leftovers quilt

Welcome to finish it up Friday!

As of 11 last night I still had 2 sides of binding on this quilt to hand stitch down. Oh, and my internet is down, too, so I wasn't sure I would be able to blog about it even if I did have a finish. But, thanks to some late night and early morning binding, I am done with my leftovers quilt! And thanks to my handy hubby, who helped me rig up a hot spot with my phone, I'm able to share my finish with you. He's quite a guy! I'm so thankful to have in-house tech support. :)

On to the quilt. The blue/green/purple pieces are leftovers from this quilt that I made for my nephew several years ago. The blocks are floating on a Kona Ash background. I used a light gray thread and quited a simple swirl over the whole thing.

My favorite block in the whole quilt is the pink/orange/yellow block. It was pieced from my never-ending supply of scraps. (of course!) This was kind of a last minute addition and I love how it gives the quilt an unexpected punch of color. I am a huge fan of grouping warm colors together and cool colors together and this was a great way to integrate the two in one quilt. I think it's really effective! I have so much more exploring that I want to do with that idea.

For the back I used a bunch of blue fat quarters from Connecting Threads (now discontinued, I'm sorry to say). They make a wonderful backing, plus, they are so soft! I sure LOVE a two-sided quilt!

For the binding I used this wonderful Central Park print by Kate Spain. I wish I had yards and yards of it. It finishes off the quilt so nicely! Incidentally, I used the same print for my last quilt finish. I don't think I've ever bound two big quilts back to back with the same binding print. It's gotta be pretty good for that to happen. And it's not even a polka dot or a stripe. Amazing! :)

I love how all the elements of this quilt work together! It measures about 68" x 92". I'm so happy to have this one finished!

How about you? Do you have a finish to share? If so, please link up to a specific post. Thank you for joining me to finish it up Friday!

squaring up a quilt, a non-traditional approach

I'm not sure I should admit this, but I'm not one to square up quilts on a regular basis. Usually I just follow the rows of patchwork when adding the binding, then I trim off the excess batting and backing afterward. That usually works for me. But what do you do when you have wavy solids on the edges of your quilt with no patchwork to guide you? Well, you have to get a little creative!

(I didn't plan to blog about this, so I didn't take any step by step photos along the way, but I'll try to explain what I did anyway. I hope it makes sense!)

The goal was to square up my leftovers quilt. The edges weren't square after piecing it, but I figured if I started hacking at the quilt top things might go bad. So I decided to quilt it and THEN deal with the problem. Nothing like procrastinating, huh???


What I did to square things up:

I laid the untrimmed leftovers quilt on the floor, as flat as possible. (In the photo you can see the grey front and the blue back.) Then I pulled out my spiderweb quilt-which is MOSTLY square-and laid that over the top. I smoothed things out, much like I do when I baste a quilt. (Nothing is taped down at this point.) The purpose of the spiderweb quilt was to act as an approximate cutting guide. Working on one side at a time, I anchored the masking tape on the floor, then stretched it taut over the width of the quilt, parallel to the edge of the spiderweb quilt, as pictured above. (Think of stretching a string from post to post when planting a garden to achieve a straight row.) After eyeballing the line, I lowered the tape and smoothed it out very carefully onto the quilt, making sure to not distort the line. My cutting guide (the tape) was in place. I got out my 6"x 24" ruler, my rotary cutter and a mat and cut oh-so-carefully following the tape line. The long ruler kept my cutting line true. I had to be sure to move my mat with each cut! I was also VERY careful not to cut my finished quilt!  By the time I got to the 4th side of the quilt I was heaving a huge sigh of relief. It looked pretty good. I measured the final side and I was only off by 1/8" from top to bottom, which isn't bad at all! I did a bit more trimming in one particular area and called it good! I am quite happy that this technique worked or I may have ended up with a very small quilt. :)

I'd love to hear your thoughts on squaring up quilts. Do you bother? Or are you like me and only do so when completely necessary?

If you have any questions about my approach, I'll try to answer them in the comments.

camp stitchalot and a little progress

I'm excited to tell you that I am going to be teaching at Camp Stitchalot in August! There will be 3 other teachers that weekend: Jacquie of Tallgrass Prairie Studio, Dan of Piece and Press and Rossie of Fresh Modern Quilts. Brenda of Pink Castle Fabrics is the host for the weekend. I'm excited that I get to teach at camp, but I'm beyond thrilled to be able to learn from the other teachers. What a line up!

For my class I will be teaching how to make a slab (improvisational piecing with scraps) based on the material in Sunday Morning Quilts. It's one thing to make a smaller piece (a single block) from scraps, but how do you take it beyond a block? I'll be covering how to use this technique to make a larger quilt. It's quite fun!!!

The solids above were sent to me so I could make a sample block using the slab technique. I started with Michael Miller Cotton Couture solids in Marine, Turquoise and Luna along with some Kona Cotton in Bone. I added in a few scraps of my own because I needed a bit more variety. (We were allowed to add scraps, so I didn't break the rules. No worries!) It was an interesting exercise to work with a limited color palette, but I also enjoyed the challenge of working within those parameters. It's good to stretch your skills! Speaking of stretching...I had to chop these up to make scraps in order to make my block. THAT was probably the hardest part! :)

This is my final block and it measures 20" square. I rather like it! It was fun to sew with fabrics that someone else selected. This block will go into a sampler quilt along with blocks from each of the teachers. I can't wait to see how they all play together!

 

If you are interested in going to camp, you can find all the details here. I hope to see you in August!

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In other news.....quilting time is hard to come by these days, but I'm trying to be content with the time that I get. I don't always do so well with the contentment piece, but I'm working on it. :)

Currently in my machine....my leftovers quilt. I'm estimating that I have less than an hour of quilting time on this one. It's a big quilt, so I'm excited to have made that much progress. I'm looking forward to picking a binding fabric!

One more bit of progress...while my sewing room is still not organized, I have my cutting table cleared off. Woo-hoo! This piece was formerly an island in our kitchen, now the center of my sewing room. My husband teases me saying that I'm spoiled, but I think it's a dandy fabric holder/cutting station! I'm very thankful to have it! (By the way, gotta LOVE that billiard light above it, no?)

The island turned cutting counter (it's from IKEA) happens to hold a whole lot of fabric! Hurray!

design wall

Welcome to finish it up Friday! I've got no finish for today....but I did get up my design wall hung up. I'm very excited!

I've been without a design wall for several months (because our house was on the market) and boy did I miss it! It's so wonderful to have it back. I've noticed that I don't really use it for designing exactly, but it's more like a block storage apparatus. I sit and stare at it and let the ideas percolate. It also acts an ever changing wall of artwork. I LOVE it!!!

Making a design wall doesn't have to be a big project at all. I use a king size flannel sheet tacked up on the wall with push pins. Easy peasy...and inexpensive, too! This wall just the right measurement for the sheet. Perfection! It's over half full...which tells me I'd better get busy and get something (anything) finished! :)

How about you? Do you have a finish to share? If so, please link up! Thanks for joining me for finish it up Friday! Hope you have a great weekend!

settling in

School is out and summer vacation (heh) is here. We are trying to find our summer groove, which always takes awhile. As if that weren't enough, we are working very hard to settle into our house and make it feel like ours. We've made some headway...it's good to celebrate the progress rather than to focus on how much needs to be done.

Our living room was the first room to come together. I love the fireplace! Our IKEA bookshelves and leather chairs look pretty good in the space. This might be my favorite room in the house at the moment. The view out the window is pretty amazing.

It's like living in a tree house! It feels like we have our very own park in the back yard, too. I'm loving all the GREEN! It's quite different from just a few weeks ago. Spring has finally sprung! It took a long time this year, so we are enjoying every minute of it. The kids are loving their new big back yard! Consequently, so am I. :)

Our bedroom is set up, but it still needs artwork. And paint! On the foot board, my apple cake quilt. One of my very, very favorites! It's nice to have this one out and in use again. I love rotating quilts throughout the house.

We've actually hung things on some of the walls already. That must be a new record! On the left, ticker tape on canvas, 24" x 36" (tutorial here). I LOVE that piece! On the right, my snippets wall quilt. It's nice to have some color on the walls!

 

The sewing area is a complete disaster, so no photos on that front yet. I don't want that mess documented! I may need to seek outside help. It's completely overwhelming.

I have NOT had much time to sew and boy do I miss it! I managed to indulge in a little bit of scrap therapy yesterday. Somehow sewing little bits of color together has a way of soothing the frazzled nerves. I'm not sure why, but I'll take it!

pin cushions

Welcome to finish it up Friday! Anyone else utterly exhausted? ;0)

Because I am stubborn to the end, I actually eeked out a finish for today. I had these pin cushions almost done, so I hand stitched them closed this morning. Hurray for finishing something! I have 3 more like it to finish-just as soon as I find my big bag of walnut shells. I bet it'll be a few weeks before that happens! :)

(there is a tutorial here for making a mini whirlygiggle block if you'd like to make something similar.)

A few more BIG finishes that are happening today. It's my kids' last day of school AND we are selling our old house today. HUGE finishes, wouldn't you say? Both very good things! I'm excited for summer!

How about you? Any finishes to share today? If so, please link up! Happy Friday to you!

catching up

Oh, mylanta! So much has been going on, I think a catch up post is in order.

Last week on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday we packed up our house in Wisconsin. We had movers (thanks to the company relo) to help us out, but it is still a ton of work! It was a little bit sad to see the contents of our house disassembled. On the other hand, it was kind of exciting to finally be at this point. It's been a long time coming!

There were plenty of quilts to move. It was fun to see so many piled up in one spot! Usually they are spread out here, there and everywhere. I had a hard time entrusting the quilts to the movers, so we opted to move them ourselves. They filled the trunk of the car. And that was just a portion of them. Yikes! 

After a few days (and very little sleep) we had the house completely empty. That requires much celebrating by the short people in the house. Lots of shouting, running in circles and twirling. It was fun to watch the kids enjoy the empty rooms and I made sure I let them. I was certain to take it all in. They've been through a lot with this move, too!

It was hard to say good bye to our house. I get so sentimental sometimes! After 4 houses you'd think I'd kind of be used to it. So many memories there and so many friends to say good bye to! It has been a great place to live.

 

EARLY Sunday morning, a day and a half later, I flew out to Pittsburgh. I had the opportunity to speak and teach at a guild there. Yes, right smack dab in the middle of the move. Why not?!?!? 

Actually, the timing was wonderful and I enjoyed my trip very much. It was a break from the reality of the move. Pittsburgh is a lovely city, the guild was wonderful and I was in good hands the entire time I was there! Many thanks to Sally and Diane for showing me around and keeping me company in the down times. It was a delight.

I did a trunk show on Monday night and a scrap management workshop on Tuesday for the guild. During class one of my students snuck an apple on my (borrowed) sewing machine...an apple for the teacher. Isn't that the sweetest thing ever? Thanks Elizabeth! I'm so very thankful that I get to travel, speak and teach about quilting. It's pretty incredible that I am able to work doing something that I love to do!

For the trip I finally broke down and started using my scrap happy purse. It's been sitting around unused for months and this was the perfect opportunity to break it in. I loved the size of it. Great for everyday use AND for traveling. My iPad fit in it well, along with my normal purse contents and I still had room for a snack. My purse also made me recognizable at the airport. Can't ask for more than that! :)

I got home at 2am on Wednesday. At 10 am the moving truck arrived and they unloaded all of our stuff. We are now surrounded in a sea of boxes. Sheesh! We are glad to have all our things in one place again. Speaking of that, I best get unpacking. I've got lots to do! Gotta get it done so I can sew!

mini high five

Welcome to finish it up Friday!

It's amazing that I even have a finish to share today. Earlier in the week I was restless. I started at least 4 new projects. I couldn't seem to settle into one particular project-but I did manage to start and finish this mini high five quilt. (The original high five quilt can be found in Sunday Morning Quilts.) It was fun to revisit this pattern. Like all quilts, it took a few unintended turns-mostly with the color selection and placement-and I absolutely LOVE how it turned out.

For the back I used this sweet Alexander Henry print that my friend Brianne shared with me. The stripey binding is something that my friend Terri designed herself and had printed by Spoonflower. She shared some with me last summer and this was the perfect project to use it on! I have limited supplies here at the house (not my complete stash), so the fact that this came together so beautifully feels like a bonus. I am so thankful for the generosity of my sewing friends! This mini makes me happy!

Now it's your turn! Please link up your finishes for the week. Thanks for joining me for finish it up Friday!

bohemian garden quilt

Welcome to finish it up Friday!

My bohemian garden quilt is done! I put the last few stitches in the binding yesterday afternoon. It was quite a journey from the first fabric pull to completion, but that's the fun part of quilting-watching it all come together. I had a lot of contributions and input from friends along the way. Might be part of the reason that it doesn't look like a typical Amanda quilt. :)

I used a moody olive green fabric on the back that changes color quite a bit in the light. Thanks to my friend (and former boss) Ellen for the backing fabric! It matches this quilt perfectly. You can get a tiny peek at one of my wonderful quilt holders in this photo, too. :)

I absolutely LOVE how the loopy quilting turned out. I was worried it would be too busy, but it adds so much! Cheryl picked out the green thread color during a Skype sew date we had a few weeks ago. Thanks Cheryl! It was the perfect choice!

My friend Brianne picked out (and gave me!) the binding fabric. Thanks Brianne! It's a wonderful finishing touch to this quilt. This fabric is from the Central Park line by Kate Spain. It's nice to have a geometric print on the edging. It kind of reminds me of a cobblestone path. I hand stitched down the binding on this one, and I think I enjoyed every second of it. It felt good to just sit and bind!

There were times during the process when I wasn't so fond of this quilt, (a lot of stitch ripping might have had SOMETHING to do with it. ha!) but I am quite pleased with the finished product. Many thanks to my friends who helped with and contributed to this quilt. It sure makes it special! It measures 60" x 80".

 

How about you? Do you have a finish to share? If so, please link up! Thanks a bunch for joining me for finish it up Friday!

diamond pillow cover



First off, thanks for all the kind comments on our move and our new house! It's exciting and nervewracking all at once.

This pillow cover has been on my to-do list for a long time! I'm excited to finally have it finished. It will be headed to a friend who could use some cheering up. (Too bad I don't have a pillow form here to stuff inside for the photos!) I love the mix of springy solids-I used bits of a Robert Kaufman Kona pastel jelly roll-and ash grey solid from Connecting Threads. The design is my diamond pillow pattern.

An aside....I think the brick patio is going to make a regular appearance in the background of my photos. I LOVE it!

For the envelope back, I used scraps that Anna so generously shared with me. Thanks Anna! Yes, those were some pretty large scraps! I took a fair amount of time fiddling with the back pieces so they would look harmonious next to each other. They don't line up EXACTLY, but at least they don't jar the eye. That's all I can really ask for! I love that chevron print...so excited that I have still have more scraps to play with.

I love straight line quilting small projects like this! Thankfully the Juki behaved for this straight line quilting stint. It's fun to have so much texture in a little space. And it's really fun to have a finish!

we're doing it!

We started moving over the weekend! This is the view from my new sewing space. I can't believe it!

Our phase of the weekend was "we're doing it!" Every time the reality of our situation sunk in, that was the phrase that came out of our mouths. It kept us chuckling, which is a good thing. Moving is a lot like work!

It was the kids' first day at their new school today. Lots of nerves for them this morning, but we left them in good hands. All went well, which is a huge relief!

My sewing space is pretty much a blank slate. I brought a limited amount of sewing stuff up here (so far), which means I have a limited amount of projects to tackle. It keeps that overwhelming feeling at bay. I'll take it!

At one point my husband said, "home is where the sewing machines are." It's true!!! He's smart, that guy! And funny, too!

I'm so glad I brought my bohemian garden quilt along. It was a last minute decision, but it was a good one. It's been wonderful to sit down and quilt something! I'm anxious for a finish.

The loops are looking so much better than the straight lines did. And the good news is, I didn't have to re-baste. Bonus!!!

We spent lots of time over the weekend exploring the yard and enjoying our new lake view. I have a feeling that we are going to love it here!

 

Happy Monday to you!

Pam's quilt

Welcome to finish it up Friday!

Not a lot of sewing time here this week...but I DID manage to stipple this quilt for my friend Pam. Isn't it beautiful???

I can not stress to you enough just how great she is at piecing. (And picking fabric!) So very inspiring! She did an amazing job and it was a delight to quilt this for her. Flat quilts are much easier to quilt. (Who knew? Ha!) Also, it would be nice if all quilts came pre-basted. What a treat!

Here's the back. I'd be hard pressed to pick a favorite side. It's so bright, happy and springy!

 

We could use some spring around here! This was my view from my front window yesterday.

My kids actually had a snow day-in May! And it's snowing again today. Oh, the fun never ends! :)

 

Ok, enough complaining about the weather. Please link up your finishes! Thanks for joining me for finish it up Friday!