inspired

by Clare to make more hexagons. Her piece and love quilt is so charming...

Cutting into the vintage linens, there might be some small cuts left over. The very pretty pincushion to the right came  from Ayumi's little shop full of treasures, (a birthday gift to myself) and inspired me to make the not so small pincushion on the left.

Small pleasures, easy stitching.

Wish you all a lovely week!

waiting for spring

Wishing for spring to arrive, I have finished two quilts to decorate the house. Both are made using quilt-as-you-go technique.

The blue linen tabletop is 20" * 21", using Quilters Dream Select (cotton) batting. It is quilted on one piece of batting, starting with the 4 center pieces at the same time, and building the courthouse step blocks in parallel. The last three logs are folded over to finish it up (white cross in the picture above).

The spring forward into spring wall quilt / lap quilt is 57" * 82" and quilted on Quilters Dream Poly (polyester) batting.
They really bring some expectations of greener days into the living room!

I am happy with both of them. The bigger one is a bit of challenge to keep squared up as you work on it. It is not completely flat, but has a relaxed, worn look already...

Wishing all of you ladies a great day on the 8th of march!

narrow it down...

Thank you for your input on the layout dilemma! So many options, so many paths to follow...

Here's a little update on the progress. First I started testing out and rejecting several solids. Deciding they were a bit dull for the scale of this courthouse steps block.

Then I decided to go for a light, "blonde" palette, using the white design elements to bind it all together. After more digging through stash, I settled for these two stripes. With the limitation of my usual 1/2 yrd cuts, I needed something more and another vintage linen piece was added.

(For some reason, it hurts to use my 1/2 yrd cuts of the stripes all in one go. How silly is that? I guess it means a good stripe is hard to find? I must start buying them in whole yrds?)

So this is how my design wall looks today. I think I'll leave it for now and see if I am still happy about this layout tomorrow.

I find that time can be an important ingredient in the process. One that often is scarce... Do you have the patience to leave your wip for some time, to see if you still like it? Or do you just make a quick decision and move on?

too many options...

Most of my vintage sheets are 6" squares. I am also lucky to have a few bigger pieces.

I wanted to use them to their maximum - and decided to try a quilt-as-you-go wall size!

After doing this fun technique earlier in blocks, it was time for expanding the possibilities. For the base I choose a Quilters Dream Poly batting, thinking it would be sturdy enough for this technique.

The first picture shows the vintage linens I wanted to include in the quilt. I started placing the center piece and quilt it. Second round came together quickly. Third row followed. By now, I had used 4 of my 6 vintage pieces. And the decisions on how to proceed got harder.

This is where I am now, testing out the final round of prints and solids. It will be framed in white and end at about 60" by 85".

Here are some of my options:

layout one

layout two
layout three
layout four
layout five
layout six
layout seven
layout eight
layout nine

Sorry if I made you fall asleep...

; )

I like several of them. The quilt is going to be a celebration of spring, decorating the dining room. What do you think - do you see any favorites that stand out?

wip wednesday