Framed in

Hi everyone!  I hope your week is going well!  As you read this, we are actually moving at long last.  It's amazing, but a lot of work.

While my sewing room is disassembled, I thought I'd share some beauty shots of the Framed quilt, which is now all quilted and finished:

It turned out so great!  Hard to get a picture of the whole thing because it's so big! (About 87 by 103.) For those who don't know, Framed was one of my projects for last year's Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  It was quilted by Alycia, who did an amazing job. (Email her and maybe she'll quilt one for you too!)  So much great texture on this one. 

I used this batting in the summer weight, which is so soft and turned out really well.  (I bought this when we were in Maine, so I don't know how easy it is to get anywhere else.)  I think the thinner batting kept the quilt from getting too heavy.

This quilt has a scrappy binding, which I almost never do, but should do more often.  You know how something always gets broken when you move?  Well:

Yep, I broke the jar where I keep the leftover bits of binding.  Nothing to do but use them, right?  They're already cut and just need to be seamed together, so why not?  I'm sad to tell you that I had enough binding pieces here for at least 3 quilts.

I love how this binding came out!  I don't usually do the "rolled quilt" picture, but this shows off the binding really nicely.  Yep, there were some short pieces in there, but I like them!  And it used them up, so it's a win all around.

Framed is destined for the bed in the guest room, since it will fit and will be nice to sleep under.  I confess that I spent a little time snuggled under it and can certify it as extra cozy.

As I said, the moving truck is coming!  Keep your fingers crossed for us, and I'll see you soon from the new sewing room!

Sharing at Let's Bee Social, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Finish it Up Friday, and Finished or Not Friday.   (If we have Internet by then--who can tell?)

I've been Framed!

Hi everyone! (waving wildly)  I have some new construction to show off today. "New construction" as in a finished "house"--  I've finished the Framed quilt top at last! I was really determined to get this out of the project box and ready to quilt up.  It's waited long enough. Here is the finished product:

Happy dancing over this way!  I am calling this quilt Framed, as I have for a while now, because really--what else could I call it?  This was one of my projects for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge last year.  The centers of the stars are crumbs, and the stars are set in larger frames made of different fabrics in the same color.  Almost everything in this quilt was a scrap or a leftover hunk, including the white-on-whites.  The only "new" fabric is the orange frame, which I cut out of a larger piece I haven't used yet, and one yard of a single white-on-white for the border (such as it is.)  Even those pieces came from my stash.

Wrinkled but finished!

This quilt is huge, which made it a real challenge to get good pictures of the whole thing.  The blocks are 24 by 24 each, which in retrospect I should have figured would make a really big quilt.  But we all know that I have trouble envisioning the sizes of things from the patterns, so I didn't really think it would be this big.  It's currently 78 by 102.  Yikes! The one thing I might do differently if I were to make it again is use a very narrow sashing between the blocks.  Matching all those points was not my favorite thing.

Given the size of the center, the only border that I added was a 3-inch strip of white all around. This mainly functions to stabilize all the edges and just softly frames out the piecing.  It really didn't need anything else.  This was made from the Moda Love pattern, available for free HERE.  If you scroll down, you can see that the pattern is offered in different sizes.  Mine is officially the "charm square" size.  A few of the layer cake size would cover a king-sized bed!  I would totally make this again, and I might just try the smallest size, which would finish at literally half the size of this quilt.

I am so happy to have this done!  It took me too long, I know, but I'm glad it's finished.  The backing will be my  remaining piece of extra-wide fabric from Amanda Jean Nyberg's Good Neighbors line--also a leftover! (The fabric for the orange frame is also Good Neighbors fabric.)

This is the Independence Day weekend in the US, so I hope everyone has a great celebration!  We are going house-hunting for the 800th time, then have some more fun things planned.  Enjoy the fireworks!

Sharing at Confessions of a Fabric Addict, crazymomquilts, and soscrappy for RSC16!  And since this is all scraps, also Oh Scrap! on Sunday.

Framing work

It's a beautiful day today!  I got back from my conference so inspired and ready to work on new things.  You know how you go to a quilt show and see so many pretty things and just can't wait to get home again and start sewing?  That's how I feel after conferences.  Very motivated!  I know, I'm a total weirdo.

Thankfully, the renewed energy extends to my quilty projects!  Before the power went out last week, I was working on this:

I don't know why the camera washes out yellow greens.  This is actually a beautiful color!

This is the first thing I finished when I got home, even before I put in the laundry.  Then I still had energy, so I went ahead and finished off another one:

For those who have forgotten (and it's been forever since I worked on this) these are two of the remaining blocks for one of my Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilts from last year.  These are 24-inch blocks made from the Moda Love pattern (free!).  The stars have crumb centers, with the rest being made from scraps, including white scraps.

I had visions of finishing this this week, since I thought there was not that much more to be done.  When I opened the project box, though, I found these two stars that needed frames, plus:

Yep, the orange star needs a frame, too.  Saddest of all is this:

The aqua center doesn't even have a star at all!  So there's some more work to do, and then I'll be ready to put this together.  I think it's been in a project box long enough, don't you?

Hope you all are inspired and motivated and happily working along on your projects!  Hey, it's very warm outside, so why not stay in the AC and sew?  I have some writing to do, but then it's back to the projects!

Have a great weekend!

Sharing at Confessions of a Fabric Addict and soscrappy.

Glamorous lessons

Hi everyone!  Welcome to April!  How is it possible that March is gone?  Already I feel like the year is flying by.  It's starting to feel like spring outside, too.  April is sure to be a very exciting month for us because our daughter is getting married.  In 10 days!  Yikes, I'd better go buy some shoes!

Today I want to show off my fully completed--and bound!--Sewing Lessons quilt.  I'm very excited that she's back from her sojourn at the quilter: 

Hey, she turned out to be a cutie!  I love this quilt!  I learned so much while making it and I think it turned out really well, too.  I'm so happy with it.  I keep trying to choose a favorite row but I just can't! 

I took the quilt out for some glamour shots around the little park that's near the condo, which has a LOT of trees and some interesting fences.  She looks great, but climbing up some of those hills was not the most fun I've ever had.  They were steep! Kind of worth it, though, to get some pretty pictures of the quilt.  I wanted some with trees and such but it was just too dirty to put the quilt on the ground.

Upside down!

For anyone who doesn't know, Sewing Lessons is the second of my quilts from the Rainbow Scrap Challenge last year.  I made this row quilt from my scraps, making a row each month in the color of the month.  You can read more about it HERE.  It finished at about 71 by 86 after quilting, binding, and washing.  I told you it was dirty out there! 

I had this one quilted in a swirly pattern that I love using white thread: 

It's a great quilt pattern, and it works for this quilt, but I'm getting a little tired of allover patterns.  The problem, of course, is that I'd need to quilt up a large quilt like this myself, and I just don't have the room right now, so I guess it's edge-to-edge quilting for a little while more. 

For the back I used a great wideback print that's part of the Good Neighbors line by Amanda Jean Nyberg of crazymomquilts:

This was the perfect backing!  The colors worked so nicely, and the fabric itself felt so good.  I washed it before the quilt was quilted and it barely shrunk.  After I washed the completed quilt it felt so luxurious, like really good sheets.  It's a cuddly one for sure.

It was kind of a dreary day when I took these pictures, and kind of windy (one of these pictures almost ended up as a quilt sailing away!), but look what I caught peeking out from behind the quilt:

A wild daffodil!  A sure sign of spring if I've ever seen one.

Hope some spring is peeking out where you are, too.  I wasn't kidding about those shoes--I have to buy some this weekend or else I'm going to the wedding barefoot!  Which, now that I think about it, might not be such a bad thing.

Sharing at Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Finish it up Friday.  and soscrappy for RSC16.

Best week ever

Hi everyone!  I hope you have had a wonderful week.  This week I became a grandma! Isn't that fabulous? Our son and his wife had a baby boy!   His mom and dad won't let me tell you his real name, so I'm going to call him Otis (not even close to his real name!) here on the blog.  He was a big baby (1 ounce shy of 9 pounds) but he is so tiny.  And adorable! With a full head of hair, believe it or not. When his parents give me permission, I'll share a fun picture of him, I promise.

All of which makes this week's finish a bit anti-climactic, doesn't it?  Well, here's the quilt:

Yep, Serendipity is a finished quilt!  It has been raining and windy here all week, and it was hard to get pictures.  Then it got dirty when it blew away once and I was mad at myself for taking it outside at all.

I didn't really intend to make this quilt, but I ended up really liking it.  It's quilted in a gray thread in a flower pattern that almost matches the flowers in the sashing.  I never thought I'd like gray thread, but I am totally using it again because it blended so well and all I can really see is the texture, even on the white fabric, and on the brown, too.

For the binding I used Susie's magic binding with a 4th gray and a bright yellow flange. (I wonder how many times a day quilters everywhere bless Susie's name?)  I have now used some of every gray that I had in my tiny little condo stash, and I'm really surprised at how much I like how they play together.  (Now that I think about it, that may be every gray I've ever owned.)

Serendipity finished at just about 55 by 72, perfect for warming up chilly legs.  The backing is almost as much fun as the front, too.  It's a Windham print called 8 Days a Week.

Finally, here is how cuddly the quilt turned out:

Yep, that's the hubs, getting cozy on the sofa.  They all get used around here, even when they're brand new.

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend.  As if this wasn't already a great week, this weekend is a bridal shower for my daughter.  How much happiness can one family handle?  We'll see!

Sharing at Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Finish it up Friday and soscrappy.

Getting our hair done

Hi all! How are you today?  Is it wet or is it snowy where you are?  Or maybe it's really warm?  We've had all three over the last three days.  Not joking! Snow, then rain, then 55 degrees.  No wonder all my students are sick.  And they make sure to cough all over their papers when they hand them in, believe me.

Good thing one of the things I find most relaxing is sewing. The last few days I've been working on the Paper Dolls, mostly stitching in their hair and some of the details on their dresses.  Here's one group:

I think it's really adding to their personalities.  Is it weird that I think of them as individuals?

There's always one sister. . .

Their hair is just raw edge applique, which I'm almost never happy with because the edges ravel, but I think it will be okay because it's hair, which is supposed to be a little bit messy. 

I started playing with layouts, but they have to wait for a few more friends to show up.  I need just a couple more with black or white dresses so that the layout will work.  It's kind of silly, but I want it so that every one of the girls will be holding hands with another.  Nobody goes alone, right?

One other thing that I did this weekend was to meet up with these lovely ladies:

On the left is Nancy from Pug Mom Quilts, in the center is Leeanna from Not Afraid of Color, and I'm the weirdo on the right. (Feel free to ignore me.)  We had lunch and went to the Kaffe Fassett exhibit at the Michener Museum, which was a fascinating museum, if a bit small.  I'm not a big fan of Kaffe, but it was a nice shot of color and a chance to meet up with some great people.  They even got to meet the hubs, very briefly, which is very, very rare as he's generally anti-social.

On top of being a great Pugmom, Nancy is a very sweet and giving person.  Look at this great fleece and flannel blankie she made for my new grandson (no, he's not here yet):

How sweet is that? You can never have too many blankies, and this one has that great satin binding that kids love.  And Leeanna made us both great pincushions.  Here's mine:

Thank you so much, ladies, for the fun and for the lovelies.  Both are much appreciated!

Sharing at Let's Bee Social and soscrappy for RSC15 because I have no brown left!  At least some of their hair is brown.

Serendipity

Hi everyone!  How was your week?  Is anyone else having really strange weather?  It's been in the 60s here and yesterday it rained like crazy.  It was like a semi-pleasant, soggy, spring day.  It is still December, isn't it?  Just making sure I didn't somehow skip a whole season while I was in the library.

So, this week I didn't have a lot of time to sew because I was grading exams and doing other end-of-semester work.  But I did finally finish and then actually sewed up this lovely thing:

Isn't she a cutie?  Because of yesterday's rain, and the aforementioned job duties, I had to wait until today to get some pictures.  It was still super-wet out, though, so if you see dark spots, it's not dirty, it just got a little damp.

Amazingly, there are three shades of gray in this quilt.  I would never have guessed I would ever make a quilt that was mostly gray.  It was a challenge, but I think I conquered it.  I was afraid it would be too dark and drab, so I included the lighter gray cornerstones.  I tried multicolored ones, but they looked bad. You wouldn't think they would, but they did.I think altogether the grays make the blocks really stand out.

If you remember, these are the 12 inch blocks from the Classic Stitches tutorials and are all scraps.  I didn't start out thinking that I'd make another quilt from those blocks, but it just kind of happened, so I'm calling this quilt Serendipity--a happy accident.

Serendipity is probably my last finish for 2015.  I don't know about you, but this has been a tough few months for me, and right now I'm exhausted.  Plus, we are travelling for Christmas!  We are heading back to Wisconsin and I can't wait.  We will be staying with our son and are hoping for snow.  I don't think that will happen, but it's nice to think about!

Now that two of my RSC15 quilts are done, next week I will post my plan for a new quilt for RSC16.  In case you don't get a chance to stop by, though, I hope you all have a wonderful holiday, some time with your families, and some rest.  And if you want it, maybe some time to stitch a few seams, too.

I have to go pack!  Merry Christmas, everyone!

Sharing at  Confessions of a Fabric Addict,  Finish it up Friday. and soscrappy for RSC15.

Finals week!

Hi everyone!  Yes, it is finals week here at the Academic Quilter.  I even have a final to give today (Saturday)! This means tons of paper instead of tons of fabric!  Not to worry, though--it will all be over soon. And then there are many fun things in store towards the end of the month.

For a low-stress project for this week, I've been working on getting these blocks in order:

These are the 12-inch blocks I made as samples for the Classic Stitches tutorials. I didn't intend to make them when I started out, but they just kind of happened as a part of the tutorials.  So now I'm putting them together into a throw quilt, because who needs a dozen blocks just laying around?  They already look good together, so why not?

I got this fabric to use as a background for the blocks:

Yes, it's gray!  I never buy gray, but I have to tell you that the manufacturers are coming out with some pretty nice grays now.  This is a dark gray from the Good Neighbors line by Amanda Jean of crazy mom quilts.  Isn't it great?  This fabric feels so good.  I liked the print so much that I also got some in orange, plus I may have purchased a few other pieces too.  Hey, a girl's gotta have some pretty things!

I decided to frame the blocks with this light gray polka dot.  I was going to use white, but that was very stark.  The two grays also make the blocks really stand out.  The frames will finish at only 1 inch wide, but I think they add a nice touch.

After I took this picture I started second-guessing myself.  Is the gray frame too light?  I can't decide.

Since the RSC was only 11 months, I also had to add another block to make an even 12. (I like symmetry.)  I chose this orphan Wedding Ring block:

It's all solids, but they were scraps, and I figure that an orphan block is scrappy by definition, so into the quilt it goes.  Why not?

Lots more to come on this quilt, but for now I have some student papers to read. I'll keep working on this off and on between grading sessions, and maybe I'll have something fun by the end of the week.  Plus I have done no Christmas shopping yet!  Ahhh!

Wishing you some stress-free sewing!  When your college student gets home, give them a hug, because I know for sure some of those tests were hard!

Sharing at soscrappy for RSC15 and Oh Scrap! on Sunday. Happy sewing!

Bright spots

Hi all! Well, this week I looked at the calendar and realized that it's the middle of November.  How in the world did that happen?  Seriously, isn't it still September? 

This week I actually finished two small projects.  Yay me!  Here is the first one, a green crumb star for my RSC 15 project:

I don't have a ton of lime green, so I was going to mix the light greens and limes.  Don't do it!  You wouldn't believe how bad the light greens look next to the brighter greens.  They really look gray.  The crumb block is the last one I need for this year's Framed project.  Yay!  I do need to go purchase a small bit of lime for the frame in order to finish off that quilt.  Gosh, shopping for fabric.  Doesn't that sound awful?

Don't know why it looks a little gray on the tree, except that it was raining when I took the picture.  This photo shows the colors a lot better:

I tried for this crumb block to be somewhat "log cabiny" and I think it worked out.
 
Since I wasn't thinking when we were packing things up in a big hurry, all of our coasters are in storage. What was I thinking?  We still have furniture to protect! So, I also made up these coasters from a treasured Mary Engelbreit scrap:

I really did not plot out the storage thing very well.  There are so many small things that I wish I had, but they're all in boxes.  But at least these little things will be a spot of brightness in the living room at the condo.  That fabric makes me happy every time I look at it.

Hope everyone has a great weekend.  We are going to my best friend's wedding.  She is my age and has never been married, and we are all so happy that she has finally found someone to share her life with.  It will be like a reunion for us, so it should be a lot of fun!

Happy sewing!

Sharing at Confessions of a Fabric Addict,  soscrappy, and Finish it up Friday.

The Brown family

Hi everyone!  Are you ready for a lovely fall weekend? I sure am.  The last couple of weeks have been really busy and I am ready to settle down and enjoy some down time this weekend.  Here is the happiest part of renting the condo: the leaves are falling and we don't have to rake them!  Let's hear it for landscapers!

This week I spent some time with the girls, making up the brown dolls.  Here's the family:

Aren't they adorable?  I had my doubts about the browns, because I personally don't own very many brown clothes, but I think they turned out great.

And can I just say that they have an amazing sense of color?  I couldn't wear those dresses nearly as well as they do!

There is one more member of this family to show off, although she is quite shy:

Yep, she's the sister who joined the convent and became a Carmelite nun!  If you don't know (or care) what that means, just know that it made me really, really happy to make this one.  It took a while because the dress is fairly complicated (lots of layers) and I really wanted to get it right, but I think she turned out really well.  And she'll certainly fit in to what is turning out to be a global sisterhood.

Now that we're nearing the end of the rainbow scrap challenge for this year, I think I have come up with a setting for the dolls.  I'm really getting impatient to put it together because I really think it's going to be great.  I'm also trying decide if I should put eyes on the dolls, and if so, just how I should do that.  I know they aren't getting full faces, because there's no way that I could do that without really messing it up, but eyes might add something nice.  I know I don't want to use beads or French knots, but I'm not sure how else to do it.  Any good suggestions?

Hope all of you have a great weekend.  I hope to get some sewing in and maybe bake something.  And I'm just now getting back into the full swing of my usual exercise, so I'll definitely get some walking in since it should be cool and perfect for a nice couple of miles.

The last picture from our house!

Happy fall!

Sharing at Confessions of a Fabric Addict,  soscrappy, and Finish it up Friday.