The Pile in Progress

Hi there, quilty friends!  It's been quiet here, seems like I've been doing everything else but quilting these days!  I don't have anything finished to show you, but thought I'd give a little update on a few projects.

Above you will see my first needleturn applique!  So when Gwen Marston's Liberated Medallion Quilts
 book came out, I bought it.  Of course I love her free and liberating way of making a medallion quilt.  The thought of designing my own is so exciting!  My fave medallion quilts in this book, and others I've seen, all have an applique center.  Hmmm....

Couple this with the fact that I knew I'd be on a long airplane flight, I decided to try my hand at this scary technique.  I watched a few tutorials on how to do it, and then just drew out my shapes, basted them on to my background and away I went!  I just made up my own shapes, not wanting to do anything too fiddly and pointy.  I'm not quite done yet, have a few more leaves and flower petals to add, and then I can start adding pieced rows around this centre block.

p.s.  if you follow the above link for Gwen's book, it will take you to Amazon.  If you happen to purchase this book through this link, I make a few cents, just for your info:)

Next up is one that I'm slowly working at hand quilting.  It's for a special specific someone, I was trying to blend my tastes with hers, so hopefully it will be a success!

Now in a totally different direction is this arrow quilt, made completely from Chicopee from Denyse Schmidt.    Awhile back I spied this pattern in a new magazine.  Unfortunately it didn't seem to be available in Canada, but another kind quilter lady sent me an extra copy.

I love this quilt design, although I wouldn't say I loved following patterns that take lots of cutting of different sized pieces.  I think it will be worth it in the end though!

You can find the author of this pattern, and the magazine it's in, over here. 

And then an update on McElligot's Pool!  Way back, I pulled together a stack of fabric inspired by this book by Dr. Suess.  I talked about this quilt here and here.  So I made the above blocks, and then I just wasn't sure about it.  So I put it away.  Every once in a while I'd get these blocks out and stare at them, trying to figure out why they weren't going with the elusive vision I had in my head of how this quilt was supposed to look.

Then one day I realized that I needed waaaaay more of the light blues.  The darker colors should be more of an accent, kind of like the fish swimming around, and the shades of blue should be a majority of the quilt.  So I started making a bunch more blocks with blue on blue.  I also decided I wanted some creamy prints as well, so I started adding lighter fabrics.  (by now I was using way more fabrics than I had in my original pile)

So it's looking a bit better, but still not right.  I put it away for awhile again, but I've been determined that this quilt will get to the finish line sometime yet!  If for no other reason than that so many of you are rooting for it! So a week or two ago I was reading this same story to my kids again, and when I got to this page, I realized that what I needed was - still more blue - still more creamy lights - but ALSO I need way more of the light peachy pink.  More shades, more different fabrics, the light blue and the light peach need to make up at least half of the quilt!  So now I'll get to work making more blocks and veering more towards these colors and we'll see how it goes!

So that's it for the little update, and hopefully I'll soon have something done to show you!

pastel plus

i used one of my own charm packs for this quilt.  used up almost the whole pack, plus about a yard of white on the front.  this ends up making a lap size quilt.  about 50"x70".

this is definitely what you call pastel.  it's also full of whimsical prints, mushrooms, typewriters, tents and camping equipment.

and i used up the last of my yellow chevron on the back.  it just seems to go with everything i'm making.  do i need to buy more?  (no!  i'm trying to use up my stash!)

anyways, if you like this quilt, i've got a few kits in my shop to make it.  or any of the other fabric packs would look good in this design too.

Scrappy Quartered Log Cabins

oh hi!  you managed to make it down here after all that dizzying explosion of scrappy colour?!  is it too much color and pattern?  i don't know, but i DO know that these blocks were a lot of fun to make.

inspiration from Sunday Morning Quilts - my first but definitely not last quilt from that book!  (yes I recommend this book if you have any amount of scraps)

this quilt is a true mash up of my scraps.  just any strip that was long enough qualified.

oh yes, and the quilting.  this is the second quilt that i sent to Chelsea, together with my single girl.  this one she did a big swirly flower design which works well with all the straight lines in this quilt.

so my final thoughts on sending out a quilt for long arm quilting?  the biggest point to me is that i LOVE the finished product.  no worries on the 'perfect quilt show' look that isn't really my thing.  it really does feel like a quilt that i quilted myself (except of course better because it has perfectly even stitch length and the design is consistent)  i will definitely consider sending my largeish quilts in the future.

another concern that i had was that it wouldn't feel like 'mine'. so yes, there is a certain good feeling i get from making a quilt from start to finish, but somehow these two quilts don't feel like any less of an accomplishment.  they still feel like mine.  i still feel good about them.  i'm definitely not giving up quilting my own quilts for the most part.  i really do enjoy every step in the process of making a quilt.  but i will say that free motion quilting a twin size or larger quilt is kinda tough on my little sewing machine!  so it feels really good to have this option for 'special quilts'.

the expense?  well, it's not free, just like all good things!  i actually didn't shop around much for price.  i chose Chelsea partly because she's a modern quilter so i knew she'd 'get' what i wanted, and also because she's from Canada so i knew shipping would be cheaper.  i think her pricing is very comparable and reasonable, and she was lovely to work with.  

so i'm happy to say that my long-arm quilting experience was/is positive and i encourage you to try it!  although if you've only ever had your quilts custom quilted, i also encourage you to try quilting one yourself!

Single Girl!

Just pulled this quilt out of the dryer and had to show it to you!  I love it!!  I wish it was big enough to fit on my bed, but alas it's 'only' a twin size.  Seriously I don't know if I would have had the patience to cut out one. more. piece. back when I was cutting out all the ring pieces, so really a  twin size is large enough!

I had it quilted by Chelsea of ChelseaQuilts and the blog Pins and Bobbins.  I chose the Denyse Schmidt Scroll, which I'm so happy with!  I can't tell you what a luxury it was to send away a top and a back and get it sent to me all quilted!

I'll talk more about my thoughts on this once I get my second one bound (yes, i sent her two quilts!)

One more thing you may notice about this Single Girl is that the rings don't touch, in fact they are quite far apart.  Was that intentional?  Well, partly!  I never quite liked the rings touching, which is how I think the pattern would intend for them to do.  So, when I made my template, I added an extra half inch on the outer edges, so that I'd have a bit of space between rings.  And then when I sewed the blocks together, I forgot that the instructions call for a half inch seam to put the rings together!  So I ended up with some more extra, since I'd only used 1/4" seams.

I'm not a bit sorry though, since I like the look of the individual circles.

Oh, and one more thing, you know that binding fabric I used?  It's a yummy coral from Tula Pink's Saltwater line.  I'm crazy about this print in all three colorways.  Just in case you needed to know that:)