yellow

For Tracy's color week...

...the first produce of the year from my garden. Hurray! I cannot tell you how much I love going out to the garden and picking fresh veggies to add to my dinner.

It was sooooo good. We eat stir fry over plain spaghetti noodles, add a little soy sauce to it (so it ends up like a little like lo mein). For the adults, we add a little HOT chili sauce for some extra kick. Easy and delicious!

The cucumbers are coming next. And green beans! Oh, I love my garden.

Now, for some yellow on the quilting front...

my vintage sheet quilt stippled....

the start of another plain spoken quilt....(of course I had to sneak some pink in there, too.)

and just a random shot from my sewing room.

This is my first time participating in a color week...it's fun to notice little details that otherwise would be overlooked. Thanks, Tracy.

quilt in a day, part 4

quilt top only

made from vintage sheets and solid blue fabric

squares are 10" finished

inspired by this quilt

star quilt along, week 13

Welcome to week 13 of the quilt along! This is the last star-we made it!! It's been fun for me to watch the quilts come together in different color schemes with out all the work of doing it myself. :)

For this week's star:

cut one square 5 1/4" from the background fabric

cut it in half on the diagonal, twice, to make 4 quarter square triangles

cut 4 squares 4 1/2" from the background fabric

cut two squares 5 1/4" one from a medium and one from a dark fabric

cut each of those on the diagonal, twice, to make 4 quarter square triangles

cut 2 squares 4 7/8" one from the medium and one from the dark fabric

cut each square in half on the diagonal once, to make half square triangles

layout as shown

there is a great tip here for sewing the triangles to the corner square

sew together



and square up to 12.5".

Isn't this a great block? I think it's one of my favorites. (Do I say that every week?)

Thanks, as always, for quilting along with me.

red cross quilt

After 16 months, it's finally finished. I first posted about it here.

You can see the inspiration quilt here. And a larger shot here.

It is for my oldest son. I finished it right after he went to bed one day this week, so I had it laying out, ready for him in the morning. (He was quite anxious for me to finish it.) When he saw it in the morning, he ran over, and got underneath and started snuggling up in it immediately. He loves it so much already. It makes me smile.

The quilting was a little more challenging than usual. First, I used red thread to outline each cross. Then I stippled around each cross-which is where is got sketchy. It's hard to evenly fill in the spaces without quilting yourself into a dead end. It's not very even and it's a bit bunchy in places, but I am trying to cut myself some slack...at least there aren't any puckers, so I am happy with that.

Since I haven't been buying fabric and this is out of my normal quilting color scheme (pink) I was doubtful that I would be able to scrape up enough backing fabric. But I found this post which inspired me to dig a little deeper in my stash and come up with a solution. I'm really really happy with what I came up with. I had just enough fabric. And as weird as it seems to say this, I love the drabness of it.

Here's a closer shot of the back....



For the binding I ran into the same problem...finding enough fabric in my stash that actually matches. I had a piece of solid fabric that was not quite large enough. So to add enough length, I added just 3 small sections of patterned fabric to the solid strips to make a piece of binding long enough to go all the way around. I like the bit of interest that it adds to the quilt.

It measures 54" x 72".

I improvisationally pieced (yay) the crosses, then added borders to make all the squares 9.5", so the blocks are 9" finished.

15 reasons why I don't need to buy fabric

It's been 46 days since I bought any new fabric, and I am really trying to resist the urge. (It's hard, I tell you!) So, I thought I would pull out some fabric piles to remind me why I am not buying fabric. (It's barely working.)

Each of these stacks of fabric represent a quilt that I have planned...and most of the fabric for already. See how the pile of pink fabric in the upper right hand corner towers over the rest? I love that. (There is plenty more stash where that came from and at least 5 more quilt projects planned that don't photograph well. That doesn't even count any scrap quilts!)


I joined the summer stash challenge in order to help me, but I haven't really started on one yet, because I am trying to get some WIP's finished up first.


In the mean time, I made my block for Erin for the Virtual Quilting Bee.

I love the fabrics she chose. She sent the green floral. I added the yellow and the stripe.

star quilt along, week 12

Welcome to week 12 of the quilt along! For this week's block...

cut one square 7 1/4" from the background fabric

cut it in half on the diagonal twice to make quarter square triangles

cut 2 squares 3 1/2" from the background fabric

cut 6 squares 3 1/2" from a medium fabric

cut 4 squares 3 7/8" from a dark fabric

cut each of these in half on the diagonal once to make 8 half square triangles

layout as shown

sew together


and square up to 12.5".

Once more star to go, then it's assembly time.

Since we are nearly finished with this quilt along, I'm trying to decide if I should do another one or not. Would anyone still be interested? I'm not sure what it would be yet, but something other than a sampler quilt this time. I'm thinking maybe something with various sized quilt blocks-six, nine and twelve inch blocks all combined into one quilt. Or should we try something improvisational? Do you have any ideas of what you would like to see? (No guarantees here, I'm just trying to brainstorm.) I would plan to start it in the fall at the earliest. Let me know what you think.

spectrum quilt

It's D O N E!!!!

I quilted each channel separately, changing the thread color to match each section of fabric. This worked out great. The back is so pretty, but it is impossible to capture it in a photo.

I used brown for the binding because 1. I had it in my stash and 2. I prefer a dark binding over light. (It was either brown or cream.)

I love that it is orderly and random, all rolled into one. (kinda like me.)

If you want to read more about the making of this quilt, you can see here, here, here, here and here. I have been working on this quilt for so long that it went through 2 name changes before I finished it. I'm glad to cross this one off my list.

Oh, and I do love it.

blue bento box

This quilt top measures 72" x 48".

I have no idea how to quilt it. My standard stippling doesn't seem right. Or does it? Any ideas?

(can you believe that I actually made a quilt top that doesn't contain any pink?)

branching out

Those of you who have read this blog for awhile may already know this, just the thought of sewing clothes with a pattern is enough to make me break out in hives. But with my limited sewing time this summer, the promise of a quick project lured me in. This post by Erin was the final straw. Thanks to Linda, I had a few patterns on hand that were labeled very easy. The one I used didn't disappoint.

The shorts are Butterick 4966. I used size 1 for my 2T girl. She is pretty little, but it seems like the pattern runs big. Aren't they so cute? I was squealing in delight as I was making these. Never mind that white shorts for a 2 year old are totally impractical. I love them.

For the top, I made up my own pattern. I modified the dress that I made a few weeks ago. This time I omitted the snaps on the shoulders and shortened it. I didn't want to hide those cute shorts. I also tapered it to add some shape. Since elastic is used to gather the top, fitting her little arms in the sleeve holes is no problem.

Once I got the top perfected (it took some stitch ripping and resewing) I had to make another....

to match her thrifted capris and clearance sandals....

to make one very cute and thrifty outfit.

I am having so much fun sewing for my little girl! (As if you couldn't tell.)

More to come, I'm sure.