Wednesday Already?

Just a quick post this morning to link up. This was supposed to be a finish last last month so as you can see by flooding my projects I am very easily distracted! But I have been slowly working on Lola's Dresses, made up of several of my mother's old dresses used as the stars. The pattern is from Material Obsession 2. I blogged about it before and will link that up when I get back home. I printed some photos of her in some of the dresses for the back of the quilt. 

 Here is is getting basted.

This is before the top was even pieced just so you can see some of the fabrics.

K. Gotta run so linking up. Have a great spring day everyone!

Retreat Booty

I cannot believe it has been a month since I have taken the time to post. I went to to our four-day long Guild retreat and sewed and hung out with amazing quilters and it was a super blast. Of course I was silly and did not take pictures at all. I stole some on-line from the Guild page cause it's not a quilty story without visuals.

So this is the booty from the retreat:

• I finished two 65" lone stars, one for my cousin's wedding
• Did three more purple scrap paper pieced stars paper piece patterns from Wombat Quilts Paper Piecing Mondays
• Received an amazing 64 log cabin blocks already done and fabric cut for at least 30-40 more! (my first time inheriting someone else hard work- awesome)
  
  
  
• Pieced a small simple community service quilt out of 8 matching blocks from the fabric sale
• Pieced a swoon block
• and made peace crane number 91 for a fellow quilters pizza box
  

This was my cozy spot. On the dark side of the room but near the pressing room and because the door was open, I had the whole table to my self so I could paper piece. Plus I had a great view of the room and great company.

 This beautiful quilt was worked on the entire retreat and now hangs in our State Capital at an art quilt show called Cultural Red that will be there through the summer. It really is beautiful.

Oh. I lied. I did take one and only one picture at the retreat this year. The food was Awesome!!

So back in my sewing room on the other days of the last month I created my first original paper piece pattern. This is what it looks like drawn. 

And then I copied it, cut it up and sewed the block remembering to add the 1/4 seam allowance to the edge of every piece. This is what the block came out like.

And quilted and bound. I tried the matchstick which I would only do on a small piece like this cause it took a lot of passes.

I have one finish this month and that is my Brother's birthday scrap quilt.

And that's my catch up post. Happy spring everyone.

Block One for the Arcadia Ave. Quilt Along Done!

I signed up for the Arcadia Ave. Quilt Along at sassafras lane I'm playing a little catch-up and just got the first block done today! Its another foundation paper piece project (can you tell that I am completely addicted to paper piecing?) this time with hexagons.  It's definitely a challenging color study for me. I usually don't do too much low volume and the outer triangles get very washed out with such low contrast to the white print background so I'm not sure if I love it yet. I wanted to go all the way to orange and use more saturated yellows and oranges.

Here's some pics of the block being constructed.

It's growing on me a little. I just might love it the way it is! I'll work on block two and see what happens with the colors I choose. I'm linking up with freshlypieced for WIP Wednesday. Look forward to seeing all your great work.

Steffi's Dresses for A Lovely Year of Finishes- March Goal

My goal for this month is to finish Steffi's Dresses. This is a quilt top that I started piecing two years ago with pieces of my mother's old dresses. When she died in 2002 I was left with all her beautiful custom made dresses that I grew up with her wearing that were all made with gorgeous batik fabrics from different countries in South East Asia. Here are some pictures of  some of the piecing with the fabrics.

I am using a pattern from the book Material Obsession Two. I have the borders to piece on still and then I can baste it. I had ordered some wool batting for it and the LQS just called me to let me know it came in so I figured I might as well jump into the deep end and and make the commitment to finish this very special quilt. I am hoping if it is at all possible I will scan and post a few pictures of my mother wearing some of these dresses as well.

Good luck everyone over at fiberofallsorts with their March goals and I can't wait to see what everyone is working on!

Sew My Stash 2015: Precuts Party

 Here it is. My one and only ever jelly roll quilt top. This is my first time making a quilt with precut fabric and all from the same line/designer/company. I bought the jelly roll from a LQS about five years ago or so. I guess we could probably get a good idea from the fabric line so if you recognize it chime in. It was a Moda Jellyroll. I used a pattern called Floral Bouquet from a book appropriately called Jelly Roll Quilts. I followed the pattern exactly.

The funny thing about this particular jelly roll is that I had taken it apart and integrated it into my scrap stash because it had sat around for so many years and although I had made plans for them a few times, I just never got excited about doing a fabric coordinated quilt. I eventually put them all back together because I decided I wanted to see what they looked like together on a quilt top. I do like the muted colors. I wonder if I'll end up ever getting another jelly roll and if it would take another five years to complete a top with?

I actually stared sewing my stash on my own and started on this one just this month but I only found this link-up last night! But it just so happens I was ready to piece the rows and had the border ready to go. Good luck to everyone in the Sew My Stass 2015: Precuts Party! over at Project Leasa!

Work in Progress: No Nukes Quilt

My work in progress this week my husband's No Nukes quilt that I have been working on for a couple years now. From my living room in the winter when the leaves are gone, I can see the Los Alamos National Laboratory where the nuclear bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were made. The story of Sadako is my inspiration for sewing 1000 peace cranes. Please check out my peace crane page to read Sadako's story.

45 of the cranes I have sewn so far are in this quilt that I am making my husband for his 50th birthday! I finally basted it with wool batting and started quilting. First I stitched in the ditch around each peace crane and around the letters. Now I am doing an echo around each crane. I have no idea what I'll quilt next so I'm still figuring it out.

This is the day I basted it and my sweet dog Aiko.

This is loosely what it looked like on the design wall last year.

I am very excited to finish this one and so is my husband!

First 2015 Finishes!

I got back in my sewing room over Christmas break and haven't left since! I have three finishes to share. First is the raffle quilt for the kids Montessori Charter School PTA. We are raising money to build the kids a playground at their new building which right now has no outdoor spaces yet for the kids. I am proud to say that the raffle was very successful.

My star quilts have become very popular and I have five orders for star quilts between now and October already which is very exciting for me! I make them really simple and actually the star is strip pieced so it goes pretty quick really because I am not doing appliqué or other settings, just modern quilting. I free motion quilted this one with spirals on my home machine.

This one next is our Pizza Box Challenge with the Northern New Mexico Quilt Guild. We chose fabrics and put them in a pizza box and our boxes were distributed each month to a different quilter who made a block with your fabric. At the end of the year we get our box back and have 12 beautifully pieced blocks made with your selected fabrics. It is challenging for sure to use other people's fabrics but this challenge is meant to be a chance to showcase your skills so you do get to have some beautiful work from other amazing quilters. My daughter who was 11 at the time chose the fabrics with me and helped me make the blocks for the pizza boxes that came through our sewing room each month and also helped me make some extras with our own fabric along the way so we had enough to make her a sweet bed quilt which I am sure she will be taking with her to college. This one is free motion quilted with paisleys edge to edge.

My third finish this year so far is this star that I had already pieced (similar to the raffle quilt fabrics) so I took it out and set it and decided to baste it with wool batting because I had never used wool before. I stitched the star in the ditch which makes a big difference I am learning. I also outlined the star diamonds and did some ruler work for the first time. This was a big break through for me because I never was successful at marking a quilt. I learned that the ditz mark-b-gone pen works really well for me. I free motion quilted some feathers and did some spirals for filler. I also learned doing this quilt that scale is important in quilting and didn't like the loops of the filler to be the same size as the loops of the feathers. But I really love the way the wool batting quilts up and love the quality of the quilt when snuggling under it. 

Yeah for finishes!