Spring Cleaning!

I'm really excited to share my sewing space after my 'Spring Cleaning'!  On Friday, Mary from Sort n' Release came over and helped me get things in order. It was a bunch of work, but so rewarding! 

Here are the after pictures (if you want to see 'before', go here):

The project bins are in the closet (not on the floor), the tops of my fat quarter shelves are tidy!  My cart is so much more logical and I swapped out the quilt on the wall from CatVent to Elephant Parade.  The fabric on my ironing surface is part of my 'homework'.  Since this picture was taken, I've purged a bit from drawers and found a home for (most of) it.

The closet--- Aaaaahhhhh!!!  It is completely transformed! I could hardly step in it before and was just throwing things in and closing the door.  Now each space is assigned a job-- storing completed projects, holding project totes, etc.  I can't believe that it looks this good! But it is more than just looks, it is functional, too.

Here is the view of the design wall side.  I didn't manage to take any pictures of the cutting table and cubbies.  Trust me-- they are looking good!

Here's my pile of sell/donate:

It has a bunch of felt I haven't used for years, some things from cardmaking days, some fabric and notions and storage containers that I didn't 'love'.  Part of the process was-- If I don't like something, why keep it?

Before the big clean, I wanted to finish up my On Ringo Lake.  It needed just a few more inches on either side, so I did a simple border of bricks of the coral/orange/pink/yellow leftovers. The size is much better.

I hope to quilt this in 2 weeks, so I need to think about backing.  I've done a bit of looking and wasn't finding anything, so I placed an order for an assortment of yardage in the colors of the top.

On Friday night, I had my Late Night Sew Night at Blue Bar Quilts.  I would have been perfectly happy to collapse on the couch after such a busy day, but I couldn't.  Sew-cializing needed to happen! I grabbed my log cabin diamonds as a simple, small project to work on.  Now that I have a handful done, I can see how cool this is and I want to devote more time to them.  I'm not sure if I should switch to orange for the next ring?  It might give the quilt a bit more interest...

And lastly, part of my homework was to go through some of my tubs and thin the scrap herd.  They have multiplied into 3 small bins and I know that is not necessary. While sorting, I did a bit of Wild and Goosey with some of the scraps.  After the first few of these blocks, I wasn't too keen on them.  I've now switched to using only really light fabrics for the background and it is making the difference-- I like these better now.

And to finish this long post, I've got a cute picture of Finn to share. He kind of looks like a doll in a box! 

xoxo,

Kristin

Linking up with Judy's Design Wall Mondays, Lorna's Let's bee Sewcial and Cynthia's  Oh Scrap!!

On Ringo Lake...Making Progress (slowly!) + Kings Cross prep

I'm making headway on my Quiltville Mystery Quilt, but I'm not quite to the point of showing a big, breakthrough photo.  Lots of sewing is happening, with lots of small pieces and tons of units.

I have all of the orange/coral flying geese and brown flying geese complete and sewn together in pairs and half of the pairs are joined up to the 9 patches (stacked up in the background).

I haven't kept count of the aqua/brown triangles, but I think I'm about halfway done with them? I can't wait to get started on the next step that adds a coral triangle to these and then I can assemble a block!

My big Lutherdale retreat starts in a few days and (crossing fingers) hopefully I will make big progress on this and have something awesome to share when I get back.

Here is an 'action shot' of my sewing room yesterday.  As you can see, I get a lot of help!!

Speaking of retreat... as usual, I have ambitious goals. Before starting the mystery quilt, I decided that King's Cross would be my big, main project to work on while there.  I think I have all the fabrics accumulated (or at least close to all of them). I have the bolt of Pepper Cory-Pepper as the background and a variety of saturated Moda Grunge for the crosses.

 Here is a sampling:

And here are my fabrics (Grunge Dots) for the lighter, more subtle stars.  I'm not sure how I'm going to combine these... Maybe the cream will be star points and the grey as the four patch centers? Not sure yet!

xoxo,

Kristin

ps

Linking up with Bonnie's Mystery Monday Linkup , Molli Sparkles Sunday Stash, Cynthia's Oh Scrap! and Judy's Design Wall Monday

On Ringo Lake - Clue #1

Great news-- Quiltville's annual mystery quilt has kicked off and I'm joining the fun!  Clues are revealed every Friday (with the start always on Black Friday) and on January 1st, the layout is revealed.  This is my first time participating and I've caught the fever!  The title is 'On Ringo Lake'.

My fabric selection is still a bit in flux.  I'm going with cool and taupey greys for the neutrals.  I might use a constant brown instead of scrappy (we'll see!) and I'm not 100% certain about the orangey-corals.  I've mixed in a few pinks and goldy yellows and not sure if they will stay.  The inspirational photo is of a lake at sunset(sunrise?) with a fishing boat at the shore, so the range of warms should fit together.  A sunrise isn't just one shade- it's a spectrum.

Friday night was our monthly Late Night Sew Night at Blue Bar Quilts.  While I was there, I starched my fabrics, cut and did some piecing and then finished the blocks for clue #1 on Saturday.

My cute aqua/chocolate nine patches!

I can't wait for clue #2!

In other Late Night Sew Party News-- I bought 10+ yards of fabric to use as a background on my soon to be started "Kings Cross" quilt.  This is the Fons and Porter pattern that Mary Fons brought to her trunk show.  I forget the 'real' name, but my name is Kings Cross, because of the large crosses (duh) and that the pattern is king sized (did NOT realize that when I bought it!)

Here is the inspiration:

And here is my new BOLT of fabric!!! It's 'Pepper' by Pepper Cory.  I have no clue what I'm going to use for the accent fabrics.  Perhaps something rich, bold and saturated?  I love deep purples and burgundies.  Maybe creams for the stars?  We'll see!  I'm thinking this will be a great project for me to work on at my January Retreat.

xoxo,

Kristin

Linking up with Quiltville, Molli Sparkles, Design Wall Mondays, and Oh Scrap!

Binding Binge

When you quilt up three tops in short order, it means there is a lot of binding in your future!  I spent most of yesterday cutting, piecing and attaching binding to the 2 charity chop quilts.  I really don't enjoy how fussy it is to make a scrappy binding, yet I seem to do it all.the.time.  =O

Finn decided to 'help' me with all of this work!  Oh my!!   I managed to finish the machine portion on these 2 quilts and have the binding cut and assembled for Galaxy of Stars.

I did manage to do a teeny-tiny bit of other sewing, too. Two more blocks for Mad Mod's Block Lotto.  This brings my total to 4.

And-- a LOVELY package arrived from Thousands of Bolts!  I decided that I am going to participate in Bonnie Hunter's 2017 Mystery Quilt!  Woooot!  Her name is 'On Ringo Lake'.  I might pick another name, but for now that will do.  The colors sounded really appealing (aqua, coral, chocolate) and I'm in a pretty good place with my other projects--  why not?!?!? =)

I need more neutrals, so I poked around online.  The aquas are so enticing! I got a few more browns, should have picked out more corals and managed to throw in a few other 'extra' fabrics to the order.  Bonnie's Facebook Open Studio Page has a lot of activity about the mystery quilt and many people are sharing their fabric pulls.  I'm tempted to use cool greys instead of creams.  The first clue doesn't come out until Black Friday, so I've got some time to decide.

xoxo,

Kristin

Linking up with Molli Sparkles Sunday Stash and Judy's Design Wall Mondays and Lorna's Let's bee Sewcial and Cynthia's  Oh Scrap!!

 

Quilt Expo 2017

What an amazing, crazy, fun whirlwind the last few days have been!  I'm drunk on fabric and quilting and art and friends.  Quilt Expo 2017 did not disappoint!

Let's start with the absolute most exciting part-- My lion quilt was in the juried exhibition!!!  Wooot!!

And the next super amazing, fun part-- Tula Pink was there!  She gave a lecture on Friday night and I was in stitches the whole time.  She is a hoot!  Totally, absolutely love her!

The display of quilts was gorgeous as ever.  Here is a small selection of things I loved:

And then there was the shopping.  I did some damages!

To wrap up the show, I volunteered to take down the exhibit quilts. I love to meet the people who made the quilts. And now only 362 days until Quilt Expo 2018!

xoxo

Kristin

ps

Linking up with Molli Sparkles Sunday Stash and Lorna's Lets be Social

Sunday Stash + Slow Stitching

While at Blue Bar Quilts last week, I did a little stash enhancement. No particular purpose, just some pretty fat quarters that wanted to come home with me...

I'm on a mission to finish up my Lion Quilt. I got it back from my quilter about a week ago and I want to enter it in Quilt Expo this fall.  The submission deadline is June 30th, so I have to go, go, go with the binding and I'm taking advantage of any downtime and trying to fit some slow stitching in.  Hopefully I will have a finish to   

xoxo,

Kristin

Linking up with Molli Sparkles and Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching

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

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.

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.