Pillow Swap

Hello, I'm not dead yet!  Things have finally calmed down over here.  Our house sold!!!  And now I am finding myself with more time on my hands.  Thank goodness!  Last time we "spoke", two months ago, I was working on a pillow for a swap and had gotten this far.  I decided that I did indeed like it (I don't know what I was thinking earlier - it is totally cute), added a border and got to quilting.

I decided to go with the same spiral pattern as the original scrap vortex quilt.  It worked really well, although I can't imagine doing it on anything much larger.  That would be a lot of quilt wrestling!

I got to this point and asked for some advice on what to use as backing.  My partner was one of the people who responded and thought the aqua would be the best - I agreed.

Everything was going great until I was sewing down the binding and found this.  Can you see it?  My 3 year old had gotten a hold of the scissors and cut the edge of the binding.  Augh!  She really likes to cut the edges of things.  Quite a few of her shirts have little notches in the hems.  Sigh.  It turned out that I was able to turn under the binding twice in that spot so the notch was covered.  The binding was narrower there, but not noticeable unless pointed out.

Off it went in the mail at the end of March with a little selvage zipper pouch and some goodies.  

And then I got this in the mail from Janet (@bayleebarkley).  Love!!!!  The fabric, the colors, the movement and those tiny flying geese!  And the little cushion?  Too cute!  Thanks!

It was a great swap and it was fun to interact with people online.  After we get back from vacation this summer I am going to keep my eyes open for another one.

My New English Paper Piecing Project

Last December I cut up all of my small scraps and started making this hexagon quilt.  I had seen pictures of the La Passacaglia quilt and decided to make my own much simplified version with overlapping hexagons - partly because I didn't want to invest in the papers and templates.  Then last month I saw the papers and templates on sale on Massdrop and I totally caved.  A sale and almost a year of seeing the most gorgeous La Passacaglia blocks totally broke my resolve not to start another EPP project.

I have put away my hexagon quilt for now and am focusing on my La Passacaglia.  It is awesome!  I worked on it today and got even further than this.  It is going to take forever, but it is lots of fun choosing fabrics.  Fussy cutting the flowers did waste quite a bit of fabric, but I hope to use those little bits in a different block.  You are sure to see many more pictures of this project.  :)

In the You Can Quilt! Blog Hop there have been posts on the Half Square Triangle, Quarter Square Triangle and Flying Geese Chapters.  The posts are a great way to get a feel for the book and you can enter to win a copy of You Can Quilt! and a bundle of fabric at each of the posts.  Check them out!

Linking to Scraptastic Tuesday.

That Quirky Scrap Quilt (along) Link Up

 I finish That Quirky Scrap Quilt!  I quilted it with a very loose meandering design mostly for speed, but also because it is such a busy design I think that any detailed quilting would get lost.  It was harder than usual to keep it moving smoothly, but I figured I was just out of practice.  I think there was some of that, but it also didn't help that I had forgotten to put the feed dogs down.  !!!  No wonder it was easier to move the quilt in some directions.

I used a length of Denyse Schmidt fabric that I have had in my stash forever for the backing along with an American Jane Punctuation print.  I love the back.  My husband says that I should make quilts that are just backs - on the front and back.  

Becca came out to help "hold" the quilt.  She is the cutest little terror ever.

Now I just have to give it a wash and we will be ready to use it - perhaps not to cuddle with for a few more months - but it could make a great picnic blanket.

If you made a Quirky Scrap Quilt I would love to see it!  You can link up a picture of your quilt below.  I will leave the link open until the end of the month.

For links to all the instructions for this quilt go to this post.  Thanks!

WIP - In two color ways

This week I have been working on making some 8" quilt blocks.  I decided to make them in two different colorways.  I am liking the orange/blue/purple/brown blocks a lot more than I thought I would.  Now to add some more orange and yellow blocks!

I also basted That Quirky Scrap Quilt today.  I am going to do some simple quilting tonight (if I can find my free motion quilting foot!) and have it bound by Friday.  If you have finished (even the top) of That Quirky Scrap Quilt I would love to see in in the link-up on Friday!