Lovely Finish for March

I've actually had this done since the first week if March, or was it the beginning of the second? For a while now :) My goal was to re quilt and bind it. The binding fabric is a light grey with lighter grey circles from Riley Blake Super Star. I wanted something that would not stand out more than the quilt since the quilt has so much piecing. And it needed to go with the back.

The back's a little crazy but I'm trying to use up, make do or do without. It doesn't match the front but it is its own friend :) I found pinks in the stash that were all a bit coral-y or warm that would go together. I added in the yellow for a break from all the pinkness. It does go with the yellow in the bottom print. I think it's Alexander Henry? and the strips on the sides are A. Henry Farmdale Crosshatch, there's some Amy Butler Soul Blossom and some Del-hi (the yellow polka dot one).

The quilting is organic straight line both vertical and horizontal. I really like the look and was happy that it would reinforce all those small pieced seams. Some of the fabric pieces were less than two inches square. I was so happy with the straight lines, that I echo quilted the stitching that sewed the binding down.

I had originally done the quilting in grey but it stood out too much. It almost looked like it was sitting on top. I pulled out my Aurifil pack (the one I won in the Merrily We Sew Along) and got the white, grey and pink out. To my surprise the pink looked the best. It blended in with the grey and blue very well, or maybe I should say it complemented them and didn't distract.

It was a brain buster during the Scrappy Stash QAL. Once I had the blocks sewn I had all these different sizes that I had to fit together.

I laid out those blocks a couple times on the floor and just couldn't get them to work so I made more block, combined some and decided I definitely needed the grey blocks I had planned to use.

After all the blocks were done I laid them out and rearranged them for hours. I took pictures of the layouts I liked the most and had my two sisters also give their two cents about what should go where. Once I decided how the blocks should go I had to figure out a way to put them together. I didn't want to deal with partial seams as I was trying to get the quilt done in time for the quilt-a-long. I finally got them into sections and added more logs to the scrappy cabins where necessary to make them fit. Here's the plan that worked. This, ahem, beautiful photo is a phone picture that I played with to organize in photoshop then took a screen picture of. But hey, it was about 2:30 in the morning and I needed the plan to be set :)

 I'm so pleased how it all turned out and I really do think its a lovely finish.

Tula Pink 10" Fabric Swap on Flickr

Hi all! You may or may not know that I love Tula Pink fabric. Pretty much everything since Parisville I've been obsessed with. The details are incredible. There's a fabric with cameo's where the ladies hair makes ships!  Then these Dusky Tears are ships as well (sorry about some of the crap pictures. They're coming from my phone in my rush to post this before realjob. I'll see if I can edit in better ones later.)

Then there's Prince Charming that has a damask type of fabric with frogs. And see that this classic clamshell shape is actually snails? Then there are the rain drops.

Parisville and Prince Charming fabrics are still available in fairly limited quantities at places like HawthorneThreads, Quilt Home or Fabric.com. Tula has a new line out that's called Salt Water which is quite charming and even lovelier in person than any photos I've seen online. The octopus!

There are great basics as well like these small plus hexies

 Oh and you mustn't forget about her Birds and the Bees line. It has real birds and bees with trees,  purple/blue squirrels and cosmic dust! There is also the Nightshade line that was especially made for Halloween. These are Apothecary Jars in lavender

And the Sisters

There is loyal following of her fans out in the world and she even made a site for me us. It's the I Heart Tula Pink site! You can get exclusive deals and kits, fabric and goods. Why am I pimping Tula today? Well there is a Tula Pink Fabric Swap over on Flickr. So far there are about 23 people signed up to participate for the next round and we could use a few more. People have even been able to get their hands on lines before Parisville that have been out of print for years. From youngest to oldest: Plume, 
Neptune, Flutterby, Nest, Hushabye and Full Moon Forest.

In case that graphic link doesn't work click here for the Flickr page. You can sign up for a spot and peruse the fabrics, by line, that have been used already. Come join us!

Oh Em Addictive

So Julie over at Intrepid Thread is having this giveaway slash contest. You take a photo and upload it to  Playcrafts palette builder and it's So easy. It pops up with these colors selected from your picture. I was just gonna do one for the contest and... I couldn't stop! I kept at it for about an hour. They get you with the first one then you keep coming back for more. Now I can't decide which one I should use.

Now these are all my pictures and they are copyrighted so if by the slightest sliver of a chance you might want to use one of these, please link back.

There's lemony cupcakes

 Warm raspberries with a lilac sparkle

Sophisticated quiet colors

Summer fresh iced citrus

 This one cracks me up a bit: Christmas picture with Halloween colors? Okay!

Preppy baby

Soft winter low volume

Grapefruit in the desert?

Sorbet, mmm

A cool palette with Emerald and settled by neutrals

 

I didn't want to stop! What do you think, which one would you want to work with for quilting?

3x6 Possible Paper Piece Pattern

There are a ton of paper piece patterns out in the interwebs. I was having a hard time deciding what I wanted to make for my 3x6 Sampler Mini Quilt Bee group, so I sketched and came up with this:

When I started sewing it together I thought it looked a bit like an owl.

No? Just me? The owl thought reminded me of the page 28 Project Quilting with Persimon Dreams. Every week you are given an inspiration and have to make a quilted project before the next Monday. I always think I'm going to enter but then get pulled off in other directions. The first magazine I found in my room was sitting on my bookcase and this was page 28. 

I could make a Tula pink and aqua eagle! White bits of Kona left over from the Stitched in Color/Intrepid Thread challenge would make excellent feathers. Now if only I had more than one day to work at it, I might give it a go. Oh well, no aqua sketch beak for me.

I think the white square in the middle is a bit oversized so when I make the block for my bee mates I'm going to increase the small (aqua sketch) square. As for this particular one, I like all the fabrics separately but I'm not sure they all work to their best in this configuration. I still like 'em though! Not bad for a first try. Above are the set of fabrics cut out earlier that evening but when they were next to each other I thought they were a bit dull.  So I pulled out the Tula and Nicey Jane to liven it up. They are favorites. 

It's always fun to see what camera angles do to blocks. I'm sure there are really cool variations that can be done with traditional blocks if you just warp them a bit in an image program. Happy day to you!

Monday Sunday Stash

I got some Spoonflower for the first time. If you're not familiar with them, it's a site where you can upload your own fabric designs and get them printed! There are hundreds of beautiful designs and you can get them on different kinds of fabric like Kona Cotton and even silk. If you buy from another designer they get a portion of the profits. I really like Holli Zollinger's fabrics and here are some hand-shadow animals that are super cute. How about some extinct animals like rainbow Auroch's? I got the mustardy saber toothed cats.

I love them! They are 2 1/8" big or the perfect scale to make a skirt out of.  A note about the fabric itself... I wanted to show you one side of the selvages. I guess they need to be bigger because of their printing process. They're almost three inches wide, the next biggest selvages I've seen are the Birch fabrics. I was surprised at both. Now you know. The printing looks just like other fabrics you buy. The giraffe one has a "linen" background so it is a bit crosshatched. 

The squid is from Heather Ross's Spoonflower page, the giraffe and skandi rabbits/plaid deer are from Holli Zollinger. It is a bit difficult to figure out scale in real life. The giraffe and sabertooth ones were what I though but the squid and rabbits were about 3x's as big as I though they'd be. It's not the cheapest fabric around but you can't beat the originality and unique nature of printing from a virtually unknown designer. 

If you see a design you like but it's not exactly what you were looking for I'd encourage you to message the designer. They might say no to any requests or they might be like the designer of the sabertooth cats. I sent a message to him saying that if he ever decided to put his design up for sale I'd like to buy some and he responded quickly that he would change it to for sale. Since he answered me so quickly I figured I might as well ask if he ever considered having the design in other colors, it was originally a rainbow of cats. He asked which color, I said yellow, and soon after that he listed a yellow version! Stellar communication and kindness. I got beautiful fabric and he got a sale. Win and win. 

How I love a French General

I was in a fabric store a while ago with my cousin Ems. We went past the shelf with French General fabrics. I stopped to look and pet and be happy and exclaim how much I love them. She came over and said something about how they look like a grandma's wallpaper. I thought for a second and I kind of agree. But I super love them! I think it's one of those designers, like Tula Pink, that I just like everything they make.

Here's some French General (the one with the greyish background) that looks great with Odds n Ends, Lark and even sherbet pips. I though about using these fabrics for a triple zip pouch, that's why there's a zipper in the pic,  but I liked them so much I'd rather make them into a quilt of some sort. I like modern graphic things like Odds and Ends words, text, and antique inspired like Lark and French General or grandma's wallpaper. 

One March Goal

I'm participating in the Lovely Year of Finishes. You just have to pick one project a month you want to finish. I was so close to finishing February's goal but had probably another couple hours of work left to do (I'm guestimating) after the midnight deadline.

I had set it aside to work on the Scrap Challenge by Stitched in Color and Intrepid Thread. The deadline for that was a few days before the Finishes one. So my February goal is now my March goal, second's the best of all the game.

The quilt's all trimmed and the binding ready to go. Official March/Feb lovely finish in progress. 

Triple Zip Pouch

I had been wanting to make a zippered pouch forever! And by that I mean about two years. I had seen A Quilter's Table zip pouch tutorial make it's progression from her blog to Pink Chalk Studio's Handmade With Love competition, to winning and finally the February Triple Zip A-long on Flickr. I figured if I was gonna make a zip pouch I might as well go for it all the way and have a pouch with three zippers. I also like the idea of mutually sewing with people,d sharing their ideas and processes.

Since I can't leave well enough alone I made the pouch longer and wider. I wanted to be able to put my e-reader in the main pouch, the power cord in one of the pockets and leave another for a (very) small notebook and pencils or pens. When I sewed the zippers to the pieces with their little end caps I was so happy with how nice it was looking! I lined the inner pocket with more fusible fleece to protect the e-reader. I kept the seams easy by keeping the fusible just to the main portion of fabric or a quarter inch smaller on all sides. The lining for the largest pocket was two pieces, instead of one, so that I could easily turn the whole pouch inside and out for ease of sewing. I am almost perfectly happy with it. 

I ran into trouble with the last, or top, zipper. I don't know exactly where I went wrong but the ends of the pouch/zipper are barely contained in the seams. I stiff breeze or rough tussle with the bottom of my purse and those raw seams will pop out. Full raw seams on the outside of the pouch. I may have made the zipper end covers too short, or the inclusion of the extra fusible fleece made it bulky enough so that the side seam plus zipper covers were too much to sew through. I'm not sure and the directions were a little confusing to me at that point since they were written vs. having photos. For some reason written directions in baking are just fine but I need photos for sewing things. *Shrug *. What I can say is that it went together so much faster and easier than I thought and I'll gladly make another or seven. When I make another maybe I can figure out what I did and how to fix it. 

I wanted it to be pretty and feminine without being girly and have a touch of vintage and I love how it turned out. I also appreciate living in a house of seamstresses. I found all three zippers at home, I had a bag with the white trim in it and there was a hatbox that had the perfect red braid to weave into it. I would definitely recommend making one if you haven't yet. If you need extra pictures and want to see other constructions and fabric combinations I'd go to the flickr group here.