Pinwheels: Week Two

Week Two for the Pinwheel Sampler.  I have thoroughly enjoyed making these pinwheel blocks so far.

I decided to do a little experiment with this pink block to see how much of a difference it makes to square up those half square triangles.

It's not too bad, but the green one is definitely better. It actually made a huge difference before I squared up the finished block. I suppose I'll be squaring up all of those pesky little half square triangles in the future.

Chickies

I recently acquired a charm pack of the Chick-a-dee Chick-a-doo line. It is absolutely adorable, by the way. Since I only had one charm pack, I had to get a little creative at how to incorporate these into a quilt. I saw this quilt on flickr and decided to give it a go.

It's basically just a disappearing nine patch with some white sashing.  After Christmas in a moment of obscurity, I bought an entire bolt of white cotton/bamboo blend fabric.  This is my first time using it.  I think it turned out pretty nicely.  It definitely has different feel than 100% cotton.  Much softer and it has a different drape. I haven't washed this quilt yet, so I'm interested in seeing how this turns out.

For the blinding I purchased a bit of striped yardage from the line. I'm a fan of all of those stripes. The back is Kona Cotton Ice Peach.

I decided to go with the loopy quilting again.  At one point I purchased a spool of pastel variegated thread. I was a local quilt shop and thought it looked pretty and would look nice with this doll quilt, so I decided to buy it. Little did I know that spool was $8! Sheesh! I have been looking for a project for it ever since. I'm not completely in love with how the quilting turned out, but I do think the colors in the thread compliment the fabrics quite nicely. I'm just not sure I would use it again with a quilt sashed in white.

On a separate note, recently my camera has been habitually underexposing all of my photos. I can't figure out why. I have a Canon XSi. I tend to shoot in RAW so I have more control over the final product during post-processing.  Unfortunately, I have found adjusting the exposure too much distorts the colors too. Has anyone else had this problem?  It makes me sad because I think it makes my photos look like poo.  Yes, I said poo.

Sweet Little Knit Cap

Recently a friend opened up a shop on Etsy to sell some cute little hand knit items. I feel in love with the Coolest Baby on the Block hat and decided to pick one up as a gift for the ever growing list of friends having babies.




So cute, huh?

Pinwheels

When I saw Rachel of p.s. i quilt's pinwheel sampler, I fell in love.  It's gorgeous!  So I decided to add making a similar one of my own to the to do list.  Fortunate for me, Rachel has decided to host a pinwheel quilt-a-long and we all now how I'm a sucker for a quilt-a-long.

I picked up a Nouveau layer cake.  Since the line has been around for awhile, I was able to pick up some yardage for only $3.99 a yard!  That's less expensive than using Kona solids for the back and binding too.  Not to mention that it is prettier too.  

This morning I was able to make the first blocks.

I'm liking what I see!

Tops

Despite being quite busy the past couple of months, I have managed to be quite the productive little quilter as well.  I'd say it is a combination of procrastination, denial, and just enjoying quilting so much I like to squeeze it into much of my free time.

I finished this top just after Christmas actually.  I originally bought a Wonderland layer cake and cut it up into charm squares.  I planned to blog about this quilt and my last Wonderland quilt together.  However, when I finished the last quilt this top was still collecting dust on my shelf, so that post idea was scrapped.

Since I liked the last one so much, I opted to reuse this pattern.  It is two charm packs and some Kona Cotton in sable and snow.  I plan to quilt it the same way.  I'm not sure what to do about the back right now.  I originally bought some Wonderland yardage, but miscalculated and now I do not have enough.  It seems that math errors are a common theme this weekend.

This week I also finished up my "On the Road to Spring" top.  I was unsure about it after I finished it.  Although as I was taking pictures I decided I really like the colors in this quilt.  They're really pretty! 

Now I just need to get the back together for this and I'm good to go!

Sew In Results

Last night I had a few friends over for a Friday Night Sew In.   While I had a great time hanging out with friends, I did not accomplish a whole lot.  But really,  productivity wasn't the reason I invited friends over anyway.

I did manage to finish up my January blocks for the Quilter Bees.  Theresa sent all of us some Denyse Schmidt Hope Valley and asked for some Kaffe Fasset jewel squares.  The fabric is really beautiful and I really like how most of the blocks turned out.  In retrospect, I should have done more advance planning and math before cutting and sewing.  Unfortunately, I made several math errors that resulted in more fabric waste than I hoped. 

I also finished 11 more nine patches.  I'm up to 43 total for my second nine patch quilt.  Not too shabby considering I haven't worked on these since the last Friday night sew in.  I'm over halfway there!

And then I did some pinning for more flying geese for the Christmas quilt.  While pinning hardly seems like blog worthy progress, it makes me feel better knowing that I am one step close to making the extra geese I need to finish up this quilt.  I have made a personal deadline that this quilt must be finished by Thanksgiving.  If I keep pressing forward, maybe I'll actually accomplish this.

Finally.

I hate to admit it, but I don't think I have ever been so glad to be finished with a quilt top. 

I'm thinking simple is going to be the name of the game for the back and the quilting. 

Hearts

Happy Valentine's Day!  I hope you have had a wonderful day.

Workshop in Progress

Back at Thanksgiving I had this plan to use up a bunch of little scraps in my ever growing scrap bins.  I had this idea that I'd make 6" blocks in two different patterns.  The first pattern would be scrappy centers and solid borders.  The second pattern will be solid centers and scrappy borders.  The solid centers will most likely be Kona Coal.

This is my progress at the first pattern.  The centers are 4" square with a 1" border.  The center is just pieced together as I go based on the size scraps I am using.  As you can see, some of them are pretty small.

I have actually been a bit stuck on the best method to choose fabrics for each block.  I organize my scraps into three bins- warm colors, cool colors, and neutrals.  The first block I made was the one on the bottom left- mostly pulled from the cool color bin.  I then decided to grab scraps from both the warm and cool color bins and I came up with the block in the lower right.  Sick.  I think that one is hideous!  So for the next blocks I kept it safe and pulled from only one bin.  The ones pulled from the single bin are fine and I like the look.  However, I don't really want a quilt with only blue-green and pink-orange blocks.  That seems a bit boring and not really the scrappy look I am going for.


So my question for you is this:  how do you or would you go about choosing fabrics for scrappy blocks?

Springy Blocks

Since I don't have enough things to do already (insert sarcasm), I decided to get moving on cutting my fabric for the "On the Road to Spring" quilt-a-long.  They're simply squares and rectangles, so it was easy and mindless activity while I was catching up on the past episodes of Glee.  It was really a win-win situation.  

1000::Things I Take For Granted Edition

::16::
Clean water from my faucet whenever I want it.

::17::
Electricity whenever I flip the switch.

::18::
Internet whenever I turn my computer on.

::19::
A refrigerator and cupboards with plenty of food.

::20::
A job that affords me the luxury to buy most things I want in addition to all of the things I need.

::21::
A wonderful church that holds God-honoring and authentic relationships at its core.

::22::
A God who cares about what I'm going through and who I am intimately and knowing that while things may not be easy, I can trust that He is working things out for good.

::23::
Kroger and its easy access to more varieties of grocery items than I really need.

:24::
A husband who will vacuum and fold laundry without asking.

::25::
Free time.  And the fact that it is a luxury, not something I am entitled to.

::26::
Public transportation that affords Shawn and I the ability to have one car.

::27::
The crisp, clean air I breath every morning.

::28::
A family where I always know I am loved.