Friday is Finished - Almost

It is late here where I am at.  Still have a couple of things to do, so I am up.  The Birthday Girl got her quilt today, so I can show my finish!  She was so happy and excited to get it!  This quilt is in Terrain by Kate Spain.  I got very lucky and found some yardage still available for the borders and backing.  Gorgeous colors!  Now this quilt went with us out to Cape Lookout where I did actually hand sew a portion of the binding to the back.  Here are some pics of the quilt, a couple of our doggies at the bight.

 (Molly and Abby - both sailor and photo bomb doggies!)

Can you find the lighthouse in the background?

The quilt is for a full size bed (80 something inches by 90 something inches).  I am struggling a bit holding it up and keeping the wind from blowing it around.

Here are some pictures of the quilt after it was washed.

There is a live oak tree behind the office that is perfect to hang quilts from!

Starlight Quilt.

 Close ups of the quilting.

 The border and binding.

My niece loves the quilt and the colors!  She said hers will be the happiest room ever!

Linking up now with Amanda Jean over at Crazy Mom Quilts.

WIP - Daydreamin'

Our Memorial weekend trip was lovely!  Had a great time and I do hope to get back into my morning sewing routine here soon.  However, last week I had some definite issues with my long arm sewing machine and it was out of commission until tonight when the parts arrived.  With the help of my DH, she (yes, she) is up and running again.   This week, another one of my babies developed bobbin issues.  So a 3 1/2 hour one way trip I will be making to the dealer on Friday.  Did I mention the dealer has a 10,000 square foot fabric store, too?  Oh yeah, baby!  Um hum!  Some shopping will be done!

This WIP is an idea I had for a block that can be made with charm squares, some solids and (Bella Porcelain) background.  The main fabric is Daydream by Kate Spain.  Oh, I do love me some Kate Spain!   Here are the blocks that I have done so far...

Look at those colors!  So vibrant!  And yes, I really have been making 1/2 square triangles out of the scraps to use as a border.  I don't like to waste beautiful fabric, especially Kate Spain beautiful fabric!

A picture of the first block I made.  I might make some changes and play around with a bigger size, but this is the idea.  I have vowed to get this quilt top done before I start cutting into #mynextquilt.

Linking up now with Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday!

Sunday Stash #15 - I am weak

Off the top of my head, there are a few fabric designers that top my list of must have:  Alison Glass, Anna Maria Horner, Heather Bailey, Kate Spain and Tula Pink.  Amy Butler is right up there, too.  So, of course, if a new line of fabric designed by one of the above comes out, this girl is right there with her credit card.  Because I am weak.  And a Fabricaholic.  I am okay with that.

Pretty Potent by Anna Maria Horner was released recently and you know what my latest stash is, don't you?  Quilt Home recently had a sale on AMH, a good one, but it is over now.  : (  Here is my latest stash:

Chamomile and Aloe Vera - Balm for the soul

Family Unit (LOVE!) and Echinacea

Eucalyptus and Thistle (Hmmm, the one Thistle looks a tad Halloweenish to me.  But I don't like thistles.  Been stung by them before.)

Primrose and Banner Days

I will admit that some of the prints are just okay, while there are others I just love.  After my Kate Spain Daydream adventure, I will be making a king size with the above and these two.

Steel and Black Essex Linen.  With this pattern.

(Pattern can be purchased here at 20% off for PDF:  Pink Chalk.)

This will be for our king size bed.  The pattern is simple and should come together fast. This goes towards my goal of a quilt for every bed in the house.  Seriously!  How can I claim to be a quilter and not have every bed in the house covered?!?  In reading this (which I copied directly from Quilt Home's site) I think this is appropriate for a quilt:  COLLECTION: Pretty Potent. In the Pretty Potent collection, Anna Maria drew inspiration specifically from plants and flowers that are often used for healing. While they possess properties to heal our physical bodies, the very beauty of the plants themselves seems intended to be a balm for the soul. Potent and pretty.

What's in your stash?  Linking up now with Molli Sparkles.

Finish it Up Friday with Terrain and Daydream

Today, I got the border quilting done on the Starlight quilt.  This is the quilt that will be a birthday present for my niece.  It isn't completely finished as it still needs binding.  The pattern is similar to one I have made before with the Lazy Angle ruler.  Here is a nice shot out in the afternoon sun.

Look at those colors of Terrain!  LOVE!  After our downpour this morning, the sky turned sunny and blue!

A shot I took in the house of the quilt:

That picture is okay but I do believe the one out in the sun does the fabric line more justice and shows off the colors better.  (Note to self.)

A close up shot of the quilting.  (Before washing and drying.)

And to round out my day working with gorgeous Kate Spain fabrics, I pulled out Daydream to make these blocks I had sketched out...

More fabulous colors!  I used the scraps to make the half square triangles and then trimmed them up with my Bloc Loc.  Maybe I will use them in for a border or on the backing?  Not sure yet.  Going to work up a pattern with different sizes of blocks.

Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts for Finish it Up Friday!  

Sunday Stash #14 Happy Mom's Day!

I love technology!  Love it.  Right now, I am going 62 mph (or 100 km for my international friends) an hour down the highway.  And blogging.  No!  Not driving!  My dear, sweet husband is driving.

A few weeks ago, I got a couple of packages that looked like this:

I think the USPS was getting suspicious of the packages coming to my house.  I think they know better now.  Hah!

For my Sunday Stash, I have this marvelous bundle of fabrics I'd love to share.  I searched high and low for one of these and found it at Little Pink Rose during Marcia's Customer Appreciation Days at 30% off!!!  This bundle will be made into a raffle quilt for the Coastal Carolina Modern Quilt Guild.

Yes, that is Tula Pink's Salt Water!  Perfect for a coastal quilt, don'cha think?  I may have squealed a little when I opened this one up.  Um hum.  Yay!  Thank you Marcia!

Ending with a couple of photos of our bluebird family...they are getting bigger each day!

What cutie pies!  So blue...

Linking up now with Sewing by Moonlight for Sunday Stash.  Hey, you should too, there is a giveaway! 

The Mystery Quilt Top is Finished

Another Tula Pink quilt top is done and is waiting it's turn on the longarm.  This will be going on our guest bed upstairs.  I added a couple of borders to get it to a large enough size.  Piecing this quilt went pretty fast, it was joining everything together that proved to be more difficult.  Matching all the points and such.  I am going to call it the Biased About Being Square quilt.  I love to square up my blocks, but there really wasn't any explanation on the workshop how to on this one.  Plus, is there a way to square up diamonds? Sewing a bias can really zap me as I tend to be too heavy handed "guiding" the fabric with my right hand. A bad habit that is proving to be hard to overcome.  Anyhoo, it was a challenge and the quilt is not quite square; it is a little off.  With the added borders it is about 88" x 93".  Can't wait to get this one quilted!

Linking up now with Crazy Mom Quilts Finish It Up Friday!  Gotta go check out the tute on that scrappy rug!

WIP Wednesday and Dancing with the Stars

I have cut up my Kate Spain Terrain charm packs.  Loving the colors!  Using my Lazy Angle ruler, here is the quilt I am in the process of sewing together.

Seriously, the colors are so gorgeous!  I took this at night, even.  To me, the stars look like they are dancing.  Do you see the one block that is different than the others?  Well that was a cutting mistake turned into an opportunity.  See, I needed every charm square in the 4 packs to make this quilt.  The top two rows have been sewn together, the rest obviously not.  They are just kind of thrown on the design wall. This quilt is for my niece's birthday at the end of May.  She saw this quilt made with Kate Spain's Cuzco and Jessica's over at Sew Patched Up Simple Squares pattern and hinted that she would love a quilt like that.  Well, I couldn't find any Terrain layer cakes (they were gone on #thegreatfabricdestash before I could even think about typing in my email address) BUT I did get 4 charm packs!   Finding yardage still available was a challenge - I totally love challenges!

Another WIP that has nothing to do with quilting are these adorable little guys:

Our bluebirds are back!  They are raising their first clutch.  Yep, 5 hungry mouths to feed!  Not too worry, my husband keeps their feeder stocked with meal worms.

Linking up now WIP at Freshly Pieced being hosted this week by Laura of Quokka Quilts.  What quilty sewing goodness are you working on?

Sunday Stash #13 Diet No More

Now that my fabric diet is over, I have some lovely additions to my stash.  These were delivered to my door last week -  Tula Pink's Nest fabrics.  I found an online fabric store that actually has some in stock and they are actually priced at the usual going rate.  I love the coral and dark pink one so much, I am going to order some more.  Interestingly, this Tula Pink line is from Moda.

I also came home to find that this wonderful book had been delivered!

There are a few patterns in this one I'd like to make.  There is one that I will use my Tula Pink Nest layer cake with.  Excited!  Here is where you can get this book.

To finish my Acacia Vintage Quilt Revival quilt and my Craftsy Tula Pink Mystery quilt, I ordered more fabric.  I got that this week, too.  

Fox Field on the left and the middle and right fabrics are from the Acacia line.  Both are from Tula Pink.

The saying goes that whoever dies with the most fabric wins!  Well, I think there is a winner already. Or at least the bar has been set up so very high!  A local quilt shop has taken on the task of selling the fabric hoard stash of a woman who recently passed away.  When I went in the shop to look around, I found out that the shop had sold slightly under 10,000 yards of fabric (at $4.00 yard) and that was about HALF of what the woman had in her stash.  The money collected is being donated to the Maryland Children's Hospital, so a very worthy cause.  There were bundles sorted in piles of boxes, boxes and boxes to be dug through.  I found some great black and white fabrics.  And I also found these...

Yep, in the middle of a black and white fat quarter bundle were these two babies.  I love this fabric from the Architextures line!  

I also found some Liberty of London fabric.  When I was wrapping it around the comic board backer, I thought it looked so familiar.  And voile!  It is the same pattern as one of my favorite shirts; just different colors.

I also got two yards of this fabric.  It is a lawn or voile of some sort.  There is no name or identification on the selvage.  This will make a darling little girl dress.

Here's what I worked on yesterday and today:

Cut into my stash of Kate Spain's Terrain.  Gorgeous colors!  This will be a birthday gift to a very special person.

And ending with a picture of the best cat trap ever!

Linking up now with Molli Sparkles Sunday Stash!  What's in your stash?

More 2nd Q Finishes!

I am excited to share some finishes!  Today is such a gorgeous day here, that I took some photos outside.  I am so loving this weather!  It has been a long, dark, dreary, cold winter here in Eastern NC. (Pretty much everywhere else, too.  Except maybe, Arizona where my daughter, SIL and grandkids live.)

Remember those Glimma blocks from my Glimma obsession days?  Here is where they ended up:

 Yes, in a hammock.  Seriously, in a table runner that will go on the coffee table in our family room.

When I bought my long arm machine (which I love!), I also purchased the computer to do perfect, digital patterns on quilts.  Love that!  Well worth the investment, especially when quilting quilts for hire.  But my own free motion quilting skills have gone downhill - not that they were that good to start with.  So I have made the commitment to only do free motion quilting on MY stuff.  I have a big case of FEAR about doing that but it is something I am going to push past.  So here is a close up of the pattern I did free hand on the runner.  Not perfect, but keeping it real.

Another close up.

 And a picture of the back.

 Here is a close up of the binding I did by machine.  Not my usual choice but that is another skill I need to work on.  Love the look of hand stitched binding but that is very time consuming.  After reading a few blogs that I follow, I tried using my dual feed feet that I have with my machine (Bernina 830LE), turning the foot pressure to a negative 10, (yes -10), and moving the needle position.  Going slow helped too.

The rest of the blocks ended up in here.  A nice sized table topper to go on our kitchen table.  (Where I used to sew before turning a guest room into my sewing room.)

A close up of how I quilted this one.  Point to point, loopy, straight (snort) line, and stitch in the ditch. Certainly not perfect!

The back.

Last, but certainly not least, is the Sew Lux Fabric Anniversary BOM kit that is finished!  This one will be hung in my sewing room that used to be a guest room!  The embroidery is from Urban Threads which is one of my most favorite places to get unique embroidery patterns.  Urban Threads even has some Tula Pink embroidery designs.

 Again, that is my own free motion quilting.  I did straight (hah!) line quilting, stitch in the ditch, swirls, and meandering on this one.  I used a 100% cotton batting and the shrinkage is higher than the other two which are a 70/30% blend.  I do like 100% cotton the best!

The backing is a fun line from Timeless Treasures and can be found at Hawthorne Threads.

Oh, and my one year blogging anniversary came and went in April.  I need to look back and count all my finishes!

Now, I am going to move my sewing machine out to the screened in patio and work on a Kate Spain Terrain (LOVE!) quilt for a very special person!  Hope you make your day a good one!