WIP Wednesday: The one with a zillion maple leaves

I went to my first quilt retreat last weekend with some lovely ladies from the Austin MQG.  It was so much fun!  I learned how to properly use my walking foot, dumpster dove for fabric scraps, and discussed the differences between starch and Best Press.  What a weekend!  I did finish my vintage sheet Planetarium quilt top while there, and I started on my scrappy no two alike Sparkle Punch quilt top.  

Vintage sheet Planetarium top finished! 

Can you spare a square?  Sparkle Punch quilt is officially renamed the Seinfeld quilt.

Sparkle Punch loving on the Planetarium :)

Here's what I'm most excited about lately though: maple leaves!  I've always like the look of the maple leaf quilt, and I finally decided to cave and make my own because of the #modernmaples craze that's struck Instagram.  I've pulled (way too much) fabric to make a nice set of leaves and I'm planning to use low volume fabrics for the background.  I don't have too many low volumes, so luckily Burgundy Buttons is having a sale and I just bought 13 half yard prints so I doubt I'll be running out anytime soon!

The massive fabric pull...

What have you been sewing lately?  If you're in the Austin area, our monthly Austin MQG meeting is tomorrow night at BookPeople.  Find out more info here!

On a Whim Sewing

I've been working on Camille Roskelley's On A Whim quilt pattern for awhile now.  Remember that Amy Butler Weekender bag I made using Tula Pink Birds and the Bees?  I used the leftover fabric from cutting out this pattern.  This quilt will turn out as amazing as the weekender bag, I'm sure!  For the corners, I'm using a wine-purple linen blend.  I didn't pre-wash it, so I hope it doesn't bleed!  Yikes...  I have 13 of 20 blocks finished and I'm hoping to have the top finished before I move into my first house next month :D

If you have all the pieces cut, these blocks go together pretty quickly!

Starting to come together

Just keep sewing

And soon enough you'll have a finished block!

I threw in an AMH just because it played well with the others :)

On the AYoLF Q3 front, I did manage to baste my blue and yellow patchwork chevron quilt last weekend.  I still haven't settled on a quilting design, so that's on hold for now.  I only have 19 days left to finish so I'd better hustle!

What did you sew this week?

Cherries sure are great for summer...

I finished a quilt top using Sew Cherry fabric by Riley Blake and one of my favorite patterns from Scrap Basket Sensations by Kim Brackett - the Over and Under Quilt.  I love how it looks like all the pieces are woven together.  I think this fabric line is really kitschy cute and works well in this design.  For the background, I used a tone on tone white orange peel pattern from JoAnn.  The borders are a pink polka dot from Pam Kitty Morning and some Heather Bailey Welcome Road print to round it out.  While I was putting this together, I wasn't quite sure if it was going to turn out the way I liked, but after adding the borders, I'm very excited about it.  I think this one will make its way to a friend of mine as a house warming gift.

Carlton's rug mug

I've been working on hexies in my free time at work, not really knowing what I would do with them when I was finished.  I'm using scraps from Little Apples and have already made a wallhanging that's in my kitchen, so I decided my cat, Carlton, needed a matching placemat for his food dishes.  It's basically just a mug rug about 8" x 14".  I sewed the hexies onto a muslin background in red with a thick blanket stitch on my sewing machine and echo quilted a little bit.  Very zakka style, no?

Flea Market Fancified

Just a quick peek at my Flea Market Fancy + other DS Quilts project.  I can't wait for this one to be all sewn up!  I'm kind of nervous because this is the first time that I chose fabrics for a pattern that weren't all in the same collection.  Hopefully I have good color sense :)  Once I'm done, I'll let you know where you can get this awesome free pattern so stay tuned!

My current list of projects:

Finished!

Nada

Completed tops needing backings & quilting:

Modern Meadow Urban Cabin

Sew Cherry Over & Under

My Precious Tufted Tweets 

Simply Squares Vintage sheets 

Central Park Charming Stars

Cherish Nature- Flights of Nature

Vintage Sheet New Wave 

Hunky Dory Pandora's Box

Tops in pieces:

My Precious Neptune

Sew Cherry Snapdragon #2

Flea Market Fancy Sampler

New projects this week: 1

Finished projects this week: 0

My Precious QAL Round 2

For Round 2 of the My Precious QAL, I decided to use my Neptune charm pack!  I had a plan for this little charm pack for quite some time now, but didn't really have the motivation to do the math until this great kick start.  I'm using a grey solid to border each charm pack and then the DS Quilts dark blue/aqua print as the sashing in between.  I picked up some Tula Pink Prince Charming for the binding and backing.  Since there are a few projects on my plate right now, this baby will probably be waiting awhile to be completely finished.  

Happy sewing until next time!

I love Ikat :D

Have you noticed all the great ikat prints popping up?  They're everywhere - quilting fabric, home dec fabric, wallpaper...  I think the colors and designs are so fresh and powerful. 

When I saw this Lanikai fabric from Dear Stella, I thought to myself, 'Self - you must WEAR that fabric!  And pillows.  You must make pillows.  Maybe stretch it over a canvas for wall art.  Hmm it might make a good tote bag too.  You should probably buy a whole bolt.'

I didn't buy a bolt, nor did I make all the things I said I would out of it yet, but I have made this awesome summer skirt.  I used Elisabeth's tutorial for The Elastic Waist Flirt Skirt which is based on a J. Crew skirt.  It went together super quickly (even though I had to do math) and the greatest part is that it has pockets!  I think I'll be remaking this skirt in the adorable lobster print from Crabtastic in the near future :)

What's Cookin Wednesday

I've made a quilt for my grandma, my mom, my boyfriend, my friend from home...now it's my dad's turn! 

I acquired some Joel Dewberry Modern Meadow and fell in love with some of the prints, especially the blues.  I decided this would be great fabric for my dad's quilt!  I bought a scrap pack of Modern Meadow on Etsy, which actually turned out to be several yards, to round out my collection.  There's a few other fabrics in the mix too. 

The pattern is Urban Cabin by Atkinson Designs.  I thought it seemed more manly than lots of HSTs or stars and such :)  I'm making a total of 25 blocks for his lap sized quilt and have 8 of them finished already.  The pattern goes together very quickly and the blocks are large so I should be done in no time!



Finished blocks




Color combos left to finish




Color combos left to finish



Misc Monday

Misc: my favorite thing to sift through at a garage sale.  Today I have some quilty misc for you to peruse. 

Have you heard about the My Precious Quilt Along hosted by Kelly at Kelby Sews?  She's challenging us to actually cut up and use our precious hoard of fabric that's been safely sitting on the shelf.  You know, your Neptune, Arcadia, Heather Ross, Flea Market Fancy, etc.  She gently encourages us to take a breath, cut it up, and win a bunch of prizes in the meantime!  I can't help but to hear Smeagol say it in my head, or when I was excitedly describing this to my similarly nerdy boyfriend :)  I did have to Google how to spell it though, so I'm not that much of a scifi geek... Oh wait, I make pillows that have Mario characters on them.  I take that back! 

Back on track - I decided to finally make something with my Tufted Tweets.  I have a 10" square of all the prints and I wanted to do Little Miss Shabby's Picture Frames quilt but I didn't want to trim the squares down.  Since I'm terribly awful at math this project has taken a back burner until now.  Here are a couple of my first blocks.  I chose a grey sashing instead of the beige.  Each block is ~12" square.  I learned to starch well!

I'm trying to destash a bit.  Anyone interested in some Dear Stella for sale or swap?

Last bit of misc - LOOK what I found! And swapped in and bought!  The only one of :D :D  An Arcadia Honey Bun.  Boy do I have good plans for you :)

Flights of Nature WIP

This WIP has been sitting on the shelf for a very long time.  Since I finished up the Triple Irish Chain the other day, I was itching for a new project.  I decided it would be better to work on this one than to start something else totally new.  Besides, it seemed like a new project since all I'd done before was trim the layer cake down and sew the rectangles together.  The fabric is a Cherish Nature by Deb Strain Layer Cake and the pattern is Flights of Nature quilt from MBS.  Unfortunately, when I went back to the MBS to link to the pattern, I'm unable to find it online anymore :(  If you'd like a copy, I have it printed out and can send you one if you send me a message.  

Update: I found the PDF online with a Google search - here it is!

http://www.unitednotions.com/MBS-flights-of-nature.pdf

I'm currently selling a great used Bernina Record 830 sewing machine on eBay.  It ends Sunday, so if you need a sewing machine, please check out my auction!

Charity Quilt Top for DMQG

I finished up a quilt top for the DMQG this evening.  We were given baggies of fabric - mine had almost a full layer cake in it - and told to do whatever we wanted.  I immediately thought of the perfect project for my lovely mix of Modern Workshop and Oasis.  The It's a Hoot Baby Quilt by Amy Ellis went together so quickly and used a minimum of extra fabric beyond the precuts - perfect for charity quilts!  

New York Beauty Center: Finished!!

I finished my NYB center for the DMQG round robin just in time.  I did decide to set it on point and am really happy I did so.  Maybe I'll applique something onto the corners later on.  Or maybe I'll leave it blank and enjoy the fresh clean design.  I'm really thrilled with how it turned out!  I won't be seeing it back for another 5 months and the anticipation may just kill me!

Oh and wouldn't you know that now there's a New York Beauty quilt along?  Maybe I'm just ahead of the trend :)

New York Beauty #3

I can't believe I'm 3/4 of the way through this project.  I'm having fun and can't wait to try other paper pieced projects, like Lee's Summer Sampler Series of course ;)  Once I have the fourth done, I'm sewing them in a circle but I'm not quite sure what will happen after that.  We'll cross that bridge later but before Feb 9 when I have to pass this baby on!  It'll be a long 6 months before I get it back.  Pretty much all of my other projects are on hold right now, but I'm itching to start a new quilt even though I have 1, 2, 3...6 or 7 quilt tops finished and needing to be quilted, not to mention 3 quilt tops in various stages of progress!

New York Beauty, Take 2

Here's the second of four New York Beauty blocks I'll be making for the Dallas Modern Quilt Guild round robin bee starting next month.  Read about it here.  I'm loving how they are turning out!  I've jumped ahead and already picked out the other 2 center yellows and 2 middle blues.  I'm trying to decide if I should just finish the 4 and leave as is, or if I should set it en point and do some fancy stuff before turning it in.  What do you think?

Forgot to mention my favorites in this block - see the tiny pink elephants and the crown I oh so amazingly managed to fussy cut?  :D

Well Hello again!

I've been a blog slacker, I'll admit it.  Back to the Work in Progress Wednesday fun now!  The Dallas Modern Quilt Guild is having a round robin quilt swap starting next month.  I make a center block and pass that onto another group member who adds a border to it.  Repeat 4 more times and then we have a quilt!  I get the quilt back that I made the center block.  I wanted to try something new and also I wanted something that would be bright, cheerful, and bold.  

I've been perusing Flickr for ideas and decided to make a New York Beauty!  Here's the first finished block.  Would you believe I've never paper pieced before?  I thought it was pretty fun actually once I figured out what to do.  Curved piecing?  Um...only if I have to :)  I'm super pleased with how it turned out.  I'm going to make 4 blocks and sew them into a circle for my central block.  I'm proud of myself for using mostly scraps for the colored parts.  Here's the link to the pattern I used: New York Beauty #4