Sunday Stash - Introducing Blue Bar Quilts!

Not much sewing happened this week and often times when that is the case, I compensate with shopping!  =O

I had 2 great reasons to shop this week:
     1- Our new local quilt shop opened!!! Blue Bar Quilts
     2- I'm taking a workshop next week and need fabric for the project!

Blue Bar Quilts is a fantastic new shop located in Middleton, owned by fellow Mad Mod Member, Gael Boyd.  She's been working on the logistics of the shop for what seems like ages and the opening was worth the wait!  The shop is lovely! Spacious, well lit, full of gorgeous fabrics, huge classroom, I visited there on Thursday night, but did not snap any photos.  There are tons of them on Facebook and Trish Frankland did a great FB live video.  Pay close attention to the customers at the cutting table and you will see me! =)

Here are the goodies that came home with me:

The top 2 fabrics are for the Gudran Erla workshop I'm going to on Tuesday.  It's sponsored by the Lodi Valley Quilt Guild and on Monday night, Gudrun is giving a trunk show.  I can't wait!!  We have the choice of 2 projects to work on and I'm picking Hekla, a traditional Scandinavian star design.  I love the smoky charcoal as a background, but I was struggling to find a good contrast for the stars.  My thoughts were to color this traditional and maybe use red and white or red and black, but I guess I'm being a bit bold by selecting pumpkin for the stars!

xoxo
Kristin

ps
Linking up with the Fabulous Molli Sparkles

Quilting Saturday!

I'm working my UFO's right now and really trying to meet some of my Finsh-A-Long goals.  Last Saturday, I did a whirlwind 24 trip to my parent's house and used the long arm.  In that short time, I quilted 3 tops! (2 were baby sized, but still!!)

First up was to quilt the pink/purple XO quilt.  While testing out the machine outside of the quit, the tension was not cooperating.  It took over 1 hour of fussing to get everything sorted out.  Originally, I was going to do a pantograph, but because of my time constraints, I changed gears and decided to do a 'custom' loop-de-loo with a mum type flower in the grey centers.

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.  Quilting is something where the more time you spend doing it, the better you become.  And I have a lot of gaps between quilting tops, so I needed to brush off some rust. My mum flowers definitely evolved over the course of the quilting!! =O

Lunchtime was so yummy!!  My mom and I went to one of my favorite places-- Big Star Drive In!

Next up-- the twin baby Thousand Pyramid quilts.  I planned to load both quilts on the frame at once and do super simple wavy lines.  I scored some minky at Joanns for $6 a yard the day before!! It gives the quilt an amazing drape and the back just begs to be pet!

I **love** the texture of the wavy lines!!

Ta daaaaaa!

Now to select some binding and finish these quilts up!!

xoxo

Kristin

ps

Linking up with Sew Fresh Quilts - Let's Be Sewcial

Sunday Stash and Twins!

Thousands of Bolts has been my favorite online shop for many years now.  I love buying my Moda Bella Solids from them and I've gotten quite a bit of stash enhancements and backing fabrics.  In the last year or two, my purchases from them seem to have gotten a bit more frequent and this week, they sent me an email that I couldn't ignore!  They were selling Camelot Fabrics at crazy low prices-- I just surfed over to take a look at what they had and in the blink of an eye, I filled up my cart with all kinds of goodies!  All of these are Camelot, except for the little floral white print, that is Michael Miller.  I bought 1 yard cuts in the top photo, 4 yards of the grey (I have a plan for using that in a bold modern pattern that is lots of negative space).  And the last photo is a short cut and a fat quarter.  Not too shabby!

Yesterday was muggy and threatening rain.  The sky didn't open up and pour until late at night, but that didn't stop me from holing up in my sewing room and enjoying my Saturday sewing and crafting and ignoring any housework that needs to be done! =O

I joined a Pincushion Swap with Scrappy Girls Club and finished up 2 super adorable pincushions.  I'll hold off sharing photos until I send mine to my partner.

Next up was to work on the pink/grey thousand pyramid quilt that I started a few weeks ago.  I thought I could make two of these and give to separate friends that are having girls.  My plans for this quilt has changed, because I recently found out a different friend is having twin girls!!! How perfect to make this pair for the twins!  (I will need to figure something else out for the other babies!)

Originally I had all the triangles cut for one quilt.  After arranging the two-sies and four-sies on the design wall, it looked like it needed more variety with a bit less of the super light grey/whites.  Not a problem!  I cut triangles for quilt number two and put more emphasis into medium greys and few more black prints. 

Ta-Daaa!  I have a lot of the triangles sewn together.  What I discovered the first time I made this pattern, it helps to not sew up all the triangles, because it is easier to re-arrange for better placement when you have a few loose triangles. Here is my first attempt at a layout.  I'm sure after squinting that some will be move a bit.  I can't wait to zip together these rows and have tops ready to quilt!

xoxo
Kristin

Linking up with Molli Sparkles  Sunday Stash, Patchwork Times Design Wall Monday and Sew Fresh Quilt's Let's be Sewcial.

Flashback Friday Finish - Mosaic Flood

It seems that I'm very good at documenting the start and creation of my quilts, but not so good at recording a finish.  Perhaps because it can be hard to do nice, outdoor photos of big quilts?  Near where I live, I've found some signs and railings that are ok to drape quilts on, but I'm still looking for a perfect location to display the quilt and have a nice background.

This quilt is not really mine, but I'll take some credit for it!  The fabrics are leftover from the quilt I made Sylvie several years ago (and no-- I didn't do a final 'finish' post on that quilt!).  I wanted to use up the fabrics and found this pattern in a magazine.  I brought everything to a retreat a few years ago, but somehow Heather ended up needing something else to work on and she adopted this project.  It turned out FABULOUS!!!

The pattern is very forgiving, because there are zero matched seams.  It's quite heavy, though, because these squares measure something like 1"!! Lots of seams!  I think I helped with some of the quilting and maybe I did the binding?? I think I did?

Start Date - January 2015
Finish Date - August 2015

We gifted it to Kimberly as a throw to use on the couch and she fell in love with it instantly!

Hopefully I will continue with Flasback Friday Finishes for all of the other quilts that never got a final reveal post.  

xoxo

Kristin

linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts - Finish it up Friday!

Finish-A-Long 2017

I've read about the Finish-A-Long for a while now and have followed many people that are participating.  Because I have several quilts that are either finished tops or not too far from finishing, I thought this might help motivate me to bring them to completion.  So-- I'm joining in on 2017 Quarter 2 Finish-A-Long!  Woo-hoo!

The rules are: I post a list of what I want to complete in Q2 to my blog this week and at the end of the quarter, if I've completed any of them, I post a summary and link it up to the Finsh-A-Long hosts.  Every finish qualifies for a prize!  It's worth saying again--Woo-hoo!

Here are my goals:

1- Lion Quilt: it's at the quilter's waiting for its turn.  I would love to get this back and have it bound by the end of the quarter.

2- Charity Chop Quilt:  The top and back are complete (Finally!!).  Can I find the time to quilt and bind this?

3- Pink Grey Triangle Baby Quilt x 2:  There are some babies in my world and I would like to complete 2 Thousand Pyramid quilts in pink/grey/black/white and gift these to friends.

4- Wonky Stars for Lutherdale: I would like to submit this quilt to the August Lutherdale Auction.  Can't do that without completing it!! =O

5- Elephant Parade-- this is where i get ambitious!! This top has been complete for a while.  Do I quilt it myself?  Or have it done by a professional?  It would be lovely to finish this up.

Oops!  I forgot an important top that I want to finish this quarter.  Editing to add the Pink/Purple XO top.

I'll be linking up with Jess at Elven Garden Quilts.  Wish me luck!!!

xoxo
Kristin

Sunday Stash + Lodi Quilt Academy + Orange Swap

It's been a very quilty spring for me.  Not a whole lot of sewing, but lots of events!

Last week I attended the Sun Prairie Quilt Show on Monday during the day and at night went to the March meeting of the Mad City Quilt Guild.  On Tuesday, had the Lutherdale Gala Luncheon and yesterday (Saturday) participated in my first Lodi Quilt Academy! What a fun week!

The Quilt Academy was serendipity-- a guild member had an extra ticket and gave it to me.  There were lectures all day, a vendor mall and tons of door prizes.  Below are some of my goodies:

Layer Cake - I was inspired by one of the classes and want to make a simple quilt with this.

Marakech - an alluring pattern and was marked down 50%

Fun Fat Quarters!

Also happening this week: I participated in a 10" swap of oranges through the Scrappy Girls Club.  I love what I got!

Now it is time to get sewing!

xoxo
Kristin

Linking up with Molli Sparkles and Sew Fresh Quilt's Let's be Sewcial.