Nordika Star Blossoms (Finish It Up Friday)

I have actually had this quilt finished for 2 weeks now and had hoped to get some better photos before writing this post.  But it has been raining here every day by the time I get off work and on weekends so these photos will have to do.

I'm super excited to have this one done.  I had planned to move fairly slow with this one but the big blocks went together very quickly and then I found the backing fabric on sale for 43% off on a trip with my parents.  Normally it still would have sat but after entering it in a drawing for free quilting with Sara of Crinklelove and not winning she offered 20% off on any quilt that was entered and that was motivation enough for me to go ahead and send it.

For the binding I used the orange printed solid from the Scrumptious line by Bonnie and Camille.  I hadn't planned to do that but when I was laying out my goodies from a mini shop hop my mom and I went on I saw how well they played together and orange is my favorite color after all.

Quilt Stats:
83 by 83
Pattern: Snow Blossoms
Fabric: Nordika
Pieced by: Me
Quilted by: Sara @ Crinklelove

Check out what everyone else is finishing up this Friday over at AmandaJean's.

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

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

It's hard to believe it is already Wednesday-the long weekend and then having offsite training yesterday for work has my days all messed up.  But I did manage to get a little sewing in this week and I am so happy to have my Snow Blossoms Quilt Almost finished.  I have one more boarder to add and then the top will be all done.  I'm really loving the way this quilt is coming together and I love how big it is.  This picture is on a queen sized bed before the last round of boarders.  So it might just be large enough to use on the bed.  These aren't exactly the colors I have in my room but then again I don't really have any color in my basic apartment room so I guess it doesn't really matter too much.

I did happen upon a mistake in one of my blocks while putting the top together.  Luckily I found it when I did because I was able to just pull off the one corner of the block and correct it.  Once the next row was added it would have been a lot more seam ripping.

Over the long weekend I went to the Nascar races with my parents.  Along the way we stopped at several quilt stores.  I was lucky and found some amazing deals.  One of the shops was offering 43% off one item and I managed to pick up the backing for my Snow Blossoms quilt at a good price.  In another store I actually found some yardage of Dream On by Urban Chicks in the Clearance section.  I picked up what I hope with be enough to replace the vintage sheet I was originally planning to use for the back of my Spring Weekends Quilt.  I can't believe I made that quilt top so long ago and even started quilting it.  But I was really unhappy with the sheet on the back so I abandoned it about 1/3 through the quilting.  It will be nice to get that one finished up.

I picked up that orange solid from Scrumptious at one of the shops for my next project.  I've been taking Camille's classes on Craftsy and I am ready to start my Juggle Quilt.  I'm using Happy Go Lucky but I have enjoyed using something other than white so much on this project that I decided to get really wild and use orange for my solid on that quilt.  I like the way it looks with that Nordika Fabric so much though-I'm hoping I might have just enough to use it as the binding on my Snow Blossoms Quilt since it would be against that fabric on the back and the outside boarder on the front.

I guess that's it for me-head over to Lee's and see what everyone else is up to this week.

WIP Wednesday

It's been slow sewing around these parts lately.  I've had a ton of things going on in my personal life and I've been overly distracted.  This week though I did manage to finish up the last two blocks of my Snow Blossoms Quilt.

I laid out all the blocks once I was done.  I wasn't sure I was loving this layout but a quick poll on Instagram confirmed that I was on the right track.  I also considered doing some cornerstones but I only had enough of one or two of the fabrics to do that and the one I liked was the dark gray in that middle block.  But since the corner stones would end up in the four corners of that block I decided to skip them.

I'm really loving the way this quilt is turning out.  I've been working with a lot of Bonnie & Camille fabrics lately and so these deep rich colors are very different.  Not to say I love Bonnie & Camille fabrics any less. I am so happy now that I went with the tender green for my solid instead of my typical snow.  I'm really loving the look that this provides.

Here are the first two rows all sewn together.  I need to order some boarder and backing fabric in order to finish this one up.  I guess that's really it for me this week.  Be sure to head over to Lee's and see what everyone else is up to these days.

WIP Wednesday

If you follow me over on Instagram then you already know I spent some time last week getting started on my Snow Blossoms quilt.  If you want to sew along use the #snowblossomsalong over on Instagram.  I'd love to see your quilts as well.  I tried something a little different for me with this one and chose a solid other than snow.  I know shocking!  I'll admit when the art gallery tender green first arrived I worried it was a little too mint to match the Nordika fabrics.  But once I had my first block together I was sold.

I love that it is just a little different from what you might expect.  Every block I make quickly becomes my new favorite.  These blocks are fairly easy to make-they do involve that stitch and flip method that I LOVE so much.  It's still not my favorite thing in the world but at this size it's not too bad.  I have a few points that aren't perfect but overall I'm happy with the way it is coming along.

I have my first 5 blocks done but that might be it for me for a little while.  I had to take a pause from this quilt to make up some backings so I could get a few more finishes checked off the list.  I'm sending off 3 different quilts to be quilted by a long arm.  So backing making was in full force at my house the last few days.  All 3 of these quilts are related to Bonnie & Camille somehow-either through the use of one of their patterns, fabrics, or both.  It looked like a regular old Bonnie & Camille party at my house the other night.

That's it for me head on over to Lee's to see what everyone else is up to this week.

WIP Wednesday

I haven't had a chance to do much sewing this week.  I have spent most of my available time hand sewing binding on my Complications Quilt.  I CAN NOT wait to have this one done.  It is one of my favorite quilts I have ever made.  I'm a little disappointed that this one has the "other" batting in it but I am still a huge fan.  I did a few things a little differently with this one.  I tried trimming up 1/4 inch away from the edge of my quilt.  It does make the binding more full though in a few places it has been a little hard to navigate.  I'm guessing that is probably because those areas weren't a perfect 1/4 inch.

This quilt has gotten a lot of love over on Instagram.  It is based mostly on a block of the month pattern that was in German.  But I left some of the blogs out and duplicated others.  I am considering writing a series of post here on the blog about how mine was made with some measurements and thoughts.  I just haven't figured out the best way to do that because I don't want to step on any toes or imply that it is an original design.  Do any of you more experienced bloggers have any suggestions on how I can share what I did without offending anyone?

Next up I ordered this fabric for the back and binding of my APQ Quilt Along Quilt.  I really need to come up with a good name for that quilt because APQ Quilt Along Quilt isn't really working for me.  Most of my quilt names end up based off a combination of the pattern and fabric used in it.

Finally I did settle on my next project.  I have some fat quarters of Nordika and the Snow Blossoms pattern. I chose art gallery's tender green which was one of the suggested coordinates for the line.  I'm thinking this will be very different from anything I have made recently.  I believe we are going to do a little impromptu #snowblossomsalong over on Instagram if you have this pattern and would like to sew along.

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