!

Everyday Sacred...

I thought about writing a blog post this morning. Although it seemed like a busy week, I couldn't think of any thing to blog about. As I went about my busy day, I thought about something I had learned from one of my favorite books, Everyday Sacred by Sue Bender. She said that in our busyness of getting things done, we often miss our accomplishments. Instead of finishing one project and moving on to the next, we need to stop and appreciate the completed project. Really take in what we've done.

It probably resonated with me because I am a project person. I'm like my Dad who we laughed about because he would get up from Thanksgiving dinner and go build something in the basement. I'm not quite that busy, but I don't sit still for too long (unless I have some sewing in my hands) and my family does tease me that I always have a project in the works.

So tonight I'm sharing and appreciating what I did do this week.

On Monday, I cut up a bunch of scraps of black and white fabrics and some colored scraps and made a pile of half-square triangles. There are lots of cool designs you can make with them - so I'll get more done and play.
Tuesday I pin basted and quilted my Joseph's Coat quilt. Simple quilting around each petal. It's trimmed and ready to be bound. I'm going to use Kona Snow for the binding which is the background fabric and hope to pick some up tomorrow.
On Thursday some fabric came in the mail as the result of some holiday online shopping. I love this "Long Live Vintage" from Fabric Worm.
In addition to some "Just Dandy" and "Alphabet Soup".
The fabric wasn't in the house more than 30 minutes and I was cutting it up. I played with the cover pattern from Living Large 2.
Today I made some wonky cross blocks to go in our charity quilts for STLMQG.

On to non-sewing activities - in addition to the normal cooking, laundry and cleaning, I painted our guest room, did a talk on quilt photography for my guild, got an eye exam and new glasses, cleaned out 4 kitchen cabinets (I'm getting rid of stuff and organizing what's left), and trimmed 2 big trees in the front yard (at the request of our mail lady).

I'm going to try to live up to the proverbial line "Stop and smell the roses". At least I hope to stop and appreciate the projects!

A Neutral Quilt

It's rare (like never) for me to make a neutral colored quilt. But I did want to try one and made this the end of last Summer. I just got it back from the quilter, got the binding on and done!The fabrics are mostly neutrals from several Anna Griffin lines with a taupey gray Moda Bella solid for the star points.
Now back to some color! I finished the machine quilting on my Dresden Plate quilt. Next I'm going to try some hand quilting with Perle Cotton in the center circles. I'm hoping that's the perfect final touch!