Swoon Lovin'

Slow and steady, okay not really cut as fast as you can so you can get some stitches sewn in between the madness.  That about sums it up for me.  But I still love my Swoon Quilt and it has been a huge help having all of the white background pieces cut.  Saturday after my quilt guild meeting I was able to make one block.  I think this is my favorite one yet.

I mean how can you not love that sweet little flower.  Lucky for me since I got this quilt as a kit from my parents that is also the fabric that was included for the backing.  I know you can't see it through the computer but big happy smile on my face there.  Then on Sunday I really really really needed to do some cleaning so in my haste to cut out a second block I cut some pieces twice and not enough of another.  It was a hot mess but in the end it works and I wonder how many of you even noticed not all of the squares are cut running the same way on the fabric.

So that brings my grand total to 6 down and 3 to go.  I love the way they are looking all together.  Funny story though.  My dad did help me cut out one of the blocks and the first thing I said was I want to make the middle red so it will be the opposite of the other one.  Of course we cut and then I pieced and went duh we cut this backwards but it's okay because it is still a pretty block.

The two red and gray are made with different fabrics they just look the same here.

So I'm still in LOVE with my Swoon quilt.  Have you got the bug yet?  Did you make one?  Did you see this scrappy version?  I missed it to start with but someone in my guild told me about it.  I have to say if I didn't have a backing kit for this quilt I would be making this for the other side.  But now I am thinking it would make a perfect reverse to my Complications quilt.  So many ideas so little time.

Pillow Talk (Finish it up Friday)

I love it when I get to share something on WIP Wednesday and by Finish it up Friday it's done.  That doesn't happen very much with quilts so maybe I should tackle some more of these smaller projects.  My modern quilt guild is hosting a pillow cover exchange on Saturday as part of our meeting.  Anyone who wanted to participate put their name and the colors they like on a piece of paper and entered it into a hat.  Then we randomly drew names.  Needless to say I don't know much about my partner and with no flickr or blog to stalk I was flying blind.  The only thing I knew was that she wanted something in the Quiltcon color scheme.

Quilting close up

I decided to go with the carpenter star after seeing this picture over on flickr.  I thought it was a pretty great concept that I could easily make into a pillow.  I had thought about doing a lot of quilting on this but in the end I decided to go minimal.  I quilting  in a spiral from the outside in of the four large diamonds.  I have never had a quilted pillow and I wasn't sure if my partner would want one or not.  I know it would be trickier to add more quilting once the pillow is done but figured if she wanted more quilting I could offer to do that.  After all that is way easier than taking out a bunch of quilting.

This really is straight I promise.  Not sure why it looks wonky here.

In the back I wasn't sure if I would have enough of the gray fabric so I added in a strip of the same lime green from the front.  I think it gives it a nice pop of color and is a playful little detail.  The Quiltcon colors don't match anything in my house and that is probably a very good thing since I need LOVE this pillow.

In other news if you haven't heard yet there are some amazing groups collecting items for Boston to share the LOVE.  The Boston Modern Quilt Guild is collecting blocks to turn into quilts for those hurting after last weeks bombing.  It doesn't feel like much to me to make a quilt block or two but having people I love in Boston makes me want to do something, anything.  No matter how small it may seem I know it will be a good way of letting them know we are praying for them and sharing our love.

You can find out more by checking out the Boston Modern Quilt Guild blog.

WIP Wednesday

How is it that we are back to Wednesday again already.  I guess I should have expected it since it comes around faster and faster every week.  I had the chance to visit my parents this past weekend and my dad helped me cut some more pieces for my Swoon Quilt.  So I managed to sew up one more block.  That's 4 down and 5 to go if you are keeping up.

In other news, I have gone to the last two meetings of the VA Beach Modern Quilt Guild.  They meet on the last Saturday of the month and it can be pretty hard to get up in time to make the almost hour drive to where they meet.  After the first meeting I wasn't too sure I would go back but after some encouragement I gave it a go and I am so glad I did.  The highlight for me at the last meeting was getting to meet fabric designer Alison Glass of Lucky Penny fame.  She is so kind and patient in person.  And she brought with her one of her quilts that had been quilted by none other than Angela Walters.  It was so cool to see Angela's quilting in person and I know if it wasn't for the guild I probably wouldn't ever have the chance.

But I said all of that to say we are having a pillow swap at our meeting on Saturday.  Since I am pretty new to the group I don't know a whole lot about my partner only that she requested a pillow made in the colors of Quiltcon.  I decided to go with a Carpenter's Star because I thought it was just modern enough.  I'm going with this cool Comma fabric on the back for a little something extra.  I've been thinking about quilting the front panel before adding the back.  What do you think?  How would you quilt it?  Or is it okay with out any quilting?  And what color thread?  I thought about maybe just some straight lines radiating from the middle to enhance the star quality but I'm not sure.  And I thought about just using plan old white thread but do you think that will stand out too much on the bright colors?  Oh choices, they are always so much harder when it's for a swap.  Especially when you don't know the person you are giving it to.

My last little update for the week was playing around with the blog some more.  Now that so many people have switched over to Bloglovin I really want the blog to look great.  One thing I really like about Bloglovin is that when you read the blog post it actually pulls up the blog.  That is something I missed in google reader because you never got to see the actual blog unless you clicked through further.  Anyway I've added a finished quilts page to the top of the blog so you can see my finished quilts all in one place.  It's still a WIP and I'd like to make the photos tile instead of all line up down the middle like that but I'm not yet sure how to do that.  I'm also planning to add an about page at some point, I just haven't decided what kind of format I want to go with there.

So that's it for me.  Be sure to head over to Lee's and see what everyone else is up to.

WIP Wednesday

So remember how I was telling you guys I got distracted from my Complications Quilt by my Swoon Quilt.  I mean really what's not to love about both of these quilts.  I mean I don't think Bonnie and Camille could make better fabrics if they tried and they all play so nicely together.

Well here is my progress on the Complications Quilt.  You might notice a little bit of Ruby from my Swoon quilt already managed to slip itself in there.  One of the biggest challenges for me with this quilt is making sure I am getting color and fabrics dispersed evenly throughout the quilt.  Of course now that I realized I also want to mix Ruby into the fray it gets even more complicated (no pun intended).  I just can't help but LOVE this quilt.  This is the first part of the puzzle and it is now as wide as the quilt will be without the boarders.  It's pretty impressive to me because it's currently 5 feet wide.  I really am flying by the seat of my pants with this one so I had no idea how big it would end up being  Of course with another 12 inches in outside boarders it's going to end up being a pretty wide quilt.  I would say this section which measures about 2 feet makes up about 1/4 of the total quilt.

In other news I did make an additional Swoon block just so I could add the scraps into my selections for the Complications Quilt.  Somehow I feel like these two quilts are going to continue to evolve together.  So I have 3 blocks down and 6 more to go on this one.

My mom also picked up my Posh Enigma Quilt from the long arm so hopefully I will have a finish to show you soon.  I'm not meeting up with my mom until Saturday so it will be at least next week but I do have my binding fabrics all ready to go.  It's hard to believe that I pieced that top way back in November of 2009.  It's not at all my aesthetic anymore so I'm really not even sure what I am going to do with the finished quilt but it is nice to have my "first" quilt out of the closet and thisclo

se to the finished list.

Be sure to head over to Lee's to see what everyone else is up to.

Progress or Distraction

So this weekend I had grand plans to sew because I needed to make a pillow for a swap for my Modern Quilt Guild and a bag I plan to make for the Sew Sew Modern Swap.  Of course I went to the local quilt store on Friday during my lunch hour only to find out they had nothing that I needed.  My partner in the pillow swap wants something Quiltconish (I know not a real word) and in a store that carries every Kona solid you can name and has a very small modern quilt presence can you believe they were out of every color I needed except School Bus.  Not even Medium Gray or Coal on the shelves.

At any rate I decided to just order what I needed online but of course that means I didn't have the fabrics in time to sew for this weekend.  The bag, well I could have worked on the bag but sometimes swaps make me crazy.  I pegged my partner for a purple person based on her flickr favorites and blog but then her comments on some of the items that have already been made make me think maybe I have that wrong so I procrastinate with the best of them.  I will make the bag this week!

In the mean time I decided to work on my Complications quilt a little more.  I think I said before one of my favorite things and one of the worse things about that quilt is that it is really pushing me out of my comfort zone.  This quilt started as a quilt along but I didn't find it until long after that was over so I was able to see the finished quilt before starting.  I think I mentioned before that there is a lot of empty space in the quilt design which is open for interpretation.  I've been filling in those gaps in several ways from making extra blocks, to using postage stamp squares, to using larger squares of some of the larger prints in the fabrics.

All that to say as I was piecing some of those gaps this weekend I looked up and noticed my two completed swoon blocks.  Oh I love that quilt.  The great big blocks the Ruby fabrics.  Wait what... oh yeah my swoon quilt is made out of another Bonnie and Camille line.  So if I finish cutting the pieces for those blocks I can use the leftover pieces in my Complications quilt.  And so Complications went to the back burner and another Swoon block was made instead.  That's 3 down and 6 more blocks to go.  And a little bit of Ruby made it in the Complications quilt already.

WIP Wednesday

Puzzle Piece 2

I've been working on my Complications quilt again a little this week because I am procrastinating the bag, pillow cover, and block I have to make by the end of the month.  I know it happens but I will manage to get it all done.  One of the biggest challenges for me of this quilt is filling all of the empty spaces.  I still have a few more blocks to make but I'm a little impatient so I like to mix it up some and alternate between the blocks and building the other pieces.  In this case I was working on the chunk of quilt that goes to the right of puzzle piece one.  In the original pattern that area is mostly just made up of little squares.  I chose to make an extra block or two to take up some of that space and mixed in some large squares of fabric as well.

Pretty Little Squares 

One challenge I realized I was having is getting an even distribution of color.  See I have some fat quarters that I haven't even cut into yet.  Please tell me I am not the only one who does this. I don't have a large stash so fabric hoarding isn't really a problem for me most of the time.  But in this case in my mind I know I should be cutting them up so that I don't end up with all of some fabrics at the top and all of others at the bottom.  In my mind I know it will give me a more cohesive look which is what I'm really after but when I start sewing I can't help but think I don't want to cut those up just yet because they are so pretty sitting there.  Plus I think I get scared that since I don't have all of my blocks made just yet that I will end up not having enough fabric or large enough pieces to finish.  I did force myself into it once I realized that I have been gravitating towards all those yummy pinks while working on this quilt.  I have lots of pink fabrics mixed in and sometimes it was hard even just getting blocks to go where I wanted without having too much pink in one space.

So that's it for me this week.  Head over to Lee's to see what everyone else is up to.