a good night's work...

I'm soooo excited about getting to use fancy fabrics... I usually just buy remnants for myself, or regular old quilting cotton, but for this wedding quilt, I bought some Folksy Flannel, and some Little Folks Voile, and some Far Far Away double gauze... and then, because I liked the corderoy I used on my quilt, I got some for this one... the center of each block is a dark blue (not quite navy) thin waled corderoy... (Yale colors, since it's going to fellow Eli's for their wedding (thank goodness they don't read this!)). I'm also using various scraps that coordinate, just because.

The groom informed me that he likes green best, and she likes blue best, so I'm doing MOSTLY those colors, with pops of other colors...

I really really like it so far... I'm trying to find a balance between wonky and not wonky, so a few wonky scraps are in the mix, but the new ones are cut stright... I think the occasional wonky piece makes it more interesting...

just playing with the layout... I've never seen a string quilt with this sort of layout.....
maybe I should just make a big "Y" (KIDDING).
I think I might need a string quilt of my own...
(oh, I'm following the tute from here, and I'm using phone book pages cut to 8" square)

I also decided that for mother's day, I want roses... so I started making them tonight... I'm making a mixed baker's dozen for myself, 7 crimson, 7 butter yellow... we'll see if I go back for more lining fabric after I finish this... (I self-limited my color choices to the cheapest of the lining fabrics, but there are some really pretty pinks that I might go back for!). I used this tute, and I LOVE the result! I haven't actually sewn this one together yet, just gathered and wrapped, but so far I'm really happy with the result. This is totally next on my list!

Scrap baby quilt for a friend..

Murch, who lived down the hall from me senior year, and was a Whiff with C, and his lovely wife, Susan, are having a baby!
They were married just months after us, and I made them a quilt for their wedding....
When I found out they were having a baby, I waited and waited to find out the gender (GIRL!) and then searched through all my old scraps, and found some strips of blocks from their wedding quilt...
I added those strips to some juvenile print (animals in purples, blue and yellow), and here's what I came up with:

In the time it took to go get the camera, a kitty found it.

I really like the contrast, and I think it'll be neat to coordinate with the grownup quilt (which was a fence rails design)

lots of long straight lines...

the back is just a square of vintage-y striped cotton...

Quilt Blocks....

Last night was piecing night, obvi....
I made my "Dandy" block for the quilt along...

I made whirl-a-gig blocks for Heather's month


and I made triangles for Liz.... (the left is called "cards," the right one is called "roses"

more pictures on Flickr
tonight I'll work on my pie pan quilt, hopefully....

I'm quilting along...

I decided to participate in the quilt along over at Modify Tradition...
My personal rule for it is that I can only use scrap fabric, but I've decided to use the red from the thriftstore in every block to unify it a teensy bit...
so here're the blocks so far.
Broken Dishes:

Eight Hands Around:

(I messed this one up, obvi, putting just about all of the border pieces the wrong way, but I was soooo frustrated with the piecing, that I didn't even care. Of course, after I finished it, I saw the post with the corrected measurements, and felt dumb, but... oh well... Sad b/c I LOVE the teal floral fabric, and that was my last little bit of it... and the center is a super soft piece of one of C's favorite shirts (that I'm cutting down to make into a shirt for D). Below is the same block, turned 90 degrees)


And here's a corrected Eight Hands Around.
I used the red from the thrift store, and a little bit of white scrap, and the chili peppers were scraps from making the aprons for my aunts...


I'm not a chilipepper person, but I really really love the way this block looks.
like, a lot.

You know that you're addicted to sewing when...

Rather than use wrapping paper (shudder), you whip up a gift bag from
scraps.

Bedtime!