Bloggers Quilt Festival-Summer Sorbet Revisit

I've never had the chance to participate in Amy's Bloggers Quilt Festival before.  I usually think about this as a chance to share a recent finish but I noticed this year that many people were linking up with a revisit on a favorite quilt that they had finished.  I decided that I would share about my Summer Sorbet quilt again with a little update.

If you are new to my blog, welcome hope you will stay and take a look around or come back again soon for another visit.  If you read along with me you may remember this quilt from last year.  When I started Summer Sorbet I had in mind that I would just make a fun quilt in super girly colors to have around.  I didn't really have a plan for it but was aching for some sewing time and a fun pattern.  I chose Bizzy Kid by Allison of Cluck Cluck Sew and set to work.  Then my boss told us the news-she had cancer and I knew I wanted to do something.  Our office collectively set a plan to provide meals to her and her family but I wanted to do something more.  She knew I was a quilter and had often commented on my hobby so I knew a quilt was the way to go.  She has such an out going and bubbly personality that I knew this quilt I was working on would become her quilt.  And then I pushed to get it finished.

Of course nothing goes as smoothly as you plan and I had a lot of bumps along the way but in the end I had a beautiful quilt for her and I knew she would enjoy it for a long time to come.  I am happy to update that while she is no longer my boss because she has moved on to another opportunity she is healthy and happy and enjoying her life and family.  And that is the real joy of this quilt.

If you want to read more about the original journey of this quilt you can find post here and here.

Quilt Stats:
Pattern: Bizzy Kid by Cluck Cluck Sew
Pieced: On my home machine by me
Quilted: Long Arm-Ellen Harris Elizabeth City, NC
Size: Just shy of 60" x 80"

I hope you enjoy the rest of the festival and gather tons of inspiration from all of the quilt.  I can feel my to do want list growing already.

Summer Sorbet

I finished up the summer sorbet quilt this morning around 12:30am and it is being delivered tonight along with meals to my boss.  She wasn't feeling up to a visit so I just sent it along.  I know she will love and appreciate it and I hope she finds strength in its warmth.  You can read more about the quilt and it's story here.

Summer Sorbet Quilt

Summer Sorbet Front

It is quilted in an all over circle pattern.  I think they look more like tennis balls because of the way the circles loop back into themselves before transitioning on to the next.  But I was hoping it would not only tie in with the circles on the minky back but that it would also soften all of the sharp angles in the blocks on the front.

Close up of the quilting.

Front and Back of Summer Sorbet

 I used couture cotton in raspberry for the binding.  This new solid is super silky and it was really easy to hand sew as binding.  I can see more of this solid in my future for sure.  I love the way it frames out the quilt, balances with the bright colors in both the front and back, and ties it all together.

Summer Sorbet Strength

You may remember that I was working on finishing up a quilt based on the Bizzy Kid pattern from Alison at Cluck Cluck Sew.  Originally I didn't have any specific plans for this quilt.  I was just so inspired by the color scheme and a need to sew that I knew I wanted to make something even though I had no idea what.  After getting this quilt started I realized its bright and happy colors would be perfect for a quilt I was needing to make for a coworker.  Recently my boss was diagnosed with Cancer and my first thought was she needs a quilt.  She's going to be going through radiation and I wanted her to have something to cuddle under to take lots of naps.

Sorbet From Pintrest

I had planned to order washi tape fabric for the back of this quilt but once I had a plan my goal became to finish it as quickly as possible and get it to my boss.  My mom suggested that I look at using Minky for the back because it would add that extra special bit of softness.  I got online and started looking for minky and it didn't take me long to find something I liked from fabric.com.  I knew my quilt top was going to measure somewhere close to 60 by 80 when I finished so I sent some emails back and forth with my mom and decided to order 2 1/2 yards of a minky that was 60 inches wide.

Kaufman Minky Cuddle Balloon Party Aqua/Magenta

Yes, EPIC FAIL!  60 inches wide of course is selvage to selvage which you all know won't work.  I had the backing fabric sent to my mom's because I thought this would make the process faster.  I dropped the finished quilt top off to my mom last Saturday so that she could take it to the quilter who had promised that once we dropped it off she would finish what was on her long arm and then load this quilt next.  That's one great thing about having a relationship with a long arm quilter, they help you out when it's important.  It was only when my mom and dad laid the backing and quilt top out together that the mistake was realized.  Then the text message came.  Your quilt top is 2 inches bigger than your backing.  WOW!  How am I going to fix this?  I knew my mom had already been gracious enough to sew muslin to the minky to give the long arm quilter a way to stretch it into the frame.  So I suggested we cut 1/2 inch off both sides and then I would just use an extra wide binding to cover the little bit of muslin that would be left in the quilt.

The next text I got was "I am not cutting your quilt top!"  I quickly shot back oh it's fine.  I really need to get this done and I don't have time to come back and get it and then take it all apart.  You see my boss is currently in week 4 of a 7 week cycle and I really want to get this finished and to her.  I explained again to my mom that even though I understand the importance of not doing anything at all if you aren't going to do your best that in this case it was more important to me to have it finished than to have it perfect.  But finally I agreed to think about it overnight.

The next day my mom suggested that if I took out the 4 long seams and resewed them 1/4th of an inch smaller it would pull in the quilt top enough to make it work.  This was followed by a lot of grumbling from me that I didn't have time to make the trip back down to their house after work followed by me agreeing to do it.  My father stayed up until 11 taking out all four of the long seams.  The next day I was schedule to come down and resew those seams but this little thing call work and a crazy rainstorm got in the way.  Not that it would have mattered because by lunch time my mother had texted me a finished photo of the resewn quilt top.  By the way my parents if you don't know them are some of the nicest, kindest, most considerate people you will ever meet!  They aren't just this sweet to me.

Top after being sewn back together.

I have to say I think the finished top looks even better now then it did when I had finished it.  The quilt is at the long arm now and she is hoping to have it finished by the end of the weekend.  I am dropping dinner off for my boss on Thursday so I am hoping to have the binding and all done by then so I can take the quilt to her.  Hopefully she will find strength in summer sorbet and will know that she is loved.

WIP Wednesday (The One With The Rescue)

So it's been a long time since I've been able to spend some quality time with my machine.  But now that Bertha and I are back to being BFF's, it's been nice to be able to resurrect some old projects and work on some new ones at the same time.

Block # 75 Rosebud

Over the last few weeks I've managed to make 1 (yes only one) Farmer's Wife Blocks.  It is block #75, Rosebud.  Now that I have a little more time to spend with Bertha I am really looking forward to working on some of the harder blocks I have left.  I have enough blocks done that I could stop here and just make a lap size quilt but learning new things is one of the main reasons I wanted to do this quilt along.  So I am sticking with it in hopes of finishing another super girly queen sized quilt for the guest bedroom.

Finished Loulouthi Tiles on a Queen Bed

My big finish this week was my Loulouthi Tiles Quilt.  You can read all about that here.  But I wanted to give you a quick second look and this time I took a photo on the bed so you could see how well it covers.  It does go to the end of the mattress on the left side but the right side against the wall could have used one more column in my opinion then it would be just right. 

Column 1 & 2 of Bizzy Kid

Bizzy Kid was my new start in the last two weeks.  I love how easy this pattern came together and if you haven't already used one of Allison's patterns I would recommend them for sure.  I am still working on a better name for this, maybe summer sorbet.  But I don't really know.  You can read more about the inspiration for this quilt here.
 

Needs at least 1 more block

New this week I am bringing back a quilt that has set as blocks for a very long time in my sewing space.  Do you remember this post way back in 2010?  Well that was the year of the bees for me and the first and only bee I have hosted to date Bee-Stitched was among those.  I remember spending way too much time fretting over what kind of block to use and finally landing on one inspired by Red Pepper Quilts.  Shortly after I requested this block I saw it popping up like crazy in blogland but I haven't really ever seen a finished quilt made from the pieces.  In fact I believe even Rita's is still a WIP.  This week I decided to get it out and see how many blocks I had and what I wanted to do with it.  I had originally planed to add stars to the sashing like in Rita's original layout but I think I really just like the overall scrappy goodness and the additional stars made from sewing the blocks together as they are.  I have to make at least one more block for this quilt top to have enough and I am contemplating actually making 4-5 more so that I can add another row or column.  I like my quilts to be big so that they are easy to snuggle under.  I'm not sure about this one just yet but I think it is destine to be a gift for a lovely friend that is moving the end of July.  It's strange because when I picked this block and these fabrics (yes that is original FMF in there-that I paid an arm and a leg for) I wanted it to be so perfect because I knew I would never give it up.  I didn't have much of a stash then and I bought a lot of fat quarters just to cut up into this treasure.  I begged people to be sure and use the FMF and those fussy cut goldfish in their blocks because I paid so much money for them when they were hard to find.  If only I had known by the time I got around to finishing the quilt those fabrics would be available as reprint.  But now because it is so scrappy good and I love it so much I think those are the best kinds of gifts.  The ones you want to keep for yourself but give away because you care for the person that much.

Blocks pressed and laid out

Be sure to head on over to Lee's to see what every one else is up too.  And be sure to link up your own WIP cause I know I need more inspiration.

Bizzy Kid

If you have been reading a long for a while you know that my life has been a little crazy as of late.  One of our friends was going through a rough spot and we opened our home to him and his two year old daughter.  It made it difficult to sew and I have gotten pretty far behind on a lot of my projects.  Is that possible?  Can you be behind on something that is just a hobby?  With the exception of my one commitment to a Round Robin group I have not joined any bees or swaps this year in anticipation that it might get a little crazy.  So can I really be behind?  I mean I doubt I will make my goal of 12 quilts this year since it is May and I have only one finish for the year thus far but that is just a personal goal so there really isn't any consequence to not meeting that goal but it feels strangely like pressure.  This weekend I was finally able to spend a little time in my sewing room just relaxing, listening to Pandora, and sewing away.  So what do you do when you have about 4 projects you are in the middle of, round robin quilts that need to be done, and about a million other things all calling for your attention-start something new of course.  At least that's what I did!  I was originally inspired by this fabric pull that Corey did for a pillow swap and knew I wanted to make something with these bright colors.  So I started pulling fabrics for a granny squares quilt since that is the latest quilt along that the Old Red Barn Quilt Along group is working on.  But then I saw this quilt top and knew that they would be too similar.  And well honestly I wasn't feeling the granny square love.  Sometimes I like to do quilt alongs but sometimes I can't help but think I don't want a quilt like everyone else.

The two different sets 

So I had seen a pattern over at Cluck Cluck Sew the other day that I liked.  I don't buy many patterns because usually I can look at the picture and sort of figure it out but in this case I just wanted someone else to have done all the math for me.  Bizzy Kid wasn't the original pattern I saw but it stuck my fancy when I was ordering.  I needed to spend time sewing and not looking at inspiration only to find the day gone and a project not started.  So on Thursday night I ordered the PDF (another first for me) pattern of Bizzy Kid and read through the instructions.  I looked at my fabrics I had pulled and figured out I had what I needed.  I went to the LQS on Friday during my lunch break to get some Kona Snow and was hoping to find some charcoal sketch.  They appeared to be out of both but lucky for me a willing salesperson and a trip to the back found a bolt of Kona Snow that was not in the inventory in the computer.  So Friday night I cut my solid six inch squares and made the larger hourglass blocks.  Sunday I spent most of the day sewing and was able to complete the blocks and sew the sets together.  The only thing left is to sew the columns together and wait till payday to order some washi tape fabric for the back.  I think it will be the perfect fabric for this quilt.

This is a queen bed with blocks laid out on it.  The row hanging off the side will actually move to the other side of the quilt there just wasn't enough room.  And this should finish at about a twin size according to the pattern.

This is the first pattern I have purchased from Allison but I would recommend her again.  I found the pattern to be very well written and easy to understand.  And while the pattern was simple enough and I probably could have figured it out myself it was nice to have the math already taken care of for me.  Another handy trick I learned while putting this one together, my Tucker Trimmer (HST ruler) was perfect for trimming my hourglass blocks.  The two diagonals on the ruler made it the perfect tool.

I also got my Loulouthi Tiles quilt back from the long arm so I should have my second finish of the year to share with you soon.  Hopefully that will take some of the pressure off.  What have you been sewing?