wip wednesday: bee block redux

Last year I decided I only wanted to do one bee. More than that and I felt like all my sewing time was spent on making blocks for others.

My local guild, the Fort Collins Modern Quilt Guild, was the perfect choice. Since all the bee mates are friendly, there's no stress if a block is late and best of all, no postage since we just bring them to the meetings.

Here are all the bee blocks I photographed! Sometimes in my haste to finish I fail to take pictures.


X and + Blocks for Jane:

Strip of strips for Michelle:

Spool Block for Beth:

Converging Corners block for Jody:

House block for Jamie (Jamie took this photo for me):

I'm also working on a second block for Jamie:

The downside of making all these blocks is that I love them so  much I want to make quilts out of them! Linking up with Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday.

for a good cause

***The raffle is now closed. You can still donate to a good cause, though!***

I'm sure by now you've heard about the floods in Colorado. Our family is fine and we personally didn't experience flooding, but many near us have. The devastation left in the wake of the floodwaters is staggering. Clean up and recovery are going to take a lot of time and money.

A member of my quilt guild, Karen, is raffling off a quilt to encourage donations to the local United Way Relief Fund. Please visit her blog for all the info and to enter... the quilt she's giving away is awesome!!

finish it up friday: oh my stars!

Oh my stars, it's done (as of about 15 minutes ago)! I'm so pleased with this finish!

 

This quilt is going to show at the Rocky Mountain Quilt Festival in August, as part of a display of quilts made by members of our quilt guild. It was well received at last night's guild meeting, even with the binding only half done! I still need to make a hanging sleeve and add a label.

I bought this adorable fabric to embroider my label. It's from the new Cosmo Cricket line "Baby Jane". So cute!

I even did a little texty quilting... if you look close here you can see "fcmqg bee".

Quilty Stats:
Name: Oh My Stars
Measurements: 48"x73"
Pattern: Block pattern from Ellison Lane, pieced by various members of the Fort Collins Modern Quilt Guild in 2012 and 2013. Quilt top designed by SewDemented and myself. Top assembled and quilted with a crazy loopy stipple by me!
Fabrics: Too many to list! But the background is Kona White. Binding is a gray tone on tone chevron from JoAnn. The back is lots of fat quarters from my stash.

Linking up with Amanda from Crazy Mom Quilts for Finish it Up Friday, and Quilt Matters for TGIFF!

wip wednesday: quilting and binding

I've been working on several projects lately: a quilt for my husband's boss, a quilt for a quilt festival in August, and a pillow from the MQG's Madrona Road Challenge fabric which is also for the quilt festival. I'm getting so close on all three projects!

Last Saturday I rented time on a long arm quilting machine and quilted this massive 96" square quilt for my husband's boss. It looks so good! (I loved using the long arm and can't wait to do it again!) The binding is made for this quilt and just needs to be sewn on.

This next quilt is called "Oh My Stars", and is pieced from bee blocks made by the members of the Fort Collins Modern Quilt Guild during my months in 2012 and 2013. We used the Starflower block tutorial from Ellison Lane and then I (with ideas and inspiration from my friend Michelle) assembled the top. I really love how it turned out! I also love that I pieced the back from a rainbow fat quarters from my stash. This quilt is being basted right now, and the binding is ready and waiting, too. I need to get on it already!

(The punk has a habit of photo bombing.)

Last but not least, I'm working on two pillows from the (#itendedlongagoandthesearewayoverdue) Madrona Road Challenge that was sponsored by the Modern Quilt Guild earlier this year. Our guild plans to have a display of things made from Madrona Road at the quilt festival we are showing at in August.

I decided some English paper piecing (EPP) was in order, so I've got these designs basted and ready to be sewn to their backgrounds:

 

I probably should have at least ironed the solids before taking these photos. Whoops.

 

Linking up to Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday!

 

quilty love

I was so fortunate to be part of a group of women that made blocks and assembled a quilt for my sweet friend Penny. Every time I think about it I get overwhelmed at the vast amounts of love people put into these pieces of fabric and thread. It was an amazing international effort... the US, Canada, the UK, and Australia were all represented in a big quilty hug for Penny!

Kerry is the brains behind the whole thing; she got all of us together in one very secret Flickr group called Quilty Love and decided that we would use Penny's QAYG block tutorial.

I made three blocks:

 

 

 

 

I love how all three turned out, but the last one with the embroidered iron has a special place in my heart. I *really* love that one. :)

 

Tara generously agreed to assemble the quilt blocks. Michelle and I helped with pressing and sewing binding strips together.

We Skyped with Kerry last Saturday during our retreat and gave the quilt to Penny... everyone shed tears! It was wonderful. (Not the tear shedding part, although that was sweet, haha.) Penny was overwhelmed-- I think we all were-- and it was wonderful to let her know just how much we love her!

full quilt photos used courtesy of Penny!

 

The quilt is massive! Thirty-six blocks of quilt as you go goodness. I think Tara said it measured eighty-something square. And I love that the back is just as fun as the front!

weekend retreat

Oh, I love love love sewing with friends! Our retreat (dubbed the Lollipop Guild Weekend) was so nice.

I actually made a pretty good dent in my weekend project list. Let's recap, shall we?

1. Ruby's Prince QAYG: I finished quilting one lonely block. Three left to go!

2. Bee Blocks for the 4x5: no progress :(

3. Handstitched Quilt: no progress. Gosh, it doesn't seem like I made any dent at all in this list, haha!

4. FCMQG Bee Block for Michelle: DONE!! And she loves it! This was my first Swoon block and it was a beast! Although now I'm excited to start my own Swoon quilt. :)

 

5. Football Blanket: DONE!! And it's super cute!
 

6. Scrappy Mini Quilt: Sketched out in my head. Does that count?

I worked on another awesome project that is still in progress... will share that later!

I do have to admit that by Sunday morning I was missing my sweet baby a whole lot, and I was ready to come home to her and my hubby! This was the first time I'd ever been away overnight.... I didn't do so bad, and Emma had lots of fun with her daddy. Thanks to my hubs for holding down the fort so I could get away!

i didn't go to sewing summit...

...but I am going to the very first Fort Collins Modern Quilt Guild retreat this weekend! I'm super excited to spend a weekend sewing with friends. I have a loooooong list of projects to work on:

1. Ruby's Prince QAYG: I started this one last November at a retreat with Amanda Jean. I'm determined to finish it soon!

this is one of the blocks from Ruby's Prince

2. Bee Blocks for the 4x5. I'm in the Hexy Hive this round and I'm enjoying a combination of English paper piecing and traditional piecing.

3. Handstitched Quilt: I'm in the middle of the embroidery phase in the white space of this quilt, and I'm loving the handwork! The class is long over, but I'm still plugging away.

4. FCMQG Bee block for a friend who's been waiting very patiently since June. :)

5. Football blanket... in progress and super cute!

6. A mini quilt for this contest.

It's ambitious, for sure, but hopefully I'll get to a good portion of it!

I'm linking up with Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday!

handmade for baby

The ladies of my quilt guild got together and made a quilt for Emma! I absolutely adore it!

Everyone made a different block, and then they were put together with a gray gingham and bound in a darker gray. It is so beautiful! Thank you so much to Tara, Jane, Penny, Michelle, Patti, and Adrienne!

The love continues... Michelle designed and made this awesome quilt using Little Apples! I love her fussy cuts! Every time I look at the quilt I find another little picture I didn't see before.

And Penny made this great changing pad and pouch! How did you know I needed another one? Plus, it's hard to see because my photography skills are less than stellar, but the center and the back both have ostriches with hearts. I love it!

Emma says "Thank you very much!" And Mama thanks you all, too! I really appreciate your thoughtfulness. :)

(I put a burp cloth under her head because you never know when she's going to spit up. SO glad I did!)

And this is Emma getting mad because the photo shoot has tested the limits of her patience. :)

cravings, hexagons and the nook

Hi friends! Sorry for the long absence. A lot has been going on, and precious little of it involves crafting. Growing a baby is HARD! Two more weeks until we find out what we're having. I'm sporting a small baby bump that I try to enhance as much as possible, so that I'll look pregnant and not just chunky. :)

Also, I think I've figured out my cravings... cereal (doesn't matter what kind) and chocolate milk shakes. Mmmmmm... I want a milk shake right now! I wonder if Hubby will stop and get me one on his way home from work?

A tiny bit of sewing has been happening... a couple of weeks ago we had a Modern Quilt Guild meeting, and Penny showed us how to piece hexagons. I made the cutest flower! I came home with  more hexagons, a bit of gorgeous fabric, and a hankering for MORE!

I finally tracked down an acrylic hex cutting template and I'm thinking I might do either a mug rug or a baby quilt with hexagons.

Switching to my third tangent of this post, (I can do that, I'm pregnant) (okay, I do that anyway) I got a nook last month and I LOVE IT! I was really nervous about buying an e-reader... I love the feel of holding a traditional book in my hand and was having a hard time with the idea of giving up the kinesthetic experience. Turns out it's really not that big of a deal... I also like that I don't have to connect the thing to my laptop to download my books, it's got wireless internet so I can do it automatically. Which is a good and bad thing, because I've already spent a ton of money on books. By the way, I'm not getting compensation for this, blah blah blah.

My only complaint is that in almost all of the e-books I've downloaded, there are a bunch of typos. It's so frustrating! I really think these things should be edited as well as a regular book and I hate seeing so many mistakes in the text.

modern quilt guild

Remember the quilt retreat I went to in November? Well, it turns out that several of the ladies who live locally had formed a chapter of the Modern Quilt Guild, and they invited me to join. Last Saturday was our first meeting of the new year, and five of us spent the day sewing and chatting.

I finished piecing and partially basted (I would have completely basted it but ran out of pins) Rory's quilt. Rory was born this past Sunday. Mom is a good friend from school. For her quilt I'm using an Eden charm pack by Lila Tueller for Moda.

I also started piecing Emily's quilt... Emily was born in late December and is the daughter of some of our college friends. Here, I'm using an It's a Hoot charm pack by MoMo for Moda.

Do you sense a Moda theme? I must have Moda fever, because I also have a Bliss charm pack and a Punctuation charm pack that I'm going to use next.

At any rate, I had a great time on Saturday! Next month we are going to learn to piece hexagons from Penny. I'm excited to learn something new!