seaside pillows

It's nearly auction time again! This year I decided to make pillows rather than a baby quilt for my sister-in-law Lisa's school fundraising auction. She is the principal of the K-8 segment of a wonderful Lutheran school in central Illinois.  This is the perfect occupation for her since she's one of the most caring, loving, and positive people you'll ever meet. Her enthusiasm for education and for the Lord is boundless and infectious. She's also one of my biggest cheerleaders :)

So back to the pillows... I chose these colors because they make me think of summer and warm breezes on beautiful beaches, and Lisa loves the beach!

Summer Sampler re-do

After seeing all the lovely Summer Sampler quilts in the flickr group with sashing, I was less and less thrilled with my quilt. It seemed like a jumbled mess with all the blocks all scrunched together. So I ripped it all apart again and added some 2" finished white sashing with cornerstones:

Now all those lovely blocks can breathe and stand apart on their own. Much better!

I'm not sure I've ever taken apart an entire quilt top; that was probably the most action my Jack the Seam Ripper has ever seen. It wasn't as painful as I thought it would be - probably because I did it at my SewMod Sunday sew-in group and had lots of encouragement (and food and wine) from my friends :)

What's the biggest "un-sewing" project you've ever undertaken?

more Summer Sampling and a secret project

I'm still maintaining my "on-time" status with the Summer Sampler quilt along. This weekend and Monday I finished blocks 5, 6, and 7.

Number 5 is the Star block. I'm running low on my polka dot background, and I was unsuccessful in locating some more, so it's time to improvise! Turquoise dot background for this one. It's all paper-pieced, yielding great precision (which I LOVE) and great fabric waste (which I loathe, but I'm learning to live with it).

Block 6 is the Arkansas Traveler. In case you're wondering where these names come from, each set of block instructions comes with a little history of the block. Just click on the Summer Sampler button over in the sidebar for more information. I confess that I mostly skim over these historical bits; I'm primarily concerned with getting to the good part - the sewing!

The diamonds in this block were constructed with traditional piecing methods, and the background was added via paper-piecing. My block is a tad smaller that the 12.5" prescribed size (is 3/4" still considered a "tad"?) due to some problem printing templates directly from Google Docs. Of course a 1" check-your-template-for-accuracy-before-using line was provided, but did I use that? Um, no. Oh well, I'll just add a bit of sashing and all will be well :)

And the most current block is the Six Pointed String block. I did not piece my star triangle units as string blocks. I much preferred the look of solid triangles with my busy fabrics. I also used background piecing option #2 with 24 equilateral triangles used to compose a larger block that can then be trimmed to the 12.5" size. This one's the right size :)

And lastly, here's a peek at my design wall now. A super-secret birthday gift is in the works. Any guesses as to what this might become?

tiny houses and tiny trees

My neighborhood is growing!

Each of these little house and tree blocks is 6" (oops!) 8" square finished.

My favorite is the turquoise flower house. Or the red with the wavy roof. Or the pink with red dots... guess I'm loving them all :)

Which is your favorite?

are they log cabins or hexagons?

It's getting near to deadline time for the SewMod row quilt challenge (February 1- yikes!). I made a great start last fall and got 4 of 8 finished and then the holidays took over. So today I grabbed some fabrics and started cutting strips for Kelly's log cabin row. Her focus fabric is a black and white swirl - the squares in the upper left corner. I have several scraps from my month in the Fresh Modern Bee, so I decided to add them in for some color punch.

I found the free pattern for this paper-pieced log cabin variation at www.quiltersnewsletter.com late last year**. The row needs to be 40" finished and these blocks are about 7" wide so I've got some sashing to do, as well as some corner triangles - I'm thinking the black and white swirl again for corners. We'll see how it all comes together.



Hope she likes them!

** I can't seem to locate the exact URL for this pattern right now. I'll post an update later if I find it.