Spring *sigh*

After a breif moment of warm sun and spring, we’ve retreated back into cold, gray and rainy 5 inches of snow forecast *sigh* At least my pillow looks like spring.

 

Bee-mates may recognize the design: it’s a variation on one of the blocks my bee is trying out, while I polish them for prime time.

Another quilt top…

In between working on my spirals , I’m working on a commission. Here’s the top, pre-quilting.

Commissions are always an interesting process, a mix of my decisions and the clients. This one is destined for a beach-y room – so there are sand dollars, scallop shells and sandpipers – in blue and yellow.

Spiral progress …

love, Love, LOVE!

The top of my spiral quilt is finished, I’m still in love.  I need to get a backing together, then I’m sending it out to a long-arm quilter, this is just too big for my little machine.

And, I’m working on a version of this quilt as a pattern – my first.

Never Ending List: Quilt Block Tutorials

I’ve wandered away from my plan of sharing the tutorials I bookmark and then have too many of to make. I’m trying to get back to that, with a few quilt-y ones:

 

Improvised patchwork tutorial from Completely Cauchy

Framed fussy-cut blocks from Kate Conklin Designs

Do. Good Stitches blocks from Texas Freckles

 

 

Previous attempts at sorting through my list of tutorials: Getting Organized, Napkins and Such, the original (read: random) post

Square in Square inspiration

One of my (many, many) ideas I considered for my month of my bee was to make square in square blocks, destined for some sort of floating non-grid layout like Ashley’s (Film in the Fridge) Greenfield Hill Quilt I ended up going in a different direction for the bee – but here are some of the quilts I looked to for inspiration.

1. denyse schmidt greenfield hill quilt top, 2. animal sherbet squares quilt, 3. Squares Front, 4. Pink and Brown square quilt, 5. { bento box quilt }, 6. strawberries & champagne baby quilt, 7. Pretty square quilt, 8. Lemon Squares Front, 9. Red and Aqua Square in a Square Quilt, 10. Georgia’s Quilt, 11. Hadley’s Quilt Front, 12. hip to be square 3, 13. what a bunch of squares14. Not available15. Not available16. Not available

 

 

I recently bought Electric Quilt software – I’ve always been a pencil and paper (or fabric on the design wall) kind of quilter. But I’ve been playing more with design, and some (especially this one) could benefit from more sophisticated tools.

But this is not an intuitive software, and I’m still in that frustrating stage of learning a new system where my ambitions are way ahead of my abilities, so I’m playing with simple patterns while I learn my way around.  At least the result is a  little hourglass layout for a pretty stack of Verna that’s been looking for a project.

 

Do you use EQ? Any tips?

Huh…

I’ve been sewing long enough that I don’t really think much about the actual mechanics of  line up the fabric – lower the pressure foot – back stitch etc. Until I look down and think “huh”

There’s something strange about discovering something that you yourself have been doing – like the fact that I never realized I line up my HST blocks on the opposite side of my presser foot from every other seam I sew.  Anyone else ever have these moments? Or is it just me?

A tiny finish off the UFO pile

I’ve been particularly bad at generating UFO’s this winter.

 

Most of them are still decidedly unfinished, but I did get one tiny project off the list: a pair of potholders.

 

 

Granted, there’s still a bunch of these blocks half-pieced for a tablerunner, but I’m working on celebrating the small victories tonight.

 

 

These are destined for the shop

Getting organized

Sometime each winter, usually right around New Years, I  get ambitious about cleaning out and getting organized. In this years’ round of organizing, I ended up with an extra clear  shoe-organizer thing-y.

I decided to put it back to use, to hold my small scraps. They’d been in plastic bins, roughly color-sorted, but having them laid out like a rainbow there, is definitely encouraging me to use them more.

Waste not, want not…

I was sorting through the various piles in my sewing room, when I found these blocks. They’re extras from this tablerunner I made as a Christmas gift.

I didn’t really have a plan for them, but I had them, and I liked them, so it was a shame to leave them in a pile.

Finally I decided to stitch them up into trivets. I’ll gift them to my mother, once I get those thread tails taken care of.