Kaffe Fassett Shot Cotton Quilt

I've been using Kaffe's shot cotton for my Lucky Stars BoM blocks, but earlier this year I'd started cutting fabric for a lap quilt from them.  Originally I wanted to make a king sized quilt but I didn't have enough fabric and didn't think I'd end up getting more.

The colors I used were sprout, magenta and lemon, I added Kona in coal and snow.  I used the Kona coal for the binding too.

My inspiration was the HST Love quilt from Katie at Sew Katie Did.  My photos don't do the fabric justice, if you haven't tried shot cottons and are curious about them, please DO get some they are simply stunning, especially in the sunlight.   The ones for this quilt were from Purl Soho, but my subsequent purchases have been from Hawthorne Threads.

My blocks finished at 5.5" and the finished quilt is about 50" by 68" .




I straight line machine quilted it with grey, green, magenta yellow & white. I didn't use my walking foot (hadn't tried it before) and certainly regret that I didn't know how useful it was, as is you can see the quilt's a bit ripply in spots.

I was lucky enough to find a pretty vintage  sheet at Goodwill to use for the back. 

This is seriously cozy.  Pondering making a pajama set from QUILTS- it really seems like the sort of thing I'd do ;)

Tried taking indoor photos, was cat-blocked by Wasabi at every turn

I still may make a king sized quilt like this for the bedroom, but as I'm currently in the middle of making another king sized quilt will probably push it off for a bit ;) YES my husband's started asking me why I'm making more quilts.  No I did not shank him for voicing that crazy question out loud ...


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Fractured Quilt Finished

Woohoo I finished this in the lovely month of March, this being the Fractured mini quilt from the Displacement Activity blog.  18 by 18 inches of awesomeness.

It's not perfect, and I think I put some bits in different spots than I was supposed to, but that's one of the brilliant things about this, you can't really go wrong and I still love it!  Pretty sure  I sewed some stuff on upside down ;)

I used Gutermann thread to quilt it because thats what I have in colors that match, a pale green and a pale purple.  I used white in my bobbin and had trouble getting the tension right for the FMQ so a bit of it is showing through in the darker fabrics, which actually helps since the darkest purple's SO dark.

I was a bit perplexed about how to quilt this, but finally chose the Sunrays pattern from Angela Walter's Free-Motion Quilting book.  I even put a sleeve on the back of this for hanging it...but it will probably hang from push pins for awhile yet since I'm too lazy to go into the cold garage and fire up my table saw :D

Kaffe Collective Pillow

I am a super lucky person in all aspects of my life, tis true! I won a mini charm pack of fabrics from the Kaffe Collective at Fabric Fascination's blog. I got my choice of 4 different color schemes, and opted for the hot, maybe because it's winter maybe because I love shiny bright things, I'm not sure. I LOVE Kaffe, especially my bathrobe I made with a millefore print of his.

I was trying to figure out just what to do with 2.5" squares for a quilt, but gave up and went to my pinterest pillow board and found a couple patterns I loved and wanted to try and decided to go with that instead, I have a goal of making every single pillow in the world by the end of the year, after all!

Inspiration pillows

One side is a HST triangle pillow inspired by this one from During Quiet Time's blog.

The other side is a HST with a twist pillow pattern from the Plum and June blog.

Is there NOTHING half square triangles cant accomplish?!??!  I think not!




Making half square triangles out of 2.5 inch squares is a bit tedious, I admit.  I didn't spend excessive time worrying about trimming and lining things up perfectly on the front.  Machine stitched both sides with some pale yellow Aurifil.

Do I need to admit the one side looks better the further away you stand from it? Shhh, I like to do that and pretend I'm on a tropical holiday.  I DO think the first side is a wee bit ugly close up, and I don't care :D  One more pillow accomplished!

(seriously I need to start taking things outside to photograph them in daylight, eh?)

March's Blocks

March "Just Spoolin' Around" for And Sew On...

This month got away from me, luckily its been busy with good things, not bad.  I finally hunkered down to do my BoM's though.

First was the Just Spoolin' Around block for the And Sew On... BOM at Quiet Play. 

Didn't think a ton about what to use fabric wise, and didn't pull my other blocks out to make sure they'd all work together either, but that's just how I roll.

The background is busier than I planned but, live and learn (or don't learn, Im not gonna tell you what to do).




March's block for the Lucky Stars BOM  is called Ninja Star.  Wish there'd been a bit more fabric at the corners, since they'll be cut off when its sewn together, but at least it seems to be a pattern issue and not user error from what I can tell from flickr (for once ;)  This went together really easily for me all things considered.  There were less places to match and although I see it's a bit off kilter, I'm happy with it.

I do see that I need to PRESS and not iron if I don't want to see the stitches though, and I REALLY need to stop using white thread in the bobbins!

March Lucky Stars BoM - Ninja Star

I'm likely to do some blocks from the Forest QAL co-hosted between Shape Moth and Sewing under RAINBOW, it looks kick ass.  I'm just not in a hurry since I wont be making a finished quilt (it's judged, ya know!) but the first two blocks are intricate and beautiful so hopefully I can make time for them.

Schoenrock Cross Block Pillow

I have been less than productive lately, but managed to get some sewing done this week finally, including managing to finish the pillow I was making with the Schoenrock Cross block I'd found at Where the Orchids Grow.

Still pondering if I ever want to do an entire quilt out of this lovely block.  I'm starting to think a paper pieced quilt willl ONLY happen if I take the block of the month route...its a bit like labor right, the pain fades and each month you're willing to go through it again?




For the back I did a paper pieced  Swirly Twirly Dresden made up by Vicki at the Quilting Lodge Blog. Not so easy for me, I kept being a smidge short on the pieces with all those angles!  I used shot cottons for the rays, Voltage Dot in lime (Denyse Schmidt) for the center & Ladder Dot in Black (Denyse Schmidt) for the background.  I decided to applique everything on, even though appliqueing round things makes me dizzy!

Didn't have any longer black zippers so I decided to go with one of the bright assed ones from Zipit's etsy rainbow collection, and I'm glad I did, I love how it stands out.   12" Pillows are so teeny!  I like it anyway though :)

damp grass!

Fractured Pervalong - Fabric Choices

 

Fractured by Charlotte @ Displacement Activity

Charlotte at Displacement Activity started a
 quiltalong last year (or pervalong, would've loved to be a fly on that wall!) for her kick ass pattern Fractured.  I wanted to make it the second I saw it, but  I certainly wasn't anywhere near ready to tackle foundation paper piecing at that point.  With several paper pieced blocks under my belt, I thought I should go for it.  Actually I am rather pleased with how a bit of practice has increased my comfort level!

There's a flickr group, and under the prep your foundation pieces topic, Nataki has a link to a great pdf she made up if for both 18" and 36" square sizes, so I have printed out the pieces for the 18" mini.





Coming up with a ten color palette was enough to make me shudder.  I decided it'd be a good time to browse some design seeds palettes to base it off of, and  I went with the rusted hues.  Of course I went brighter and nixxed the orange, but I will revisit this color collection for something in the future.

I tried to work my choices around a few fabric colors I already had.  Turns out I have uh...5 bright greens so similar in hue that they'd just blend together if I tried to use more than one in this.  Then I kept ending up with 12 choices instead of ten, but I finally sorted it out.

I AM nervous about doing the 18" instead of the 36" after the incredulous "that whole thing is only going to be 18 inches?" That came out of my husband's mouth, and...what the hell, that is small!




Kona - Lime
Pure Elements - Dark Citron
Kona - Cacuts
Pure Elements - Light Citron
Pure Elements - Sandstone
Pure Elements - Mauvelous
Pure Elements - Verve Violet
Kona - Cerise
Moda Bella - Boysenberry
Pure Elements - Cabernet