Pure Challenge

I finished my Project Pure quilt for the September meeting of the Philly Modern Quilt guild.  Project requirements were 1 charm pack of Pure and 1/2 yard of any coordinating fabric…backing and binding were up to us.

From the beginning I envisioned creating an quilt with “on point” quarter square triangles.  Here' is what I came up with….

Close up of the stippling and backing (Authentic by Sweetwater for Moda)

Quilt top close up (stippling over the seams was difficult!)

Project Time:  August 8 – September 4

Fabric:  Charm pack of Pure (by Sweetwater for Moda), 1/2 yard Kona white, and backing noted above.

Completed Size:  Approx 28” square

For:  Me!  I plan on hanging it in my sewing room.

Hexie Love

I’ve been bitten by the hexie bug…I blame blog land, the Philadelphia Modern Quilt Guild, Candi, and Julie for posting an awesome tutorial for paper piecing hexagons.

I especially love the hexies in Bliss (who wouldn’t??)…which are perfect for my partner in the Potholder Pass 4 swap on Flickr.  I’m thinking of putting them on linen and hand stitching around the outside of each hexagon…I have a feeling these are going to be hard to part with.  Might as well make a set of 2!

I love hand sewing….it makes me feel less isolated from my family since my “studio” is in the attic, plus it’s portable for long car rides or even to take to the Phillies games.  I’m hooked. End. Of. Story.  Except, I think I’m too ADD to try and make an entire quilt out of hexagons. 

So many projects…

So little time!

I’ve got so many things in progress, it’s hard to focus!  The beginnings of a Birdie bag that I just can’t bring myself to cut out all of the darn pieces (stupid interfacing!), two quilts tops needing basting, quilting, and binding, a wedding quilt for a friend, and Siggy blocks from the Modern Siggy Swap 2.

Two weekends ago I got together with friends and spent the afternoon cutting up my pure charm pack and piecing my blocks for Project Pure.   Hoping to piece the top this week!

                     A sneak peak at my blocks…. 

This past weekend I was on vacation at the beach and as much as I wanted to pack my sewing machine, there just wasn’t room in the car with 2 dogs, a dog crate, an assortment of linens and clothing.  A quick trip to JoAnn’s and I had a few templates for hand sewing hexagons instead.  I brought a fat quarter bundle of Bliss and got to work.  Unfortunately I ran out of templates faster than I would’ve liked and those plastic templates are expensive.  Time to switch to paper piecing I think!

Stitch & Pitch with PMQG

Tuesday was a Philadelphia Modern Quilt Guild event – Stitch & Pitch with the Phillies.  Picture this…a sell out crowd at Citizen’s Bank Park with a 1,000 or so women (& men) knitting, crocheting, or in our case quilting!  It was awesome, but hot…so hot and humid.  Everyone with a Stitch & Pitch ticket got a cute Phillie phanatic bobble head.

Who knew the phanatic could knit?  Yet another reason to love him! 

It was a pretty horrendous game with lots of fielding errors and not so good pitching, but we still had fun.  Trust me!

The Philadelphia Chapter of Project Linus was collecting blankets.  I donated a baby quilt…and completely forgot to take a picture of it.   It is exactly the same pattern as this Happy Campers quilt though (fabric & all)…the only difference is it was stippled.

Julie posted a full recap over here, so go check it out!

Surprise Package!

So about a year ago I signed up for a pay it forward gift from Angela @ Moda Home Mom.  I completely forgot about it.  I was having a particularly crappy week (sick car, work stress, the usual) so coming home to a nice and completely unexpected package from Angela made my day.  First, I had to explain to Hubby that no I didn’t order more fabric…but in the back of my mind I’m going…oh crap, what did I order now? 

Check out the goodies sent to me by Angela.  Love them!

Cute little bag with my initial.

Set of notebooks, a little zipper pouch, and some swedishfish that may or may not have disappeared…

Thank you Angela!!!!

So on account of all the good things that have come my way lately through the blog world, I want to give some back…..  So stay tuned for a giveaway in the near future!

Crazy about Circles

So I started the Cherish Nature quilt with a solid, that may or may not be Kona solid, and ran out.  I thought I had 5 yards…but it was definitely a different color Kona…so I’m forced to put it aside until I figure out what the heck fabric it was. 

So I took that 5 yards of Kona and cut it up for my Circle Around quilt - designed by Julie.  I used the easy circle ruler and in my opinion…not so easy….at first.  I think it was a combination of being hot (sewing/ironing without air conditioning in my 90F dining room) and irritated from above noted mistake.  I managed to completely screw up 1 circle…that turned out to be 2 half circles (duh!) and cut 5 or so the wrong size…I’ll use those on the back.  I used my Frolic layer cake from Amy’s Creative Side SMS giveaway.  It’s so bright and cheery!!  As for the pattern itself, super easy and super fun.  The blocks come together so quickly, once all of the cutting is out of the way.

It’s so big, I couldn’t get it all in one picture!  Like I said, super easy and quick…all I have left is to sew my rows together and quilt!

Fabric Out, Fabric In

It’s been rather quiet on the blog lately.  Work has been crazy and I started class again, but this weekend I sat down in front of my Baby(lock) and finished piecing my Wonderland quilt top. 

      Sneak peak of the folded wonderland top.

I <3 it!  I even ordered my backing fabric from Sweet Pea Fabrics on Etsy (which arrived superfast!), but I’ll probably end up piecing my backing for something different. 

Right after finishing my Wonderland top, I cut into my stash of Cherish Nature by Deb Strain for Moda. 

                  Cherish Nature and 3 random prints from other lines.

I love this line…and from the moment I saw it, it reminded me of my high school best friend who now lives across the country.  She was recently married so this will make a nice gift. 

                A few of the blocks I have pieced…only 65 or so more to go! 

It’s a very simple design and I’m even incorporating other fabric lines into the quilt.  I’m planning for the quilt to measure 64” x 72”…for a total of 72 blocks.

Lots of fabric in lately including a fat quarter bundle of Bliss and a fat eighth bundle of Breakfast at Tiffany’s (Thanks Julie!). 

 

I have no plans for Bliss yet (any suggestions)…but the Breakfast at Tiffany’s will most likely become many (many) half square triangles. 

PMQG Potholder Swap

Two weeks ago was the monthly meeting of the Philly Modern Quilt Guild…I’m only slightly behind here.  Allison hosted our get together.  Unfortunately, it was really humid with a threat of storms so we all crammed in Allison’s husband’s man cave (Thanks Allison’s husband!!).  Our activity this month was a blind potholder swap.  Mine were simple patchwork using Essence by Sandy Gervais for Moda.  They turned out super traditional looking but I was happy with how the quilting and binding came out. 

 Candi was the recipient of my potholders and these are the ones I went home with:

 

Sorry for the terrible picture…these were taken in my kitchen because I’ve already started using them. Love them!

My favorite though…for obvious reasons were Julie’s!  Go check them out :)