Charity Sewing for PMQG

Over the summer, the Philly Modern Quilt Guild kicked off the Jay McCarroll Habitat Challege with a block design contest. We each received fabric and got to design a block to be considered. This was the block I designed.

All of these blocks are going to be used for charity quilts to be sent to Japan for earthquake relief. PMQG held a sewing day to get all the quilt tops put together and members were asked to take them home for quilting. I took one and decided to try a few new things since the quilt is so small. This is the first quilt I've quilted with stippling!

The blocks are pretty awesome aren't they? That's a big part of why I did stippling. With all those different designs, I couldn't decide how to quilt this one. Here's a close up of my quilting. I chose a light gray thread that matched with the sashing.

I think the back of the quilt is just as cool...

And the other new technique I tried was machine binding the edges. I used a "fancy" stitch from my machine that kind of looks like "X's". I figure this will hold up better to lots of use (since we don't know where these will end up) than hand stitching would. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

Now to get it washed up and returned to the Guild for donation!

I'm linking up to Try New Things Thursday. Have you tried something new lately?

WIP Wednesday {30}

Really? Is it really week 30 already! Amazing. So here's what's on the table this week.


Finished: nada


In process:
Today's big project is cleaning up my sewing room. :(  No pictures because I'm way to embarrassed at how it looks. In addition to my own stuff, my husband has dumped a few boxes in there also so it's a bit crowded. My current sewing room is also the dining room and tomorrow we are getting our dining room furniture back from the old house. So I need to make it work in that room with all my stuff. Should be interesting.

I found the binding for my first quilt.  It was in one of my scrapbooking piles in the guest room. Whoops! Now I just need to get it attached.

Very little progress on the Weekender bag. Well, it was a lot of work, but doesn't feel like a lot of result. I got all the cording done- all 5 yrds! With some advice from Cindy at Live a Colorful life, I decided to use Steam a Seam to fuse it instead of sewing it together. Apparently you sew over the cording several times and each time you get closer and closer. So if you start too close, you can run into problems.

I got 4 blocks done for my mom's Bird Bath quilt. And running out of ideas to photograph these blocks every week. lol

Cutting is done for my Baby Carnival quilt. I need to get this one moving. I realized this friend is having her baby in 3 weeks. Although she doesn't know if it's a boy or a girl and I do have the potential girl quilt ready. Let's hope it's a girl!

I did manage to fix and finish the quilting on my Baby Bicycle quilt. Just need to get the binding done. I've chosen polka dots for that one.

I haven't mentioned the Sew Modern Bee in a while. This month we are doing Wonky Log Cabins and she's requested a fabric flower to go with it. That will be a fun addition. I received this beautiful fabric to work with. I haven't even unwrapped these because I don't want them to get lost in all the shuffle the next few days.

And last but not least, my do.Good Stitches blocks. It's Megan's (Canoe Ridge Creations) month and she put together a tutorial for a bow-tie block. She's requested a rainbow of colors, so here is what I've pulled (and have since ironed).

In addition I've been doing some planning and prep work for a few future projects that I don't have photos of. Should be able to post them soon though!

Total WIP's this week: 7


Head on over to Freshly Pieced to share what you've been up to this week!

Absence makes the heart grow fonder...

I got to pick up my Bernina over the weekend. And I'm happy to say it's running well! And for those of you who know the place I used for service, they stood behind the machine and did the repairs at no charge! Yay! I'm so happy to have it back.

That's my Supernova getting quilted. I don't have much else to show since I've been helping a friend out with a project that can't be shown. But I do have a little PSA. Don't cut binding when you are tired! We were having some seriously early mornings last week due to a child who can't tell time. I decided to do continuously cut bias binding while I was a little sleepy and made a mistake when lining up my drawn lines. Instead of one strip or a bunch of loops, I wound up with double wide binding!

It was easy enough to fix. I just had to cut it in half and sewed the two strips together, but it was funny all the same.

WIP Wednesday {19}

I joined my first "real" flickr quilt bee. I am already a part of the 3x6 bee, but that's a smaller sampler bee. I wanted to do a more standard bee and found Sew Modern Quilt Bee starting up in May. I think they are still looking for a few people so if you are interested in joining a Modern style quilt bee, click that link to sign up, or post a comment and I'll send you info!


Also, you may remember a while back when I received this Colts fabric by mistake from fabric.com. They have fixed their mistake but don't want their fabric back. I can't think of any way to use this full yard. If anyone wants it, please post and I'll contact you and send it to you. I just want it to be used!

As for what I've been working on. Mostly the baby quilt for my sister. I decided to do custom quilting instead of an all over pattern. You can see how I did it here.

I'm currently at the binding stage. I put together some continuous bias binding with my favorite tutorial by Julie. This tutorial is a little bit of magic!  I'll be curious to see how this looks, it's the first time I've done a binding that is the same fabric as the border.

I had a few days where I was waiting to get the backing for that baby quilt and got some progress made on my daughter's quilt. Note the paper pinned to the bottom. I label my rows so I don't get lost.

I also pulled some fabrics for the Supernova Quiltalong. I've pulled more to go with this (especially in the reds and oranges) but I'm not sure yet how I'm going to use it. Since there are nine stars in the quilt, it doesn't work perfectly with ROYGBV. I have to decide what color will be used more than once.

And finally, PMQG is doing a pillow swap next month. I have a paper piecing block in mind and I started putting together the paper templates. This is one of four.

Waiting for attention:
The curtains that will never go away
MMM final project
baby onesies
Postage Stamp quilt
boy burp cloths
amy butler bag

Some of those projects feel like they've been on the list a long time! I need to revisit them. Go see what everyone else is up to at Freshly Pieced.

WIP Wednesday {14}

I have a "sort of" finish this week! My bathroom curtains are finished. But I'm waiting for hubby to hang the curtain rod for them. And I'm not 100% sure about them but more on that in another post.

I've been busy making binding for the king size quilt. I was so excited when Julie over at Jaybird Quilts posted a tutorial for continuous cut bias binding. I had no idea you could do bias binding this way. There was no waste and no sewing a million little pieces together. Since this binding required almost a whole yard of fabric I was sweating as I tried this for the first time, but it worked wonderfully. I will definitely be using this method in the future. Now I need to attach all this binding...

I got the binding and backing for my postage stamp quilt. Now I just need to do something with it. That backing fabric was hard to find. Looks like Central Park is going quick. I took two small pieces since I couldn't find anyone with one big piece for me.

After everyone's recommendations I got the Fons and Porter design wall (with my coupon of course) and some Contact hooks to hang it. I love it so far. Hubby wasn't thrilled to see it hanging in the dining room but since that's my sewing room now, where else would it go?  I've got my monochromatic quilt up there right now. I did go back to my original color scheme. But I guess I shouldn't show it since I'm probably going to enter it in the Modern Quilt Guild Challenge. Are you joining?

In holding pattern:
Make Mine Modern Swap - waiting for fabric
Great Room Curtains
Samantha's Quilt
Painting my sewing/dining room

Only 8 WIP this week!

My question this week - who wants to come hang curtain rods for me? I have about 5 to go up and I have no idea how to do it!

Head over to Freshly Pieced to see what everyone else is working on.