WIP: Panic Edition.

I'm starting to get a little nervous about my quilt to-do list. Or rather, the things I have to get done before Fava decides to make an appearance and permanently change my life. I have four quilts that I'd like to finish before he's here. FOUR. And one of them, I haven't even started. My kidlets have a tendency to arrive before their due dates, and if Fava follows this grand tradition, he could be here in as little as eight weeks. Four quilts--eight weeks. EEP!

But enough about that.

How 'bout this lovely? I made quite bit of progress on Fava's quilt in the last week, moving from having 3.5 arrows done to making the medallion and adding the two borders. I have finished quilts in less time than it's taken me to piece this bad boy, but it's so pretty, I'm not sure I mind. And, as my quilting sensei K reminds me, it's for my own kidlet, so it's okay to take that time.

The medallion is actually a copy of my May Stash Bee block. I had so much fun making it, and I thought it looked pretty sweet, so I made one for my medallion, then added the corners to transform it from a hexagon to a square. The arrows are Sarah's amazing free pattern, and the economy blocks are something I pieced together. I couldn't find measurements for the size I needed, so I guessed and got it close enough. I had to trim down my second round a bit, but otherwise, they worked out well. 

I've also printed the paper piecing templates for the baby quilt I've yet to start, and the other two need-to-finish quilts are finished tops with basic quilting plans, so when I get the courage to baste them, they should be fairly easy to finish. And my husband, the good man that he is, has volunteered to help me baste them. Well, he offered to baste them all by himself, but since he's never basted or even helped before, that makes me a bit nervous, so esteemed helper it is!

I'm linking up today with WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced. I'll see you there!

FF: Mama's Quilt.

I have finished my Mama's quilt, and just in time to get it to her for her birthday! This bad boy was pieced using blocks from the Hive 7 Stash Bee ladies (who are totally awesome, BTW). I sashed and cornerstoned the quilt to get it a bit larger, than added a 5" border all the way around. She measures 56" x 70" all said and done.

I did some light quilting in the block areas, which I unfortunately didn't get any good shots of.

You can see it a bit better on the back, but not really. I used a variegated 40W thread, which was my first time using 40W thread, and I LOVED it.

The back...oh, the back. I'm not in love. But whatever. I used a print called Paintbox by Cynthia Rowley that I got for a song from fabric.com. It wasn't quite wide enough, so I used a bit of red and my remaining blocks to back it. What I hadn't considered was that putting my blocks on the edge would mean I'd have to chop a bit off of them. But what's done is done. And I knew the moment I saw one of the blocks with its light apricot center that I'd be using it as the signature block for the back.

Do you see what that is? That dark blue print in this particular block? If you know what it is, you will understand how freakin' awesome it is that I have it in my possession. Until I go to the post office. When I will send it to my mama. And I can tell you right now, my mama isn't going to understand how freakin' cool it is to have a bit of Neptune in her quilt. Nope. Not at all.

I machine-sewed the binding because handsewing binding makes my pregnant shoulders hurt something fierce. And this is probably the best job of it I've done since I started machine-sewing binding. I used Kona Navy with a pop of Kona Chartreuse for funsies.

And she's all ready for the mail. Thanks to the awesome Hive 7 Stash Bee ladies for my gorgeous, Tula-filled blocks!


I'm linking up today with TGIFF, hosted by Sarah at Georgia Girl Quilts! And this is totally a finish from my Q2 FAL 2014 list. Woo!

SS: Low Volume, HPQ Style.

Today is another Sunday Stash of awesome. I had hoped to have two piles of delicious to share with you, but the second one isn't here just yet. So consider this part one of Low Volume HPQ Style. (Because LV HPQ style is always going to have some hot pink thrown in for good measure.)

Seriously, my motto should be "life is better with hot pink." Ahem.

I was the lucky duck who won the April GW link-up giveaway, which meant a gift cert to Fat Quarter Shop. (Yes, please!) And this is the stack of yum I picked up!

These are for several different projects. I didn't intend for them to look quite so awesome together, and now I almost feel guilty separating them as they all look so cozy. Almost.

Okay, moment of guilt over.

Some Littlest from Art Gallery.

Some 8 Days a Week.

And some Tula: Fox Field and Acacia. To be honest, I can't really get into Fox Field like some of her other collections, and I almost didn't buy any, but I have a piece of fabric from all of her other collections, so it felt weird to not have something. I picked my fave of the bunch, and it will go into my Tula drawer of awesome.

Of course I'm linking up with Sunday Stash at Molli Sparkles because it is the place to be. See the hot pink logo? MS totally gets me.

BQF: Marie.

Hi! If you're visiting from Blogger's Quilt Festival, thanks for stopping by! My name is Audrey, and I want to share with you my extra special bed quilt.

This is Marie. I started planning her in June of 2012, and it took me a full month to find all the fabric I would need and get started cutting. I finished piecing her in March of 2013--I moved across the country in January of 2013, so a long break was required--and after sending her to Sarah, fabulous long-armer extraordinarie, in the fall, I sewed the last stitch of binding last November. Woo! Over a year from start to finish, but totally worth it.

The fabrics are primarily from Tula Pink's Parisville line with one print from her Prince Charming line and a couple extra non-Tula prints. I used Bella in Jade as the background fabric. The backing is Bella in Navy, and the binding is Kona Burgundy. It was long-arm quilted with delicious feathers and swirls in a gorgeous jade thread. Since I'm a huge Tula fan, using her Snowglobes pattern just felt right.

I never did manage to get a full finished shot of her, but this is the finished top. She's a healthy queen size, though I'm a total covers hog, and I wish she was a bit longer on the sides. We opted to use two layers of batting since I live in the midwest and the winters and freaking cold. Can I tell you how often I was thankful for that decision this past winter?

Sarah is an amazing long-armer. She doesn't have a website, or I'd totally send you her way. She would send me progress photos during the quilting process, and I would freak out at each and every new picture. LOVE.

To be honest, this quilt was probably a bit too difficult for me to take on when I did, but I'm so thankful that I went for it. I learned a lot of new skills during this quilt, but mostly, I learned what techniques work for me. Piecing the rows was complicated, but fun. Keeping track of all of the pieces of fabric with a two year old and a baby was NOT fun, but Marie got done even with their...um...assistance.

Thanks for stopping by and humoring my serious Marie love. Being able to sleep underneath such a special quilt is truly awesome. (And is it crazy that I'm considering another summer bed quilt? Eep! Convince me not to!)

I'm entering Marie in the Large Quilts Category at BQF. 

SS: A little bit of everything.

Friends, this post has a little bit of everything. I've accumulated a few bits and ends over the last few weeks for various things, and why not smash them all together in one lumpy post?

I'll be making a fun mini-lonestar bee block for Stash Bee this week. I had the stack of oranges in the back, but I needed two additional tone-on-tone oranges to round out my palette. After avoiding orange fiercely--this isn't Hot Orange Quilts, after all--I'm finally starting to embrace the orange love.

(In small, FQ-size doses, of course.)

Variegated thread! I've only used it once before, and it was a long time ago. This time, it seemed the obvious choice for my mama's quilt because hello! There are like twelve kajillion colors in that top! How was I supposed to pick a thread color? And switching out my thread color to accommodate those twelve kajillion colors was just not going to happen. Oh, variegated thread. I thank you for your awesomeness.

I've never used YLI thread before, so hopefully Agatha doesn't hate it. The color is called Great Barrier Reef.

And a stack of delicious greens! I'll eventually cut into these to start work on another baby quilt. I had a moment of panic the other day when I considered that my friend could be having twins, and OMG, I'm so not prepared to make two quilts right now. She's since had an appointment where they are confident there is only one bambino, which is a bit of a relief, to be honest.

This quilt is the last quilty project I'm planning to finish before Fava arrives, but even as I type this, I'm reminded of another pregnant friend expecting her first, and wouldn't it be nice to make her a quilt? But no! Audrey! Be reasonable! Don't do this to yourself! Hopefully I behave and don't take on any additional commitments.

I'm linking up today with Em at Sewing by Moonlight for Sunday Stash! Oh! And Happy Mama's Day to you all!

FF: Northern Lights Quilt. (Again.)

This is the third time I've made Jaybird Quilt's Northern Lights quilt. You could definitely say I'm getting my money's worth from this pattern. And I think this might be my favorite one yet! (I have always been hesitant to use prints with this pattern, thinking they might look choppy with the half hexies, but OMG, I love the version using Arizona that Julie's working on right now. I totally want one for me, but that might also be because I'm really really excited about Arizona coming out.)

This is for a little bambino who is due two days before my own. His Mama and Papa know I'm making him a quilt, and I got a bit of an idea about their likes and dislikes. I had originally thought to make a simple patchwork quilt for time's sake, but ditched that idea because I knew in my heart I wanted to make them something a little more exciting!

I have to say, this pattern was much easier to piece the second time around, and the third time has been a charm. I matched practically all of my seams on the first pass, and I only ripped out and fixed a handful of spots.

See? Perfection. I need to get this bad boy basted and quilted, and while I could branch out and do something different, I really like the quilting I did on the first two, so I'll be echo quilting the vertical seams.

I picked up more of this Patty Young print from her Rendezvous line for Joann's. The colors go so well with the solids on front, it looks almost as though I picked out the backing first and went from there! I really love this print, so I'm glad to have more of it. (I'm also really excited to see Patty Young's High Society line for Joann's--when will my store get some???)

This makes my third quilt top finish that is waiting patiently to be quilted. I'm really dragging my feet when it comes to basting lately. I just don't wanna!


I'm linking up today with TGIFF, hosted by M-R at Quilt Matters.

Arrow One.

Yesterday, I showed you a bit of the first half of some arrows I'm making for Fava's quilt. And today....

I have a finished arrow for show!

I'm especially proud of the fletcher. (Incidentally, I did not know this was called a fletcher until I started making this pattern. Who knew quilting would sharpen my math AND my vocabulary? Fist bump to quilting.)

That's one down, and three to go! And then, you know, the rest of Fava's quilt. Oy. What have I gotten myself into? (In case you're wondering, the answer is, I've gotten myself into a SUPER awesome quilt that is going to look SUPER fabulous when finished. I hope!!)

WIP: Fava.

Yesterday, I started my third kidlet's baby quilt. As I type this, he's kicking around in my tum-tum, giving what I'm taking as acceptance of the final plan, even if the plan isn't exactly...um...final.

I pieced two arrow shafts and two arrows from Sarah's magnificent arrow pattern. I'm working up the courage, little by little, to tackle the feathers. Man, this is definitely the tiniest paper piecing I've done to date. But I think it'll turn out nicely in the end. Or rather, I hope so because I always forget how much fabric paper piecing takes, and I only have a limited amount!

I've decided to do a medallion quilt for Fava, and I've got sketches of the outer rings, but I can't quite figure out what I want to do for the center medallion. I did know that I wanted the arrows to have a navy background, so I figure I'll tackle them and see where I am upon completion.

And I managed to finish my daddy's birthday present, though I don't have any pillow forms to model the covers, so your imaginations will have to work a bit. Simple 18" churn dashes in red and navy, backed by a sheet that matches his bed set. So easy peasy, and yet I really dragged my feet getting them done. Peeps, I chose to wait on hold with my insurance company yesterday rather than piece them. You know the procrastination is bad when you willingly make that kind of phone call!

Up on the to-do list are three quilt tops, patiently waiting to be quilted, GW May blocks, a bee block, and I've got to get started on yet another baby quilt. One of these days my to-do list will be smaller, right? Either that, or it will get to be late summer, and Fava will arrive, and that will probably put a screeching halt to my productivity (or lack thereof). Better get back to piecing arrows, right?

I'm linking up with WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced!