A Scrappy Finish

True to the origins of quilting, made a quilt entirely out of left over fabric from another one. Earlier this year I made a Sawtooth Star Quilt for a friend of mine using Hometown fat quarter bundle by Sweetwater. If you recall during the making of this quilt I put together blocks from corners of the flying geese. In the end I had 32 blocks that I sewed together on point with 1" wide sashing to give me a throw sized quilt top.

Once I put the top together I did not have enough for the back. I was determined not to buy or add fabric from another collection to this quilt. So I foraged all the scraps from my scrap bin and put together a Denyse Schmidt style improv strip. To my surprise it turned out just big enough to cover the back along with some left over fabric from the same collection.

For some reason this quilt was very hard to photograph. It looks very washed out in the picture. I had the same problem when I was trying to photograph the Sawtooth Star quilt too. Must work on my photography skills :)

Since this quilt is made up of very small pieces on both the front and back I decided to quilt densely in straight lines along the seams, in the hope to further reinforce them. You can see a close up here.

For the binding I managed to salvage enough of the red dot fabric and it frames the quilt nicely.

Signing off with a few more pics.

Thanks for stopping by.

Linking up to: Crazy Mom Quilts, TGIFF, Fabric Frenzy Friday, Fabric Tuesday

Mirror Ball Pouches

I am meeting a friend of mine over the weekend who has two little girls and what better than a quick handmade gift. I paired some Mirror Ball Dot by Windham Fabrics bought from Burkholders with some yarn dyed Essex linen in black and whipped out pouches using the tutorial from Anna at Noodlehead.

The colors are absolutely lovely. For the interior I used Penny Orange and  Dot Lime from Happy Go Lucky collection by Bonnie&Camille. 

Since our tote bag swap I have really grown to like yarn dyed essex linen in black from Robert Kaufman and ordered more yardage. So far I have used it in one quilt and I see it quickly becoming one of my go to fabrics.

Linking up to: Finish Friday, Fabric Frenzy, TGIFF

Mid Atlantic Mod - III

So much worth reporting occurred at Mid Atlantic Mod that I decided to break my posts up into smaller bits so I could say everything I wanted to.

Anyway for this third post on the event, I made bee blocks for two good friends of mine and hand delivered it to them at the event. First one for Jess who also happened to be my roomie at the event. She had asked for any block with flying geese. Once again her block was open to interpretation and she has been receiving some very interesting flying geese blocks.

And the second one for Liz who I met for the first time. She had driven all the way from Maryland and it was so good to meet her in person. It was almost as if we had all known each other before and had to pick up from where we last left off. So much for online quilting friends.

The interesting thing about sewing for someone right in front of them is the instant feedback you get and its always fun sewing for friends. They love everything you make.:)

I also took two workshops at the event. Both happened to be by Melinda Newton which wasn't planned, just happened. The first one was 'Making your own paper pieced pattern'. Very informative and I need to get cracking on making some of my very own paper pieced patterns. She has some great tutorials on the subject on her blog.

The second one was 'Piecing tiny improv houses'. This was my tiny improv  house, however I think I need to go tinier.

There was a ton more that happened at the Mid Atlantic Mod, but I am going to sign off here. All in all I am glad I went and a big thank you to Jessica Levitt, Andrew Joslyn and Katie Blakesley for all their hard work organizing this.

There are a lot more pictures from the event on Instagram. Search for #midatlanticmod With all the microblogging long blog posts are becoming less frequent.

Mid Atlantic Mod - II

Another aspect of Mid Atlantic Mod I really liked was the progressive quilts. These were put together by every one who participated in the activity. Each person was given some fabric and a guideline. They then made a block using the fabric that followed the guideline. During the retreat each person worked for an hour on the quilt incorporating their block to come up with a completed quilt top. The quilt tops were then raffled to the participating members at the end of the event. I really had my eye on the low volume quilt top and was bummed that I did not win, nevertheless the winners were as appreciative as I would have been. So it's all good.

The quilt tops finally looked like this.

I had made  a block for both these quilts here and here. I further switched around my block a bit before incorporating it into the quilt above but the low volume one worked as is.

One of my take aways from this exercise was that it's interesting to see how different people interpret a theme given the same parameters. It adds so much more to the quilt then what one person can possibly come up with. I am now done being the queen bee in both the bees I am participating in this year. But knowing what I know now I would have picked a less specific block design. In one bee I picked AMH's feather pattern and in the other a winged square bee block. It was great to see how everyone put the block together but at the back of mind I already knew what to expect. I already had a fixed idea and I merely asked others to execute it for me. I think it's a lot more interesting if you are faced with the unexpected. A less restrictive guideline would definitely make it a lot more interesting.

Looking back Jessica's block from our CNJMQG bee where she asked for a house block was probably the most difficult yet fun exercise. Difficult not because the block was hard to make but she had given too much freedom. It was hard to narrow it down to what you wanted to make. And all the blocks she got back were very interesting. It was each person's own interpretation of a row house. She had provided the fabric so that was the only constraint and it kind of assured here that her houses would have some uniformity in color but everything else was left to the person's interpretation.

Ah well....live and learn. Now I need to participate in one more collaborative quilt event. :)

To be continued.....

Mid Atlantic Mod - I

The anticipation of attending Mid Atlantic Mod had been building up for a while and I could not be more excited then when I packed all my sewing stuff into my car on Friday morning and headed to Lancaster. I had high expectations in terms of the amount of sewing I was going to get done and was excited about the prospect of meeting all my sewing friends in person. Well the outcome was a bit different. 

• Amount of sewing done - 0%
• Meeting quilting friends - 100%
• Shopping and eating - 100%
• Just hanging out and having fun - 100+%

When I returned home on Sunday I was exhausted from having too much fun;)

Nevertheless in my mind it was a very fruitful weekend. My absolute favorite part of the event was the tote bag swap. I don't think I have felt this excited about receiving something. This is the tote I got which was made by Robin.

It's absolutely great. Even has a tag holder and she added the wonderful detail to the handle strap. Love it. The tote I made went to Natalie from the DC guild and I am glad she liked it too. 

As you noticed its sitting a bit lopsided, that is because it is stuffed with fabric from all the shopping. 

Trust me I showed a lot of restraint and mainly bought low volume fabric that I was running low on. A few other indulgences did occur but I was quite good for the most part. My favorite buy was the Lecien voile that I will turn into a Tova top some day. Thanks Liz for parting with some of your Riley Blake Geeky Chic fabric. Owe you one. Anyway these are my new additions to the stash.

That leads us to the inside of the tote. Now you know how timely and exciting it was for me to receive this tote.

To be continued........