Ambitious is Good: Retreat Update

I guess taking 4 projects is a good thing. I finished 2 quilt tops and 1 entire quilt, pieced, quilted it and put on the binding!! I guess I was afraid of the quilt police (NOT!)

Here's my finished baby quilt called Squared Up. I can't believe this was a UFO for SO long! It probably took me all of 5 hours from start to finish.

Close up, LOVE that binding!

Here is a wonky log cabin and Robot quilt. It started with just a panel of robots and some extra cogs in yellow and black. I mixed in some of my Moda Marbles from a jelly roll and it was PERFECT! I LOVE wonky log cabin quilts! My shirt says "What happens at quilt retreat stays at quilt retreat" Until, of course I blog about it on Monday. Haha.

 Here is the Paris Birds quilt I took with me. I need to add two borders but it was the first top I finished on Friday. (The blocks were already pieced, I just put them together into the top)

There was a fourth project I took with me that didn't get started, it was from the BRAND NEW Quilts and More, which I just got on Thursday. I'll post more about that later. So what did YOU finish this weekend??

Also, I think wearing the shirt Failure is NOT an Option helped when we played Left, Right, Center on Friday night because I WON! Yep, 40 random fat quarters! Hmm, wonder what I'll do with those?

Happy Stitches,
Anna

Finishing Feels Good!

I just got a LOT of this fabric in, I mean A LOT, as in 30 yards! (It's been popular in the past, I wanted to make sure I had enough to fill future orders)

 So I decided to make a sample of this cute little pattern called Notting Hill by Pink Fig Patterns. I added in some other fabrics as well and here is what I got:

It's made in size 2T for my best friend's daughter, Lily(bug). I can't wait to try it on her and snap a few pictures!!

AND since during the construction process of making this skirt I learned how to make GATHERS (yippee!) I decided to tackle THIS tutorial that I've been just DYING to do. And I used the leftovers from cutting the fabric for the skirt! Not only did I make it out of the leftovers, practice more gathers, but I ALSO tackled (re-taught myself/conquered my fear of) a ZIPPER!!! And ended up with a cute clutch, to boot.

Yippee! What a happy finishing day!

Oh and finished up TWO pillowcases for the Pillowcase Challenge Party, thanks to all who participated!

Have YOU started or finished anything this weekend?

Happy Stitches,

Anna

Spill the Beans Sunday is BAAACK!!

The topic for today's Spill the Beans is... FINISHED PROJECTS! OR projects you hope to get fininshed really soon.OR whatever you are working on right now! (I like variety)

Here are a couple of quilts I finished THIS WEEK! Yippee, two in one week is pretty major for me. Plus, my next work in progress.

This is the second quilt I'm adding to the group to be donated to a local shelter for families this fall. My local Crafty Girls Workshop meetup group has been working on these month by month. It's sort of my own design, although it's super easy to do so anyone could figure it out. A new friend that I met through the SA Modern Quilt Guild has a longarm machine and she generously offered to quilt it for me, which helped me to get it done so quickly. She even added a custom butterfly in the quilting at my request.

 Then I found an absolutely awesome explanation for doing machine binding in the book called Dare to be Square Quilting. (Here is a great feature about the author, Boo Davis) So after hunting down a bias tape maker I whipped out binding for this quilt and the second quilt that I made to give to my surrogate niece, Lily, who just turned one year old this week! Her birthday party was yesterday. Here's her quilt:

I quilted it using my stitch regulator and it went pretty quickly. I love to make the backs of quilts interesting too, so I used flannel and did an applique of her nick name which is Lily Bug.

Here is "Da Bug" with her quilt, doesn't she look ecstatic to receive it? Her mom and dad loved it and everyone ooh'd and ahh'd over it so that was nice.

And just because she's SOOO cute, here is one more awesome photo of yesterday's party.

Really, I only took about 65 pictures and three or four video clips of the day. I just couldn't put my camera down, I mean how could I with a face like that!?

Now, let me show you a little bit of my NEXT project. I had a honey bun, which is 1 1/2" strips and some backing fabric from a line called Hello Betty. I've had this for quite awhile and finally decided I wanted to do something with it. The president of the SA Modern Quilt Guild had shown off a quilt she made with the same fabric using a grey for a contrasting solid color to help the patterned fabrics POP out. So I decided that since Crafty Girls Workshop HAS some Moda Bella Solid Grey, why not use some of it in a quilt? Well, then I had to find a pattern, and the Does Not Compute pattern was pretty close to what I wanted, but without the robot (Maybe another project someday) turns out I just wanted the pattern that is called Amish Brickwork, SO that's how the idea for Amish Betty was born. Here are my supplies.

I've already made significant progress. The pattern is from Dare to Be Square also and the author gives a great explanation of using 18" strips to do strips piecing to really speed up the brickwork background part. I spent my SA Mod Quilt Guild Sew In day yesterday from about 10 am to 2 pm sewing 50 patterned strips to 50 grey strips. My next step is to press them and cut them into the brick pieces, I can't wait!!

OK, YOUR turn to SPILL THE BEANS! I want to know what you're working on right now! Please share and feel free to add a link to your blog if you've posted pictures. I'm not doing a McLinky thing, but just put the link in your comments. Thanks!!

Happy Stitches,
Anna

I'm sharing this on Something I Whipped Up at The Girl Creative

Friendly Friday and Catching Up (Again)

So I've been a little busy lately, duh, when is anyone ever NOT busy? Since I actually managed to get a new job that starts on MONDAY (gulp) I've been trying to get my house in order before I'm gainfully employed and unable to spend all my time cleaning house (yeah right). Yesterday was the second half of a wholecloth quilt class I took at one of my Local Quilt Shops (LQS). This quilt and quilting technique is just simply AWESOME! Guess what? After only two morning classes and some mad quilting in between, I've got a FINISHED quilt! Want to see?

Here it is in all it's crinkly goodness. I LOVE this quilting technique, the result looks like PLAID! Isn't that sew cool? Hmm, did I mention this before or anything? Oh, and yes, I used ALL that thread I showed in my other post. Here are some more fun pictures of the quilt.

Close up of the binding and piping, plus the back!

A far away shot, sort of

So  now that I'm done tooting my horn about this quilt, here's a question:

Would you like me to create a tutorial about this technique? It's TOTALLY easy! It's two pieces of fabric, 1 1/2 yd each and some for the binding and piping. That's pretty much it for the materials, how cool is that!?

Please let me know if you want me to do a tutorial, because if so, I'll probably have to make another one (OH DARN) in order to photograph the process. Oh, and I figured out a sort of nifty faux mitered corner technique for the binding. (Very proud of myself about that) Did I mention that this quilt is done ENTIRELY on the machine? Even the binding!

OK, enough about me. What are y'all up to today? I think I'm going to try to work on my sewing room spruce up some more, but later.

I'm linking today's post up to the usual Friendly Friday linky parties. See sidebar for links.

Happy Stitches,

Anna