five

My latest quilting adventure started with some beautiful field study fabric and a wish to try making Kathy Doughty's Fractured pattern using 2.5" strips WOF.

I pulled out a warm palette to complement Anna Maria Horners Field study from my stash: orange, pink, red purple and gold. Making blocks and putting them up on my design wall I decided my fabric selection didn't work out, so I put some of the blocks and ready cut strips aside. Then I finished the purple fractured top shown in picture 4.

The spare blocks from this first fractured quilt top kept calling me. I put them on my design wall and decided it was half a top worth of pretty blocks. So I pulled more fabric from stash and made the pink fractured quilt top shown in picture 2.

This second fractured top is slowly being hand quilted on wool batting and a voile backing. (see picture 3). It is softer than butter and oh so tempting to work on.... The key for me is to go slow with the hand-quilting. I have spent all my money at the chiropractors office lately. Not fun! I have to find a way to go back to spend my money on fabric instead.

The center 4 patch in the first picture are made from spare parts from the second fractured top. They were just winking at me saying "don't we look pretty? All we need is a few star points from the scrap bin."

So we are down to picture 5. The spare parts from the spare parts formed a figure of five stars. Reminding me to tell you it's been 5 years since I started this blog. Thank you all for making it such a great place to share ideas and inspiration!

Wish you all a great wednesday and hope you will have some pretty spare parts tempting you to get creative! Me, I am trying to go real slow. 5 years is not so long, I do not want to stop quilting and blogging just yet!

; )

wednesday wip

; )

friday the thirteenth...

on a cold and rainy (summer) day

the Ghastly family started to whisper

what about us?

There's new and fun prints out of the family gallery. The question is of course, to buy or not to buy?

I thought there's only one way to know if I need more fabric to make the family into a quilt. And then I started cutting. 

The question is still unanswered. Do I need a family gallery print for the back?

; )

Take care on this cold and rainy (hope not) friday...

sunday morning paper

sunny sunday summer morning ...

some peonies from the garden ...

and a good setup for some hours of stitching ...

This summer I am looking through and reorganizing my stash. Taking inventory. 

Reading the lovely new book Sunday Morning Quilts by Amanda Jean and Cheryl. On the cover they say "sort, store and use every last bit of your treasured fabric". A good motto.

I have my eye on a couple of their patterns from the book. Diving into my scrap bin of low volume, nearly white scraps. Adding fabric from my stash. 

Loving the easy and relaxed sewing. This will be my sunday morning paper quilt, some day...

Wish you a lovely sunday, too!

wednesday wip - a finished top

Like many others, I fell in love with Jolene's Granny Squares, that she so kindly shared with us in her tutorial.

I like the colorful and playful squares. And I was lucky to have precut some 2.5" squares for my Tokyo Map quilt. So I just had fun playing with these blocks:

My hip to be square top finished up at 46" by 57". I used Kona Snow for the background.

And talking of squares. There's something about those simple shapes. I have started a new quilt, for someone special. Inspired by several beautiful quilts on flikr. The tutorial is generously shared by Bonnie.

Wish you all some happy piecing this week...

another wordless wednesday wip

temptations

How to resist? Both the book and the shirts were purchased last summer. I was able to resist for a whole 6 months. Reading Bonnie's post was all it took. It had to give it a try...
Not sure how far I'll get into these. It may be the farmer's son quilt?

So many fun fabric options out there. Do you have a favorite?

Happy stitching!

; )

sunday snapshots

simple checkerboard design

different colorschemes

all 8" finished size

january seems like the right time of the year to start downsizing my stash
I've started by cutting a lot of squares for these quilt for kids
there might even be backings to match...

lots of very tempting scrap quilts and quilt-a-longs are being posted on several blogs

at least I'm making scraps from cutting these, building a scrap stash to play with later!

Wish you all a nice sunday

; )

wordless wip wednesday

wordless wip wednesday

... so now it's MY time

to host a Go! Baby giveaway!!!

You might remember that I was fortunate to be able to try out this nifty tool, and tell you about it in this post. Now you have a chance to win one of these fabric cutters, 3 dies of your choice and the cutting boards to go with them. Please leave a comment on this post before september 14th and tell me what die and pattern you would like to give a go. It will be shipped to you for free by the lovely team from AqquQuilt, worldwide. So you are ALL invited to play along.

The picture above shows the Go! Baby tumbler die paired up with my 30's stash of mostly green, blue, purple, yellow and blacks.

Last night I washed this summers fabric finds to complement my tumbler wip. After putting these through the Go! Baby they are ready to be mixed in on the design wall. There's also quite a few charm squares already cut and waiting to join the party...

I look forward to mix in more of these blacks and greens...

So, what do you think? Would you like a chance to play? The dies comes in many shapes: including tumblers, half square triangles, hourglass dies, squares and more. Here's a link to free patterns to give you more ideas:

I'll draw a lucky winner on sept 14th! Please make sure I'll be able to e-mail you and get your address and choice of 3 dies. If not, I'll have to make a second drawing.

Best of luck!

it's time ...

Although not in this seasons color, it was time to make some hourglass blocks!

A nice stack of perfectly cut 4" finished hourglass patches waiting to be pieced...

... all because of this nifty little tool. I was generously invited to try out the GO! Baby cutter by AccuQuilt. Friday afternoon it landed on my doorstep, and I just had to start playing with my new toy.

I chose the quarter square dies, aiming for the lovely old hourglass block. And then I just dived into my stash, looking for the right fabrics.

The process of using the cutter is quite simple. First I cut some fabrics into strips to fit the width of the dye. I ironed them, placed them on the dye with the cutting mat ontop and rolled them through the GO! Baby. Then I folded up some others, achieving up to six layers of fabric. I continued to iron the fabric before cutting it.

This quarter square dies has very little waste. The corners are nicely cut, so the block comes together without any dog ears. Easy peasy and instant joy!

The plan was to make a few patches, just testing the tool. But watching these perfectly cut shapes, I have to admit I got a bit carried away. Using my small (24" * 24") flannel design board, I put them into little stacks until my initial fabric selection was all cut up. Then I started looking for additional colors, bringing out the stash...

Could not resist sewing together a few blocks, and putting them up on the design wall...

This is what I have got so far. Limiting myself to only two colors, I am focusing on the contrast of light and dark. Starting out with a kit for a mini quilt in Jo Morton's beautiful reproductions, I have widened the selection to include other reproductions, woven fabric, some Thimbleberries and even cut up a few thrifted men's shirts. (Those cottons shirts cut like butter... ; ) would love to try that again.)

So now, I have the work cut out for me....

; )