Faster quilts!

Exciting news! Most of my quilt patterns are now available as PDF downloads from my Etsy shop. Patterns will be e-mailed to you in 24 hours or less after purchase. Almost instant gratification!

1. Shadow Boxes, 2. A New View, 3. Summer Sudoku, 4. Urban Trail, 5. Bold, 6. An Evergreen Bias, 7. Third Street, 8. Check Out These Daisies, 9. Prairie

Unfortunately, the templates for Raindrops and Traffic Pattern do not easily translate to PDF format.  They are still available as paper patterns and are well worth the short wait for the mail!

Leftover batting and ramblings

This is the bin where I keep all my leftover pieces of batting.  Last fall it was overflowing.  I'm happy to say that focusing on a few smaller projects over the last few months has cleared out quite a few pieces.

It was funny that most of the pieces fell into one of two categories - either they were very long and thin, like 18" x 90" or almost square, say 35" x 40".  Luckily, a few table runner sized quilts and a few wall or baby sized quilts put a nice dent in the supply. 

The sewing around here has been VERY light this week.  As you may remember, my older daughter is in the college application process.  The paperwork for the financial aid process seems never-ending.  First there was the FAFSA, then there was the CSS Profile, now the IDOC!  Ugh.

On the brighter side (for me) of what has delayed some sewing was a brief visit yesterday by my sister and her family.  (Was I smart enough to take any pictures - no).  My sister and her family live just south of Atlanta.  Her kids are off school this week (mine too) and her husband's mother is in hospice care so they came to Michigan to see her.  They stopped here yesterday for a few hours before leaving to go back home.  It was wonderful to spend a few hours catching up with them and hear their most exciting news.  My sister has been unemployed since last July and just heard on Wednesday that she got a job!  Yay!!!  They have obviously been having some rough times, but this will help immensely.

OK, let's see if I can make up for lost time today :)

Cherry House Quilts Quilt Along quilt top done

I took some time out today from other projects to finish my Cherry House Quilts Quilt Along top.  Cherri usually puts up the next step on a Tuesday so I don't want to get behind :)  This was such a fun little top to do.  At approximately 34" x 37" it is a great size for wrapping around a little one. 

I am imagining tons of great color combinations too.  I went with the grey for two reasons:  1) you know how much I love grey and 2) I had three of the five colors Cherri used and acceptable substitutes for the other two.  It was faster and easier to follow Cherri's great color ideas than to reinvent the wheel. 

Faster and easier are not always important to me in quilting, but, due to the number of other projects I have lined up, it was the way to go this time.  Quilting is next - it should be fun to see how people quilt their quilts.  Check out the Flickr group to follow along.

Spring? Nope.

I have been working on this little pillow cover. Last week, it felt like Spring here. We had a few lovely days when it was sunny and about 50 degrees! Today we received about four inches of snow. That's Michigan for you :)

I didn't get much sewing done today. I had hoped to work on the Spring pillow some more or maybe put my Cherry House Quilt Along quilt together, but ended up spending a good chunk of the day working on taxes. Yuck! Unfortunately, it has to be done.

I read for an hour or so before dinner and briefly played with a quilt design. I have been trying to organize myself so I have some time on Sunday afternoons to relax and do whatever I want.  My brain really needs the downtime!  I hope you are able to squeeze some downtime into your busy lives too.

Sharing the (post-Valentines day) blog love!

My bloggy friends Daryl and Marina are doing a series on red and white quilts on their blog Quilt Inspiration and today's quilt is my quilt, "Bold"!  It is very exciting to have them include my quilt with all the other amazing quilts they feature.  I have written about their wonderful site before.  I really enjoy how they show a series of related quilts - there is so much wonderful creativity out there in blogland!

Speaking of which...  Recently, another blog friend, Lisa, of Shiners view shared some blog love she received by including my blog as one of her favorites.  I've been reading Lisa's blog for a while now and always enjoy her quilts.  She is a fairly new quilter but has taken to it like a duck to water!

In addition to Quilt Inspiration, here are a few of the blogs I love to read too:
CraftSanity
digs and bean
Flaming Stitches
Hip to Piece Squares
The Little Red Hen
Modern Day Quilts
Modern Quilt Relish
Naptime Quilter
Pioneer Valley Girl
Ypsilanti Dilettante

Cherry House Quilt Along

I had so much fun sewing all these little squares together for the Cherry House Quilts Quilt Along.  It was really hard not to jump to the next step and put the quilt together.  I know I could have, but I really like the idea of the whole group doing the steps one week at a time.  So I decided to be patient and look forward to Cherri's post tomorrow for finishing the quilt top.

This is such a fun little quilt and, stylewise, right up my alley, I'd love to make several of them!  So many great color combination possibilities!  I'm restraining myself for now, due to other projects in the pile.  If you'd like to see what others are doing, check out the Flickr group here.

February Friends?

This wall hanging is untitled at this point.  Since it is a version of my Traffic Pattern quilt, my brain still calls it Traffic Pattern.  February Friends maybe?  Anyway, I'm pleased it is finished and I can take down the last Christmas quilt!

After I finished the quilting, I realized it needed a dose of red besides the birds.  So, I added some piping in with the binding.  I haven't tried piping this small before and I'm happy with how it turned out.  I have often added 1/2" flanges to borders in my larger quilts, but this piping is about 1/8".  I cut 3/4" strips, folded them wrong sides together and then lined up the raw edges with the edge of the quilt and basted them in place before I put the binding on.  I've been using Rita's machine sewn binding technique (in her right sidebar) a bit lately and I'm getting much better at it.

Sorry the quilt looks a bit wonky in the photo.  I had just taken it out of the dryer and the lower right corner was a bit crunched.  The bright light from all the snow outside helps the quilting show up nicely.  It has been very cold here - about zero each morning, but is supposed to get up to freezing this weekend.  Yay!

Coming along...

Just finished marking my bird wall quilt.  I hope to get the quilting done today but have a couple of appointments that will interrupt me.

Marking a quilt is my usual way of preparing for quilting.  Since I do a lot of straight line quilting, I like to make sure the lines are actually pretty straight.  Many people seem to be able to do this without marking, but I have tried to do it that way and I am not a member of this lucky group.

I have hope that, one of these days when I can manage to get a new sewing machine, I might be able to sew straighter lines and even master free motion quilting!

Sneak Peek

Another sneak peek at one of my class samples:

Another WIP

I had to set aside the long wall quilt with the red birds that I was working on.  The large quilt guild I belong to has a retreat we call Quilting Unlimited (QU) in late July every other year (we have a quilt show the alternate years).  I submitted three proposals to teach classes at the retreat.  The committee has included my classes in the program and now I need to get the class samples ready.  The sign up information for the retreat is distributed at our March meeting, so the class sample photos are due in a few days.

It has been a long tradition that the classes to be offered are not announced until the March meeting.  So, I can show you the fabric I'm using for one of the classes, but not tell you what it is for :)  As much as I love the greys I have been using, I have been craving some green and pink lately!  This quilt provides a good opportunity to use those colors and add a little orange for good measure.

Calling QU a retreat is only partly accurate.  Many guild members do stay at the hotel and attend the classes at the community college each day, but many of us stay at home and attend classes too.  We have large group lunches and dinners each day with a fashion show of member creations on Friday evening and entertainment at Saturday dinner (usually a talk by one of the national speakers).  While we often have a national teacher or two at QU,  most of the classes are taught by guild members.  It is a great way for guild members to gain teaching experience and learn from each other.

As soon as I finish the samples, I'll be back to my bird wall hanging.