Eye candy

 Block using Michael Miller Cotton Couture for guild quilt

 Stack of Valori Wells Cocoon from Free Spirit- my winnings!

 Love this one, like a collection

 Wait for it...

Pow! So amazing! The colors are so saturated, it is wonderful in person, and so soft.

Thanks to many, and a new mini Petra-dactyl quilt

It has been a while since I have blogged, and since I have sewn much. But I do have a lot to share, and I'll try not to overburden this post! I have some thanks to parcel out first.

I recently received this beautiful fat eights bundle of Peacock Lane from a giveaway at Very Berry Handmade, from the UK shop M is for Make. I have no solid plans yet for it, but I better make it lovely, since the designer of the fabric is in my quilt guild.

I also won this adorable wall hanging from Nellie's Niceties. The center of the Dresden is embroidered with a woodland scene, and the whole bit is hand quilted. I am lucky to have it! I would not make anything like this myself, since it is beyond the scope of my skills!

Lastly, I won 6 one yard cuts of the new Parson Grey Curious Nature line. I am so psyched to work with these, I am thinking of attacking a hexagon quilt finally, because they would look fabulous in one. Now to get motivated to do the cutting. These I won from the Free Spirit blog, which is always having low-entry giveaways that are very generous. I recently won an entire fat quarter bundle of Taza from them too.

Whew! Now that I have caught up with all that, some sewing to show. I made another mini quilt for a birthday gift for a one year old. We call her Petradactyl, because her name is Petra and my husband thinks she sounds like a pteradactyl when she yells. (You know, because we all know firsthand what a pteradactyl sounds like.) And since I have been experimenting with reverse applique lately, I had to try it out again.

 I embroidered the nickname in two different colors and fonts to emphasize her name (thanks to my sister for the lesson and the floss!) and then quilted some air current-type lines in white to fill in background.

 I used some of my fat eights of Heirloom for the patchwork, which was very randomly cut and assembled. I laid some natural muslin over it, and reverse appliqued it, then echo quilted the shape in variegated yellow and purple.

  Bound in Heirloom scraps, and off it goes to Petra! The finished mini measures about 32.5" x 22.5".

The back is some pieces I had in my stash, the cute larger pieces being FQs I received from The Intrepid Thread a while back, though I have no idea about designer or line. The binding doesn't necessarily coordinate, but I had to use Heirloom again! It will likely hang on the wall anyway, so I doubt it will be an issue.
So happy with it!

New QAL project with Taza bundle

 This is mostly fabric eye candy, but I have been a bit silent- my son decided he wanted to learn to use the potty out of the blue, so I have been sitting on the bathroom floor a large portion of my day! He also got his first real injury, with blood and contusions and all, on his eye of all places, but he is fine.

So cutting fabric has been a nice break, especially when it is so pretty and I had forgotten I had it to play with! I actually received this fabric right after we moved, from the Free Spirit Fabric blog after commenting there. You should visit- they give away some nice packs of goodies! This is Taza by Dena Fishbein. They sent a whole FQ pack of 30!

 So I thought these would be perfect for wonky star blocks, and then found that Elizabeth at Oh, Fransson! is doing a Sparkle Punch Quilt-A-Long. Perfect! So I started cutting...and cutting...and cutting. Then I had to put together a test block to see if I could pull it off.

Yes! This is going to be fun.

Little Apples quilt blocks ready to be sewn up and a new project

My Little Apples blocks are ready to be made into a quilt top! I am excited to get this ball rolling, as I hope to give this as a Christmas gift this year. Plus, I just love to complete a project. 

I think the quilting should go easy too- I plan to just to straight line quilting in random arrangement across the entire quilt top. I think this will be best considering this is the largest quilt top I have made to date, I am quilting it on my machine at home, and there are all kinds of lines on this quilt already, so no need to distract any more! It is already quite busy, though I am liking it this way. I would like some opinions though.

1. I think the top needs to be larger, because I would like it to be more throw sized than baby sized, but I am out of fabric from my jelly roll! Should I just do a border in the same grey as the main lattice fabric, go for a brighter color from the Little Apples line, or do half blocks with the strips from Little Apples and a solid on the other half? (And does all that even make sense?)
2. I have not started piecing because I do not have a 1/4" quilting foot (horrendous, I know), but I did all the blocks without one...will it make a difference?
3. What color for the binding- grey, red, the dark green or turquoise from the blocks?

Also, just to add things to a list already chock full and unfinished with the holidays so close, I signed on to make a quilt for Project Linus through Pat Bravo's blog. She sent out bags of scraps to volunteers, and I started cutting into mine and arranging by color to do a quilt from Fresh Quilting- Nate's Quilt. I love the idea of improv piecing and hope that makes it come together pretty fast. The scraps are gorgeous by the way- even if I mess up the quilt design someone is going to love this quilt just for the fabrics! Thanks for the materials. Art Gallery Fabrics and Ms. Bravo!

Been a long time...updates from a rainy city

Hello to my readers! I have moved to my new city of Portland, Oregon and am somewhat settled in, enough to be sewing once again and trying to get back into my groove. Most of my time up to this point has been focused on moving in to our new house and playing with my son. His sleeping times have been occupied by unpacking and organizing, cleaning and relaxing with my husband. And looking for a nice modern not-too-expensive couch (no luck on the last front). 

 This is my color-organized bookshelf- can you tell I missed my sewing/quilting?

 Our new front door

 My new sewing area- smaller, but hoping this smaller footprint will make me more organized!

 My Little Apples jelly roll all cut up and ready to use to make some string blocks (I am using the instructions from The Practical Guide to Patchwork by Elizabeth Hartmann, a fellow Portlander)

 These are the selvedges- don't they look interesting in this little bunch?

 This is an Heirloom bundle I won from Angie at Stitching by Starlight, from her 10 for 10 interviews, which if you missed are still on her blog. My first fabric winnings at my new house!

This I received before I left Cali but forgot to mention it here in the madness- this is a Storyboek fat quarter bundle from Birch fabrics, which I received from the Green Bag Lady. These are beautiful and soft- now I just need a plan for them!

More to come soon, but for now, I need to get back to stitching my Little Apples!