WIP, going a little crazy

For some reason, I've been super busy this week. I've had or will have something to do almost every night this week. Add to that somewhat busy days and you get little sewing time. I still have a list with too many things on it! Ahhh, I can't wait for the weekend!!

So even though I finished a top and a back since last week, I swear I have made no real progress in the last two days. I need to baste this darn thing so I can quilt it.

I posted last week where I got the star patterns from to make the top. Love the ample white space.




Here is what I chose for the back:



And speaking of quilting...here is my plan:



I'm a little nervous about how my white thread will look on the pink polka dot back, so instead of doing real dense lines, I think I'll leave at least an inch between each line. What do you think? Should I change my back to accommodate my quilting design or do you think it will look ok?

I'm linking up!

 

WIP on Thursday

It's been an unusual week for me. The 4th of July was on Wednesday this week so graciously Lee is letting us have another day to post. Thank goodness because I've been busy! But not entirely with my quilting endeavors.

It's the season for outside music and I've been braving the heat (it was 102 yesterday!) and attending a few concerts at Milwaukee's huge music festival, Summerfest. And of course we've had BBQ's to attend, fireworks and parades, all in this terrible heat wave we're having. That leads to lots of crabbiness around here and then lack of energy. To top it off, our power was out for a few hours during naptime today, so only phone internet service and no sewing. Needless to say I'm just getting to my post now.

In other ironic news, I finished my Starry Punch Quilt yesterday, the hottest, record breaking day of the year. My gracious quilt holder (the hubs) and lucky recipient of this quilt thought that was quite amusing. Here's the front:




And the back:



After binding, I sewed up the side a little more than 12" to make a foot flap, as requested.



Lastly, my true work in progress is a quilt going to a cousin who's having a baby girl in December. I'm making 4 different 12.5" stars, 3 from Faith's Solstice Stars QAL and one from Ellison Lane Quilts. I'm using solids that I also featured in my NY Beauty mini quilt. This time I'm using Kona white for the background. Everything is all cut up and ready to go. Hopefully I can work on this tonight whilst watching Le Tour de France.



I'm linking up!

WIP and a new bag

Well I am still binding my Starry Punch Quilt, but I did make this Margaret Bag this weekend. It's an Elizabeth Hartman pattern and of course it was very well written! I especially love the weight of the bag. It's got good body but it's not stiff. Quite lovely!

I made Malka's Whirligig quilt this weekend too. The front was super easy to whip up, my pieced back, not so much. Since I had used so much of my half yards for the front (and it's a large quilt), I really had a lot of work to do to get it all pieced together. Not the easiest but I love the end result. I couldn't quite get the entire quilt in the pictures, my husband's arms aren't that long! I have to baste this and my Dead Simple Quilt soon.

 
 

I'm thinking about whipping up a couple of bucket hats from Sewing for Boys and then I have a baby quilt to make.

We had Guild Meeting last night and it was very energizing. It's always great to see and hear what people are working on.  We even had two new ladies join us.

I'm linking up!

WIP, I'm Quilting, Mostly

Been working on my Starry Punch quilt again. I've struggled a bit with the quilting. I tried doing a grid with colored thread and ripped that out. I thought it was just too much for an already busy quilt. Next I tried some diagonal lines and decided against random ones and went for a more precise line through the middle of each 3 1/2" square in a row. I tried to go the other other direction and had puckering, ugh, so I decided to just quilt every single row. I used a light grey 50wt Aurifil thread. It's coming along. I hope to be done tonight and get the binding sewn on tomorrow.

 

Speaking of Aurifil, they posted my last blog post on their Facebook page, super cool! I hope that I picked up a few more followers from the exposure. 

These bee blocks were completed this week. This one is for my Modern 99 bee with that cute Laurie Whisbrun polar bear fabric. Isn't it adorable? And what a great block!! It's the Quatrefoil block on pg 150.



I made this paper-pieced block for Lee, who's in my local guild bee. Super fun! I love the colors and Christmas fabric she chose. Lee helpfully made us a Pinterest board for inspiration and I chose the Pioneer Compass for eQuiltPatterns.

The real question my mind is pondering is what to take along to this weekend's quilt retreat. I have quilts in mind for all three of these fabric lines.

For my Echo fabric, I'm thinking 6" hexagons.

 

A Stitch in Color, I'm thinking Malka's Whirlygig pattern.

 

And this Summersville I was thinking the Cub Crawl Baby Quilt from the Fat Quarterly Shape Workshop book and making it a few rows longer.

 

What are your thoughts?

Linking up!

 

One day later...

and I finished two things.

Here is my little Zakka zipper pouch. Great learning experience. Next time I will use fusible fleece or quilt it. I used fusible batting and it's a little puffy. I also think that will help with the top tabs that I put around the zipper ends. It's a little bulky up there and was tough to sew around, I bet thinning it down would really help. I also could use a little practice with those corner pieces. They look cute but they are far from perfect. All in all, I am no longer afraid of zippers and making little pouches, yay! And who can resist those cute hexies (which were easy, btw). I am seriously considering cutting my Echo into hexagons now.

My guild bee quilt is finished. Super happy with how it turned out. It's totally special to me because I know each person who made these blocks for me. I will really enjoy curling up under it this winter.



I quilted it using 28 wt white Aurifil using random diagonal lines and a grid around all of the white Essex Linen borders. I love how you can see the white quilting on the solids on the back. Did I mention that I really enjoy piecing backs now? It's amazing how much my quilting is evolving.



Here's a close up of the blocks where you can see the quilting a bit too.



Time for a little knitting now. Maybe I'll have something to show you in a couple of days.

WIP, exciting news!

Is the week flying by or what??

Still working on binding my quilt from last week but I got a ton done at my guild's sew day.

I finished this block for my local guild bee. I'm getting better at wonky, but still not entirely comfortable. Thank goodness for bees, they get me out there trying new things!

 

I basted my Starry Punch quilt for the hubs, going to get quilting on that soon, but I might save it for retreat, not sure yet.

I also finished my Dead Simple quilt top, only a million years late. Super excited with how I'm going to quilt it, although I'm a little disappointed I don't have the serpentine stitch. I have 400 other stitches though. Argh. 

Working on my first zipper pouch for the Zakka Style SAL. It's looking pretty awesome so far. Gotta try out that zipper foot later this afternoon.



In other news, I've taken over the Milwaukee Modern Quilt Guild's Facebook page. I've got all sorts of ideas for making us more present out there! Will keep you posted.

I'm also excited to have a real marketing person look at my blog, I'm hoping she can really spruce it up. Which will be just in time for.....my guest posting on Lee's blog. That's right, I'll be doing my first guest post in August and I'm ridiculously excited to do this.

TTFN, I'm linking up!

WIP, exciting week

Last week, I received my Modern She Made Swap package. It's absolutely beautiful and it matched my dining room perfectly.  I'm going to use it as a centerpiece and can't wait to whip out the matching coasters at card club next week.

Here it is, and be sure to check out my fabulous partner's blog.

I also scored some Star Wars Fabric at my LQS and can't wait to make up some awesome quilts. It really makes me want to buy paint this weekend to get cracking on the redecorating! I'm thinking a soft gray for 3 walls and we have bright blue chalkboard paint for the other wall. We are in the process of building all the Star Wars ships out of Legos so we can hang them from their ceiling. Fun, fun.

This weekend I made great progress on my guild quilt. I am at the binding stage, yay! Can't wait till it's all done. I love how the Essex Linen gives the quilt some body and weight. I can't wait to give it a wash so it gets all crinkly.



On deck, zakka style zipper pouch, bee blocks, BOM and then back to my Dead Simple Quilt. But no promises, I have Echo and Summersville tempting me.

I'm Linking up.