Marcelle Medallion and uh huh, shopping

I'd really better start reading all the blogs on how to get better pictures  That and making myself a big old pressing board so I can keep this thing wrinkle-free for more than 5 minutes. As I said in my last post, I've finished my Marcelle Medallion, and now my batting has arrived & I'm piecing the back.  It ended up at about 86" by 94". My husband was sweet enough to hold it up for me and this is the first quilt that's been so large he couldn't hold the corners.

On another  note, I just got back from Bellingham, WA.  It was one of those days  - the end of a trip where you are eager to get home. I was on my way to my last commitment, lunch plans.  There was that moment when you realize you have enough time to stop by that quilt store and spend 15 minutes in it, or you can risk going to have lunch first, and then being way too impatient to drive back through all the busy streets to check it out.

Of course it was a no-brainer, and I made the quick stop at Fourth Corner Quilts.  I hadn't checked for fabric stores before I left, and wasn't even sure what I'd find.  Really it was such a blur that I can't say much about it - it had multiple rooms, with both classic and modern prints and sold Janomes, one of which I lovingly caressed as I walked by it and its $4k price tag. 

I am sure I missed a lot of gems, but I didn't have time get fabric cut.  Luckily for me - pre-cuts!  They had a lot of charm packs, layer cakes and even the hexagon precuts, but on a lot of the fabric displays, they also had 1/4 and 1/2 yard cuts of a pretty good variety of fabric, more than I've seen anywhere before. I ran around in glee and when I got up to the register I realized I had a nice choice for the basis of a new quilt.  I already have some of the Ladder Dot and I'd used a Comma charm pack for this pillow.  I'm pretty sure that  is Kaufman Interweave Chambray in sorbet there, I was happy to see it in person, I likely never would have ordered any, and it's much prettier than any of the pictures I've seen (yup, including that one) convey.

Birch Bay, WA

Considering making another trip up sometime soon just to browse in depth - I used to make the 2.5 hour drive this route to visit my husband when we were dating, and now it's only 1.5 hours so it seems like a win ;)  Also I got to see a bald eagle and gorgeous sunsets, so I see no down sides to going again.

Marcelle Medallion Quilt Top Finished

Oh ya!!!!  Despite being thwarted by cats at every turn, I managed to get all the pieces of the top out from under them long enough to get this sewn together. These colors aren't really what ever would've chosen, but I think I'm going to like it since our bedroom in this rental house is blue.

One problem - one of my cats (I know which one, dammit) jumped up on it when I was testing the width out on the bed, and poked and ripped holes.  The rip's about 1/4" but since it's in a solid border, I'm not really sure how I'm going to fix that.  I see some creepy applique in my future!

After my plus signs I added a border of Domino Dots in Starfruit from the Waterford park collection, wider on the sides than the top and bottom, and then a 2" border of Kaffe Fasset shot cotton in Blue Jean (I had JUST enough to do it, and one border it a teeny bit narrow on the last couple of inches.  Nevertheless it's some giant size I have no idea about the final measurements of, but I think if we ever switch to a king size bed it will actually cover it adequately!

I'm looking forward to getting my husband to stand around holding it over the balcony so I can take a picture of the whole thing - after getting rid of all the spider webs out on the porch that is.

Still haven't started piecing the back, but it's going to be simple.  For the binding I'm using Bella Stripes in Citron by Lotta Jansdotter -  I've only used solids in binding up til now, so I'm looking forward to trying something different.

I'm just waiting for my Warm and Natural batting to get here, and debating if I want to hand quilt it or not. *shudder*.

Zakka Along 2.0 - Prettified Pincushion & Pink Castle Purchases

Now that I'm embroidering and sewing all over the place, I never seem to have enough pincushions around.  Like scissors and boxes of kleenex, I like to have at least one in each room. This was what I was looking forward most to making from the Patchwork Please going on for the Zakka Along 2.0 with Debbie at A Quilter's Table.

Essex Linen? Check. Cute little pictures to put on all four quadrants? Check. Adorable fabric colored button made with my own little hands? Check.

Not too much to say about this, it wasn't too hard to put together ( cause I did it messily), I've realized I'm not great at fussy cutting and I still haven't got the hang of doing neat corners in projects like this, especially seeing others pincushions.  It's larger than I thought it would be, and it's stuffed with poly-fil.  Pins go into the loosely stuff linen very nicely too, so win for me!



I'm sorry the sew along has come to a close, and I'll probably be going back to make a couple of projects I missed during the busy weeks of moving.  An awesome bonus is that I won the prizes in a drawing last week from Debbie - Aurifil and Pelleon swatches and some fabric!

warm scrap bundle from Pink Castle

Now back to my Marcelle Medallion, and trying to figure out how my newer sewing machine has been sitting in its box after being broken for 3 months and I haven't gotten it shipped out the door for warranty work yet.

Because there's not enough pictures here for my liking, I'll share these too.  I just got my order from Pink Castle which included a warm scrap bundle and because I'm a nosy bastard, a small scrap vomit bundle.  I'm happy with the variety of the scrap bundle, and I'll just stare at the scrap vomit for awhile until I can make sense of it ;)

Scrap Vomit bundle from Pink Castle

Embroidery & Marcelle Medallion Progress

x
"Suck It" is a 7" hoop.  It tends to be something I say instead of "Screw Off" when I'm in a good mood.  Really, I usually mean it very lovingly!
It isn't particularly noticeable here but I used a darker orange at the centers of the petals and a lighter one for the outside edge and tips.  I used this nifty cursive font generator to plot my lettering


I also did one of the girls from a Natalie Krim picture, I didn't get the smile down, there's a lot of practice I need to do on learning fine detail.  She's got some really cool quirky stuff, and I wanted something fun to look at.





I'm just slowly making progress on my Marcelle Medallion plusses.  Finally put up a quilt wall this week on a 10 foot tall wall since pinning a bit of batting to the wall wasn't very satisfying. This one is out of range of my cat's claws, but kinda out of mine in a lot of ways at 5'2"...

My cats remain highly amused that I'd been laying out my fabric on the floor in the interim, and I'm tired of their smug looks every time I walk in the sewing room to see the mess they've made.

Marcelle Medallion Borders 5 and 6

In an effort to gently increase the size of my quilt, for border  I made my pieces 2.5" by 3.75" instead of the 1.75" by 3.75" called for.  I also made three rows, and ya know what?  I had no idea there were only two rows until this very second and I looked up the dimensions...no clue how I got the idea there were three, but it fits into my king sized plans quite well *cough*

Border 6 - I'd been auditioning 8 different prints for it, but nothing seemed just right so I went with a solid green.  This will make it an easier transition to a print here, I think & I'll be adding a solid print border to this before I add border 7.

I've started the crosses for it too, during a bout of insomnia that kept me cutting and trimming until 5:30 am yesterday morning - trying not to think about how many more blocks I'll have to make to compensate for the increased size though :o. 

On another note, last weekend I spent several days on Vashon Island, and my sister and I made a stop at Island Quilter.  They had Carolyn Friedlander's Tangelo quilt hanging in the front of the store, and my sister said I could make one for her. :D  It was absolutely gorgeous in person, and they sold kits but we decided to choose our own fabrics, so we grabbed most of the 12 fabrics needed for it, and I'm supplementing the rest from my stash. 

Island Quilter goodies