Ruby LOVE

I'm in the process of making up blocks for a quilt that I have had in mind for awhile.  I am using the Moda Ruby line.

The block I chose was inspired by a quilt that I quilted for someone else.  She used charm squares to make her blocks and the blocks were HUGE.  I wanted to scale it down a bit.  I had several packs of Ruby charm squares and quartered each square to compose these blocks.  I also bought some extra yardage of all the pindot fabrics.

 The blocks are 11.5" right now (so they will finish at 11").  I am thinking that I will likely make one large block and surround it with these small ones, but I am still thinking about that.

In addition to the Moda Ruby fabric, I am also including some of the Bliss line into the quilt.  I already made a Bliss quilt awhile back and had some extra fabric to work with.  The two lines, both by Bonnie & Camille, work seamlessly together.  I am still going to have a ton of fabric leftover, so I am sure yet another Bliss/Ruby quilt will be on the horizon!

Hometown

I LOVE Moda's Hometown line by Sweetwater.  It is just gorgeous and I have a lot of it...let's just say those aren't fat quarters stacked up and leave it at that.   

I am still trying to decide exactly what sort of quilt to make but I also plan on using the extra fabric to make pillows for our sofa.  I have decided my house needs to be introduced to my style because I don't feel like it quite represents me.  We will see if I manage to pull off all I want to with this fabric!

Thinking about Valentines in November

I belong to a quilt group with some women that I used to go to church with and now get to be good friends with them and crash their quilting group!  Our latest project is a Valentine's project where we wanted to make blocks for each other using Valentine fabrics and colors as well as some heart inspired blocks.  I finally finished up the last of my blocks (we have been exchanging each week we see each other, so these are just the last few I had to whip up).  I did a few different blocks, but the majority of my blocks are what I have pictured below.

 I made dresdens-- both flat edged and pointed-- as well as these "lil' twister" blocks.

I bought the "Lil' Twister" template at the IQF show this year and I love it!  It is a cute little template that is great to use with Charm squares and is really easy to do.  The best part is that it looks so good when it is completed!  For my first try with the template, I used my leftover Punctuation fabric.

 My week for exchanging was a few weeks ago and these are the blocks that I have received!  Aren't they awesome!?  I am already thinking about what I want to do with this quilt to take it to the next level!:)  I am so lucky to have so many talented people that inspire me to do more!!

Countdown to Christmas Quilt

Sweetwater who designs for Moda, has some of the best fabric out there.  I love their style!  So, I was excited to get my hands on their Christmas line, "Countdown to Christmas".  I saw a quilt on Flickr that I really liked (found here by frivolous necessity) and decided to test myself to see if I could make it without using a pattern.

 Somehow I always screw up triangles and I did on this one too, but I think I am the only one who could really notice it because I know what I did wrong!  I really love how it turned out.

 I enjoy these patterns that make your eyes have to focus and unfocus to see several patterns within the same quilt.  I think that is what made me gravitate to this design.

 I used the off white print that had the words for the backing.  I also used a stripe for the binding.

 I quilted this on the longarm using a holly and berry pantograph.  I wasn't a huge fan of this one but I think it was mostly because the fabric was so busy you couldn't see much of the quilting anyway.  Still love this quilt!  It's about 55x55ish??  It was finished just in time to hang over our couch for Christmas.  My other Christmas quilt is hanging on our wall in the front room!

Dreaming of Dresdens Quilt- FINISHED!!!

Back in August I blogged about a Dresden Dilemmaa I was having.  After staring at those dresends for what seems like forever, I decided to make a quilt that looks very much like the quilt in the Block Party book.  I think mine is probably bigger though... I think it ended up being 80x100!  I had lots of ideas if I didn't already have the blocks assembled by my Aqua and Red bee group.  I really loved it so I felt like I needed one of these quilts as well!  Like I said, not an exact likeness but really close. :)

As I mentioned, each of the dresdens were assembled by my bee mates and then I added the blue or red background fabric and made them a little "WONKY". 

 Here is a closeup.

 For the dresdens, I used Riley Blake's Sugar and Spice.  For the background fabrics I used Michael Miller's Mini Mikes along with Kona Red.

 I wanted to include this picture of me showing off the quilt top at one of my quilt groups because it shows how huge it is. 

 For the back I used a plaid print from the Moda and I used red, white and pink polka dot fabric from Riley Blake's Sew Cherry line. 

Here is  a closeup of the quilting on the back.  I'm not sure I chose the right pattern to use, but it was  a new one that I was eager to try it.  It is pretty though... looks like ribbons throughout.  After much thought, I decided this beauty belonged in our family room.  We aren't hurting for blankets around these parts but this quilt is so big that our whole family can snuggle under it and that certainly is worth while!

It's been awhile...and IQF

Hello my fellow readers!  Well, it has been awhile since I have posted anything on this poor neglected blog.  I am sorry!  Suddenly life got a little crazy for me and I realized quickly that I needed to pull back on a few things to focus more on my family and make sure all that needed to be taken care of was actually being taken care of.  Every time I have a new child, I usually go through a period of time where I need to look at my life all over again and figure out what things are important to me and what things need to take a back seat.  This is sort of what happened to me the last couple of months.  The baby also started being awake a lot more and needing more attention and two of my children were in baseball/softball which had us out of the house almost every night.  It all just got a little crazy and I realized quickly that I wasn't going to be able to blog for awhile.  I do appreciate everyone's well wishes and concern.  Hoping that I will back from here on out, but you never know!!


In other news, I am lucky enough to live in Houston and was able to attend the International Quilt Festival for the first time!  It was lots of fun and I wish I had more time to go look at more of the gorgeous quilts that were there on display, but honestly, I spent most of my time spending money and buying fabric and sewing toys!  I snapped very few pictures but I thought I would share what I did take a picture of.

I went to IQF 3 seperate days and spent time with my aunt and my mom (the three of us pictured above), met up with my local guild members another day and went with some friends of mine the last day.  Of course, I only took one picture that first day, but I had a blast with everyone I went with!

 This is a random quilt to take a picture of (don't worry, I asked first!) but I am in the process of thinking about what sort of quilt I want to make for my daughter's teacher this year and loved this idea of using hand prints.  This particular quilt might be a better idea for one of my younger kids' preschool teachers but I thought it was just really creative.

 There was some AMAZING quilting to see while we were there.  I am on a quest to improve on my long arm quilting skills and perhaps one day I will be able to pull something like this off... or not.

 Another pretty random quilt but I liked how they did a simple ruffle in between each strip.  This would be a CUTE baby quilt!  (The sailboat quilt is pretty cute too!)

 I also scored a fat quarter bundle of Moda Reunion which is due out in February.  I'm in love with this fabric line.  I especially like the fabrics that use the basic primary colors in modern ways.  LOVE!

Also during Market and Festival, my Houston Modern Quilt Guild hosted a couple of get together for the Modern Quilt Guild.  I attended the first meetup which had mostly the people who went to Market (like "famous" bloggers, fabric desingers, quilt designers, book writers, etc).  I was such a nerd while I was there because I got to say hi to some of my favorite people who inspire me to make new things.  While there, I won this fat quarter bundle by Cloud 9 fabrics.  This line is out now!  I was so excited to have won!  My friend, Laurie, who came with me also won a gift certificate to Fat Quarter Shop.... we were so thrilled!!

Knotted Squares

 I just finished up my latest quilt, "Knotted Squares".  This quilt was from Amy Ellis' Book, "Modern Basics".  It was an easy, but time consuming pattern.  Lots of chain piecing and lining up seams involved.  However, I think it was worth it because I LOVE the end result.

 I've been hoarding a jelly roll of Moda Hideaway fabric that I was instantly drawn to use for this project.  I LOVE that line.  The colors are basic, but really pretty.

 This quilt pattern is really neat because it incorporates two different squares.  I like quilts that show off more than one pattern within the quilt.  In this case, the yellow squares and then the solid squares.

 I only used 25 of the strips from the jelly roll and only about half of each of those strips.  The other half of each of the strips I used went to make the binding.

 I quilted this quilt using the curlz pantagraph for the longarm.  It was the perfect choice because the fabric that I used for the borders and backing seemed to swirl in the same pattern.  It was very fitting.  I used white thread.

 The backing (and border) that I used was also from the Hideaway line.  I knew instantly that this was the fabric that I wanted to use.  It was white and subtle but incorporated pretty much all of the colors from the line in it.

Here is a closeup of the scrappy binding that I sewed on by hand.  Finished size 72 x 72.

For the Love of Solids Preview

 I joined a group called "For the Love of Solids" which is a swap.  You are given a secret partner and their information about what they would like in a swap.  The person I got is completely lovely, makes wonderful things and has great taste.  However, she requested a bag, purse or a tote and wants whatever she gets to have lots of pockets and zippers and pockets with zippers.  I have only been sewing since February and leaped into piecing quilts right away.  So, my skills for sewing items besides quilts are rather limited.  I can make a very small bag and maybe could put one zipper together on several tries and could probably figure out how to make a multi-pocket pocket, but it just wouldn't look very good.

SO- I had a huge dilemna on what to make.  So, I told myself to go ahead and make something that is generic enough that anyone could find something to like and make it the best you can.  Hopefully she will love it as much as I do.  I can't show it all since I haven't mailed off the package and this supposed to be SECRET, but these are the previews that I put up on flickr.

So, I plan on sending this item, along with a pile of fabric and hope the extra yardage will make up for me not making exactly what she wanted.  I am very nervous about the reaction, but I think she will like it.

Basic Ease- FINISHED

 For the Quilting Book Club, the first month's pattern was BASIC EASE from the "Modern Basics" Book.  This quilt took no time at all.  The pieces were big and went together very quickly.

 I had a bunch of orange hanging around and went with that route for the quilt.  I also used Moda Snow (which is very different in color to Kona Snow by the way... don't ask me how I know that!).

 I quilted this baby myself!  I used a floral pantograph that is very similar to the flowers in the quilt so I think it was a good fit.

 My quilting is improving!  This is quilt #2 on the longarm for me.  It is lots of fun to use that machine!  The quilting still isn't perfect which is why I've opted for a color of thread that blends in very well, but unless you inspect it closely, you can't tell.  So, I am still proud of it!

 For the back I used Amy Butler's orange dots.  I love I nice dot fabric and this certainly is one of them.  I also bound the quilt using the backing fabric and the print fabrics from the top for a scrappy look.

Here is Basic Ease along with my Posie Patch quilt hanging in my sewing room.  My walls finally aren't bare anymore!!!

"Shirt Off My Bag"!

 For the Quilting Book Club, we are starting a new book called, "Fresh Fabric Treats".  It's a great book with simple patterns made by Moda Bake Shop designers.  (By the way, I LOVE Moda Bake Shop, sometimes I just go there and stare at all the pictures and it helps to inspire me.  Honestly, I have gotten lots of ideas from looking at others' work). 

The first task we are tackling is a pattern called, "Shirt Off My Bag".  It's a really cute, small bag.  Because I am forever in fear of falling behind in this group, I try to work ahead where I can. 

 The original pattern calls for four different fabrics, but I wanted to stick with these too because I think they are really pretty and wanted to focus on just them.

 There aren't many pieces to it at all-- just four inside/outside pieces, two triangular cuff pieces and then the handle pieces.

 Here, I'm sewing it all up!

The finished bag.  I decided to curve the bottom edges.. I didn't need to nor did it call for it, but I though it added an extra "cuteness" to it.  (I am using "CUTE" way too much in this post!)

Lovely Panel Baby Quilt

 This quilt was actually made by my mom.  She saw the panel and thought it was cute.  She went completely out of her box and bought this fabric that was much more ME than HER.  Since I am the one who ended up binding it, I am posting it on my blog!

 It is a simple panel and border, but I think that is the best and easiest way to do baby quilts!

 The quilting was done on a long arm and actually looks like clovers, but it also looks like these flowers and I think it looks great!

 The fabric line is Moda Lovely.

 The back was pieced with the extra fabric.. why go buy a separate fabric for the back when you can piece together your leftovers and it looks much more interesting!?!

More babies coming soon around these parts, so I think that this one is spoken for already!