Finish! Kitchen Sink Scrap Quilt

Happy Finish News!  Wooo-hoo!

I have a fully complete quilt to share.  I started this as a way to use scraps to make the back of a quilt and too many people protested and said that it was worthy of being it's own quilt.  I caved and promoted it to being a top.

It's bright, fresh, fun and used up all kinds of leftover bits.

Here is a close up showing the quilting.  I did a simple loop-dee-loo that stitched up super quick and is whimsical and bouncy.

 In other news-- I splurged on a photography frame to hang quilts on to get better photos.  One slight problem right now--  I have limited daylight hours that I'm not at work and then Mother Nature has made those times windy and/or rainy!  I tried to take pictures outside, but it was way too windy.  Here's a picture showing the frame. I ended up setting up on my covered front porch and had a little bit of wind protection.

This quilt is one of my Q4 Finish-A-Long projects.  And I will be donating it to the Dane County Foster Program on behalf of the Mad City Quilt Guild.

xoxo,

Kristin

Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts, Finish-A-Long, Let's bee Sewcial and Oh Scrap!!

editing to add link to my original FAL goals post

Tiny House

Last week, I had the immense pleasure of participating in the Tiny Homes workshop by Laura Wasilowski and then listening to her speak at Mad City Quilt Guild's evening meeting.  Let's talk about the talk first--- I was dying of laughter!!! I don't think I've ever been to a quilt talk that was this funny!! We laughed. We cried. We sang!!  If you ever get a chance to see Laura-- DO IT!   =)

Here are some photos of her work that she brought to share.  There was a slideshow that accompanied her talk that was full of her mini-quilts.  They were so much fun and rich with detail:

Laura and her wares

The hand dyed fabrics were incredibly vibrant! 

(this photo doesn't do them justice)

 

These pretties came home with me!

 

This is my project!  It needs the embroidery to make it sing. =)

I was loving the improvisational, no-rules style of the workshop. It was rather freeing to play with fabric in this way.  I wish we could have had multiple days to explore all of the techniques she presented, because the time went way too quickly.

xoxo

Linking up with Molli Sparkles - Sunday Stash and Sew Fresh Quilts - Let's be Social

2015 Mad City Quilt Guild Mini Challenge Quilt - Complete!

I finished my little 12 x 12 mini challenge quilt!  Hooray!  I will celebrate any finishes, no matter how big or small!  Miraculously, I have this complete BEFORE the due date (by a solid 24 hours!). This will display in the Mad City Quilt Guild booth at Quilt Expo. In years past, I've stitched the binding down at Quilt Expo, in the booth.  =/  

This year's theme is "My Favorite Color" and we were to make a monochromatic block with white, black or grey as the contrasting colors.  This theme was interesting, because I like many colors!  Green is something I've always been drawn to and have made many quilts with green in them.  But when I organized my fabric this summer, I barely had any yardage of green!  I would also say I like royal blue, but again, I had very little yardage of it.  The pile of 'red' is quite high, but there are several bigger hunks that make the stack taller.  

(not pictured: all of the yellows and greys-- they are in a project tote)

What amazed me was the trend of fabrics that weren't a true blue or a true green.  More of "Blue-Green".  So that is how I decided on what color to use!

I've been wanting to make a 'Sparkler' style quilt for some time and this was a good chance to use that pattern and show off many different fabrics.

The quilting is 'matchstick' style and I did it on Heather's Bernina.  It was super nice to quilt with that machine!!  (but I'm not getting any ideas!)

Finn has really taken to sewing and was happy to help out with the machine portion of the binding.

 The color of these plants sort of matches my theme!

xoxo

Slow Sunday Stitching - Mini Style!

I've followed Kathy at Kathy's Quilts for quite a while now and she dedicates part of every Sunday to hand stitching and encourages everyone to slow down and relax with some hand work.  I work every Sunday at Urgent Care (doing X-Ray) and **sometimes** I'm able to sneak in some hand stitching.

Today I brought my mini challenge quilt that will be part of the Mad City Quilt Guild's booth at Quilt Expo.  [I canNOT wait for expo to start!!  I want to do some serious stash acquisition! =)  Seventeen more days before it starts!!!]

Hopefully I will have a photo of my mini to share by the end of the day.  It's due tomorrow, which is the start of the 2014-2015 year for my guild.  It's going to be a great one!!  Our scheduled speakers include Amanda Jean from Crazy Mom Quilts (LOVE her style!!), Laura Wasilowski, Lee Heinrich from Freshly Pieced, Chris Daly of Dye Candy and more!

xoxo

Mini Challenge Quilt + Stash enhancement

I set a goal of completing my mini quilt for Mad City Quilt Guild's booth at Quilt Expo this week.  I didn't meet the goal, but I am almost there with a nearly completed top.  I've been sneaking in bits of cutting and sewing into every day and it's been fun!  These wonky stars are a little ticky-tacky.  Sew/press/trim/repeat.  I love how they look, but they require more effort than one would think!  This in progress step is a little bit ugly duckling--  it will be a swan with just a bit more sewing!!  My next goal for this is to make sure it is 100% complete by August 24th, so I can hand it in at our next meeting. (I've been notoriously late with my entry in past years!)

Also under my needle this week is a "leftover" project.  These are trimmings from Heather's Twirly Star quilt that she was going to toss out-- I intervened and said I would turn them into something.  The pieces weren't uniform, but I didn't feel like squaring up.  I just started sewing the triangles together into rectangles and then put the rectangles into rows.  No plan, just sew them together as leader enders.  It seems to be time to formulate a plan!  I think I'll make a strippy baby or lap quilt out of them.  This yellow/gold fabric from my stash seems to be a good complement for sashing.  I auditioned a red with gold metallics and a red/purple stripe.  Neither one worked. Hopefully the lack of squaring up won't cause too much of a problem when I sew the rows together!

Lastly, I received a lovely little package in the mail from Massdrop this week.  A Tula Pink fat quarter bundle!! I couldn't resist!

Linking up with Molli Sparkles, Sew Fresh Quilts and Patchwork Times.

Time to get sewing!

Now that I've got my sewing room put together (it still needs more work, but it is mostly functional), it is time to start creating!  I have a million projects that are in progress that I should work on-- instead, I'm dying to start something new.  I hope to make 2 baby quilts in the near future and have them planned out (sorta) in my head.  But first, it's time to make a mini-challenge quilt for the Mad City Quilt Guild's booth at Quilt Expo.

This year's theme is "My Favorite Color".  That's tough!!  I like many colors and had a hard time choosing.  When unpacking my sewing room, I re-folded all of my yardage.  Blue-Green fabric seemed to be a trend.  Not quite blue, not quite green: Blugreen. =)  So that's what I'll use.

The guidlines for the mini's are that they should be approximately 12" x 12" and use one colorway plus a neutral.  I joke all the time that lime green is a neutral and would like to make a mini like that--but I'll be conventional.  I've pulled these aquas and plan to make a 'Sparkler' mini with 2" cut squares.

Amanda Jean made a mini and it is my inspiration. I've had this quilt pinned for ages and hope to make a bigger version someday.

http://crazymomquilts.blogspot.com/2015/07/a-quilting-marathon.html

--Can't get the hyperlink to embed. :/

Sewing room progress:

Found my thread!!  It was in a box marked "closet".  I was able to hang this antique printer typesetting drawer and it holds my thread nicely.

My closet is still a disaster zone.

Hopefully the next post will have a completed Blugreen Mini to share.

Xoxo

MCQG Holiday Party

Today is a lovely winter snow day, with several inches of snow forecast and I'm so happy it's falling today and not yesterday. Because last night was the Mad City Quilt Guild Holiday Party and I was organizing the event. There were 64 people attending and if today's weather happened yesterday, we probably would have had to cancel. =\

It's a huge relief to have the party completed. Everything went well (except a small projector problem that got sorted out). The food was great (lots of compliments), the speaker was entertaining and my worst nightmare didn't come true-- I was worried that someone's reservation form would "fall through the cracks" and they would show up and I wouldn't have them on the list. But it was all good!

I brought my camera last night, but totally forgot to take pictures! Instead I'll post a picture of the door prizes (I won one!!! --big grin!--) and one of the favors.

One person per table got a poinsettia and each person got a handmade paper star ornament (made by our president).

I'm going to get crafty with my remaining snow day. Perhaps I'll post my progress later this afternoon?

So Sew Busy!

I've had a million gazillion things going on this week that I didn't manage to find time to post as they were happening, so I'll do a re-cap of the last week (or so).

Last Tuesday was my monthly guild meeting. I'm chairing the community service project this year and I made a presentation about it. I'll post all about it another time.

Last Thursday I took pictures of the quilts that hung in the Mad City Quilt Guild's booth at Quilt Expo last month. The pictures are posted on our website. It was an all day affair, between photographing, cropping/resizing and then uploading them.

Friday/Saturday/Sunday: work, work, work.

Monday- recuperate and continue with the blocks for Funky Boxes. I'm almost done with the blocks!!! Hurrah! I have all but 8 done and tonight I ripped all the paper off, so I can get to piecing the blocks together soon.

Tuesday I helped a little with Project Linus' Make a Blanket Day. The focus for the day was to make fleece throws and NICU flannel blankets. The group managed to make nearly 100 blankets that day! Amazing!

Wednesday was the monthly meeting of the UFO Club at Millhouse Quilts in Waunakee. I didn't have anything to register (nothing completed, nothing new), but took some of the funky boxes along and started tearing the paper off of them. Afterwards, I did a little shopping. For the first time ever, their sale room was open while I was there. It had lots of tempting things. My favorite was a shelf full of 'scrap packages'. When a bolt is done and there isn't a usable amount to sell as yardage, they save the scraps and sell them discounted. The top part of the picture is the package and the second is what was inside. Lots of great stuff! And I was able to use some of the bits in my funky boxes. The last picture is some cool fabric that I got at 30% off. It's very yummy.

Thursday: My day to volunteer at the children's hospital. It was a pretty quiet session. That's good for the kids because they aren't in the hospital, but not as much fun for the volunteers.

Non-quilty: Thursday was my final tennis match for the fall season and I'm very happy to report that I ended the season with a win!!! Just like George Costanza says, "End on a high note."

Friday/Saturday: I headed to my parent's house to use my mom's longarm and get some tops quilted. My time was limited. I managed to quilt two small baby/kid sized quilts. First up was my flip-flops quilt that I'm giving to my friend's daughter Ella. She just turned 4 a few months ago. I kept the quilting simple -- loop-de-loo's and the top finished quick.

Next up was the pink and brown baby quilt that I made for Ella's new sister, Emilie. I wanted to quick and simple quilting on this one, too, but it didn't go nearly as smooth as the flip-flops. =/

Normally, I practice and refine my design on muslin before I start the real deal. Because I thought this was a simple pattern, I went straight for the actual quilting. Yeah, I should have taken the time to load the muslin!! After 4 blocks, I realized that I hated my thread choice (dark brown) and design. It took forever to rip that area out. Even after I switched thread, I still wasn't totally happy with my second choice. I ended up using a pink variegated thread, but would rather have used a plain light pink. Overall, the quilt looks nice, but it made me realize how rusty my longarm skills got over the summer. I'll post final pictures of the quilts once I get the binding done.

Last, but not least, today was Jessica's baby shower! My friends Kimberly and Jean hosted and the theme was retro/50's era. Guests were encouraged to wear pearls and twinsets. I had fun with it and wore a scarf over my hair and under my chin when I arrived. I had an old apron for when I was in the kitchen and brought cucumber sandwiches and a dish of mixed nuts. If only I had some cat-eye glasses!! Drat. Of course for a present I'm giving her a baby quilt. For today, I gave her a shoe box full of the Funky Box blocks.

(L-R) Jean, Kimberly displaying a jello mold, Jessica and me