Auction Quilt Finished

Hello everyone! I stayed up way past my bed time last night finishing this up. I needed to turn it in this morning so I was scrambling around at the last minute. My new job has left me with a whole lot less quilting time than I had a few weeks ago. 

Anyway, here's how it turned out:

I really, really loved this quilt. It was so soft, probably the softest quilt I've ever made. I think it was because the pieces were really large so there weren't that many seams to make the quilt stiffer. 

I backed the quilt with an orange floral print. I love the juxtaposition of the orange and blue. It's one of my favorite color combinations. The orange binding gives you just a pop of that complimentary color on the front and then nicely frames the back. I really love it and am kinda sad it won't be staying with me. 

I did straight line quilting on the whole quilt. It was a pretty easy quilt job compared to some other free motion stuff I've done. Other than working through the night, it was very relaxing. 

I didn't want to put a fabric label on the quilt since I'm not sure who will bid on it and actually end up with it. They might not even know who I am since I don't know everyone at the school (in case you missed it before, I'm donating the quilt to a silent auction where the proceeds go toward our church's grade school). So, I made a little paper tag instead and pinned it to the quilt. 

Anyway, I love how it turned out and I hope it makes it's way to someone else's house that will love it just as much. Now to plan my next charity quilt...

Flying South Baby Quilt

Hello everyone! So I'm a bit behind in making my friend Jason a baby quilt considering his son is a couple months old already... I had planned on making this quilt:

I bought the magazine so I had the pattern. I went out and bought all the fabric since my brown and green selection is very slim. I washed all the fabric. And then I let it all sit. And sit. And sit. I just couldn't get motivated to do this project and I realized I just hated the pattern. Yes, it is adorable and I would love to have this quilt. But making it is another story. It seemed tedious and just completely un-fun. 

I was watching tv one night and doodling on some graph paper when I came up with a quilt that I did want to make. I looked at it and thought, "that's what I'm doing for the baby quilt!" 

I ironed all the fabric this morning and got to cutting. I just used the greens that I had bought and some white for the background. I put these together:

I love how easy the "no waste" flying geese method is. One large 7 1/4" square for the center and four 3 7/8" background squares give you four geese blocks measuring 6" x 3". Once I got these put together I cut the remaining background pieces and before I knew it the quilt top was completely done!

This is a lot of negative space for me. A lot. I've never had this much before and it's kinda freaking me out a bit. I think that I'm going to just straight line quilt this with some diagonal lines in white, but it will be so noticeable in that negative space. Now I'm thinking that I should have just made the whole top out of flying geese and no negative space to make the quilting easier. But... I looooove this quilt top and the look of it. So, I guess soon I will be getting over my fear of negative space. :) 

Stay tuned!

Auction Quilt Flimsy

Hello everyone! I've got my flimsy finished for the auction quilt I'm making. I guess I should come up with a better name for it, right?

It is 60" square. I still need to find a backing fabric for it. I'm thinking some type of blue or gray print. And then I think I'll do a scrappy binding with the left over print fabrics from the front. 

 

What would you use for a back?

Auction Quilt

Hello everyone! I've started a new project that I'm pretty excited about. I just signed up to make a quilt for a silent auction. The auction will benefit the grade school where I volunteer. So, I was looking at pictures of quilts online that might be easy to put together and I came across this one:

You can find and buy the pattern here:

Sparkle Plenty Pattern

I thought it was super cute, but I wanted to change it up a bit. Here's the layout I came up with:

I'm still kind of playing with where all of the colors land, but I'm going to let it rest for a bit - let it soak in - before I sew all the rows together. 

My plan is to only do straight line quilting on this one and to just echo the star shape. All done this should finish up at 60" square. 

Happy Valentine's Day!

Hello everyone, and happy Valentine's Day! I've been furiously working to finish my scrappy valentine quilt and I finished it with 2 hours to go here in Portland, Oregon. I really wanted to finish it before my husband came home from traveling tonight. It is now happily drying in the laundry and I'll be able to wrap him up in it when he gets home. 

So, here se some pics of the quilt. If I remember, I'll try to add some pictures of it after it's dry. 

My cat Leia approves of the final product, even if she did ruffle it a bit as I was taking pictures. She desperately wants to snuggle on it. 

This is the quilting that I did in all of the large white areas. I hashed each area with my walking foot and then added some free motion, free-flowing circles. I was trying not to be too anal with getting them all to be the same size and perfectly shaped. It was bugging me a bit because I really do like things to be perfect. I just wanted them to be more natural as if I was doodling on the quilt. I didn't want this quilt to be too rigid. Luckily I'm not super great at uniformity with the free motion quilting yet, so I think it worked out nicely. ;)

In the smaller white areas I did that same circle design around the edge and left the center empty. In the black and gray star pieces I did some straight quilting from the center out. In the heart I just wanted to keep it simple. It is hard to see, but I just did one large FMQ heart in the middle. 

Lastly, in the red border I did a free motion heart pattern. (Sorry for the indoor picture quality!) I debated doing this in the black border as well, but decided against it. I like it just in the red. :)

So, that's my scrappy valentine quilt! Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you all have a lovely Valentine's Day!

Valentine Project Update

Hello everyone! Progress is being made on my scrappy Valentine project. 

Lots and lots of squares ready to be sewn together. 

All laid out and happy. 

My fingers look pretty chubby in this photo, but rockin' a red nail for the project. :)

Six done and three more to go! I really love it. I think I'll border this whole thing out in red for 3 inches and make it 60" x 60". Believe it or not though, I don't have a piece of red fabric large enough to get me the full border, so I'll have to take a trip to the fabric store. :) 

Happy sewing everyone!

Valentine Project

Hello everyone! I finally got some time put in with my sewing machine today. I was doing some doodling last night and came up with a pattern I just couldn't wait to start. Of course this pushes back every other whip I have started. I swore I wouldn't let those stack up, but you just can't beat the fun of a new project. :) 

Here's what I came up with:

It took forever to cut out all of the pieces. Each square on the graph paper finishes at 1.5 inches so there are a lot of pieces to this 9 block quilt. 

So far I have one block put together:

I love the way it looks! I cut up a bunch of left over white-on-whites, grays, blacks and reds to use in the block. It is a great use for scraps, especially smaller pieces. It finishes at 18 inches so the main body of the quilt will be 54"x 54". 

I am looking forward to putting the other 8 blocks together this week. There's a lot of time that goes into each block, but I just love the way it looks. It feels so good to get back to some sewing!

Wicked Wicked Wicked

Hello everyone! If you are here for the first time, welcome! If you're a follower, then welcome back! :) Do you like my picture? I couldn't resist putting up a shot of the creepy spiders that are all over my house and garden. I just wanted to set the mood for this wicked day! :)

I'd like to thank Wendy and Mdm Samm for hosting and cheering on this hop. I have the privilege of sharing my day with these lovely ladies:

Becki hosted by Why-Knot-Kwilt

Bumbleberry Stitches

Nini & The Sea

Dancing Moon

Create In The Sticks

Negligent Style

Rose Creations

Kris Loves Fabric

A Geeky Crafty Life

My Quilting Journey

The Recipe Bunny (you are here!!)

Please stop by and visit these ladies today too. We hope you enjoy the hop!

Last year I created a couple table toppers for the Wicked hop, so this year I wanted to make something to adorn my wall. My husband and I moved to Portland this year and so I have new walls to decorate this Halloween season. I decided to put this together for you all today:

It's a spooky graveyard scene on a night with a blazing full moon. I would not want to be stuck there at night!

This wall hanging was a lot more work than I had originally anticipated. Here's a look at my planning sheet:

Yikes! So many tiny pieces! Here's a close up of one of the spots with those little pieces (1" HSTs!):

I will confess it was murder trying to get all of my points to turn out, and I wasn't completely successful. But, that's just fine since this little quilt is staying with me! Here are a couple other "in progress" pictures that I took for you guys.

Top Complete

Embroidery

So, I hope you liked my little project! Please remember to stop by the other blogs today for more Wicked projects and fun! I hope you come back to see me again soon! Happy Halloween!

Butterfly Baby Quilt Finished

Hello everyone!

I have finished my butterfly quilt and wanted to show it off to you all. All finished it is 38 x 40 inches and I love it!

I used all free motion quilting on this one. I did a squiggle in each butterfly in coordinating thread. In the sashing I did a heart motif and also used that in the borders. Here's a close up of the quilting:

For the back I used this super cute argyle print. I still have some more left so I can use it on some more projects.

So, I have decided to sell this little quilt and have opened an Etsy shop. I don't have much in there right now, just this quilt and some blank note cards that I put together. If you want to check it out, you can see my shop here. It's called CraftieBunny. Hopefully I can start making more things to put in there. :)

I've also finished my Double Irish Chain Quilt, but I'll save that for another post. It is enjoying itself on our bed for now. Anyway, what have you all been up to?

Butterfly Baby Quilt

Hi everyone! I bet I'm in the same boat as everyone else when I say I can't believe it's the last day of September already! Summer sure went by fast.

As a quick update here today I finished my butterfly baby quilt top. It measures 38" wide by 40" long. If you missed it, you can see my butterfly quilt block tutorial here.

Now I just need to find some fabric for the back, quilt it, and bind it. I'm thinking I might try to sell this one as I have no need for a baby quilt right now. Otherwise I might hang it as a wall-hanging quilt in my sewing room. Hmmm, decisions decisions! :)

Anyway, hope you're all having a great start to your week. Now, on to October! :)

Double Irish Chain Top

Hi everyone! I hope you're all enjoying the transition into fall. It's a blustery 65 degrees here (55 yesterday) so I'm enjoying snuggling up in all of my warm quilts! :)

I have been really busy this month. At the beginning of the month I talked about wanting to work on my Double Irish Chain quilt. I've had this one in the works for 3 years now. I had all of the pieces cut out, but none of the 81 blocks completed. So, I set out to get the top done this month and I've succeeded!

It measures 96 inches square with the border. Each block was 10 inches (finished) and I added a 3 inch (finished) border all around. This is definitely big enough for our bed. Here's a pic of it on the bed before the border was added:

This is going to be the largest quilt I've ever made. My Super Mario Quilt was longer (105 inches), but it was only 75 inches wide. This one will be just as hard to maneuver though. I need to get backing fabric for this yet. I'm not sure what I want to go with. I'm thinking a dark green would be nice since there's so much light green in the top.

I wasn't quite sure about the light blue print when I started putting all of the blocks together. It's still not my favorite, but it's growing on me. I didn't want to go out and buy a different fabric since it was already cut up into the squares.

So, any suggestions on how I should quilt this beast? All over pattern? Something specific in each colored section? Border treatment? An all over stipple would be the easiest and wouldn't take too long. I could also do straight line quilting to play up the diamond effect of the quilt. That might actually be even easier. Hmmm... what do you think?

Swimming in WiPs!

Hello everyone! I've been waiting for a microwave installer guy to show up all afternoon. Since I couldn't leave the house, I had a lot of time to get some sewing and crafting done!

I have several WiPs in the wings that I've been working on. First up is my beach quilt - Bits and Pieces. I had enough to put a 5 inch scrappy border all around it. So, the top is now done. I plan to bind it in black so it will have a skinny border around all of the color to finish it off.

The border looks a little more pastel than it is in real life. Too bad I didn't have any more red or pink from the middle fabrics to use, but I just barely had enough of the other ones to pretty much make it all the way around.

For quilting I think I'm going to do a loopy all over patter in the middle, then do hearts in the black border. I'm not sure what I'm going to do in the scrappy border, maybe just some free-form wavy lines since it will primarily be used at the beach. Maybe I should be really brave and add some feathers to those wavy lines! *Gulp!* I've never done feathers before...

My second project of the day was finishing up some Christmas stockings for my husband and I.

I know it's way far out from Christmas, but these have been on my to-do list since last November. Obviously I fell short from making them last year, so I decided I'd finish them up super early this year. :)

I really love the texture that the diamond quilting gives the stockings. I still need to run them through the wash to get rid of my quilting lines, but I have a few months to do that. ;) Otherwise, they are good to go!

Third, I started a new scarf! The pattern is called Falling Water and it is a free Ravelry download. I had forgotten all about Ravelry until a couple days ago. Then I rediscovered how much time you can really lose while scanning through everything on that site. I decided I should put some of my browsing time to good use and start one of the patterns I had saved months ago.

I really like how it is turning out so far, despite a couple ssk difficulties. :)

Otherwise, I still have a few other quilts on the to-do list that have been hanging out there for.... almost forever (or for a very long time at least)!

The Double Irish Chain:

These squares have been cut for 2(!!) years now and I still haven't done anything with them. I think this one really needs to be the next one on my get-it-done list.

The Fall Leaf Quilt:

I still have over half of the leaves to put together for this one. Again, I have everything cut and ready to go, just need to do the sewing! I think this is number 2 on the list. :) Or maybe number 1... we'll see if I get motivated enough to work on the Double Irish Chain quilt...

The embroidery project/quilt:

I have 5 out of 12 patterns done and I'm working on the 6th. So, Germany, Egypt, France, Italy and Russia are done. Mexico is in the works, and I still have to do China, Japan, India, USA, United Kingdom and Australia. I plan to border these squares out with the colors of each country's flag and then sew them up into a little travel themed quilt.This one isn't a huge rush, just a guilty pleasure project. :)

The Quilty Barn-a-long:

I have 8 out of 12 barns done. I know I'm a few behind. I also want to make a couple more of my tractors before I sash these and sew them up into a top. Again, this is another guilty pleasure project, but I'd like to finish it up sometime soon...

Lastly, it is my month for our quilting bee - Color Bee Shocked. So, I've been getting a lot of Irish Twist blocks back in the mail. Once I get them all back I want to put this one together quickly. I don't want it to sit in my closet for a couple years until I get to it. 

I'm really looking forward to seeing all of the blocks together! :)

So, that's what I'm working on/not working on these days... How about you?

Bits and Pieces: Beach Quilt

Hello everyone! I've been sewing a bit each morning, so my beach quilt is coming along. I think I'm going to call it "Bits and Pieces" since it's literally made out of bits and pieces of my Over the Rainbow quilt. Here's how it looks right now:

I'm really liking it, even though the points aren't matching up. It's too hard to get them all to be good with the horrible sewing I did on the 9-patch units 13-14 years ago. I'm just going to blame the 8th grade version of me for any mistakes or wonkiness on this quilt - I don't think she'll mind. :)

It still needs to be larger. If I want to use it at the beach I'll want to lay down on it, or at least sit comfortably. So, I'm going to be adding another border, but I'm not really sure what fabric to use. I have some left over bits from the colored pieces in the middle, but I'm not sure I have enough to make it all the way around and add the inches that I want to. Maybe I'll have to add 2 more (or more???) borders on this to get it to the size that I want. Time will tell I guess...

Anyway - to finish off the post, here is some cat mischief that happened in the making of this part of the quilt. Enjoy!

Oh, hi Leia! Thanks for helping me keep those pieces down and in order. You're such a good helper!

Wait a minute mom, these pieces need to be rearranged. The seams aren't going to match up! Let me help you...

Just a few more to move and then it will be perfect!

Whew, rearranging these rows is hard work. I'm too tired to do the rest. You'll put it back in order, right mom?

Thanks for all the help, Leia! :-p