A Finish for Blogger's Quilt Festival!

Yes, that's right. Just in time!

I actually finished my little low volume pinwheels quilt last weekend, but just hadn't gotten around to posting about it. Because my wonderful boyfriend may have bought me a 3DS and Pokemon X and I may have been playing it all week. Ahem.

But here it is finally in all its glory!

I decided to include this one in BQF because it is really the first quilt I have made that was designed by me. It just sort of grew organically from the idea of placing some brightly colored pinwheels in a sea of low volume fabrics. I really, absolutely LOVE the way it turned out. It's just as I imagined it!

The back is pretty much the opposite of the front. Bright, random, scrappy, unplanned. I love it, too, though. Because the two sides are so different, I am calling this quilt Split Personalities. Yup! I bound it in the triangle print from Lizzie House's Outfoxed. you maybe remember I picked up a sizable piece for my recent discount fabric excursion. I had planned on using it on the back, but I think it's much better as a binding.

I quilted it very simply with straight lines in white because I thought a sweet, simple quilt like this should really have sweet, simple quilting. I do love straight line quilting, if I'm honest. It's just so pretty. I love FMQ, too, don't get me wrong, but I think straight lines work better here.

Details:
Name: Split Personalities
Finished size: 56"x56"
Materials: Bright Kona Cotton solids with a variety of low volume scraps, some from a swap and some from stash.

I am entering this into the Throw Quilt category. And also linking up to Finish it Up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts since I did *just* finish! :)

P.S. Tomorrow is my one year blogiversary! Stayed tuned for a little celebratory giveaway coming this weekend :)

Back to Swooning...

Yes! I have finally made more progress on the Elephant Swoon by finishing up this pretty block.

I probably say this about all my swoon blocks... But this one might be my favorite yet! I love orange and green together :)

So that brings the total up to 5... Just 4 more to go! That's doable, right? I'd love to have at least the top done by the end of the year!

Have you finished anything awesome this week? Linking up to Finish it Up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts!

The Other Side of the Quilt

Um, so there's this awesome linky party going on. Have you heard? Katie over at Swim Bike Quilt is hosting a party to celebrate the Other Side of the Quilt. You've heard me say more than once that I often love the back of the quilt as much if not more than the front, so how could I resist participating?

Here are some photos:

 

This is the back of my Scrappy Trip quilt. It really came about because I didn't have enough continuous yardage of anything to make a quilt back. So I slapped together bits of all my bright solids and near solids and threw in a strip of leftovers from the front to create this. I absolutely adore it! I love the little strip of squares down the center and all the fun colors. This one really inspired me to make pieced quilt backs as often as possible for the future!

And this is the back of my Stitch and Flip or Wonky Triangles quilt (I never really settled on a name!). I had a few stitch and flip blocks left and didn't feel like making more to make the top bigger, so I just put them together on the back with bright teal and green to go with it. I love this quilt back, too! It's so simple, but so pretty.

The back of the quilt I'm currently working on is fun, too. You'll see that soon, hopefully! I want to get it quilted first before I try to take photos.

So I'm linking these up for now! I may link up future quilts as well depending on how long the linky stays open. So how about you? Have any exciting quilt backs to showcase? You should go link up!

Progress!

Well kids, it's Wednesday. Shall we see what kind of progress I've made this past week?

Quilting of the Low Volume Pinwheels quilt has begun:

I am keeping it simple with this quilt. Just straight lines on either side of the seams in the pinwheel and 4 patch blocks. I am halfway done- I have quilted all the lines going one direction. Hoping to finish this up this weekend if I can decide on a binding!

I have also been working on a scarf for a friend.

It's a Hufflepuff scarf! I'm knitting it in the round so it's nice and thick and looks nice on both sides. It is slow going this way, but I love the way it's turning out!

So that's what I've been up to this week. How about you?

Linking up to WiP Wednesday with Lee at Freshly Pieced and Keep Calm and Craft On at Frontier Dreams!

A Happy Little Project

I just wanted to share this little project with you today. I made it for my mom's birthday a couple of weeks ago, but now that she has it in her hands, I can show it to you.

Isn't it cute? It's just a little fabric basket. I didn't use any tutorial, just sewed up some rainbow squares and did the math to figure out how big to cut the other pieces :)

I used the little scraps left over from cutting all the rectangles for the Scrappy Chevron quilt that is currently in progress. The inside I believe is a Joel Dewberry print. Not sure what it is exactly, sorry!

The bottom is the Fireworks print from Frippery. I did a slight oops there- I forgot the interfacing. But at long at the basket is sitting on something, it's just fine.

Of course, I filled the little basket with other goodies before gifting it to my mom :)

What have you finished lately? Linking up to Finish it Up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts!

IT'S HERE

I got a very happy package today!

OMG so exciting! Acacia! AHH!

Look at that pretty stack!

Do you like the dog paw in the picture? The dogs were particularly clingy today. It was hard to get a shot without one of them!

This is what they were doing most of the time I was trying to take pictures... Sniffing the fabric, staring at it, wondering why it was so interesting to me...

Until they got bored of me and gave up.

So I could finally get a dog-free picture ;) Seriously, though, isn't it pretty? Look at those colors! And the raccoons! Oh my gosh, the raccoons!! I am not sure yet what I am going to make with these lovelies, but it has to be something AWESOME. I was so sad when Salt Water came out because I was sooo broke. I have some of it now, so it's okay, but it's much better to get it when it's still brand new and easy to find! Yay for having a job!

That was my excitement for the day. What about you?

One more gratuitous cute dog photo...

A Decision (and other little things)

After all the wonderful advice (you guys are the best!), I have decided to skip the border. I cut up the pieces and laid it out around the edges of the quilt, but it was just too loud. I think Simply Color could be really fun on a low volume background, but just not in this context. I am going to leave it as-is and quilt and bind it. It's on the small side, but it's so pretty! So who cares, right?

I already have plans for the little rectangles of Simply Color, though. I need more low volume fabric!! This really cleared out my stash...

Anyways, while I was waiting for my HUGE roll of batting to come in the mail (YAY for one day sales!), I spent the weekend with yarn instead.

My sister's roommate has these cute little crocheted potholders. I loved them so much when I saw them, I just had to go home and make my own (significantly louder) version! So that's what I did this weekend while watching Tomb Raider and Downton Abbey. It was a really lovely weekend :)

Yesterday I had some time to kill before an appointment so I went to a local discount fabric/craft store (SAS for the locals!). I may have "liberated" some pretties from the enormous mountain of cotton remnants...

...because let's face it, Amy Butler does NOT deserve to be unceremoniously buried under such a mountain! And when I say mountain, I mean MOUNTAIN. I mean, in theory there are boxes of fabric. But the fabric pile extends a good couple of feet above the boxes and it all just sort of runs together. Who knows what other treasures await my discovery? And all at $4/yd! AMAZING. Unfortunately, I really had to stop myself. I could have dug through that mountain all day and bought all of the pretty fabric! You should see the stack I left behind... But I could already hear my wallet screaming, especially considering the batting roll and the bundle I just bought, too (that will hopefully be in this week so I can show you)!

I also got these lovelies, too. The houndstooth is for a project for the boy (who is just as obsessed as I am, fortunately). I really wish I could've found a wider piece of the wide Spot On- it was the same price as fabrics of normal width!

I didn't get a picture, but I also got quite a stack of zippers. The short ones (less than 10" or so) are only $0.25 each. The longest one I got- 22"- I believe was only $0.75. There weren't a whole lot of colors and I will likely also put in an order at Zip It on Etsy, but it's good to know I can get some good neutral colored zippers for super cheap in town. I really want to make more bags, so I have been slowly gathering the hardware stuff I need. Anyone have any good sources for relatively inexpensive purse hardware online?

I have my batting and I'm just about done with the backing. I hope to move on to quilting the little pinwheel quilt soon!

Not Quite Finished Friday

Hello everyone!

I have a surprise for you today. A maybe finished quilt top! I know, weird, right? It's not even one of the projects I've been working on! But I got an urge. And put this together in a week using the pinwheel blocks I started making in the spring. So here it is:

Dappled sunshine! AH! The light is changing with fall. Guess I'll have to adjust my picture taking time!

This is the best I could do indoors!

I'm calling it "maybe" finished because my original plan was to put a brightly colored border around it using my Simply Color charm pack. But now I'm not sure... I really like it as it is right now. Would a border make it better or worse? Here is my original sketch:

Ha, I thought the border would be only 3.5". Then I decided that was a little too narrow and went with 4.5" (partially to accommodate the size of the charm squares).

Right now the quilt measure 56" square. Adding the border would bring it up over 5' square. So, what do you think? Does it need a bright, colorful border? Is it okay as it is? Suggestions would be much appreciated!

It's My Month!

Yes, it has finally arrived. My month for the Newbee Quilters bee (hive 3) on Threadbias. YAY! I have had a lot of fun making blocks for other people. Lots of blocks I probably wouldn't have tried otherwise. But now it's my turn!

Here is the sample I made for my bee-mates:

Yes, it's a granny block! With brightly colored sashing! Isn't it fun? I can't wait to see what my bee-mates come up with for their blocks! My plan is to then sash them again in white when I put the top together. That way I figure it won't matter if the whites don't match (since we're doing this all from our stashes) because they won't be right up against each other. I'm so excited about this!!

Did I ever mention that I won a giveaway over at 627handworks? Well I did! Here's the awesomeness I received:

A Simply Color charm pack and matching Aurifil thread! I have never sewn with Aurifil, so I was SUPER excited to win this! I already have big plans for the charm pack... pictures of that project later this week!

That's all that's going on in my neck of the woods! How about you?