Coast to Coast 2 Quilt Top Start

Last year, I helped start a traveling quilt bee called the #coasttocoasttravelingbee. Along with five other super awesome quilters, we stretched our skillz to the max and produced six super awesome quilt tops. (Here's mine!) I had such an amazing time, and it was pretty obvious that C2C had to happen again!

My 2017 quilt top was inspired by a mountain range, and it was fun to create based on a place. (I had never made a quilt like that before!) I had thought at first that I would use water (particularly in the form of rain) as the base for this year's quilt, but my initial work following that pursuit was...um...bleh. And not me at all! And you know how sometimes it's good to do things you're uncomfortable with and push yourself to try new color schemes/techniques/things? Well, this wasn't any of those things. It was just bleh.

At this point, I had a couple of weeks to produce something worthy of this year's C2C group. After spending MONTHS laboring over the water/rain idea, I searched through my folder of quilt ideas/patterns/inspiration, desperate for something.

And then I saw these awesome Butterfly Charm Blocks from lillyella. And they'd looked pretty fun, and what if I did a rainbow? So I did.

At first I'd planned to make 9 and then do a nine-patch grouping, but after talking with K, she suggested maybe a ring of butterflies would be awesome.

And I was like, I have this nine-patch idea cemented into my brain! I can't betray that! And besides, it's going to look fierce! And then I laid out a ring of butterflies as K suggested, and it looked AWESOME (and meant less paper piecing) and how could I say NO?

This is what I've sent to the always fab Alison, along with some rainbow goodness. Yes, please, butterfly charm blocks. YES, PLEASE.

Who wants to guess what will get added? I'm SO excited to see where this group of awesome quilters will go!

Night Sky Quilt Top.

I am really, really excited about this one. I labored through the cutting, but when it came to piecing, I couldn't get this bad boy assembled fast enough. I love the way she turned out, scrappy and so very very green.

The most difficult part of assembling this top was piecing together the rows. My seams didn't always want to behave and meet up properly--I found a good mix of 1) no, this has to be seam ripped and sewn again, and 2) this is sufficient.

I have some fairly dense (for me) quilting planned for this one, a mix of straight line and FMQ. I'm excited to get started, but I really should finish my rainbow log cabins quilt first. Plus! This one still needs to be basted, a task that I always hate and dread. And I'm out of batting--I feel like I'm always out of batting--why is that?

Starting a Night Sky Quilt.

Yesterday, I pared down this lovely stack of yum and started cutting fabric for a new baby quilt.

I had different plans for it, but every time I thought I had settled on something, there was a nagging little feeling lingering at the back of my brain, telling me it wasn't quite the right pattern. I'm sure those other quilts would have been lovely too--how can you go wrong with that stack?--but it wasn't perfect for my dear friend's baby, and that was that.

I managed to get to this point last night, and OMG, am I glad I pushed on. (Thank you, Netflix!) When I finished this block, I was fully in love, and I knew without a shadow of a doubt that this was the perfect project for this stack and for this baby and for my friend.

I opted to do a scrappy LV background instead of one color, and I'm glad I did. I like the added interest. (Yes, I know it's a little nutty to have so much white on a baby quilt, but have you seen that block? How could I say no?)

This morning has seen block number two and some added borders.

I need to redo frame fabric for that half hexie on the top left. I misjudged fabric placement in my haste to see what it would look like, and I cut it too short.

The pattern for these blocks is Jaybird Quilt's Night Sky Quilt. This is the second pattern I've attempted by JQ, and oh la la, can I just say, I am having so much fun? I loved loved loved Julie's Northern Lights pattern, and I've made a ton of them (three?), but this one. I see more in my future.

I have a few more blocks to make, and then it's time to piece everything together. I am super impatient to see how everything shapes up!

Projects in the Work

I know about a trillion women who are pregnant. That may be a slight exaggeration, but I promise you, it's only a slight one. I might actually only know a million. And people are getting added to that number daily. Seriously, I found out yesterday that two more friends are expecting. Dude.

That means that you will probably only see baby quilts emerging from HPQ land in the next few months. I have some exciting plans for these particular bambinos, and thankfully, I like baby quilts, even if I'd really really really like to finish my bed quilt.

This is baby quilt #1 in the works. Rainbow log cabins, low volume sashing. I feel like the hard part of this one is done, but I don't have the LV in stash to finish off the top. SHUCKS, I guess I'll have to visit the fabric store. My life is SO hard.

Fabric pull for baby quilt #2. I'm REALLY excited about this one, but I need a bit more LV fabric to achieve the scrappy pull I'm dreaming of.

And oh, the curtains. (And EPP.) This weekend, my husband will hopefully be getting the rest of our curtain rods installed, which means I should REALLY finish up the curtains I have in the works. That poor man. I feel like he goes to work, comes home, and I have a kajillion tasks for him to do. Build furniture, install curtain rods, fix stuff, buy stuff, haul stuff, lift stuff, etc. But I think the end of that is in sight as we've almost completely cleaned out the years of overgrown foliage from our massive yard and cleaned a ton of junk from the property, including numerous broken beer bottles and other random detritus that is unsafe for small kidlets.

Friends, I'm tired. The move was exhausting. The resulting work on the home and property was exhausting. But now, as I start to think about where I want to hang up my mini quilts and artwork, what kind of curtains would best serve our living room, and what kind of language arts curriculum is really going to be the best fit for my six-year-old this fall, I'm realizing that most of the hard stuff is behind us. This house is shaping into a place for us, and that is definitely exciting.

FQB: Sarah's Quilt.

Once upon a time, I joined up with some other lovely ladies, and we formed a traveling quilt bee called the Fierce Quilters' Bee. In today's episode of FQB goodness, I was tasked with Sarah's awesome quilt in progress, a low volume, paper piecing, arrow bunch of true fabulousness.

I made four arrows and four low volume blocks. (Yes, those hedgehogs are all sorts of awesome.)

My fave block involved piecing together a bunch of EPP hexies, then framing them with strips. I love the look of it, and I think it will be a fun contribution to the rest of the quilt. I did not cut the extra ends off because it still has a way to travel, and I figured it's more secure this way.

This is everything to date. It's going to be a super sweet quilt top when finished!

This bee has been all sorts of awesome fun.

Black Friday Scores.

YES.

Sketch, Joel Dewberry's Herringbone print, some Priory Square, and CATNAP. The Sketch is a much more vivid blue than I was after, but it's a nice stash addition. I've been longing for that herringbone print since it pretty much came out, and NOW I have some. How freakin' awesome is that Priory Square? And the cats...I'm really allergic to cats, so I don't typically like them because they make me feel like dying, but I am powerless when it comes to happy kitty faces on fabric. I should make curtains and use them to ward off the depression that winter inevitably tries to bring. I can't see myself getting grumpy when seeing snow out the window if those happy kitties tell me to turn my frown upside down, know what I mean?

And shot cottons. Oh, how I love me some shot cottons. These are Kaffe Fassett--Aegean, Blue Jean, Jade...I think? And they're for a special awesome project of awesome. Did you hear me? Of awesome! To be continued...

I actually ordered more fabric, but one of my orders was canceled because they didn't actually have the fabric they said they had on hand. I was sad. (Serious frowny face.) It was the background fabric for my Tula Pink City Sampler quilt, and since you have to buy something like twelve kajillion yards of it, I was so stoked to pick it up during the big sales. I'll be waiting until another sale, I suppose. But that's okay. It's not like I could actually do anything with it other than just stare at it for now.

I'm linking up this week with Sunday Stash hosted by the super awesome Molli Sparkles.

SS: Low Volume, HPQ Style, Part 2

From left to right: Le Creme Swiss Dots in Black by Riley Blake, Wild Hearts in White by Wee Gallery, Dress Me in White by Wee Gallery. Yum yum yum. Pink Castle sells that tiny heart print in three other colorways, and OMG, do I want them all, or what? But restraint, people. Restraint.

These are more additions for a baby quilt I've yet to start. But hey, I've printed the paper piecing templates, so that totally counts as something, right?

Until then, I'm working on something hot pink and yummy. To be continued....

I'm linking up with Molli Sparkles for Sunday Stash. So. Much. Yum.

Low Volume Finish

Last week was my HST BOM quilt finish, this week, my low volume quilt. Woo! This quilt was made for a cousin of mine who got married last weekend. (I finished it just in time to take it with me to the wedding!)

Some time ago, I participated in a low volume charm square swap. It yielded a bunch of lovelies, but I didn't have any immediate ideas for the charms, and when I did consider using them for myself, the presence of two small and messy kidlets dissuaded me.

I sewed them together in rows and added a 5" outside vertical stripe to either side to widen the top. To brighten it up, I used Anna Maria Horner's feather pattern and raw edge appliqued it.

Quilting was mostly straight lines on a diagonal through the blocks, but I did a bit of loop-de-loop FMQ in the borders.

And to balance out the bright feather, I pieced in a bit of red binding on the opposite corner. This idea was sheer genius. (Or perhaps it emerged because I didn't have enough binding material?) The backing is the same Ikea text print that I used for my HST BOM quilt.

I presented both my sister's quilt and my cousin's quilt to their new owners last weekend, and both sets of owners were excited! I wish I had gotten a shot of it wrapped up. I realized when I got to Texas that I didn't have a card or ribbon of any sort, even though I'd brought wrapping paper and tape. I faced the label outwards, rolled it into a cylinder so that the label still showed, and tied it in a large bow with a wine-colored sash I had brought with me. I think all future quilt gifts will be made in a similar fashion.

Several non-quilters commented on the backing fabric, asking me the significance of the numbers or why I chose that particular fabric, and I kept thinking, "Because it looks cool, peeps! Don't you know text fabrics are all the rage? This quilt is hip!" Maybe it's a quilters-only thing?

I'm linking up to TGIFF at Gingersnaps Quilts and Crazy Mom Quilts. I love WIP Wednesdays because you get an intimate look into the creative process of so many bloggers, but I LOVE Fridays because there are so many drool-worthy finishes!

WIP: Three in the Works

If you've been reading long, you probably know I'm a bit...ummmm...ambitious when it comes to, well, everything. Skill level, work load, monthly to-do lists.... Everything. Though I will admit this week is a first. The first week I worked on three separate quilts. And while they aren't king-size mammoths, they are lap- to throw-size, and that was enough work for me thankyouverymuch.

I will finish this quilt. I will finish this quilt. I will finish this quilt. I was at my LQS over the weekend buying fabric for the binding and lamenting just how late this holiday gift will be when the woman tearing my fabric told me to inform my sister it's a very early 2013 holiday gift. Woo! I like her thinking. 

Why yes, that is stippling, pebbles, and clamshell FMQ! I decided, for funsies you know, to do different quilting in each block. Mostly FMQ. Because, you know, I am SO experienced with FMQ (I am actually a totally noob) and it's fun! I have yet to swear at a quilt, but I would have thrown this one if it was smaller and easier to manage. As it was, I had a tough time getting it out from under my machine, and by the time it was available for throwing, the need for quilt violence was replaced with sorrow and utter frustration. Thank goodness all that is left to quilt is the borders.

My low volume charms have become a low volume quilt top. But no borders. (Yet.)

 

I progressed with the quilting on my Le Mille quilt. I'm particularly in love with the backing. I can't wait to show y'all. And, like all good quilters balancing too many WIPs, the one I want to work on is the one that is the least pressing. You know, since I really should have those other two quilts done so I can hand deliver them in ten days. 

Just trying to keep it real and fun over here! I'm linking up with WIP Wednesdays at Freshly Pieced!

WIP: Busy, Busy Edition.

January Block - Lucky Stars BOM

 

Le Mille Quilt - Basted

Low Volume Charms - Beginnings of a New Quilt

There's not much text today--still unpacking and reorganizing and cleaning from our big move!

I'm linking up with Building Blocks Tuesday at Quilter in the Closet and WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.