Monday Catch-up

It was finish-it-up week here at Seaside Stitches. First up was a manly quilt for our guild outreach committee. There are a bunch of men and boys moving into local Habitat for Humanity homes soon, so we're trying to be sure we have quilts ready for them all.

Then I picked through three bags of batting scraps and pieced together enough for several small quilts. I couldn't resist quilting up this Finding Nemo baby quilt that Kate L pieced last fall.

I was happily looping and swirling along when the needle suddenly snapped into about 5 pieces. That was scary! I guess that needle was in the machine for far too long.

I was bored and didn't want to baste another quilt, so I made this embossed velvet pillow last night in about an hour. After seeing some embossed velvet on Pinterest, I remembered that I had a couple pieces of velvet leftover from back in the day when I was making origami Christmas ornaments.

It only took about 30 minutes to emboss the whole piece. I added a vintage 18" zipper to the bottom and stitched up the sides. The basting tape worked like a charm to hold the zipper to the slippery velvet. The worst part of the process was finding enough stuffing. I found three bags of fiber fill that were nearly empty! I supplemented with batting scraps, so it's pretty lumpy. That's OK since it is only decorative.

Today, I added a label to the schnitzel and boo mini quilt, so it is ready to ship with a pile of goodies.

Up next, another boy quilt waiting to be pin basted.

Make a Quilt, Make a Friend

 I haven't swapped anything in a few months, so I was happy to participate in the second round of the Schnitzel and Boo mini quilt swap. You can read about my first failed attempt at making this quilt here. My partner said she likes blue, aqua and green, Kate Spain and Camille Roskelley (among other things). I tried to incorporate as many of her likes as possible.

The block is one of Camille's designs and I think a circle of friendship stars is particularly fitting for a swap. I really had fun quilting this. The center motif (and corners) is a stencil from Patsy Thompson that I had to resize to make it fit. I traced it with blue pen before I layered the top with the batting and back.

I ripped out more quilting stitches on this piece than I ever have before. One of the corner feather motifs caused a huge pucker. I didn't like my first attempt at quilting the stars, or the inner border, or the outer border! I'm glad I took the time to rip it all out and start over.

The back is nothing exciting.

I sure do hope my partner likes this one!

"Make a Friend"

Schnitzel and Boo Mini Swap- Round 2

Block Pattern: Round and Round by Camille Roskelley

Quilted feather stencil: Patsy Thompson

Started 6/16/14

Completed 6/19/14

24" square

WIP Wednesday Mini Edition

 I've been having fun with minis this week! 

At the top of the list right now is the Schnitzel and Boo Mini Quilt Swap. When I pulled fabric for this mini, I remembered my partner had listed Kate Spain as a favorite designer, along with a few others. I started with this gorgeous floral from Sunnyside and went to town.

It was fun to piece and I love these colors!

When I went back to look at my partner's info, I discovered her favorite colors are blue, aqua and green, and she's not fond of busy florals. Oops! Back to the drawing board. I could have just changed the colors of the original mini, but I wanted to do something different. I stalked my partner's sites this time and found this Camille Roskelley block on her Pinterest boards.

Plan B is ready to quilt! I picked out a lovely quilting pattern for the center.

The other mini of the week was a completed Modern Quilt Guild challenge piece. You can read more about it here.

The largest ongoing project is a wedding ring star for my nephew. He is getting married in September, and no, this quilt will probably not be done by then. I will show the bride this sample block and a quilt mockup at the shower this weekend.

I hope you are enjoying some summer stitching today.

My Favorite Quilt- Meadowsweet Dresden

I've been enjoying the "My Favorite Quilt" series on Sew Mama Sew. It took some time to decide on my personal favorite, Meadowsweet Dresden.  

Tell us about your favorite quilt. When did you make it? 
I was surprised to discover that it is already three years old, completed in March 2011.

What do you like best about the quilt? 
I still love everything about this quilt, especially the fabric by Sandi Henderson.

How did you grow as a quilter while making it? 

I stretched myself with the quilting and it took an entire retreat weekend to complete. The background fill took forever! I used some quilting designs I hadn't tried before. Perfect? Not by a longshot, but I'm proud of it.

Have your shown it at any quilt shows or entered it in any contests? 
It was entered in the Ninigret Quilt Guild show in 2011 and won a 2nd place ribbon for Mixed Technique (applique, piecing and embellishment).

Where is the quilt now?

It hangs on my kitchen wall during spring and summer months.

Hop on over to Sew Mama Sew to check out more favorites and to add yours to the linkup. (There's a link up on each favorite quilt post.)

Diamond Party

I just decided to call this little challenge quilt Diamond Party because it was so much fun to make. I really enjoyed the process from start to finish. No stress, just fun!

It all started with fat eighths of these fun prints from Micheal Miller for the MQG challenge. Four of the prints are from the Petal Pinwheels collection. The gray print is Star Jacks from Atomic Tabbys. And the solid is Cotton Couture Coral.

This is one of the first quilts I designed with EQ7. I even drew in the quilting. I almost never plan the quilting when I am designing a quilt. It was fun to plan ahead this time.

Fat eighths are not a lot of fabric to work with, so I was happy to have EQ7 do the math for me to verify I'd have enough fabric. In mid-May, I paper pieced the 2" finished half square triangles and the rows came together quickly.

Then life happened and it had to wait, taped to the hallway wall, until this week. I finished the top on Thursday and pieced the back from a half yard of coordinating green that I purchased plus all the leftovers from the front. I prepared the binding, too. By the way, instead of pinning the rows together, I glue basted to be sure the points matched. It worked like a charm, but was a pain to pop them open when I pressed the seams open.

On Friday, I was ready to quilt with Aurifil 50 wt, white #2024. I quilted in the ditch with a walking foot to stabilize the piece. I wanted concentric squares, but didn't want to deal with all the turning with the walking foot, so I went free motion. Labeling them "wonky" means they don't have to be perfect!

I really like the texture and character of the quilting- front and back.

I couldn't decide which end was up, so I made 2 sleeves for the top and bottom. I used the remaining green to make the sleeves, but it wasn't quite wide enough. I pieced in some of the lighter orange from my stash and matched the seams so they blend in with the pieced back. I had saved the solid coral for the binding, but there wasn't enough to go around, so I added the lighter orange again to fill the gap.

I love this piece hanging in my green and orange powder room/laundry room.

Diamond Party

Started 5/13/14

Completed 6/13/14

Working time: 4 days

Finished size: 24" X 28"

Challenge Progress

I was happy to get this top pieced yesterday for the Modern Quilt Guild challenge using these fun Michael Miller prints. It's only 24 X 28".

The Rhode Island MQG gave us a fat eighth of 5 prints plus one solid. What was left over from piecing the front was pieced into the back, slice and insert style. I bought the coordinating green print last week on a quilty road trip with Julia.

Julia has been taking crafty breaks from cleaning her room and playing with fun charm squares. She's debating whether to piece them into 1/2 rectangle squares or 4-patches.

This time of year, I succumb to Peony Envy! Driving around town, I've been known to yell and point out all the peonies. I lucked out this year and have a few gorgeous blooms of my own. The biggest one was growing out from under a pine tree. Maybe I should sprinkle pine needles around my other plants.

Have a beautiful, colorful weekend!

A Sample and a Mockup

 Most of you agreed that option 2 was the better gradation of  blues. It's not perfect, but I like it. It took 7 hours over 2 days to stitch up the sample block! I love the way it looks with the border fabric.

I put together a bunch of pics so you can see what the quilt might look like. It will actually be set on point, and the edges get treated in a special way. When I get around to it, I'll learn how to import photos into EQ7 and create a more accurate mockup. That should be fun!

 

I'll move into full on assembly-line mode soon!

P.S. The border fabric is Kate Spain's Sunnyside Buttercup in Twilight.

Decisions, Decisions

 Sample wedding rings will be stitched as soon as I decide which fabric to use. 

Gradation Option 1:

Gradation Option 2:

 Sometimes is helps to take the color out. In this case, not so much.

What do you think, quilty friends? Should I keep shopping?

WIP Wednesday

 I was scheduled to attend a retreat with Jackie last weekend, but I was unable to attend. I had planned to bring these piles of projects to work on. 

Front row: Wedding Ring Star fabric, Cactus Flower table runner, large pieces for backs or One Block Wonder.

Back row: White and gray to set Farmer's Engineer's Wife blocks, country repros for churn dash, Michael Miller Modern challenge bits.

Chris and Jamie's wedding ring came home from Ohio with a cool ribbon! Honorable Mention in the Duet- Large Quilt category.

Now that I'm a week behind, I really need to get busy on the next wedding ring. The bridal shower is coming up in a few short weeks and I need to have enough done to create a mock up. I'll throw in a couple of pillowcases so it feels like a real gift.

Have fun this week working on those WIPs!

AMB Blog Hop Winners

The winner of a fat quarter pack of American Made Brand solids is Arianna, originally from Pennsylvania, now living in Virginia.

The winner of prize pack 2 (charm squares, chocolate and lapel pin) is Chiska of Wyoming.

It took me 4 tries to choose 2 winner who I was able to contact. One was a Google+ commenter whose email address was not visible (Debbie Weishaar from Louisiana). And another was a noreply comment (emmy in FL who used to live in CT and used to camp in RI). Ladies, if you email me at tinastitches (at) gmail (dot) com, I will send you a lapel pin.