Friday, August 26, 2011

Chloe's Quilt

Sewing time has been very limited these days, but I did manage to finish Chloe's quilt last week.  I still think it is a bit big and would omit two rows and two columns if making this again as a baby quilt, but I am really happy with it over all.


Thanks for your suggestions about the backing and binding last time I blogged about this!  I used a binding with teal in it to bring in a bit of a cool color to an otherwise warm quilt, and I ended ordering some extra fabric for the back since Fresh Squeezed Fabrics had it on super sale last month.  This way I was able to stick with my original idea of just using one solid piece for the back.


Before making this quilt, I did not think I would ever design my own quilt or do any form of hand quilting.  I did both with this one!  I used a variegated DMC Pearl 8 thread (one spool was enough for the whole quilt; I ordered 4!), and I found all kinds of really helpful information for the entire process from the Quilting 101 class on Chasing Cottons.  


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Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Mod Sampler Quilt, Parisville Edition

My sister's quilt is finally finished!  She received it yesterday after my mom flew home from two weeks of taking care of us.  My mom actually helped with stitching the binding on the back; if she had not done that, I would still have the quilt in my possession.


When I took pictures, I did not know that my lens had fogged up from the humidity!  Hence the foggy-lens look.


I used the Mod Sampler quilt pattern from Oh, Fransson!.  If you're looking for a fairly easy lap-sized quilt, this is a good one to use.  The directions are very straight-forward, and it's nice to have six different styles of blocks to work with.  I felt like that provided enough repetition to find efficient ways to make the block sets, but there was also enough variety that making the blocks didn't get boring.


The fabrics are from Tula Pink's Parisville collection mixed with Kona solids.


I quilted this on the long arm machine with lots of loopdy-loos.  My favorite part was writing my sister's name in the sashing.

I'm so glad that this is now out of my hands and in my sister's.  I made this as a graduation gift for her.  She just finished her B.A.--going to school full time and working full time.  If that isn't impressive, I don't know what is.  I'm super proud of her and am so glad I was able to give a gift like this.

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Wednesday, August 3, 2011

New Fat Quarters

Look what arrived via Fed Ex just a few minutes ago!


It's a Fat Quarter bundle of Josephine Kimberling's Just Dandy fabrics from Robert Kaufman!


I won this dandy little bundle a few weeks ago from Fat Quarterly (with special thanks to Robert Kaufman for sponsoring).  I haven't made up my mind what to do with it beyond just admiring the pretties, but I'm sure I'll find plenty of uses!

We are still enjoying lots of down time with the babies.  My mom is here for a few more days so we may try to tackle the Violet top while I have her expertise to guide me.  Every article of adult clothing I have tried in the last few years has been a fail or very close to it (and I don't think I'm exaggerating) so I'm looking forward to using a Colette pattern and having my mom to help.  Wish us luck!

{If you haven't had a chance to yet, see what Sara is doing with Colette's Ginger Skirt Pattern.  It's going to be a stunner when she's finished!}
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