UR Here Swap Finish!

This finish was right down to the wire.  I was a day late mailing out too waiting on the address, but I used that time to finish up the mug rug, so I probably would have been late anyway.

For the UR Here Mug Swap on Flickr, we were supposed to buy our local mug and send it with a goodie to our partners.  I signed up, and made some calls to see if anyone had our New Hampshire mug in stock.  Know what?  New Hampshire doesn't have a mug!!

I was bummed, and I'm sure Rhode Island is probably in the same boat too.  We're little, people can't find us on the map, and we don't make a big fuss about ourselves, but we're cool too!

So I decided to make this mug rug to put a little NH flair in the package.  The Old Man on the Mountain was huge while I was growing up.  We'd always take a drive up to see him, especially when the leaves changed.  But the face collapsed a few years ago.  Very sad.  But he's still on all our license plates and our quarters!!  And now he's on my mug rug.

And I couldn't forget our state motto, "Live Free or Die."  Probably one of the best things about our state.  We're little, but badass!

It's all packed up with some yummy biscotti.  Wondering what to do with that cheap poly batting?  Perfect packing material!

Hope my partner enjoys her box of goodies!

Linking up with Amanda Jean for Finish It Up Friday!

Squared Circles!

I love this little bit of patchwork.  I tend to be more tricky with my piecing because I'm trying new things, but this was really fun to make.

I love that little bit of binding!!

This whole quilt started with those circular patches.  They were part of a larger piece of material that I loved but I couldn't figure out how to incorporate it into a quilt.  The medallions were so pretty, but there was so much white space between them.  And I only had a yard, so if I didn't fussy cut them, I'd lose too many.

So I just cut them out, along with a bunch of coordinating prints and laid them out in a random grid.  Super fast, but I love that they medallions really stand out in all those squares.

The quilting was really fun too.  I decided to put a couple different patterns together.  So the squares are done up with loops, repeating swirls, and leaves, and the border is a repeating S shape.

This quilt is listed in my Etsy shop!

Linking up with My Quilt Infatuation for Needle and Thread Thursday!

 

WIP Wednesday

Little late posting this morning.  I was up late last night planning and scheming a quilt for my daughter for Christmas inspired by S.O.T.A.K.'s Pinkie Pie quilt.  Hopefully, we'll be able to start working on it soon, because Christmas is coming fast!

And these sheets just came out of the dryer!  I'm using these, and a couple more vintage sheets given to me by my sister to make her a quilt.  I haven't decided if I'm going to use that bright yellow in back on the front or to back it.  I guess I'll have to see how much actual material I have to play with.  Not completely sure on layout yet, but I've got a lot of ideas.

Last on my Christmas list is to start busting into this awesome pile of yarn.  This is what happens when the awesome yarn guys set up shop at the farmer's market; I can't help but buy a skein every time I walk by!  And I didn't even have a project in mind!  Very unlike me.  I'm a project-oriented purchaser.

Linking up with Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday!

Quilt Swag!

 My birthday was this past weekend, so I didn't do much sewing.  But, I received a lot of quilty and sewing stuff by coincidence, which is kind of like birthday presents that the universe arranged.  Whatever, it made me happy.

At the Seacoast Modern Quilt Guild meeting, we got our Riley Blake fat quarters for the MQG Challenge.  I've been staring at them and not getting any great ideas.  So I guess I'll just stare some more.

And I won that little pack of Aurifil from a giveaway on a fellow guilder's blog, During Quiet Time.  I've been using a spool of hot pink Aurifil that I received in the gift bag at QuiltCon and love the super bright colors.  I top stitch with it, even though it's not top stitch weight because color is so vivid.   And now I have a bunch more colors to use.  Thanks Amy!

We also had a great demonstration of all the fun stuff you can do with some of the Thermoweb products.  And of course we came home with a bunch too.  I've been using the fusible fleece in my bags, and can't wait to try the other fusibles with some applique.

And I took home two more Quilts for Boston to quilt.  These are so much fun to do, because the squares are all different and the Boston Modern Quilt Guild packages up everything you'll need, so I don't have to cut batting, piece the backing, or sew together the binding.  And, they included these cute labels in this round, so now I have to figure out how you attach that.

Last, but not least, my package arrived from the Fat Quarter Blender Swap!  I forgot what colors I said I needed, but these are perfect.  I was eyeing the number and chick prints on the Flickr page and was hoping it was coming to me.  And the goodies that I got with it are awesome.  I can never have too many zippers, and that ruler is frosted and the dash marks are really skinny!  I hate the chunky dashes on some of my current rulers because then you have to remember whether you're measuring from the center or edge of the dash, and then things turn out just off enough to make you frustrated.  Thanks Partner!!

Toddlers Make Great Photography Assistants! (if you're wearing running shoes)

Ready for a post of semi-blurry but adorable pictures?  I had a curious little girl happen upon my quick backyard photo shoot last week.  And they're really never too young to put to work, so I tried training her as a quilt photography assistant.  

First, we did the traditional "just hold it up" pose.  Still have to work on holding it straight, but she was too funny peaking up over the top saying "cheese" over and over.

And then, she bolted.  It's a good thing we have plenty of room for her to run with a quilt over her head before she smacks into anything.

She paused just long enough to take one more adorable quilt shot.  She's pretty good at selling the cuddly quilt thing.

Then, she was gone once more.  I did manage to get the quilt back when she was distracted by a shiny ball in the brush around our yard.  I'm just happy that it's too cold for the kids to play bathtub outside with the toy buckets and hoses.  A muddy, soaked quilt is never good, no matter how cute the quilt model.

Not the most compliant assistant, but probably one of the cutest.  

Scrappy Trip Around the World Quilt Finish

So this finish is not new, but it's from when I didn't have a blog, so I think that it still counts.  It's recent, and I've not cuddled with these quilts, so they still feel new to me.

Still mastering photo editing.  This one is too blue, where the one above is too yellow.  Someday I'll figure Photoshop out!  The rest of the photos are pretty dead on color wise.

I, along with many others got bit by the Scrappy Trip Around The World bug this summer.  It's pretty addictive, since the blocks go together so quickly and you can really use almost any fabric and it will turn out great.  (If you haven't yet, go check out the tutorial here that Quiltville put up.  It's pretty awesome.)

I first made the traditional Scrappy version that used every fabric I owned.  Of course, it's still waiting to be quilted, but soon!  Then I decided I liked making them so much, I would try to do another in just one color.   I have a lot of blue and teal, so those colors won.  I cut one or two strips from most of my blues and teals, and then added a bit of white and those two neutrals with red, blue and yellow, to break it up a bit.

I backed it in a wintery blue flannel and quilted it with straight lines that run through the points of each block.  The result is a bit softer and puffier than my normal dense quilting.  If I decide not to add this one to my Etsy shop, it will definitely be in the rotation of winter cuddling quilts at my house.

Side bonus to this quilt pattern?  If you start with strips cut the full 44" of your fabric, then cut that in half to make your tubes, the excess you trim off those tubes to make the Around the World blocks is enough to make a patchwork baby quilt!  (That makes sense, right?)

Once I'd finished the first quilt, I took the leftover joined squares and laid them out so they looked pretty random.  The I just sewed together the strips into rows and the rows to each other to make the top.  

I did the same quilting design on the baby quilt, straight lines through the points.  It's backed in another flannel, this one is white with little green dots.  

Linking up with Amanda Jean for Finish It Up Friday!

Quilt As You Go Block Tutorial!

Want to know all about the magical world of quilt as you go blocks?  I thought you did.  It's pretty awesome and forgiving if you don't feel like measuring or thinking, and they go pretty fast, so you can make a bunch in one go and they're already quilted!

So first you cut your batting.  I cut mine 12.5 because that's the size of my ruler.  Of course, it's going to shrink on you once you start quilting and you'll want to square it up again when you're finished.  So if you want to have bigger finished squares, cut the batting bigger, probably by at least 1.5 inches.

Now, this is the fun part, and where I started to deviate from all the tutorials and how-to's that I found.  That first piece of fabric, just plop it down in the center.  Don't measure where it's going, or try to center it perfectly.  I didn't even care if that piece of fabric was actually squared off itself.  Just put it down and quilt some lines back and forth over it.  I used the outside edge of my foot as a guide, but I'd do some quilted lines wider, skinnier, or a mix of the two.

Then, lay the next piece of fabric down and sew it down.  Again, don't over think it, just make sure that when you sew, it's a straight line so that you're fabric will lay flat once you flip it over to quilt.  (Of course, if you botch that bit, you can just make your first quilted pass really close to the seam to really make it lay down.  Told you it was great if you didn't want to be accurate!)

Quilt it down!  

That weird zig zag bothering you?  I found a bunch of featherweight fusible interfacing and I'm using it to piece together my batting scraps, but I don't trust it, so I do a super big zaggle to hold it together.

I used every scrap possible, which meant that sometimes I'd sew them together to make up the length that I needed.  It's pretty fun to mash together all those little bits, and I got to do some fussy cutting to add cars and flowers to some of my other blocks.

The placement of each layer is different from a traditional log cabin block because I didn't add my sides in a consistent pattern, like always going clockwise when sewing down the next layer, or doing top and bottom then sides.  I just sew with whatever scraps looked good and require the least amount of cutting.  Sometimes, like here, it would get a bit rectangle-y and I'll try to even it out a little.  Other time's I'll just keep adding wherever.

Keep adding layers until the entire piece of batting is covered.  

Then you trim it down to the size you want.  Like I said, I initially made my batting squares 12.5", but I trim them down to 12".  

These are really fun to make, and the weirder they look, the more I like them when they're all together.  I just have four more to make then I can officially finish this quilt.  I'm pretty excited to finally get to cuddle under it!  

Linking up with My Quilt Infatuation for Needle and Thread Thursday and Live a Colorful Life for Really Random Thursday!