I enjoyed a weekend with no real plans and was able to finish up 2 quilts that have been “marinating” for a while. This one is every single little scrap left over from the wedding quilt from 2 weeks ago. Along with some pieced together batting. It is almost a genuine scrap quilt but I did buy the blue minkee backing specially for it.
I am regretting not using a true binding, however not enough to rip it out and start over. One more quilt for the Farmers Market!
I kinda love the bento box pattern. I don’t know if you can tell from my other quilts here here and here. Oh wait- here too.
I have never made one for myself, but I think that will be coming soon. I am having trouble giving this one away. But I did tell the bride it was coming, so I don’t have much choice. I was trying to keep it a secret, but the wedding is tomorrow so the chances she is checking my wee website today are pretty slim.
I am so relieved to have this quilt done! So many projects to get working on, family arriving soon and our annual huge July 4th party next weekend. July 5th I will be hiding out for a while to prepare for my “Artist of the Week” table at the Lansdowne Farmers Market, July 25th. I am planning to relax in August!
It was sold before it was even finished! I would have thought twice about selling it if I knew how much I would love it, the pink and red, the lattice pattern, the dress with the same fabric, all of it makes my heart sing.
My best friend is going to be an auntie soon so I made a little quilt and tried stippling for the first time. I bought a darning foot and whipped this out in a few hours. A lot more satisfying than my normal stitch and ditch method…
I need a lot more practice to even up the stitches and squiggles but I can’t believe I waited so long to try it! I also love the flop ear on the bunny, but I wish I had done his face a little different, not my favorite quilt, but pretty good for a first try of applique…
After a few annoying days of thinking my sewing machine was broken, I changed the needle and vowed not to use the zig zag stich for a while. That will solve it! I managed to crank out another bento box quilt, I really do love this pattern, as evidenced by the 3 other quilts I made with it!
I had every chance in the world to take a lot of great pictures of this quilt outside this weekend, but instead I took some mediocre pictures in natural sunlight and then some more mediocre pictures inside on the bed, which is why this quilt looks like it is a trapezoid. Which it isn’t, although I fear it is a little wonky- The satin binding and I had some words and a few curses before we came to the end, where I swore I would never use it again. Which I have sworn before…
and some more minkee on back! I am forever grateful I figured out to put “heat -n-bond lite” between the batting and minkee. It makes quilting minkee so much easier. Now, if anyone has any tricks to make satin binding work better, I am all ears! Now for sale in my etsy shop, the first link on the right… Donated to a silent auction for Theatre Exile here in Philly. It sold- but they never told me how much it made them 
All I can seem to do these days is match new quilts. I can’t seem to finish the other quilts I have started and every time I open my fabric stash something new jumps out. This one is just dying to be made with the perfect red minkee for the back.
My sister-in-law unwittingly sabotaged my sewing. She gave me the book Twilight for Christmas. I didn’t pick it up until last week, and then I couldn’t put it down, and just happened to go out and get the other 3 books in the series and have spent all my spare time reading the whole series, and then watching a few of the Twilight movie clips on YouTube. I have since hooked my best friend on the books too, which somehow makes the addiction okay. Paul went to Montreal for a week, I had a girls night with a friend, weekend errands and now, 10 days later, I am finally back to making some quilts.
On my to-do list; I cut out over 300 blocks for a scrap quilt which has reduced my scrap bag to practically nothing (!!!!). I have the white baby quilt ready for “stippling” (I just learned that word, but grateful to have it because”quilting” means so much more) . I have the pinwheel quilt top almost done, I have an old tee shirt quilt top waiting in the wings, I found an old baby quilt top that I added a minkee bunny applique to but it needs some eyes and a nose…
And there is a June wedding quilt that I should start thinking about. Geesh!
I was left with a small stack of white and cream leftovers after the wedding quilt a few weeks ago. I had some advice early on that I would have great success if I made white quilts for babies, I think I might have rolled my eyes. But I decided to use up the leftovers and throw in this lovely ducky fabric (that seems to match nothing else in the universe) and see what happens. The sad truth is I have baby quilts in 2 different stores and etsy right now, and none of them selling. So what harm would one more be, right?
UPDATED *** finished quilt here***
I am only using the brightest colors possible these days in my sewing. I blame the cold weather and that white on beige quilt I just finished.
I finally committed to something with a huge stack of triangles I cut early in the fall. I used some of them on my previously mentioned zig zag quilt. And the rest of the triangle stash on these blocks.
Most of the fabric came from the fat quarter shopping binge at the Maine Quilt show. Where I was feeling very cheerful it seems.
Did I mention how cold it is? and how it gets dark so early? and how I hate taking pictures indoors? Well, until it stays light later, there will be mediocre pictures on this here website…
I made 16 of these joyously colored pinwheels. I think they are destined to be a twin sized quilt.
UPDATE: finished quilt here
Happy New Year! We are still recovering from a fantastic wedding last night, complete with balloon drop on midnight. The wedding present was done just in time, but we were having one hell of a wind storm which forced me inside for photos…
don’t mind the bird in the corner, I had to get my head well into the ceiling fan to take this picture.
With every quilt I learn a new lesson, This time I learned that the 95% cotton batting really does shrink and make a “poofy” quilt after it is washed. I had only used it on baby quilts until now and the shrinking was hardly noticable, but with the big squares on this one, it was very obvious. So, beware the cotton batting!
**in process pictures here**
The design has evolved. For the bride’s wedding shower I made 2 pillowcases out of some of the fabric. It took her a minute to realize what they were, but she seemed to like the fabrics, the comedy of the situation is the edging I used was the ship fabric and I took it out of the quilt because it just didn’t match very well.
I found a fabric with sand dollars that I added and I had some good luck with fading the sea shell fabric. Thanks Rhea for the Martha Stewart sugestion! I found that article and it suggest 2 to one water to bleach. It was pretty good result but it made it very yellow. I picked up some Rit Color Remover (you know, next to all the Rit dye that you use for tie dying) and that got rid of some of the yellow and and some more color.
now, here is the real question, did I succeed in making a white and tan quilt? She got all of her bedding at the wedding shower and every last bit was “hotel white” which is what sent be back to the fabric store to pick up that white on white print that I like to think looks like sea urchins. Fingers crossed that it is “white” enough… Oh and fingers crossed that I will find the time to quilt it before the new years wedding!
***UPDATE**** finished quilt here****
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