Spiderweb Progress

It's coming along! Although I'm not sure what I was thinking when I came up with my final layout for a 96x96 inch quilt. It's going to be a monster, and I have no idea how I'm going to be able to quilt it myself, but I'm loving it already so I guess I'll cross that bridge when I get there.

All the pinks and reds are done, and I'll be finishing up the oranges and moving onto the yellows tonight.

I'm not going to have any trouble completing my 60 Blocks of Summer with this baby! And summer actually did get here to Seattle today - finally! I'm off now to go enjoy a beautiful, warm sunset.

WIP Wednesday, and another new quilt

I know. I can't believe I started another quilt. Mark looked at me like I was mad when I showed him my new test block. Not surprising as I was surrounded by piles and piles of fabric and triangles for my Spiderweb quilt, which I only began last week. 

Do any of you ever have a quilt that has been rolling around in your imagination for just too long and the urge to just dive in a cut is unstoppable? I guess I do often and this idea for what I'll call my "Kerchief Girl" quilt has been brewing for months. And when the baby is ready to be born, there is just no stopping it. So this is my first block of the twelve, maybe eighteen I have planned. More on this one later.

Here is my other all-consuming project, 

the Spiderweb. I'm using all three of Denyse Schmidt's fabric lines in this one. I've seen lots of beautiful quilts incorporating Flea Market Fancy and Katie Jump Rope together and I love the look. I wasn't too sure how I'd feel about adding in all the Hope Valley but I'm really loving it the combination so far. I'm planning this in a color wheel layout based on one of my most favorite quilts ever, Aneela's beautiful Watercolor Spiderweb. I just sat drooling into my coffee staring at that beauty and I knew I wanted to come up with my own quilt in a similar way.

Spiderwebs are fun! I sewed my first block all together this morning.

I'm also using up all my hand-stitching time (read: late nights in bed watching Frasier reruns while Mark is snoring) hand quilting all 72x72 square inches of my Little Folks quilt. My hand was forced to make this call after sandwiching this beast THREE times to try and get all the puckers out of the quilt. And it still bunched every time I tried machine quilting it. I'm blaming it all on the voile on this point. Spray adhesive may have solved the problem, but let's just say I'm trying not to inhale any contaminants right now:) Anyways, the hand quilting is going surprisingly fast and I'm already thrilled with the look of it. Just don't say I didn't warn you about backing a quilt with the voile! I've seen some people pull it off, but  I certainly don't have the answer. I am glad I did, though, because this is going to be the softest quilt ever.

Before I go, I wanted to tell you about a new flickr group I just joined, 60 Blocks of Summer. You have from today until September to make 60 blocks and track them in this group. I think it will be super fun to see everyone's progress and help to motivate me to finish all these quilts! You should hop on over and join too!

Blogger's Quilt Festival!

It's time for the Blogger's Quilt Festival! This is my first entry, and one of my favorite quilts - my Flea Market Fancy Wonky Log Cabins. It's only the fourth quilt I ever finished, completed in January.  This quilt lives on our living room sofa and I just love having all that FMF out of my stash and living with us. 

I quilted it on my old crappy sewing machine and now that I have my Bernina 440QE I plan to pull out the stitching and re-quilt as soon as I get brave enough!

Make sure you go to Amy's page for the quilt festival to check out all the beautiful creations!

Lucy's First Easter (and new Flea Market Fancy dress)

Wow! It's only 3:30 here and we have had quite a day already. Lucia is napping soundly for once after being wiped out from an easter egg hunt and all the love of her extended family.

The Easter Bunny knows exactly what she likes - Dora and Yo Gabba Gabba.....

She was quite successful at her first egg hunt....

And a little dress modeling. Which I of course only finished late last night. But so glad I did because we don't get dressed up very often around here and she was the belle of the ball. Dress pattern is the Claire by Portabellopixie, and the fabric line is of course Flea Market Fancy.

The four of us are now just going to spend the evening lounging and watching movies, and Mark just said something about whipping up some pizza margherita (umm, OK!)

I hope you all had a beautiful day and I will be announcing the winners of Bohemian tomorrow!

My Dream Quilt: Flea Market Fancy is done!

Here she is! And she's mine all mine! I can't even begin to tell you how much I am in love.

The quilt is a great throw sized, roughly 60x75. I used just about every Flea Market Fancy print made, only a few are missing (like yellow barbells!) The sashing and back are just good old Kona cotton white and I used the brown tulip tiles to bind by hand (I don't think I'll be attempting machine binding again very soon). I started the quilt back in August or September with the Old Red Barn Co quilt along, but only now just finished due to holiday madness. John aka Quiltdad did such a great job leading us all through the process of wonky log cabins. I learned so much.

One thing I must now sing the praises of is quilt basting spray. This stuff really works! For some reason I think I was against using it - I just really wanted to figure out how to baste properly the old fashioned way. But I was soooo desperate for this quilt to turn out perfectly, and after wrestling my last quilt (queen-sized) I was willing to try anything. I will now NEVER go back to just pins. I have also been a bit lazy about taping the entire back to the floor before laying the batting. I now know how important it is to go through every little step.

I also picked up Color Grabber at my local Hancock's Fabrics, which pulls any excess dye out of the water while washing. It worked like a charm and is only five bucks for about 30 washes.

Here is the back:

I had to add this little patchwork strip because my back was too short. I was really irritated I had to add it at first but now I love it.

At least we got a tiny ray of sun so I could take some okay shots, even if they are with the old camera (still missing the bloody charging cords to the new Canon!)

It is pretty hard to get a non-blurry shot of a very busy 8 month old!

I hope this can help inspire some of you fabric hoarders (you know who you are!) to get cutting on your beautiful Flea Market Fancy fabrics. They truly are better outside of the sewing room!

Quick Sneak Peek: My Dream Flea Market Fancy Quilt!!!

Remember these guys?

I started this quilt waaaaay back in September with the Old Red Barn Co. quilt along. Well, life -the holidays, taking care of Lucy, trying to get my butt to the gym and my mom's Christmas quilt all got in the way. So with the new year, I decided there was no better way to get started than to get back on this project.

Here is a look at our kitchen table/sewing room yesterday:

I really couldn't wait to show you a little peek. I just finished the top and snapped a pic. I can't even begin to tell you how much I love this. It is now after 11:30 PM so I had better get to bed but I can't wait to get started on the backing tomorrow!

Zig Zag Quilt completed!

Yay! My zig zag for the Old Red Barn Co. quilt along is finally quilted and bound. Now I just need to learn how to take a decent picture of it! I apologize for this one, but I took about a hundred and none of them were any good. I think quilts are pretty hard to photograph anyways, and this one in particular is just SO much prettier in person. I think because the prints are so delicate it is hard to get a good idea of how lovely they are in the photos. The fabric is from the My Folklore collection by the Japanese manufacturer Lecien.

This is my first completed quilt. I have about five other works-in-progress and about fifty others planned in my head but it is so satisfying to have made one beginning to end. It is a throw size and it will live over the back of a chair in our bedroom for now.

Here is Lucy chillin' on the new quilt. I think you can see the fabrics better in this one

.

And I thought I would give you a little peek at what I am working on for Round 3 of the quilt along - Wonky Log Cabins. I'm sure I don't need to express the thrill and sheer joy of cutting into all this Flea Market Fancy goodness! Most of the prints came from the jelly rolls mentioned in a previous post (Aka biggest fabric score of the year) and I am also cutting into some of my yardage as well. Such a beautiful collection I think deserves a quilt all it's own. I am having a ball making these since I am not such an accurate person and accuracy is unneeded in the making of these blocks.

It's not too late to jump into Round 3, just click on the quilt along button to the left and follow the links to Quiltdad.

Triple Threat!

So today I'm killing three posts with one big, beautiful bundle of Flea Market Fancy goodness!These delicious layer cakes and jelly rolls (and I now know why they call them that!) will serve as my Sunday Stash and also bring me to two other subjects.

You've probably heard by now of the giant uprising amongst the lovers of this long out of print line by Denyse Schmidt. Penny at sewtakeahike has just started a petition to get the attention of Free Spirit. Perhaps if she gets enough signatures they will consider reprinting the line! Click on the link on the right to join!

In addition, these jelly rolls I have decided will be my fabric selection for the Old Red Barn quilt along Round Three. I think the FMF deserves a quilt all its own and will make smashing Wonky Log Cabins. This is a great quilt along and I am super excited to learn from John aka Quiltdad - he does some amazing work.

Well I have successfully (?) quilted my zig zag and now it is just waiting to have to binding sewn so stay tuned.