Design Wall Monday - 08/23/10

Here's my design "table" for this week. I thought I'd try out a technique I've had in my head for a while now. I appliqued (fused) a "K" onto fabric and will turn it into a pillow. I think this one will be fairly simple, but I have all sorts of ideas for piecing around the letter. I bought the print fabric a year or two ago and didn't have a plan for it - I just liked the unusual design. It's hard to tell from this picture, but there are lots of overlapping circles, and inside each circle is a design - mostly flowers and leaves, but some have clock faces and other things. I keep pulling it out of the stash to try to use it, but nothing worked before. This will be perfect for this pillow. I think it will turn out very elegant looking.

Hop over to Judy L's blog to see what is on other people's design walls!

Design Wall Monday 8/16/10

Well I didn't get much farther from last week. The top is all together and I decided not to put borders on it. I got delayed because I really wanted to use Minkee for the backing and I couldn't find it at my usual LQS at first. But I did find some this weekend, so I'm back on track and hopefully I'll have the whole thing done by Thursday when it supposed to be given to the new baby. The picture above was taken when I was cutting the Minkee to size. I always forget that Minkee is a little heavy, so I need to go out and get a thinner batting so it doesn't end up too heavy for the baby. I'll just tie this one instead of quilting.

While I was at the shop getting the backing, I finally broke down and got some Paper Pieces to make hexagons - or "hexies" as they are being called now. They are SO popular right now and there are all kinds of tutorials for making them so that you don't have to baste them to the paper foundations. I prepped two just to get it out of my system. They go pretty fast, so we'll see what happens with those. Maybe nothing or maybe a pillow or something. We'll see...

I'm So Excited!!

I am a huge fan of The Quilt Show with Alex Anderson and Ricky Tims. It is an on-line quilt show where members can view a new episode premiering every two weeks. But it's more than that. It is also an on-line quilting community with forums, patterns, projects, and a blog that is updated at least once daily. Last I heard, there were over 30,000 members (probably a lot more now) from all over the world. Each member gets a profile that they can update if they choose, and even post pictures of quilts that they have made. In an effort to create a database of quilts, when a member posts a quilt, they fill out all kinds of information about it, like when it was made, size, techniques used, etc.

Anyway, here's the exciting part -- a while back they started featuring a Quilt of the Day pulled from the database of member quilt photos. I recently got an e-mail from them saying they were going to feature one of MY quilts as a Quilt of the Day! How awesome! There are literally thousands of quilts on their site and they picked one of mine! I'm on cloud nine!

You don't need to be a member to look at their blog, so anyone can hop on over there on Tuesday, August 17th to see my Double Pinwheel quilt.

Design Wall Monday

In addidtion to hosting the stash reports on Sundays, Judy over at Patchwork Times has Design Wall Mondays, where everyone links to their post showing what is currently on their design wall. I don't really have a usable design wall right now, but I do have my dining room table! I've been working on this baby quilt and I'm just about done. Here I have the blocks sewn in to rows, but the rows are separate. there are actually five rows there, but I couldn't fit them all on the table. My preliminary design printout from EQ7 is there, too.



Below is a closer up view of the focus fabric. Monkeys, of course!

Stash Busting 2010 - Week 32

I hadn't been doing much sewing this summer. I guess I really needed a little quilting break. So many deadlines started to take the fun out of it all. However, I did still manage to buy some fabric since I posted last. Gee, how ever did that happen!! Above is a fat quarter pack from the popular Hope Valley line. It 's not my usual colors, but I like looking at them and I can't wait to figure something out to use them in.

It also suddenly happened that I had a baby quilt to make, so I decided to do a quick pattern that I had already worked out for my class. Just an cute all-over print boxed with two different fabrics. I found a great monkey fabric that I really wanted to show more of, so I altered my original pattern slightly by making the focus print square bigger and the box borders narrower. The fabrics are below. I ended up not using the plain green with the tiny brown dots in this quilt, but I have enough fabric left over to make another baby quilt in possibly a different pattern.

So I have 2 yards of the Hope Valley fabric, and I ended up with 4 1/2 yards of the baby quilt fabric. I wanted to get some Minkee for the backing of the baby quilt, but my LQS isn't carrying it anymore. I'll either have to order it online or try for another shop farther away. Which means I'll have more to add next week.

Fabric added this week: 6.50 yards

Fabric used this week: 0.00 yards

Fabric added this year: 23.50 yards

Fabric used this year: 20.00 yards

Total stash busted this year: -3.50 yards