Blogger's Quilt Festival Time!

Hooray for Blogger's Quilt Festival! I just love cruising through all the beautiful quilts and finding some blogs I've never visited before. The last festival was my first entry, and I chose my beloved Flea Market Fancy quilt. This time around, I have a lot more quilts to choose from, so it was a harder decision. But in the end, the quilt that gets the most use wins - my Little Folks HST quilt.

I love this quilt so much for many reasons, the biggest one being the amount of tedious effort that was put into it. It literally had me tearing my hair out at a few different points during the process! But in the end, soooo worth it.

If you've worked with this voile before, you know how wonderfully soft it is. The softness and light-weight makes it a bit slippery, so piecing the half square triangles was less the easy! It's quite imperfect and tons of the points don't exactly match, but I learned a lot of valuable lessons in the making of this quilt, and for me it sort of adds to the charm.

I backed this quilt with voile as well, which made it super tough to baste. I could just NOT get it without a pucker when I took it to the machine. So, in the end, I hand quilted all whopping 90x90 inches of it. And I'm not sorry I did. The hand quilting helped to retain the soft, airy feel of the quilt.

And this is where you can find this quilt on most days of the week....

being loved and used just the way a quilt is meant to be.

Make sure you hop on over to Amy's page all week long and check out all the other lovelies!

Welcome to all of you who have never visited before! I hope to see you again soon!

Little Folks Quilt = Love

Just over six months in the making, my Little Folks quilt is finally finished. And I am happy to say it has won it's place as my most favorite quilt ever. 

Many of you have listened to me moan on and on about the troubles this one gave me, from piecing to basting to quilting, but in the end it was soooo worth it. The buttery softness and weight makes it the perfect summer quilt and all I want to do is wrap myself up in it and wear it around the house like a robe!

Even Mark has deemed it his favorite and is lamenting that I didn't make it king sized so we could use it on our bed. Well, I'll be using on it on our bed, anyways!

In case you haven't read my last posts on this quilt, I pieced the half square triangles of the voile with Robert Kaufman's Ultra Sateen in white, with I think texturally is really great with the voile. Piecing this was a total pain for me, but please don't let that discourage you from quilting with the voile - I have seen other beautiful quilts made from it where the quilter didn't report the same troubles. I am still pretty new at all this. I also used voile as the backing, and tried three times in succession to re-sandwich and machine quilt, but the back kept bunching on me. After cussing out my machine I decided to go ahead and hand quilt all 70x70 inches of it, and I'm not sorry I did. It really only took me a little over a week and now it has such a lovely, vintage-y look. (I used embroidery thread in white by Cosmo that my LQS carries - I love this stuff!)

Here is a peek into my little corner of the universe, where I spend the majority of my time. I love my side of the bed! I will spend the warmer months on top of the duvet and under this lovely light quilt, trying to keep Mark from stealing it from me in the middle of the night.

Before I go I want to show you the pillow I made for my Pillow Talk Swap partner. I used Heather's super simple Cathedral Window tutorial. If you've been wanting to try them out but think they look intimidating, I will tell you they are very time consuming and you have to like your iron, but really they're quite easy to do! The pillow is on it's way partner, and I hope you love it because obviously it looks great with my quilt!

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!

*sigh of relief* Little Folks Top Done

I can't even begin to express to you how relieved I am to finally have this quilt top finished. I've been working on it since JANUARY! And when I say working, I mean working. Although there have been a few times when I have just had to throw up my hands and walk away from it or else I'm sure it would have wound up in the garbage can or better yet, the fireplace!

I was supposed to be on a strict fabric diet after the first of the year, but after seeing the entire collection of Little Folks voile in my LQS I was seduced by its buttery softness and beautiful prints. And obviously I'm a big sucker for anything Anna Maria Horner. I left the shop that day with a big bag of eighteen prints and an empty checking account! I wasn't really sure what I had planned for them except for a couple of baby blankets, but then I saw this quilt and inspiration struck.

So, I proceded to start chopping up squares and found a solid with the perfect texture to match the voile, white RK Ultra Sateen (which now seems to be extinct from online shops?). As soon as I started piecing the triangles, I knew I was in over my head. I had a little experience with half square triangles on regular quilting cotton, but the voile, maybe due to it's slippery nature or thin weight, was a serious pain in the arse to piece with such accuracy.

As frustrating as it was, and as imperfect as many of the points turned out, I had to keep my eye on the prize. And even with all it's faults I still know this quilt is definitely going to be one of my favorites. After Lucy gets to bed tonight I am going to get started on the sandwiching.

If you have been jonesing for some Little Folks for yourself, go check out my friend Chris's super generous giveaway today for some Little Folks charm packs!

And of course with the wrapping up of all these projects, I had to start some new ones, right?

Making a little progress on the Bird Quilt......

and I just couldn't deny the sirens call of the Spiderweb Quilt. Check out these awesome ones that got me started down that path here and here and here.

One more thing: I am so incredibly flattered to have been "featured" yesterday on Jodi's Pleasant Home blog. What an ego boost! Thanks so much Jodi!

Little Folks Voile Love

I am in love with this fabric line - I think I have mentioned that before (Ok, I love everything Anna Maria makes)! I also fell madly in love with this quilt made by Megan (philistine made). Well, I jumped in and eagerly started cutting my half triangle squares. I think I was in a bit of denial that the voile might possibly be a little tougher to work in such a precise pattern - it is a bit more slippery than regular quilting weight fabric. And accuracy is not exactly my strong suit.

Needless to say, I have spent a little bit of time with my seam ripper and my husband asked me to step away from the project the other night - that's when you really know it's time to take a break (and a glass of wine!) So I woke up that night (morning) at 4 AM lying there and just had to get up and sew. I think I just needed to slow down and now things are going a bit better. I also remembered that I had some spray starch and I really think it made a huge difference. I just love this pattern with these fabrics and would be pretty heartbroken if I had to scrap the project. It will probably be pretty slow going but here are my first couple of blocks.

By the way, the solid is Robert Kaufman Ultra Sateen which I thought was a better choice than the Kona to match with the voile. Also I prewashed all the fabrics first - I think just out of paranoia of working with the voile. 

I have a couple of other things I am working on I hope to show you soon. It has just been a little tough around here lately because Lucy is in full force teething mode and my normally happy girl is a little fussy  at the moment. OK back to the sewing while she is napping soundly!

Sunday Stash #???

It has been so long since I "Sunday Stashed", I have no idea what number post I'm on anymore. Oh well.

You might be wondering what this totally awesome stack of fabrics you have never seen before are. Well, I'm sure if you are bothering to read this you probably already do :).

This is one of my favorite fabric collections ever, Bohemian, by Anna Maria Horner (and you all know by now how much I love her!) These fabrics remind me of me back in college - I think that is why I am so taken with them. It has been OOP for who knows how long and I have been piecing the collection together through swaps and late night internet searching for the last year. I am now only missing a few prints. It is so cool to see the first of some of the prints we will come to love, like the dots from Chocolate Lollipop and the Filigree and Cathedral Circles from Good Folks.

I have yet to use any of these in a quilt. Now that my Flea Market Fancy is quilted and being bound, I am looking forward to my next big project. Dragging these out of the stash has me inspired! I am thinking of tackling something circular?

PS - If you are jonesing for some of these fabrics I may be willing to put together some fat quarter stacks of what I have enough of after I cut into them - just let me know.

And to continue with the AMH love, I am once again guilty of violating my Fabric Diet. I went to a great little shop in Ballard today and just HAD to pick up some of the Folksy flannels! I think the voile will be a quilt for me someday and the flannel a blankie for Lucia. It is so soft. I also picked up this tote pattern, which I have plans for in the new Echino line (oops, more fabric to buy!)

Well, I am off to finish binding my FMF quilt. Pictures soon - and hopefully better ones than these if I could just find the blasted charging cord to our new camera!

Oops!

Well, this doesn't come as a big shock, but I have already broken one of my New Year's resolutions and cheated on my fabric diet. (I am happy to report the other resolution is going quite well, with workouts everyday no wine and lots healthy eating) I really was trying to be a good girl but the vortex which is my LQS pulled me in yesterday and when I saw a bolt of EVERY print of the new Little Folks voile by Anna Maria Horner, I just had to buy some. OK $120 worth, eek.

For all of you hesitant to buy some because it is not regular quilting cotton, have no fear. This stuff is like butter on a baby's bottom. It is lighter weight but the texture is heavenly and it sews up lovely. With every line that Anna Maria designs, I fall more and more in love. And this particular line is perfect for baby things with its soft color palette, yet still manages not to come off as "baby-ish", which I detest.

So when I got news that my good friend was in labor with her first little daughter, I whipped up this sweet little blanket, using the "sugar cookie" palette and backed with some super soft ivory minkee. I really hate sewing with minkee, but it is the best for baby blankets, so I just deal. The blanket has already been gifted to the sweet new baby Ella, and mom and daughter are doing great. In fact, she was born with only one half hour of pushing and mom is already up and walking around so don't think I am a bad person when I say I am a bit jealous of that easy delivery!

I have a little quilt for Lucia already in the works also using some of the "moonlight" palette. I am just loving this stuff, can you tell?

Well, I hope you are all having a great year so far. I will be back soon with a sneak of my FMF quilt. It has been put on the back burner for awhile with the holidays and the making of my mom's Garden Party quilt, but I have now vowed to finish it by the end of next week.