sailboats for Caleb

I've just finished another baby quilt top for a new baby boy in the family. Caleb was born in January - another beautiful boy for my niece Sarah!

Sarah and I spent a lot of time perusing Pinterest for baby quilt ideas, and the one she chose featured sailboats like these...

She loves the colors and graphic patterns of these Joel Dewberry Modern Meadow (and other assorted Denyse Schmidt) fabrics and opted for the light grey solid as the background. I saved the argyle plaid for the backing.

Each sailboat block finishes at 12" square and requires eight 3" half-square triangle (HST) blocks, so I cut forty-eight 4" squares each of print and grey solid to make all the HSTs needed plus several extras to ensure enough variety in the finished blocks.

You can see the method I use most often for sewing HSTs here. I use Option 2 and cut my squares a full 1" larger than the finished block size needed and trim them to the correct size after pressing. The trimmed HST size needed for this quilt is 3.5" square which yields a 3" finished block.

A 1" sashing between the blocks and a 2" border all around brings the finished quilt size to about 42" square.

The backing is made up of a 28" center square of the argyle print surrounded by 7" x 9" rectangles of other prints used in the sailboat blocks.

I haven't yet decided on a quilting pattern. Any thoughts?

building a summer wardrobe one skirt at a time

Over the past month I've had the great privilege of teaching several ladies in my area how to fit and make their own skirts using the book The Essential A-Line by Jona Giammalva. (You can read my gushing reviews of the book in these previous posts.) To date I've taught two sessions on making the basic skirt and one session on sewing this pleated version...

That glasses fabric! So fun! I started sewing this skirt last fall and nearly had it completed, but then the weather turned so I put it aside. A couple of weeks ago I finished it and decided to make another to refresh my memory on how it was constructed, which yielded this summer fresh version using fabrics from Kate Spain's recent Daydream line for Moda (yep, that's a bathroom mirror selfie you're looking at)...

After sewing all these skirts it feels like I can put the zippers in with my eyes closed. I use a combination of a few different methods I've seen (one day I'll write a handy tutorial), and all of my students have been very pleased with how easy they are to insert.

My skirts on display at the LQS where I've been teaching...

And here is my fabric selection for the next skirt - a tiered version where the blue large floral print will be the main piece and the smaller floral print on white will be the bottom "layer" both separated and hemmed by the fuchsia solid.  The florals are from Iza Pearl's new line Garden Party Tango for Windham Fabrics.

It's possible that I might have enough skirts after that one is complete (possible but not likely!) so I'll be expanding my repertoire and wardrobe by making this Schoolhouse Tunic next...

New clothes for spring - what could be better?! Have you made any new clothing recently?

center block of Dreamy Hexagons

In my last post I showed you a peek of some fabrics I have pulled together for a new Kaffe quilt project. The large center block of the quilt will have eight rings of (12) 1" english paper-pieced (EPP) hexagons.

If you're not familiar with EPPing, it is a type of hand-sewing where the fabric is basted around a paper template or insert (a hexagon shape for this quilt) and then the shapes are hand-sewn together before removing the paper template. There is an excellent two-part tutorial for making EPP hexagon flowers from Lori Holt at Bee in My Bonnet here and here.

I use the same basic method (without the paper clip) to make these rings. The quilt pattern calls for using shot cottons to make the hexie rings, and I'm using a mixture of Kaffe shot cottons, Pepper Cory Peppered Cottons, and Robert Kaufman Carolina Chambray for my rings.

After all the rings are completed, each one will have a large flower appliqued under/behind it. Here is one of the fabrics I'm considering for the large flowers - Japanese Chrysanthemum in Scarlet by Philip Jacobs. It's my #1 choice so far :)

Coming in a close second is this Cactus Dahlias in Red also from Philip Jacobs. As you can see I've got four of the eight hexie rings sewn. I'll probably make a few extra and choose the eight I like best.

I'm trying to let this quilt evolve as each border is added and not have everything all planned out from the get-go (much like my border challenge quilt last year), but here are a couple of photo mosaics that show which fabric combinations I think might work well. All these photos are from the gloriouscolor.com website. They have the largest and most comprehensive online selection of Kaffe Collective fabrics. A few local brick and mortar shops have a decent selection of his fabrics, but nothing rivals the inventory at Glorious Color. I buy what I can locally and order the rest :)

Jupiter in Red

Shirt Stripes in Red

Japanese Chrysanthemum in Scarlet

Lotus Leaf in Wine

Chard in Hot

Roman Glass in Red

Jupiter in Red

Cactus Dahlias in Red

Shirt Stripes in Red

Picotte Poppies in Red

Babble in Charcoal

Oriental Tree in Red

This glorious riot of reds, pinks, and oranges is so invigorating, but I'm trying to take it slow and enjoy the process of just playing with the colors and seeing where each step takes me. The fact that there is no deadline for finishing this quilt makes that easier!

one finish, one near-finish, and one new project

You know me - jumping from project to project! The last days of March were filled with family and some auto travel as Thing 1 was home for a quick spring break week, and then just as she went back to school Thing 2's spring break began. Thing 2 is a high school junior now, so we took a road trip to visit a few colleges in the Midwest. We visited three schools and right now it looks like we have a winner (or at least a very strong front-runner). We'll probably make some more visits though since it is a long while until applications need to be filed, and it's always good to have a Plan B, right?

On our travels to a couple of Indiana schools we were lucky enough to see our nephew John and his young family. So we met baby Zachary for the first time! I finished sewing the label on to the back of his quilt as we drove - a real "just-in-time" finish. But with all the excitement of seeing everyone, I forgot to take some final photos. Hopefully John will be able to send some photos of the finished quilt in Zachary's room.

Here are the last two shots I took of the quilt at my house. First - marked and pinned and ready for quilting...

Modern InstaBee

Are you on Instagram? I have been for a few months now, and I'm having so much fun swapping photos with other quilters all over the world! Sometime during February I saw photos floating around asking for volunteers to participate in virtual quilting "bees" based on this book - Modern Bee: 13 Quilts to Make With Friends by Lindsay Conner. Lindsay herself is organizing this effort and there are now over 200 people grouped into 17 "hives" of 12 members! Each month one of the 12 members gets to be the "Queen Bee" and chose the quilt block and colors/fabrics she would like the other 11 members to make for her.

seaside pillows finished

The seaside pillows for my SIL's school auction are finished and on their way to her!

I quilted each of the 16" pillow tops in an overall loopy pattern with a medium blue thread.

baby quilt for Zachary

Our nephew and his wife welcomed son #2 - Zachary - to their family in November, 2013. Fortunately they are a patient couple, since I'm just now getting to work on his baby quilt.

John (the daddy) provided me with the paint colors for Zachary's room - a light grey and medium blue - and I set to work choosing the fabrics. They are all Kona solids except for one leafy print from Vanessa Christenson's line "Simply Color" for Moda. This is the final layout before sewing, and it was 100% inspired by this quilt I saw on Pinterest. I have no information about the maker of the original quilt, but isn't it fabulous?!