Mama & Baby Pips

It's finish it up Friday and I have 2 quilts to show you today.  These quilts started when Abby suggested a quilt along over on Instagram following Camille's Jelly Filled Quilt Pattern.  Since this was at the start of my Sewing with Camille challenge I was excited to have some friends to sew along with on one of the patterns.  The blocks for this quilt come together super quick and I found that it was fairly easy to chain piece 3-4 at a time.  For some reason I have a hard time doing much more than that although I'm sure there are many of you who could probably chain piece all of the blocks in one sitting.

 

As I was making this quilt I started to fall in love with it and I really wanted to keep it for myself but I decided that with all the pink and the cute little puppies my SIL would probably enjoy it for the new baby.  That idea morphed into matching quilt when I went to visit my mom and she gave me her jelly roll of sherbet pips.  I had enough at that point to make the first quilt larger but knew I would have some left over unless I made a huge quilt.  My SIL is expecting her second child in just a few weeks so the idea to make a matching quilt for little sister (my brother is having a very hard time agreeing to a name for the baby-so we call her little sister) came about.

Abby also happened to over a sale on long arm services for any holiday pattern in July.  I posted my quilt top and a few selections on Instagram asking for help picking a quilt pattern.  In my mind I wanted something that looked like wind because the quilt scream girly fall to me.  However, some of the snowflake patterns had caught my eye and I was tempted to go in that direction.  After posting my picks Abby sent me a private message with a pattern she hadn't had the chance to add to her boards yet but knew would be the perfect fit for these quilts.

Both of the quilts are backed in the cream scoot fabric (the same as the boarders on the baby quilt) and bound with a white and pink square polka dot.  I just washed and dried these last night so they are ready for gifting as soon as I have a chance to see my SIL.  I hope she will love them as much as I do.

WIP Wednesday

I had a relaxing weekend at the lake but I didn't get to do much sewing this past week.  When I got home I had this lovely package waiting for me.  I was so excited to dive into it but forced myself to start laundry and unpack the suitcase first.  It was great motivation to get that done.

Inside was my Snow Blossoms Quilt.  This is the first quilt I had sent to Sarah (Crinklelove) and she did a great job with it. (More on that in a later post).  Last night I made lots and lots of binding.  I never thought binding was that hard but ever since I switched to using a diagnal seam to join the pieces I have had a lot more trouble.  It seems I have to use my seam ripper every third piece or so.  I don't know why I can't seem to get it right but it causes me a lot of frustration.  I did however manage to get it done and get it sewn to the front of the quilt so now I imagine I will be spending a lot of quality time hand stitching it down in the back. It's a big quilt coming in at 83 by 83 inches.

Other than that I spent some time getting the backs of my Jelly Filled Quilts ready to go to the quilter.  I'm trying out several new people right now in hopes that I will find one or two I really like.  I plan to do a full review of each of them as I get my quilts back so I'll keep you posted.  The baby quilt finished at about 40 inches wide so I just sewed a piece of muslin down one side of my back fabric to give them the extra room necessary to stretch it on the frame.

That's it for me this week-be sure to head over to Lee's and see what everyone else is up to.

WIP Wednesday

Happy Wednesday!  It's been a little difficult to get back in the swing of things this week after having a nice long weekend.  As we were expecting hurricane Aurthur here on Friday the picnic I had planned to attend and lots of local fireworks were canceled.  But that just meant I had more time to sew.  First up I tackled the Pips Quilts.  I added a few more rows to the large one and then a made a matching baby quilt with some of the more subtle colors from the line.

This one is getting a 4 inch boarder all the way around to bring it up to 42 by 37 1/2.  The larger version ended up at 69 1/2 by 71.  Nice and roomy should mom and baby just want to share.

After that because I can't seem to focus on just one project and because the 12 I currently have in progress just didn't seem like enough I started something new.  This is the Swell pattern from Camille's second book.  Still plugging away on that challenge to make all of her patterns.  I had two Moda Candy Bars of City Weekends plus 1/2 a charm pack and some scraps that I commandeered from my mom-leftovers from a baby tumbler quilt she made.  I only have enough fabric for a 3 by 3 layout which will end up somewhere around 36 by 36 and I have a yard I picked up in the great destash over on instagram for a boarder.  I'm thinking it will be just enough for a baby quilt or table topper and I'm good with that.

I am using the white and yellow polka dot from the line in place of a solid.  I have to admit since venturing out from my typical solid snow first with the pale green, then bright orange, and now with a print of all things it feels good.  I'm not planning on breaking up with snow anytime soon but it is good to have some variety.

That's it for me this week.  Head on over to Lee's and see what everyone else is up to.  And if you are on Instagram be sure to check out the Auction @quiltingfairy is hosting on Friday.  There are lots of hard to find fabrics & homemade items to be had and the proceeds are going to help a member of our quilting community after the loss of her mother in law.

WIP Wednesday

I missed all of you guys last week-but sometimes I just don't have anything to share by the time Wednesday gets here.  I do a lot of my sewing quilting on the weekends and so if I have a super busy weekend I might not have anything to share come Wednesday and then other times if I am feeling super motivated I can get a little time with my machine in after work during the week.

The hubs was out of town on Friday night so I treated myself to Sushi and had fun quilting.  My quilting ADD was in full effect and I couldn't settle on a project so I managed to piece the first set of pinwheels for my Dilly Dally quilt.  Then I thought maybe I would give Juggle another go but I only managed to add one row.  That does bring me to the 1/2 way point but I need to do more cutting before I can make anymore progress on that one.  I snuck one more Scrappy Trip Along block in there as well.  And then I needed to do some cleaning so that was the end of the fun for me.

Then on Saturday I got a chance to head down to my parents and my mom helped me out with making quilt backs for several (okay 5) quilts that needed to be done.  I typically like to piece my backs.  Nothing fancy but I usually will use some blocks from the front or another fabric so I can avoid trying to match up a pattern reprint.  This time though I just used one print and I didn't match them up.  They still look okay and once they are quilted I doubt the seam will even be noticeable.  But I think on the next one it will be back to a pieced back, it just makes it feel a little more special to me.

I'm not sure why but when I was doing the math for this one in my head I made a bit of a mistake.  The quilt top is 83 by 83 and so when I seamed the two lengths of fabric together I only had a total of 3 1/2 extra inches on the sides.  Most long arm quilters like 3-4 inches per side to get a good stretch on the frame and there is no way I was quilting this one myself so I ended up adding some muslin to one side to make it big enough.

My mom also gave me her Sherbet Pips Jelly Roll and since we had 11 yards of fabric for backing I knew I wanted to make my Jelly Filled Quilt Along top bigger and then it seems I just couldn't stop.  I still need to add one more row and thanks to some smart friends on Instagram I think I have a plan to make a baby quilt that matches.  Maybe my SIL and soon to be niece would like these as matching quilts.  My SIL loves all things pink and I think this one would do the trick.

That's it for me this week-I hope all of you in the US will enjoy your 4th of July and that all of my Canadian friends had a great Canada Day!  It looks like we are going to trade in our fireworks for a hurricane this year.  Head over to Lee's and see what everyone else is up to.

WIP Wednesday (Lots of Bonnie & Camille)

I've been doing a good amount of sewing this week so I am excited to have several projects to share with you guys.  First up though I should tell you about this crazy challenge I accepted.  As I was starting yet another project in Bonnie & Camille fabrics using one of Camille's patterns from her second Craftsy class one of my friends commented that I was going to run out of things of their to make.  Of course in my wackadoodle mind all I heard was "CHALLENGE" to which I replied Challenge Accepted.  I thought I already had a pretty good start anyway.  I mean I've made things out of all but one line of theirs to date.  But then I started looking up Camille's patterns and man there are a lot of them.  I made a handy dandy spreadsheet to help me keep track.

The good news is I have a couple of friends over on Instagram who have made this an unofficial personal goal as well.  This means I have some good company and motivators to keep me going.  So the Juggle Quilt is the one that got this started.  Since I was so thrilled with the way my Snow Blossoms Quilt turned out using something other than White or Snow I decided to mix it up again and use the orange solid from the Scrumptious line with these hexagons from Happy Go Lucky.  Let me tell you, in theory this quilt is pretty easy.  But those pieced hexagons are stretchy and they seem to be giving me a hard time when it comes to matching up the seams for the rows.  Everything looks good and then one of those completely throws me off.

So to avoid total frustration on Sunday because sewing with a headache is never fun I picked back up my Turning Twenty Again blocks and made a little more progress on those.  I finished up all of the individual units that make up the blocks but I am still working on sewing the blocks together.

I posted this photo on Instagram on Sunday.  The plastic pieces in the picture are part of one of my plastic storage bins that got broken.  Between that, the headache, and the two broken needles it was probably good that I put away the Juggle Quilt.  I'm at the half way point on it so I don't think it will take me too long to finish it up but its one of those projects I'll have to work on when I have a little extra patience.

And last but not least, Abby started an impromptu Jelly Filled Quilt Along over on Instagram.  Well since that is one of the patterns on my challenge list and it does have the promise of being a pretty quick finish I decided to take that one on with the quilt along.  Something about sewing in a group is always so motivational.  Tuesday night I broke out the Sherbet Pips Jelly Roll I'd been hoarding (since before yardage was available) and matched up my pairs.  I made a test block to start with because everyone seems to measure precuts a little different and I wanted to make sure I was accurate before cutting all the pieces.  That one test block quickly grew to three.  I'm excited to get to work sewing up the rest of these blocks.  I'm thinking it might be the perfect winter quilt for my niece who will be joining the family in September.  That is if I can actually part with it.

Okay head on over to Lee's and see what everyone else is up to this week.