Organizing my quilting projects!

Busy time in my sewing room right now!  I've been hard at work this week making twin quilts of my Twinkle Star design!  It's pretty fast making two of the same thing at the same time - and you get double the satisfaction at the end of sewing all your blocks:

Those two extra blocks are the beginnings of my Blockheads II quilt.  I am sooo far behind with my blocks, but I swear I am going to catch up...I don't know when, but I will!

I also did some machine quilting this week and got my new sample done for Mountain Dawning!

Just as pretty in bright colors as it was in blues!

I did quilt this one differently.  I stipple quilted the white and did curved and straight line quilting in the rainbow section.

So pretty!  This one will be going to Threads That Bind as a shop sample along with one of the Twinkle Star quilts.  We have kits or fabric available for both quilts.

Progress is stalled on the Brothers and Sisters Quilt while I wait for the border fabric to arrive.  I also will be working on one of the blocks that isn't playing well with the rest.

I finished up the top for my November Island Batik Ambassador challenge!  I also have the back ready so can get that basted and ready for quilting, at least I am good with that deadline.  Are you interested in becoming an Island Batik Ambassador?  The 2019 Application was just published - I highly recommend the experience, and have already applied for another year.

Last, but not least is my "secret sewing"!  I have so many of these projects that I am working on right now that I had to come up with a way to organize everything so I can work effectively and keep things together.  I made a trip to the Dollar Tree to see what I could find to help me.  Though it's not the most gorgeous and photogenic solution I found some great bins in the perfect size.  I have all my printed material for these projects in plastic sleeves so that I can double check fabric requirements, make notes for changes to instructions, and keep track of my progress.  These four bins are to become completed quilts for the Island Batik 2019 Spring Summer Catalog.  I can't show you the fabric yet, but you know it is all beautiful!

Next week I will show you my project for the Fall/Winter catalog - it is so bright and beautiful!  It's a little strange working so far ahead on projects, but also fun.  It's almost like a surprise when the fabrics come out and you remember how gorgeous they were!

Back to the sewing machine, because as you can see, there is lots of stitching to be done here!

Come join the link up on Myra's Blog:

Have a wonderful weekend!

Cozy Cabins progress

I had a lovely Saturday - lots of sewing and just general puttering around in my sewing room!  I finished up the blocks for my Lavender Sage Log Cabin quilt  (Island Batik Ambassador Challenge for November), and took a little time to try a couple different layouts.  Here are the blocks as they got thrown up on the design wall when they were finished:

I tried a diagonal setting first, but wasn't entirely thrilled with the bottom row as I was a dark purple block short of an even arrangement:

Then I tried out a version with dark purple in the center of the quilt and building out:

Then for fun, I posted the three pictures on my facebook page and my instagram account to see what the most popular layout would be.  So far 12 like the diagonal and 13 like the centered.  So close - I'm leaning toward the centered version simply because it is what's up on my design wall and it would be easy just to sew the blocks together and be done.  So, let me know you think, maybe you can change my mind!

I also pulled my rug out of hibernation and added a couple more rounds.  It was getting a little wavy, so I think I got it pulled back in to shape.  I had a ton more strips to sew together so I am ready to add more to it this week.  These are entirely binding scraps at this point!  It is totally amazing how much I have accumulated over a year.  When I get those all added I may start raiding my 2 inch strip bin and use those.  It's kind of hard on my wrists, and I have a tendency to have my tension too tight so it's a bit of work.  At least this is not a big rush project, just a fun way to use up fabric.

I also stitched together a bunch of little leftover bits from the log cabin quilt.  Thinking I will turn this into a cute throw pillow, I just had to use up every last bit of the lovely Lavender Sage fabrics, they were too pretty to toss!

Today's plan is to clean up the sewing room a bit and work on a pair of identical quilt tops.  One is for a customer and the other is a shop sample.  And maybe some machine quilting - I've got several tops in line that are basted and ready to go.  Let's face it, I just need more hours in a day to get all my projects finished!

Linking up with:

Slow Sunday Stitching

Oh Scrap!

Needle, Paper and Scissors

When discussing paper piecing, it's important to determine whether the topic is english paper piecing (EPP) or foundation paper piecing.  The former is done by hand, and the latter is a machine piecing technique.  For this months Island Batik Ambassador challenge, I decide to do EPP.  Since I usually like to piece by machine, this was a great way to do something different, and since it's very portable it was a great project to take with me during our travel times.  I used scraps from the Eclectic Garden and British Rose collections for my project - such fun colors!

I like to baste my pieces by hand, so I put my wonder clips into use to hold down the corners while I stitched the edges.

I really didn't have a plan when I started, I just started making stars.  Can you see my mistake in the green one with the purple center?  I can goof up just as well hand stitching as I can when machine stitching!

I decided to make 7 star units and joined them with light yellow diamonds.

This was a great relaxing project!  So nice to put my feet up and stitch for a while :)  I added Dragonflies in Lilac triangles to finish out the edges, then added Dragonflies in Jelly from the Lavendula line.

Since I'd done all the piecing by hand I decided to hand quilt it.  I received this lovely spool of 12 wt thread from Aurifil in my July Ambassadador box from Island Batik, and the color looked great with this project!  Light Blue Grey blends nicely with both the lights and darks in my quilt.

I decided to use the Dragonfly in lilac for the binding as well, and this I did machine stitch!  Those corners are a little tricky, but they came out really nicely as well!

Isn't it pretty?

I love the geometric look on the back.  I used Rice for the backing.  One of my favorite neutrals!

This was really a fun project!  I don't know if I have the patience for a large EPP project, but his small one was really pleasant, and I enjoyed having a project to stitch by hand in those little moments of time that I would have probably otherwise been looking at my phone - much more productive and relaxing!

Thank you to Island Batik and Aurifil Thread for providing the materials for this fun project!

Kissin' in the Pumpkin Patch

I am delighted to say that I have finally finished the top that I made for the Island Batik Ambassador challenge in October!  The fabric is Pumpkin Patch and I used this as an opportunity to spruce up my Lover's Kiss pattern.  (The fabric for the top was provided by Island Batik in my Fall 2017 Ambassador box )

My original version of this pattern only used twenty one 2 1/2 inch strips and had a plain border.  Now, I have included a piano key border option that uses the remaining strips - a much better use of a strip pack!  You can also make this pattern using fat quarters, because I just love a pattern that gives you options.

I found a rich brown for the backing, and quilted it with leaves and loops using Aurifil 40 wt thread in a lovely reddish brown color that looks wonderful on both the front and the back.  I really like the 40 weight for quilting - it gives the quilting a nice definition without being too heavy.

I love the beautiful colors in this line, and the focus fabric is so lovely with such pretty details.  This is a perfect quilt for fall!

The piano key border is really wonderful, I think - and I love that I could use every last strip in the package.  This quilt is now available for purchase in my Etsy Shop, and my pattern is available there as well!  The cover now features Salt and Pepper by Island Batik.

Pumpkin Patch Quilt

Lover's Kiss Pattern

I'm happy to see that the enormous piles in my sewing room are slowly being whittled down!  Still have a lot of projects in the works, but they are starting to get cleared off the list, one by one.

Hope you have a happy day - go do some quilting!

Sometimes good things come in BIG packages!

Where has this week gone?  Gosh, it seems like it was just Monday morning and I was looking forward to a relatively quiet week, and now it's Saturday already!  There was indeed some excitement in my week - I was shipped a new box of Island Batik Ambassador goodies.  That was definitely a highlight!  Island Batik is very generous to provide us beautiful fabric to work with and show to our followers on social media!  Aurifil thread and Hobbs also provided us with some wonderful goodies as well, and I am so appreciative of their generosity as well.

First of all, though, I got two quilt tops pieced.  The first  one was a shop sample for an owl quilt featuring Forest Owl from Clothworks fabric.  We only ordered two of the coordinating fabrics, but I found lots of other fabrics that worked with the beautiful colors at Threads That Bind.  I ended up changing my original design slightly to make it easier to put together.  I didn't really want to try to write a pattern with 12 partial seams!

Super cute!  It is going to get small borders in the orange fabric to frame it, then it will be ready for quilting.

Then I also got the top ready for the class I'll be teaching in March.  Still getting the pattern finished up, but that should also be available quite soon.  This is a quilt I designed last year while I was doing my Quilter's Recipe Box block of the month and I think it will be a great beginners class.  We cover regular piecing, strip piecing, half square triangles, block assembly, top assembly and borders!  All this in four weeks.  Should be fun!

I guess that kept me busy so that I wasn't pacing the floor waiting for that lovely Ambassador Box to arrive!  When it arrived on Thursday morning I couldn't wait to show it off, so did a video, complete with exercise clothes and crazy hair!




And now I know how to flip the video so it won't be backwards next time!  I didn't realize that there is a way to do that in the live video settings, so I'll tell you how so I won't forget!  All you have to do is tap the little magic wand at the bottom left side of the screen, tap the little tool icon at the bottom right, and at the left you tap the horizontal flip button!  No more backwards videos!  Yay!

So, the contents of my box were very exciting!  I've been petting my fabric and dreaming about what things I can come up with.

I'm checking out patterns to use that lovely rayon fabric.  I can see a couple new tops in my future!

I was shocked to see how much thread I've used from the cone I was sent this spring in my Aurifil Artisan collection!  I love that neutral, it really works well on just about everything!

These fabrics have been cut to pieces and are becoming a couple of projects.  I'm enjoying working with the pink and red right now - puts me in a happy mood :)

Time to get out into the sun and walk - we've had a nice week of lovely weather, I'll take some pictures of the cherry trees that are blooming right now, you will love them!

Have a wonderful day!


Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts for finish it up Friday, and with Busy Hands Quilts for Finished or Not Friday.