#ProjectQuilting Week 3 - Thread

  I'm loving doing #ProjectQuilting. Having a theme is really helping push me to do some designing and just let my mind play with an idea, and even after I've done my design I keep thinking about different ways it could be represented. I really just am feeling energized with it. So a big thank you Kim for doing this!

 This week's challenge is thread.
 I was inspired by this picture of spools of Aurifil from Alyce of Blossom Heart Quilts, where she was doing a mini whole clothe quilt.

With that as my starting point I just dove in making little Aurifil spools. I made them all orange spools because I really do love my 50wt.

28 blocks later...

The quilt is 24"x24". Everything about this quilt is a scrap or leftovers. 

I used up left over Grunge charms from this quilt, and the very last of my white fabric from one I did in December and even the backing is pieced from left overs of another backing. It's quilted with Aurifil 2311 50wt thread, which is my go to for piecing and quilting. I love how how much my machine loves it. I get less breakage, less lint, and fit more on a bobbin.

Do you have a favorite thread colour?  

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All in A Row

Just  resist the adorable row quilts I picked up Martingale's Moda All-Stars All in a Row and had to make up a few of the rows right away!
I'm following along with #allinarowquiltalong in hopes of keeping motivation to make a full quilt not just runners etc.

The cute factor has me breaking into my Honey Honey stash by Kate Spain. I really love the warmth and bright of her fabrics and Honey Honey just checked off all the awesome. It's a line I love more and more.And Kate is a really warm and lovely person and I just get that feeling from the fabrics as well.

 I made Pincushion and Thread and I can't believe how cute that little bit of applique adds! I'll add the button on top of the applique after it is quilted.

I also did the Drunkard's Path row. I adore the design but had never made any until I made a test block of this row,

and I love it! I glue basted the curves which I found made it much easier to keep everything neat and it means I didn't get stuck by pins.

Then I had to make Joanna from Fig Tree Quilts' row We are Family. I messed this one up. I didn't want to make the star points the way the book instructed so I used a different method that left me with stars spinning in opposite directions. I kinda like it. It suites the title for me.

And then Pat Sloan's adorable wash line begged to be made up.

Four rows done so far!

 Have you ever made a row quilt?

A new plan for all the Fig Tree Quilts fabrics and blocks

 I have a teeny tiny, overflowing but totally necessary stash of Fig Tree Quilts fabrics. You can read about it here.
 I had decided to do a Farmer's Wife quilt, and restarted it in September, but the thing is I hate templates and I'm not the biggest paper piecing fan. So about half the blocks I just plain ol' don't want to do.

 But I'm still in love with the idea of an all Fig Tree sampler quilt. It still represents my quilting journey to me. And I have a LOT of Fig Tree fabrics.
 This is just the yardage.

As this seems to be the year of the sampler online I've decided to join a few, make the blocks I like or look to teach me something new or I just love enough to make with pp or templates.

 First up is the Moda Sampler Shuffle. I've been getting the blocks from Fat Quarter Shop's blog but they're around on several shops sites and I assume the Moda blog.

I've got 17 done between a small sewing frenzy and a few that are the same as the Farmer's Wife Quilt.

Next is the Splendid Sampler from Pat Sloan and Jane Davidson. It starts Feb 14th and has over 100 blocks so I know there will be plenty to make from that!


I decided to throw in a few 12" blocks, all the others are 6" finished, Just so I don't need the like 200+ blocks I would have had to make for a king size sampler. I want it about 100" and haven't decided if I want to add borders or not. I figure that's a decision for another day.

I've added Aurifil's block of the month quilt along and I really liked Fat Quarter Shop's Single Ring blocks so made one of them up for a few of the 12". I figure I can hide 10-12 of the large blocks without them taking over.

Total 6" block total so far = 49

What are you up? Do you have a certain style you have a lot of? Or that represents something to you?

Don't forget to follow me on Instagram or Twitter to see what I'm up to. I post there much more frequently then I do here.

Fun with Grunge!

I ended up with a charm pack of Moda's 2015 Grunge Basics and really wanted to play with it but I couldn't find a one charm pack pattern that I liked. So I made one up as I went!

I was really grateful to those who follow me on Instagram for helping encourage me on this one. In one of the rare times Shane didn't like one of my quilts but I liked it you were there to tell me to keep going! I really appreciate it. I need the cheering section when I'm unsure sometimes!

The quilt ended up being about 35 * 38 I think. I've misplaced my tape measure...again....

I used bleached white for the background and 6.5" x width for the borders in grunges I had in my stash. I <3 the grunges.

Now to decide if I should quilt this one up or let it rest a bit. Anyone need a baby quilt? ;)

#ProjectQuilting Week 2 "Seasons"

 After last challenge of "Confetti", which turned into this and you can see what everyone else did here, I was really looking forward to the reveal of this week's theme. And I was not disappointed! I did a little Season's embroidery awhile back, using Aurifil 12 wt.

 I love the seasons, which is a good thing since I live in a place that has them in abundance. I
m in London, Ontario and we get a full winter (normally, this year has been super weird), spring, summer and my favorite, fall.
I love the change, the colour, the cycle of life aspects and just how each is unique, with its own smells, feel, colour palettes, and memories.

My first instinct was to do a quilt involving falling leaves, I watch how the tree outside my kitchen window changes daily, but last week several used leaves etc to represent confetti so I'm leaving that idea for another time.

 Instead I decided to focus on a less literal depiction and try and use feel and colour to incorporate the cycle of the seasons.

 Since I only have a week and what is in my stash, the ombres were coming out!

Pink for spring blossoms, orange for fall's brillant leaves, green for summer's growth and abundance and aqua for winter's chilly beauty. I made my tree "trunks" blue to represent the vital nature of water to every season and every living thing. .


 I did a commissioned quilt in December and had some of the white leftovers cut up into 2.5" and 2" squares so I decided to go with that to guide my size and other choices and settled on a 12" 8 patch Tree of Life block.

Each block takes 30 half square triangles. Which I could conveniently get out of one 2.5" strip of fabric, cutting it into 15 2.5" squares.
 I did each block individually rather then chain piece the entire lot. There was no way I was going to keep everything in order any other way.

 And just to be fun I switched up winter so that the background and colour were reversed to represent the snow and blinding blue sky winter likes to serve up.

 I couldn't wait to get this quilted so on the frame it went and I quilted it with Aurifil 50 wt 2311 for the background and 1148 for the aqua and 2780 for the blue. I did peels around the hsts and some very large pebbling (stones?) around the trunks with the trunks themselves getting a wave.

The name?....uh.... Cycle of Colours? Any ideas? Anyone?

Another big thank you to Kim at Persimon Dreams for doing Project Quilting!!
What is your favorite season?

#ProjectQuilting week 1

 I've decided to try and play along with Kim Lapacek of Persimon dreams Project Quilting. You can find out all about it here.

 The first week's challenge is "confetti".

At first I was going to nope right out of this one when I first saw what the challenge was. How could I come up with something spectacular, which having seen past challenges I know others will come up with, in a week? With no extra materials?
Then I remembered this wasn't about winning or even making something jawdropping. It was about seeing the process through from start to finish and to help me reclaim more of my creativity and ability to just make things.
Yes, I want to push myself, but not to a point I can't find joy in what I'm doing.

So yesterday I had a brainstorm and I just let myself go with it.
I overthought everything, but that's OK.

Confetti calls to mind celebrations which to me means weddings, babies, birthdays and get togethers. So my quilt was going to have elements of all of those things.

There are Cathedral Windows, prairie point windmills, and lots of colour all in a baby mat that begs to be touched with lots of texture and flippy bits. I love seeing confetti in the wind so I love how much movement is in the top, especially around the center.

I've named it "You Belong"

The quilt is 30" square and used a charm pack of Simply Color,and some left over black Bella solids charms.

What do you think?

Nostalgia Dreams

 I think about fabric. A lot. Sometimes I even think maybe I think a wee bit too much about things. Ok. I absolutely think too much about things. But sometimes, sometimes it leads me to fun quilts!

 I had left over Nostalgia from the first quilt, which I'm 90% sure I'm going to quilt with a wood grain motif, ala wood paneling, anyways, and I was thinking how much the colours reminded me of bit and pieces of things involving my grandmother and how special those memories are. So it kept rattling in my head, until the idea of memories being gems just wouldn't go away.

 And this quilt was born!

I adore this design for some reason. It is fun and easy but still interesting. And I think I like is sideways more then I do "right" side up!

 I'm thinking of taking it and offsetting the strips but then I'd lose a lot of the prints and they really are so very pretty. They're softer then Jennifer's other lines but there is still something very bold about them. It's fun!

 I have enough I think for one more baby quilt from the bundle so watch out!