The year is a quarter over!

Can it be? Elizabeth over at Don't Call me Betsy has reminded me that the first quarter of this year is already over. I can't believe it! That means it's time to see how we are all doing with our sewing 'resolutions'.

I'm totally a list person. I have about 6 going at any one time. Mostly because I can't remember anything and then spend way to much time trying to think of things I should have remembered. So, appropriately, I really don't remember what was on my list at the beginning of the year. This should be interesting....

1. New house curtains. Well, this will be on my list all year I think. I added it up and I have 12 windows I'd like to make curtains for. So far, I've done 5. Not bad right?! I did one of these.

And the 4th one of these is in my sewing machine right now and will be finished today (so I'm counting it!). Let me tell you, they got better and less bunched as I went along.

2. Step out of my comfort zone and try new things. I definitely have done this one. I did the Spice up the Kitchen swap and made these.

The Make Mine Modern Swap is still in progress and some of my items are still a secret. But I can show this one again.

And I've joined the 3x6 Bee and Sew Modern Quilt Bee which start tomorrow! Starting April 8th is the Pretty {little} pouch swap. ummm... okay maybe I've gone a little crazy with this goal?

3. Make stuff from the books I have. Well, I've done one thing. I made this shirt from the Little Girl, Big Style book. I can't wait until it's warm enough to put it on the child.

4. String blocks. Still not done. Maybe I'll do this for my Sew Modern Bee?
5. Cathedral Windows. Also not done, i won't subject my bee members to this one, but maybe for a swap? Could I bear to part with them after they were made?
6. A king size quilt for our bed. Check!

7. A full size quilt for my daughters bed. In progress!

8. Come up with my own designs. I did actually do this for the Project Modern Challenge. Very fun!

That was my whole list. Not too bad for 3 months! Thanks for keeping me honest Elizabeth!  Check out how everyone else is doing over at Don't Call me Betsy.

Excited to meet Cherri House!

I have yet to go to a quilt show or any other type of quilting event (other than our Guild Meetings). So I'm super excited that Cherri House of  City Quilts is coming to speak to the Philly Modern Quilt Guild! This is one of the first quilt books I ever bought. I'm excited to hear her speak and see some of the quilts in person.

She'll be coming on Friday, April 8th to the Philadelphia area. If you are interested in joining us, check out the information at the Philly Modern Quilt Guild or email phillymodernquiltguild@gmail.com. All the PMQG members are super cool and friendly. Come join us if you can!

WIP Wednesday {20}

Another Wednesday - man did the week fly! Here's what I've been keeping busy with.

Finished projects: 

Nautical Baby quilt (will post later)

MMM project (need to take photos)

Samantha's Quilt (needs a name!). I decided a full size quilt was too much for me to handle. And I wanted something special quilted on it so I shipped it off to the quilter Monday. (yay!)

I joined the Sew Along at Sew Sweetness but have yet to receive my fabric so I don't really have any photos yet.
I've spent a lot of time cutting fabrics for the Supernova quilt along.   I ordered 1 or 2 fabrics when I got my sew along fabric so I'm waiting for those to arrive. But this is what I have so far minus the background fabric that I haven't photographed.

I used my fabric interfacing from Silhouette to start some more baby onesies for my sister. I'll post more about this experience later too. But this is where I'm at so far. Anyone have some cute ideas for what I can put on more onesies? I have 3 more to do something with. I'm thinking flip flops (they live in FL) but I could use more ideas.

And I started piecing the backing for my postage stamp quilt finally! I may baste this one and save it for quilting at the PMQG sewing day.

I also did a small fabric trial for my paper piecing pillow.  This is one of 4 pieces that will go together to make the 13 inch block. I'm thinking these fabrics are too dark. I'm really in a spring mood and I think I want something lighter. I have to think about it for a while.

Waiting for attention:
do.Good Stitches April blocks
Curtains that I'm avoiding
boy burp cloths
Amy Butler bag

Total WIP's: 12

Head over to Freshly Pieced to see what everyone else is up to this week.

Toddler-proof Towels!

Ever since I saw this tutorial for the Stay Put Towel at Pin.Sew.Press I've been wanting to make it. If you have toddlers or maybe even just a husband you know why. I probably re-hang my kitchen towels a dozen times a day. Not because I'm OCD, but because my 2 year old pulls them off and can't put them back on (she tries though, poor thing). This is a genius solution to that problem and these towels come together super quick! Just the project I needed after finishing a few big projects.

The first one I did was a green one. Doesn't it look fantastic with my SUTK towel?

Then I had to put one together with my orange cucumber fabric.

One thing I would recommend is to pull your gathers tightly. I might pull a few stitches on the ribbon to be able to gather these more. They are pretty wide. But, I highly recommend this tutorial. I will definitely be making more of these!

I'm linking to Sew Modern Monday. Go see what everyone else is up to!

Do you know how to sew clothing?

Do you want to learn? Sara over at Sew Sweetness is hosting a sew-along.  I know how to sew clothing, but I've never done something for myself (kids clothing is way easier). This is a great opportunity to learn or just have your hand held. She's picked this cute little dress and is giving a pattern discount if you join the group.

This is the fabric I've chosen (Mosaic in Cream by Patricia Bravo). I'm hoping the print is large enough that it doesn't get swallowed by all the pleats and gathers.
If you are interested in learning, come join us!

A little excitment and a little help

I had a little exciting package arrive yesterday. I can't really say I designed my own fabric, but I did do my own labels!

Nothing too fancy, but I'm happy with them. And I loved using Spoonflower. I used this tutorial to make them. Yeah, I'm linking you to Julie again. What can I say, she's got a great blog. She did all the math for the labels in that tutorial and if you are like me, that's the scary part. If you've ever wanted to do your own fabric labels, go check it out.
Now on to the help part. I could use a little help with my Supernova quilt along fabrics. This is what her finished quilt looked like:

Here is my first pull and as usual I've got too much and am having a hard time narrowing it down. What can I say - I love it all! I am definitely seeing a couple odd fabrics in here that would need to be removed though.

So the first problem is that I've only got 8 fabric stacks there and you are supposed to have 9. My thoughts:

1. repeat the beginning red/orange block (since this seems dominated by cool right now)
2. do a white to gray block and put it in the center.

or....
Since I do have a lot more cool than warm. Scrap this and do all all cool colors. Blue/green/purple. Somehow I have a ton of them.

Would love to hear what you think. For now, my daughter and I are off for a day of toddler fun.

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.

Tutorial: How to quilt custom shapes

There were these 6" blocks on my sister's baby quilt that were just calling to me to have something special done with them. Since she loves anchors I decided a few were in order. Since I was doing it, I figured I'd take a few pictures and show you my method. There are a ton of ways to do this with whatever you have on hand!
Start with your shape. You could get your shape by drawing, printing, tracing, or whatever method you come up with. I have a Silhouette that I'm trying to use since I don't scrapbook much at all anymore. Get your shape on regular paper to the size you need.

Then figure out how many you need and how you are going to duplicate it. I used Golden Threads Paper which I bought for a class back in the day.  You could probably use freezer paper or paper piecing paper for this. I needed 10 anchors total so I cut 10 pieces of golden threads paper and layered them under the original image. I did 5 at a time.  Secure them however you like (you see I favor food clips).  Put a large sewing needle in your machine, I used a jeans needle. Remove your threads, drop your feed dogs and free motion trace the image.

When you are done all the pieces of paper will have the image on them in dots. Pin your first image to the quilt as you want it. I recommend flat head pins like I have here, they are easier for free motion because they don't get in the way as much.

Go back to your regular quilting needle and put the threads you want back in your machine. Keep the feed dogs dropped and free motion over the image onto the paper.

Once you are done, pull the threads to the back and secure them. Then you can gently tug your quilt to remove the paper. If you pull in two directions at once the paper will start to pop off your threads.

And then you have your finished shape!

What? You can't see it on that crazy patterned fabric? How's this?

Super cute right!? Repeat as necessary.

The question I have is this. The back is minky, will these still show after washing? I've never used minky before. I'm thinking I'll wait to wash it until after the shower.

Parisian Stripes Finished!

Okay, let me first warn you that this post will be photo heavy! It is extremely hard to photograph a king size quilt. If anyone has suggestions, please let me know. I wanted to take this outside but I had nowhere to hang it that was high enough. I don't do trees. So - here's what we have. My Parisville king size quilt!

I delayed posting these because we don't really have a bed yet, just a mattress. I have a feeling it's going to be a LONG time before we find a bed we like so I'm going ahead with these.

This is from Elizabeth Hartman's 12+2=Q pattern that I adapted to king size. The 12 is 12 fat quarters, which if you supersize it, you need more than that. The beauty and trouble with this pattern is that the 2 in the pattern name are the two sheets needed for the white space and the backing. That means no piecing for those huge spaces - yay! But - just try finding sheets that aren't sold in sets. I don't have Ikea really close and the only place I could find sheets by themselves was Target and Wal Mart and there weren't a lot of color choices. Thankfully I found this green.
ETA - If you are having your quilt done by a longarmer, check with them and make sure they work with sheets. And find the lowest thread count you can!

This was such a fun and quick pattern. I knew I didn't want to do a crazy amount of piecing on a king size. It was difficult enough dealing with so much fabric, I can't imagine doing it with lots of little blocks.

This is the back side. I put a string of piecing in (including my label) that shows nicely when I fold the top of the quilt over.

Some detail of the quilting. I love those scallops. (I darkened the photo up so you can see it better)

Didn't Margaret do an amazing job with the quilting?

My pillows!

Quilt stats:

Quilt name: Parisian Stripes

Pattern: 12+2=Q modified for size

Fabric line: Parisville by Tula Pink

Measurements: 110"x110" (?)

Finished: 2/28/11