Monthly Archives: January 2014
Puzzle Pieces
I’m calling this one Puzzle Pieces, because that’s what it ended up being – a puzzle to fit all of these blocks together.
Images taken in a very snowy Prospect Park.
Originally, I planned on making wonky blocks, but then I started cutting and before I knew it I was fitting together lots of different shapes and sizes, but shapes with straight, not wonky cuts. I’m not sure I’m totally in love with it yet, but I’ve never done a quilt quite like this so it was fun to make it all fit together.
The one thing I really do love is the fabric – Rebecca Bischoff’s Blythe collection for Robert Kaufman. I really love the rich colors and wanted to cut some bigger pieces to really show them off. I also added some Kona solids to break up all of the prints.
My favorite print is the blue floral and I have a big piece of that left that I’m going to use for the back. I’m trying to decide if I’m going to use the blue floral and then stick with all solids for the back, or if I want to use some of the leftover prints I have, too. Decisions, decisions.
Now I’m off to work on the back of this quilt this week!
Wrens & Friends
Happy Friday! Who is ready for some weekend quilting? I’ve got a couple of projects in the works that I plan on tackling. My first one I wrote about Monday is almost done, and the second is currently in progress.
Remember Moda’s Wrens & Friends collection I got for Christmas?
Those fat quarter bundles are no more. They are taking shape into some wonky blocks that I am really loving. To complement Wrens & Friends I’ve added some bright, happy solids, and this quilt is looking a lot more like springtime than the dead of January that we are all dealing with.
What do you have planned for this weekend? Have a great one!
What’s New, What’s Next
Happy MLK Day, everyone. I’m checking in today with my next project. Now that I’ve finished up my Picnic quilt that was a holdover from 2013, it’s time to start my first quilt of 2014.
Rebecca Bischoff’s Blythe collection for Robert Kaufman has been burning a hole in my fabric stash for months and I have officially cut into it. I fell in love with that blue floral print and then had to have it all.
I’ve also added in some matching Kona solids.
I made really good progress on this quilt over the weekend and hope to have something to share soon. More to come…
Picnic Ready
I feel like that’s what this quilt would be perfect for…a picnic! The happy, bright colors remind me of the perfect blanket to lounge on in a park while eating little sandwiches and sipping lemonade. Unfortunately, it’s not exactly the time of year for picnicking, but can you tell I’m dreaming of summer?
I started this quilt back in November thinking I would put it together fairly quickly but it’s taken longer than I anticipated. That’s because I made a mistake. It was really frustrating and I was about ready to pack the unfinished quilt away and think about it another time, but instead I said to myself, “Self, you can do this.” And I powered through.
The mistake I made was basting the quilt too quickly and not putting enough safety pins in it. (I use the safety pin method to hold my quilts together.) As I started quilting it, the top and batting started to shift a little from the bottom and I was in pickle. It wouldn’t have been a problem except that I had made a second mistake and I trimmed the back too close and didn’t give myself enough extra fabric for any shifting that can happen during quilting. Ugh. Needless to say, I was annoyed. The good news is that I hadn’t quilted all that much when I realized what was happening.
After my pep talk to keep me going, I pulled out the quilting and started over. I tried to come up with another solution instead of pulling it out, but I couldn’t come up with one that I liked. Just when I think I’ve been quilting long enough to stop making dumb mistakes, I make one! Oh well. Lesson learned.
As for my fabric choices, I had this old Denyse Schmidt fabric that I’ve had forever and wanted to use. I only used prints on the front of the quilt and didn’t mix any solids with it, so for the back I wanted something solid so as not to distract from the front. I went with a solid denim(ish) blue colored fabric. Again for the binding, I wanted something solid that coordinated with the front and went with a happy yellow.
I’m probably going to list this quilt in my Etsy shop in case you are interested in using it for your own picnic once spring hits. Or if you live in a warm environment and can use it now, consider me jealous.
Dishing Up Lots of Pretties
If there’s one thing that can compete for my love of fabric it’s pretty dishes. New, old, colorful, simple…I love them all. I especially love antique dishes and share this love with my aunt, who surprised me with an amazing gift.
Over many years, my aunt has been collecting the antique Ovide by Hazel Atlas pattern. It started a long time ago when she was cleaning out my grandma’s attic and found some pieces of Ovide. She has slowly been adding to her collection and has acquired quite a bit over the years.
When I saw her over the holidays, we sat down to dinner one evening and were using the Ovide dishes. It was then that she told me they were mine. What?!?! She had always said she was going to give me some one day but I wasn’t expecting them for many years.
I am now the proud owner of 12 place settings and some serving pieces, some of which are the original ones found in my grandma’s attic. Not only are these dishes so fun, colorful and pretty, but they hold a special meaning that I will cherish for always.
Anyone else share my love of dishes? Now my goal is to find a place in my tiny New York City kitchen to store them.
Happy New Year!
I’m back from my holiday travels and ready for a new year of quilting. I have so many ideas and quilts on my to-do list that I’m really looking forward to working on this year. But before I get started on something new, I have the last finished quilt of 2013 to share.
I had to wait to share this quilt with you because it was a Christmas gift for my mom. Earlier this year, my mom mentioned that she needed a new quilt for her bed and asked if I could make something. Since then I have slowly been working on it. I say slowly because it is by far the largest quilt I have ever made. She needed something to fit her king sized bed, and let me just say that it has been a lot of fabric to work with.
I saw this quilt pattern online and really liked it and thought it would work well for all of the scrap fabric I planned to use. I typically don’t follow patterns; Actually, I think this is only the second time I have ever followed a pattern. I’m more of a ‘sketch something out and come up with my own pattern’ kind of gal,’ but in this case it made sense to actually follow a tried and true pattern that I already liked.
The fabric I used has a story of its own. I was given a stack of discontinued sample cloth napkins that someone thought I could use. There were about 30 different fabric patterns, and when I saw them I knew that whatever I did with them I would need to create a quilt that used very small scrappy pieces. I say that because some of the napkins were really cute, but some of the fabric was way too traditional looking for me and not my taste. I knew if I cut them up into small enough pieces, it’s the colors that would be the focus and not the traditional-looking fabric that I didn’t care for as much.
After cutting and sewing for days, it finally started to resemble the image I had in my head and I would say it is a success. My mom has been switching out all of her bedding and it turns out this quilt ended up complementing her new duvet cover perfectly. She’s happy with it, and I’m happy to call it done.
