Little Lucy

 Oh, happy day! My little Lucy Boston, Patchwork of the Crosses wall hanging is finished and hanging on the wall! I swear, every quilt I make looks fantastic on my golden yellow walls.

 This piece started in December 2014 as a traveling project to take on our trip to Tanzania. It was such a long flight, I knew I'd have lots of time to stitch. I met a lovely Brit in the JFK airport who wished she had brought her hand stitching with her, too. 

The fussy cut centers were fun to work on and were done by May of 2015. I won the Union Jack needle case from Helen/Archie the wonder dog a few years ago. How appropriate for this very English project! I'm so glad I decided to purchase the papers (1" honeycombs and squares) and a fussy cutting template from Paper Pieces.

When it came time to fill in the sashing, motivation was hard to come by. I pieced together small groupings of cream and blue, but there are other ways to assemble this top. This worked for me because it kept the project portable. I used 50 wt Aurifil for most of the piecing and all of the quilting.

 

I finally finished the top in early July 2016.

Bear with me while I document each block...

 If you click on one, you will see the free motion machine quilting.

 Clearly, I had fun fussy cutting! All the fabric is Kate Spain's Fandango line except the Kona solids in snow and aqua.

 Compare the yellow pieces above and below. I started out making little feathers in these pieces, but I wasn't sure if it was worth it in the busier prints. So every other block has the simpler design below.

The center block is my favorite.

Many thanks to Angela Walters for the confidence to tackle this quilting!

I fussy cut the binding to take advantage of the scallop print.

Free motion machine quilting was done on my Bernina 153. I used a light mint green Auriful #2800 in the colorful parts and creamy #2311 in the background.

No, maybe this one is my favorite block!

The ribbon candy quilting in the negative space wasn't my first choice. I tried an overlapping figure 8, which was just not working out. (I need more practice.) After working my way around two blocks, I realized it had to go. Have you ever noticed that 10 minutes of machine quilting takes over an hour to rip out?!! In the end, I think it was worth it.

Since this was all hand pieced, I considered hand quilting, too. That would have taken me another two years to finish instead of just two days! I'm so happy she's done!

Little Lucy

35" X 35"

Started: December 2014

Top done: July 1, 2016

Quilted: July 27-28, 2016

Bound: July 29, 2016

Exhibited at Ninigret Quilters Show
Westerly, RI, October 13-15, 2017
Best Pieced, Small Quilt, Master Division
Best of Master Division
Best of Show

Exhibited at Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival
Hampton, VA,  February 22-25, 2018

Exhibited at MQX- New England
Manchester, NH, April 11-14, 2018

Exhibited at Narragansett Bay Quilters Association
North Kingstown, RI, April 21-22, 2018

And the winner is...

Anonymous!  

Thankfully, she left her email address.

(In case you need to know, since Helen (Archie the Wonder Dog) asked to be kept out of the drawing, I didn't count her comment, making anonymous #8.)

 In other news...

Julia and her friends went to the Homecoming dance together this weekend.  A mother couldn't ask for a nicer group of friends for her daughter!

It's going to be a crazy-busy week here!  Hope you all have a good one!

Thanks Kate and a Giveaway!

I can't thank Kate Spain enough for posting about my wedding ring star quilt! All the comments have been so flattering and fun, and I'm trying really hard to not let it go to my head.

So for all of my new visitors, I thought I should share more about this Work in Progress.
(I got into more detail than I planned so you might want to skip down to the giveaway!)


My nephew married his long-time girlfriend last March. As soon as they got engaged, Christopher, Jamie and I started to plan their wedding quilt. When two of my nieces got married in 2004, my mother and I made quilts for them, which you can see here. The precedence had been set!

It was easy to select a pattern. It had to be a wedding ring! Jamie liked the Wedding Ring Star with an applique border. I highly recommend Judy Niemeyer patterns. They go together like a dream.

The three of us went browsing on the Fat Quarter Shop website to see what collections appealed to them. The couple picked a few of their favorites. Julia and I took that list with us to the Lowell Quilt Festival in August 2010, hoping to find most of the fabric in person at the vendors. We found a few layer cakes from the list and Fandango by Kate Spain was our favorite. We bought the layer cake and used those pieces to decide on fabric placement so I could buy the yardage needed.

OK, skip ahead several months. All that was done for Jamie's shower was 2 blocks (and a printed mock up of the top) and a couple of pillowcases.


Skip ahead to where things stand now. All the fabric is cut, and I have the pieces lined up on this big plastic tray, ready to go.


Here's one block with the border and binding fabrics. I'm using Kona Snow (oh, how I love Kona Snow) for the background of the blocks and the applique border. Then there will be a wide border of the brown print. The green will be used for applique stems and binding.

I need to make a total of 49 blocks, which I didn't want to piece all at once and risk messing them all up. I can comfortably work on about 16 at a time, and move the pieces I need to this smaller tray.

16 blocks done, 33 blocks to go!

I noticed last week that I was approaching 100 followers and I would need to have a giveaway. It looks like the link from Kate might get me to 100 today!

I just ran down to my LQS for some fat quarters of Fandango for 2 lucky winners. I'll also throw in something handmade, like a keychain lanyard or a seasonal paper-pieced lapel pin, to be made later today.

To enter, leave a comment telling me which colorway you like better, pink or green. Then tell us if you've ever made a wedding quilt for someone. I'll pick two random winners on Monday morning.

Good Luck! And thanks again, Kate!

One Down

Five gathered clutches to go.

Hexies made from Fandango scraps.

The strap might be a little long. I'll have to compare it to Julia's Vera Bradley.

Look! Grass!
It is 50 degrees today, the sun is shining and the birds are chirping.
Spring is on the way!

Design Wall Monday

I've been working on this baby quilt, on and off, for a couple of weeks. Other projects took priority, but now I can get back to it. I decided to go with the Waltzing Matilda border, so I need to make more whirlies with the bluish print from Fandango.

The sagey green will be a narrow border or binding.


I made His and Hers pillowcases for the bride- and groom-to-be (my nephew) as part of their shower gift. Christopher wanted to use his pillowcase right away, so I think he likes it! He is a bow hunter and picked out the deer fabric when we were shopping for their wedding quilt fabric. They chose a few collections that they liked and I picked Fandango. I love it so much! Which is a good thing, since I'm going to be spending many, many hours with it over the next few months.

I've become the designated bow-quet maker at bridal showers!

I'll show you the wedding ring blocks soon. There are only two done so far. Only 47 to go! And a hand-appliqued border. And hand quilting. Maybe it will be finished for Christmas!

Stalling

I need to start a new project today, with a deadline looming.
But I'm stuck. Almost paralyzed with fear.
Which is crazy because the fabric is gorgeous!


With such a huge investment already made, I think I'm afraid it won't work and I'll have to start over. How about starting the first time!

At least I'll have this view to gaze upon as I press yards and yards and yards of Fandango and more Kona Snow.


OK! I'm going to start!