Heather Ross Mini Spool Quilt

Hello all!

This summer I participated in a Heather Ross mini quilt swap on Instagram. (You can follow me @sewnbyleila)  It was so much fun! I had wanted to make a thread spool quilt forever and this was the perfect excuse.

I wanted the quilt to have a loose "rainbow" order. So, I rummaged through my HR scraps, begged/traded some more scraps from friends, and got to work. The spools are improvisational pieced, which made the final piecing a challenge, but it made for a good variety of shapes and sizes.

I heavily quilted the background with swirls so the spools would stand out. (Swirls are my go-to free motion quilting motif.) It took awhile, but I love the look. Then I stitched around each of the spools and then quilted a few zigzags across each to mimic thread.

It was a lot of fun to make and I will have to make another one for myself soon!

(An outtake of my quilt holder jumping for joy!)

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.

Tote Swap Reveal

A few months ago I signed up for a tote swap with my local quilt guild.  All the participants made inspiration mosaics and we were given a secret partner to make a tote for.  At this weeks meeting, we gave the totes to our partners.  Can I just say that the gals in the Des Moines Modern Quilt Guild rock!?!  Each tote was a work of art and all the participants totally [get it, tote-ally? :) ] nailed their partner's style.   (Click for more pics of the totes.)

Melissa made the beautiful tote pictured above for me.  I am in LOVE.  She used a variety of American Jane fabrics - we both love American Jane! - and captured the scrappy bright look I like.  I have used it all weekend and couldn't be happier.

Only one partner was really lame and forgot to bring their partner's tote....me.  Seriously, I think I am brain dead.  So sorry Doris!  Here are pictures of your tote and I will get it to you as soon as possible!

Doris said she liked (among other things) all things British and I got the feeling from her mosaic that she liked a combo of black and bright colors.  So I decided to use a piece of black Echino fabric printed with bright London landmarks as my inspiration fabric.  I started by making a wonky log cabin quilt as you go panel for one side of the bag.  I didn't like it - seriously, I almost threw it away.  But I couldn't tell if I didn't like it because it was ugly as sin or just not my style.  I pressed on and made another panel with a simplified Union Jack.  I was sure she would like that.

I decided to make the bag reversible so that if she wasn't a fan of the first panel she could turn it inside out.  I used a larger piece of the black Echino as one panel of the interior.  I added three pockets (triple zip style), each lined with fun bright fabric.  I love those pops of color!

When it all came together I was pleased as punch.  I even like the first panel now that it is in the bag!  I hope you like it too Doris!

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!

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!