And they're off ....

My first bee block packets are making their merry way to various locations on the globe and ten people I've never met will be making me blocks for a quilt.

I found some Michael Miller fabric at my LQS

I find this whole bee concept fascinating now that I'm part of it.  Twelve women (well, eleven in our case ..  one dropped out) from all over the world (one is in Germany) have joined together to make twelve quilts.  We've never met, we don't know much about each others' lives, but yet we will each have a quilt that was crafted by the combined effort and creativity of us as a group. 

I can't wait until these start coming back

Really remarkable when you think about it. 

Sugar and Spice Baby Quilt

Sugar and spice and everything nice, that's what little girls are made of .... 

38" x 50"

This was a fun and easy quilt to sew together for a new baby girl.  I was inspired by this baby bento box tutorial by Wendy Lou.  I started with a 8.5 " square and just sewed on border after border after border until I had a giant square.  I quartered it and rearranged and then sewed into a block.  Pretty easy and fun!

Check out my son's tan lines

Hand quilted with perle cotton #8 in white.  Hand quilted during a heat wave in July I may add ....   

 

 Since it's summer and it's fair season I'm entering this quilt in the Gen X Quilter's Summer Fair Quilt Show.  Click over there to check out all the cool quilts at the fair without having to leave your porch and your ice tea.  Now if only someone would bring me a funnel cake .....

Work In Progress Wednesday

Does this look hot?  Well, it is! 

Remember when I said if I continue to hand quilt I wouldn't have anything new to report for long stretches other than "still hand quilting?"  Well, here I go .... STILL.HAND.QUILTING. my bento box baby quilt.  May I add that my previous post of how much I loved quilting on the couch in the evenings with my dog nestled sweetly beside me does not apply during a humid heat wave in July.  A damp quilt touching my sweaty skin and a hot, panting, annoying entity sprawled near me is not a pleasant experience.  I wouldn't be working on this at all if the baby-in-question wasn't due at the end of this month. 

My other work in progress is a kaleidoscope quilt that I'm making with Betsy.  I've got all the patterned triangles cut and attached and now need to cut the background triangles and get sewing. I've given up on any hope on getting this done with the rest of the group but will be plugging along at my own pace.  Now that I've taken the pressure off myself to stick to a timetable I'm actually enjoying it more.  I don't know why I let those self-imposed deadlines stress me out. 


An exciting mail delivery last week has got me dreaming of a new project.  I won a complete set of fat eighths of Maison de Garance by French General from Lesly of Pickledish.  Seriously!  That was ME!  Due to my less-than-stellar housekeeping they have been sitting right on the edge of the dining room table since I got them and I've been stroking and rearranging the fabric each time I pass.  What should I make?  The possibilities are simply endless before I start cutting.  I think these are way too pretty to mess up with nasty old cutting so I'll leave them for a while.  

These are so much more beautiful in real life

Ahhhhh .... when the chaos of my house overwhelms me I can just gaze upon these beautiful, perfectly neat stacks.

These aren't many works but I don't find summer's hot months conducive to quilting.   (... or cleaning, ... or cooking, ... or shopping)  I guess until fall you'll find me on my porch reading with a cold drink nearby

  

[insert mental picture of fabulously interesting book and a cold sweaty beer bottle 
on a sunny porch railing]

Bento Box Baby Quilt

I'm currently working on a bento box quilt for a soon-to-arrive baby girl. I love the ease of making only twelve squares and getting to use such pretty pink fabric. I'm not a girly girl so I don't have much pink around my house, especially with all boys, but it's fun to see such feminine fabric touching each other every whichaway.

I varied the strip sizes just a bit because my original idea was to have a sort of fractured windowpane look. I like the idea of the soft, pretty fabrics being slightly mismatched and really defining the squares in the block. If I was keeping this quilt or giving it to one of my family members I'd sew it up in a minute.



Forgive the blurry phone picture

Now my self-doubt is kicking in ..... I'm making this quilt for my boss's daughter and I don't know her or the rest of their family at all. Will everyone else get it or will they be fingering it and shaking their heads sadly over the seams?  Now I'm thinking I might change my layout to something different. Making a gift for someone I don't know is hard for me and I'm sure I'm thinking about it too much. Anyone have trouble making gifts? Part of my problem is that I think my quilts have feelings and I don't want them to be ostracized and banished to a closet never to see the light of day.

This is my first time linking up with Lily's Sew Fresh day and I realize I'm a day behind but this isn't a school project with a due date so I'm sure she won't dock me any points. Will you Lily??



BQF Baby!! Hand Quilted Log Cabin

My Bloggers' Quilt Festival 2011 quilt is fresh out of the dryer and it's still warm as I post this.  It's 100% hand quilted and I can say one thing about hand quilting for sure .... it's NOT a quick process.  I've been working this quilt for months and am so happy with the finally finished results.

Rainy day photo shoot.  My son is standing in about three inches of water. 

These are some hearty, chunky log cabins and I love the added texture and color the perle cotton #8 added with the hand quilting.   I figured some hearty squares needed some hearty quilting.  I used all the leftover strips to add a border and the final size is 48" x 62" ... perfect for a cozy couch quilt.
 

I hate to choose favorites but I just love the blue square in the lower left corner.

Looking back I see I was working on the squares in February and quilting in April .  If I continue with the handwork I guess my blog postings will be far and few between unless I write "still hand quilting" updates once a week.

I love the way the quilting shows up on the back

Attempted close up of the back

Thanks to Amy for putting this Festival together twice a year.  It has to be a monumental task but it sure it a fun way to meet other quilters and see some amazing quilts!  Click on the link below to check them out.

Lucky me times three

You know how they say things happen in threes? Well I've just had a lucky string of threes and my mailbox is the happiest place in town lately.

First, I won a giveaway at Gen X Quilters and got a $20 gift certificate to a fantastic new fabric shop The Crafty Girls Workshop.  I'm usually not into the pre-cuts because of the cost but since I had money burning a hole in my laptop I went for a layer cake of this beautiful Origins fabric.  Yes, they even had a Sherbet Pips layer cake and I had it in my cart (hurry people if you are still trying to get one!) but had to switch it at the last minute because something about this fabric line just called to me.  I think anything I make with it will have to be beautiful because the fabric is so gorgeous.

Next, I just won a crib size roll of Hobbs fusible batting  from Cherry House Quilts.  I can't wait to try this batting and I'll be sure to do a full review on  how it works.  I've never basted any other way besides the safety pins and I've dreamed of an easier and less painful method.  I know there is spray basting but I have such a small house with wall to wall carpets that I can't think of a place where I could spray all that adhesive.  I shudder to think of all the dog hair that would be stuck to everything too.   This batting comes with a heat activated adhesive that you iron and it washes out later so I am going to use it on my next quilt and hopefully fall in love with it.  I'll let you know.

This last bit of serendipity is perhaps my most amazing.  I found a talented  and extremely generous woman in England named Lizzie Allen who was GIVING AWAY perle cotton balls on her blog.   All you had to do was ask! I just received a package with sixteen balls of the prettiest perle cotton #8 you've ever seen.   I just sent her a little package in return so this is my first international swap.  Fun!  And I love getting to say the word "international" because it makes me feel slightly important that I have friends all over the world.

The colors are so beautiful.  I can't wait to see them in a quilt :)

There are lots of giveaways going on now so I hope my lucky streak keeps up.  If I win anything else in the near future I'll have to share the wealth and have a giveaway myself.  Karma ya know.  Don't want to get too much goodness without giving something back!

What could be better?

Hand quilting a cozy, warm quilt while snuggled on the couch with your best friend.  Netflix on the television, snacks to share nearby and the ability to be part of the family unit.  Ahhhhh..... 

 
How can I ever go back to being hunched over a machine by myself while struggling to feed (jam) a large quilt evenly through a small space? This is definitely more time consuming but I am loving the chunky look of the perle cotton and the accent it adds to the overall look.   For a while I had a feeling I was in a self imposed contest to see how many quilts I could produce, but now I'm enjoying the slow process and the added personal touch.

Today I made my second ever bee blocks and Jessica chose a ticker tape block.  These were fun and reminded me of fitting a puzzle together.

I hope she likes them!  Being in a bee is such a great way to connect with other quilters and get to experiment with new blocks.  I'm debating about joining another bee but don't want to overextend myself and start freaking out at piles of envelopes.  How many are you in and how do you handle them?