Sew Kid at Heart Round-Up

With a new busy semester about to start, I wanted to get the last of my Sew Kid at Heart blocks taken care of. This quilting bee had us all send our fabrics at the beginning last June and then we've been working at our own pace on each of the blocks (at least one per month for a year). I've kept up really well so far, so I had 5 people left and here are the 4 I did this week.


Solidia (aka Solihubb) wanted to make a bright orange and pink stripes quilt for her daughter. She had us use this paper pieced pattern: Ribbons Two block from Quilter's Cache. Is it pretty? I even got lucky with my corners and didn't trim the four squares so I actually ended up with a blocks that's 12.5" square.

-------------

Jane (aka Tessophia) recently had a little girl, Lucy, who's fighting her way out of the NICU. She's doing well and Jane asked us to make string blocks for her. She sent great 30's repro fabrics and I added a few more from my stash.

The total block is 12.5". For each quarter, I just pieced together the strips and trimmed it with my 6.5" square ruler. I think it was a lot easier than paper piecing!

-------------

Terrie (aka chocolate is the best medicine) sent a pattern for these little butterflies for her daughter's quilt. The prints (from Bubblegum Basics) were super cute and the complete block is 10.5" unfinished, and the butterfly alone is 6.5" unfinished. She sent a diagram but the pattern didn't have really have cutting/sewing instructions, so I wrote and posted some here.

-------------


Susi (aka daveandsusi) is having us make blocks for her daughter's quilt. She requested a princess/fairy tale inspired block and I figured she needed a fairy! I got the pattern from Paper Panache since it was too cute to pass up. The whole block is 12.5" unfinished with the fairy part of the block just 6" finished.

------------
So, do you have any favorites of bunch?

December Quilting Bee Round Up

This month was an off month for Snip.Sew.Send, which gave me a little more breathing room.

To keep up with the Sew Kid at Heart bee, I made Ariel's spiderweb block. She sent a great set of fabrics and the tutorial she had us use was really straight forward. I can't wait to see this one done since it's going to be another stunner! Also, if you want some seriously cute fabric and illustrations, you have to see her etsy shop. My favorite is this beautiful illustration of a sewing machine and then has an actual quilt block coming out it.


For Traveling Threads, SweetLibertyGrace sent out fabrics from Michael Miller's Whimsy line (love the blues in this line!!) and asked for block from Quilters Cache. I picked Carol's Star and I loved this pattern. It's paper piecing, which I really like doing, but looking at it after it was done, I realized one of the pieces is reversed! I don't even know how I could've done that... I didn't have enough of the white print to fix it, so I suppose it's just going to be Amish-inspired! (with an "intentional" mistake) sigh.


I'm hoping to sew a bunch of things before I travel for the holidays, but end of the semester teaching stuff keeps getting in the way! My Christmas quilt is just begging to be worked on! Wish me luck!

November Quilting Bee Round-Up

This weekend I also got caught up on my quilting bees. This month, alexdk sent out Christmas fabrics for the Traveling Threads bee and asked for either wonky houses or log cabin style blocks. I've been wanting to do a wonky house and REALLY wanting to do wonky trees (check out the ones I got from RuthieQuilts) so I free-pieced this block (12.5" square):



Gretchen from Snip.Sew.Send is working on a "Jewel Squares" quilt and wanted blocks that are 2”, 3.5”, 6.5” and 9.5”. I love the fabric she sent and these little blocks are really addicting. The pictures don't really do the colors justice (it's been cloudy all weekend), but  I think this quilt will be spectacular! Here are the blocks I made (6.5" and 9.5"):



I'm also plugging along with the Sew Kid at Heart bee. I'm hoping that I can have most (if not all) of the blocks done in January before the next semester starts. This weekend I made these string blocks for a quilt Leslie (aka TwentyEighthStreet) is making for her son. The colors are really great.

A week behind

I'm a week behind with my posts. I finished these blocks weekend before last, but with how busy I've been with teaching this semester, I didn't get to posting last week. So here are the blocks I made for my quilting bees for September.

This one is for Lisa at The Blue Dress for snip.sew.send. She sent a bunch of fabrics and asked for 10.5" scrappy blocks that used all the fabrics and had at least one star. I had a lot of fun playing on the proportions of the wonky stars and I really like all the little pieces. I've been sketching more ways to play with the proportions and I think I'm going to make a mini quilt like this with some Neptune fabric.



And this one's for Viv (aka Highway Cottage) for Sew Kid at Heart. She sent these flannel fabrics for her son's quilt. The block is huge (15.5")!! I had a little trouble keeping my seams an even 1/4" with the flannel, but I'm still happy with it and it's been sent all the way to New Zealand!



I almost finished a spooktacular quilt this last weekend and I'm excited to post about it! Since it's been rainy and cloudy, I'm going to wait till I have the binding on and take some sunny daytime photos.

Witches and wonky stars

I promise I'll show some more interesting projects soon, but at the moment there are just lots of Spooktacular Witches. I figured photo of a bunch of identical blocks might be a bit boring, but you can trust they all look pretty much the same.

In other news though, I got an amazing witch from Deana who I did a personal swap with. She's huge and is going to be great on the pieced back I'm hoping to do on the back of the quilt!



I also sent these cute wonky stars to Tacha (aka Hanies) for the Sew Kid at Heart Quilting Bee. She's doing an animal/star quilt for her daughter. I added the Lizzy House ducks since I thought they fit the theme well. I had a bit of trouble with these little ones keeping my seams an exact 1/4" but I love how they turned out and it was completely worth the trouble! They're about 6.5" square.

I heart mail

Yesterday was an exciting mail day. My parents recently went on a trip to Seattle and my mom sent me some goodies from their adventure. The highlights were a couple of books. My mom stumbled upon Undercover Quilts and picked up the quilting book. It's perfect since it's my first book on quilting and has lots of basic blocks, but in more modern colorways. The other book she found at Pike's Place Market and I think it's brilliant... I whole book on mac and cheese!



I also got some great rubber stamps from Mayberry Sparrow/Corrrabelle on etsy and used them to make some new flat notecards. With all the swaps and mail, I'm regularly using notecards for the first time in my life. I figure it will be cheaper in the long run to own my own stamps and make ones I really like than to keep buying cute notecards pre-made (I'm clearly my mother's daughter). Though, these sewing ones did catch my eye on etsy.



I'm still new to this whole idea of stamping, do any of you have tips on getting the hedgehog to stamp a little better?

Finally, over the last month, the mail has brought me all of these fantastic bugs from the Sew Kid at Heart quilting bee. More will be trickling in as the year goes on, but I'm already really excited to put this together. The way they're lined up in the photo, it kind of looks like a class photo or yearbook. :) The extra bugs in jars came from Viv (aka Highway Cottage) who had them leftover from some projects she did. They'll probably make great pieces for the back.

Another block and a new project

I made another block for the Sew Kid at Heart Quilting Bee. This block is for Adrienne (aka Arnden's Space). She's making a quilt for her next little one. I love how bright the fabrics she sent are!



I used a paper piecing pattern called Hawaii. It seemed perfect since I wanted to do a star-type block and I've had a bit of a Hawaii obsession lately... I just really want to go! The "Quilter Cache" site is an awesome resource and you can even search for patterns by the size of the finished block, which is great for bees.

I'll probably make a second block, but first I have to figure out something else fun for these great fabrics!

------------------------------

Jon and I are planning a new project to make together. It's going to be a baby quilt for his sister. She's expecting a girl!



We're going to use the Alexander Henry 2D Zoo for the backing and the appliques from the book on the top. The plan is to do something that has a hint of pink, but is just generally bright and fun!

Monster Blocks!

I got another set of blocks done for the Sew Kid at Heart Quilting Bee! These ones were a ton of fun! Mari (aka Midland-Design) is having us work on a quilt for her 9-year old who requested a "monster quilt". There were no guidelines or instructions, so here's what I came up with.

One little monster


...and a monster going "RAR!" I debated about putting words, but since I don't know exactly how things translate into Norwegian, I held off. I tried curves for the first time and it went pretty well. I'm not convinced I'd want to do it all the time, but it's a nice one to have in the toolkit.




Finally, a taste of the Watkins Glen State Park gorge trail. It was breathtaking!

Sew Kid at Heart is underway!

The wonderful madness that is the Sew Kid at Heart Quilting Bee has begun. The way this one is structured is that everyone sends out fabric at the beginning and then you can work through the different blocks in your own order for a year. I've received 4 of the 14 packages so far.

Here are two blocks I did for Kerri (aka mayaeliseboutique). You should definitely check out her blog/photostream, she makes beautiful creations (many involving gnomes!). We're making a quilt for her 3 year-old who's really into cars. It was fun to do and she sent amazing fabric. I hadn't really worked with linen before, so that was also awesome.


The second block was a little more improvisational and I got to use the super cute robots!



Also, Mari (aka Midland Designs) from Norway finished a block for me and I couldn't be happier. This little guy's just so adorable!

Swaps galore!

As you may have noticed on my side bar, I've joined a virtual quilting bee. Ours is called Snip.Sew.Send.

The way this works is that 12 people commit for a whole year to make quilts together. Each month one quilter sends fabric to the other 11, who make a block for that quilter and send it back. The quilter then assembles them all into a quilt. My month isn't until February, thank goodness since I don't have my mind wrapped around what I want to do. It'll also give me a chance to see what other people send out and get some ideas.

---------------------

I've also joined another quilting bee, but this ones is just for kid-themed quilts. It's called Sew Kid at Heart and it's over on flickr. Although I don't have kids and am not planning on having any before I finish up grad school (which will be a while), I love kid fabrics and often the designs are so whimsical, so needless to say I'm excited. For this one, everyone is sending fabric at the same time (in June) and each quilter works on a block of their choice each month and all of the quilts will be complete by the end of the year.

I found a pattern I'm pretty excited about with "bug critters". They're super cute and I think they can allow for a bit of fun and creativity for my fellow quilters. I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to put the group of them together, but this quilt by ...dotty... on flickr has me inspired. It has similar bugs and a great colorway. Don't you love it??


I bought these green fabrics for the bugs and I think I'm going to buy a black solid for the background. Once I get all the pieces I'll see how I want to sash the little buggers, but I'll probably end up doing something in really bright colors.


---------------------

Finally, I finished my mini quilt for my Swap Til You Drop partner. Here's a little preview.

I'll post more about after my partner gets it since I don't want to ruin the surprise. I'll just tell you that I tried out all kinds of new techniques and I'm ridiculously proud of myself for finishing my first quilt on my own!!