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.

Hexagonal Christmas Tree Skirt and Dala Horse Pillow Covers

The Christmas tree skirt is finished!  It has been living under the tree for a week now and I love it.

I have a real thing about decorating with red and white for Christmas and the tree skirt reflects that.

I used this Diamond Quilt tutorial I wrote a few years ago and just cut a hole in the middle and a slash up the side to turn it into a tree skirt.  I was worried it would be too big, but actually it looks a bit small under the tree.  If you have a large tree and want to make this up I would recommend adding an extra round of diamonds.

I also made a few pillow covers for my mom.  We come from Scandinavian stock and love dala horses so these fabrics were perfect.  I had been holding on to these fabrics for a few years waiting for the perfect pattern, but this year I decided to just use them.  No piecing, no quilting, just letting the fabric shine.

A little pop of piping along the edges makes them look a bit more polished.  I used this tutorial for the piping.

All of the must do Christmas sewing is done.  Well, I want to make the kido's some D-ring belts like this, but that should go fairly quickly.  It will take more time to change out the thread than to sew them.  And I think all the shopping is done.  Now all we have to do is wrap a few things and enjoy the Christmas lights.

I hope you all have a great Christmas holiday!

Christmas in October

Today, I am finally over my cold!  There is nothing like being sick to make you remember how wonderful it is to be well. 

 This Christmas I am bound and determined not to have piece of fabric wrapped around my tree.  Not that there is anything wrong with that, but I have had this quilt in my mind for over 2 years and this year it is going to happen.  I cut out all the diamonds last month and today I laid them all out.  I Love it!

When it is all done, the points will be cut off and it will look like this pink and yellow quilt  I made for my niece.  Before binding I will cut a hole in the middle and a slit in one side so it can fit around the Christmas tree.

Would anyone be interested in making it along with me?  Let me know.  I would be more likely to get it done if others were sewing along with me!  ;)

I also have plans to make a bunch of Christmas pillows for family gifts this year.  I am really digging those gnomes.    Here's to Christmas in October!  :)

Vacation and Mail

Last week I got back from a three week vacation visiting family in the Northwest!  We started with a surprise (for my mom and dad) family reunion in Gig Harbor, WA, drove to Boise, ID to visit with all of my husband's family and then back to Washington for a week with just us and the parents.  It was fun visiting with everyone and my kids loved getting to play and meet all of their cousins.

While I was on vacation I took a break from reading blogs and posting here.  It was kind of nice, but nice to be back too.  :)  The first thing I did when I got back was open the package from my Pillow Talk Swap partner!

 I love the pillow Leila (needleanddime) sent!  I love the curves, the points, the colors...everything!  Plus she hand pieced the middle!  I am soooo lucky!  Thank you!!!

I also got a package of fabric from the people at the Iowa State Fair for the Quilt Block competition.  I like these fabrics much better than last years, but working with only three colors might be challenging.  I wonder if they realize the fabric designer, Vanessa Christensen, lives in Iowa.  We are using fabrics from an Iowa fabric designer for the Iowa State Fair.  Kind of cool!  :)

Hope you are having a great summer too!

This Week...

This week... I have worked on appliqueing the hexagons onto a linen background for my Pillow Talk Swap pillow.  Before appliqueing, I layered the linen, fusible fleece and backing and quilted them together in a grid pattern.  I added some hand stitching around a few of the hexagons last night in pink and yellow and plan on using one of the fabrics on the side as a backing.

This week... I learned that if your eight year old wakes you up in the middle of the night saying that she had a bloody nose you shouldn't blearily ask if it has stopped, (yes) and tell her to go back to bed, assuming that she only got blood on the worn old baby blanket she is holding.  Because the next day you will find yourself facing the prospect of scrubbing dried blood out of a new quilt and wondering how she only managed to bleed on the white fabric on the front of the quilt and miss all of the dark fabric on the back.  Thankfully it came out much better than I expected.

This week... I have realized how hard it is to get pictures of large quilts.  The sun, my husband-quilt-holder and non-bloodied quilts never seem to be in the same place at the same time!

This week... I learned that there is a Modern category in the Iowa State Fair!

183 Modern - a quilt using a new design or reinterpreted traditional design, including improvisational piecing, alternative block structures, or emphasis of negative space and asymmetry.

I worked with the Fabric and Threads superintendent this fall to get this category added.  If you live in Iowa and have made a Modern quilt would you please consider entering it?  Please?  I would hate to have asked for a new category and have no entries.

To enter a quilt in the Iowa State Fair:
Go to the Iowa State Fair 2013 Categories/Premium Books Page

1. Read the Fabric and Threads Booklet to see how many things you would like to enter.  Only one entry per category.
2. Fill out an online entry form.  You do not have to know for sure what you are going to enter at this time.  It will simply ask you how many entry tags you would like.  Each tag can be used for any of the Fabric and Threads categories. 
3. Drop off your item on July 27th.
4. Pick up your item on August 19th

I would love to see a bunch of modern styled quilts hanging at the fair!

Pillow Talk Swap 10

the fabric pull for my partner

For the last month things have felt a bit more calm around here.  Maybe because the baby is sleeping through the night now?   I started to feel kind of itchy and wanted to do some social sewing.  So I signed up for the Pillow Talk Swap.  This is my first time in the swap and man, is it fun!  We have all been assigned secret partners and people are posting pictures of fabric pulls and pattern ideas and asking for feed back.  There are so many great fabrics and ideas that I wish I was 10 peoples' partner!  ;)

My partner said she likes blues, greens and other pastel combos.  She also had some pictures of pillows with hexagons in her inspiration mosaic.  You know how I love English paper piecing!  So I ran with her hexagon inspiration photos.  So far I have appliqued 1 inch hexagons onto a variety of 1.5 inch hexagons.  The plan as of now is to space them about 1/2 inch apart and applique them onto a linen background.

I am loving how it looks and loving making it!

HST Pillow

I meant to have my HST quilt done in time to enter into the Festival of the Half Square Triangles, but that is just not happening.  I did however steal some of the hst and make this coordinating pillow cover.

I hand stitched along the edges of the hsts with black pearl cotton.  It was my first time doing hand stitching in quite awhile, and my first time ever using pearl cotton.  I had been thinking about hand quilting the large hst quilt, but now I don't think that I will.  ;)

I added a flange and a one inch border around the edge.  I love how it frames the design.

For the back, I used a print from Echo (oh, how I love it!) and burgundy kona cotton.  Who would have thought that burgundy could look so good?

Now I just have to pick up a pillow form the right size.  Be sure to jump on over to the Festival of Half Square Triangles to see all of the other beautiful things people have been making.