Wednesday WIP

It's already Wednesday again and time for a progress report. I didn't manage to squeeze in much quilting this week though. Instead I'm spending a lot of time drooling over browsing though all the amazing quilts at Amy's quilt festival. 

This week I picked up an old project - the 60 degree triangles quilt. I had hoped to finish it before the festival (ever the optimist as I am) but didn't make it in time. The top itself was finished this summer and  it was picking up dust at the shelf. This week I finally basted and quilted it and I'm now adding the binding.

As soon as I pulled it out I immediately fell in love all over again with the  Terrain fabric line. Even if just from one line it doesn't have that 'matchy' feeling to it and I just adore the graphical exprerssion and bright colors.

The binding is my very last of the polka dot fabric left from the square-in-a-square quilt from last year. No more polka dot bindings for a while... I promise.

I just got myself a package of Clover's Wonder Clips. Fantastic... Less fiddeling with the binding and it makes it so much faster to sew.

 

 

Things I didn't do this week:

• Lark EPP quilt - unfortunately  - I've had next to no tv time this week so no progress
• Diamond Chevron QAL - I really did mean to work on this but ended up finishing the 60 degree quilt instead. Next in line though :)

Linking up with Lee's WIP Wednesday

Blogger quilt festival.... a family quilt

Amy is once again hosting the quilt festival. It's great fun and a golden opportunity to see new quilts and visit new blogs. I've been working on a quilt for the festival but then life happened and I didn't finish it in time.

So instead I want to show you another recent finish. It's not a grand quilt in any way, but a real scrap project made from leftovers from other projects and some pretty fugly fabrics I had in my stash.  Despite that it has quickly become the favourite quilt in our house.

In august I had no inspiration and felt a bit overwhelmed of life in general. I had bought loads of lovely fabric over the summer and felt completely indecisive about what to use them for. So I randomly started cutting 5" squares from my scraps... starting off with the reds and then moving to the blues... and with no real plan in mind. A giant pile of HST's later I finally decided on the layout. The background is super thick fleece and the batting is cotton. Thus it's a heavy, but also very warm quilt.. Everything except the batting is made from scraps and leftovers from other projects.

The quilt was immediately put to good use in our living room - even before I managed to get any pictures of it. At 2x2 metres the kids fast calculated that it fits one adult AND two kids perfectly. They've been snuggling up under it with me or their dad EVERY night since I finished it.

Today however I decided to get a picture in daylight for the quilt festival and asked the kids to help me. My kids are pretty tall for their age. It's great being tall - both in basketball and when I need helpers to hold up quilts. But sometimes, just sometimes a simple photo shoot goes ga-ga... Like today. Granted, it was quite windy and cold so there was limited desire to help me.

It started off fine but then....Ups...  My youngest boots and legs are showing as the quilt lifts from the ground.

Two seconds later he goes: "It's cold... More pictures, really? Enough already."

"I'm being annoying and I know it. Are you sure we're not done yet?"

"Well, if you insist on taking more pictures we'll hold the quilt like this instead. It's much warmer anyway"

At this point I started thinking of the consequences of dirty boots and two goofy kids. And I finally gave up taking any pictures and sent the kids back inside again.

So no pretty, stylish pictures for this round of the festival... Just a big warm quilt and some goofy children. But then... Isn't that exactly what a family quilt is all about?

Thanks for stopping by :)

Quilt Stats:
Size: 80"x80"
Fabric: Scraps and fugly fabric, cotton batting and super thick fleece backing (also made from various scraps)
Special Techniques: None really except if you count no planning as a technique
Quilted by: Me.
Best Category : Scrap quilt, Throw quilt
Number: 31

Wednesday WIP

This week's good news is that the scrappy warm/cold quilt is done. I haven't had a chance to take any pictures yet - it is in constant use.  I really thought this girly quilt would mean I could keep it to myself., but so far I've had no luck with that. My sons are happy to report that it fits two adults OR even better one adult and two kids perfectly. And they don't seem to mind one bit that it's quite a girly quilt. Ah okay. I admit... I love snuggling up with them too... and I love that they want to use what I'm making... but don't tell them  ;)

Below a few pictures from the basting. It has a super thick fleece backing (also scrappy as you can see) and a cotton batting. It means it's quite a thick and heavy quilt... and I find basting that easier on a table. It's not what I would call an esthetic beautiful backing I guess but just how we like it. I made a dark grey/white polka dot binding on it. Not completely sure it was the right choice in retrospect... but I'll live with it. It is after all a scrappy quilt from start to finish. More pictures of the finished quilt will follow once I manage to get the kids out from under it.

Son #1 tested the size right after the basting... and immediately approved it.

  

This week I also finally made some headway on the chevron QAL. I'm way behind but this is how  my design wall looks right now. It goes together in no time, so hopefully I'll be catching up the the others by the end of this week.

Then I also made the October Bee Europa blocks. Joanna had asked us to do some paper pieced letters in solids. I had a really hard time pulling myself together doing this round but now I'm done... Enough said.



That's it for mee this week. But be sure to visit Lee's blog for lots of other WIP's.

 

Scrappy HST's and not so scrappy HST's

2x2 metres of lovely scrapiness ready for some serious basting. It's a huge sofa quilt. However, in our house it's not at all uncommen to cuddle up two people under one quilt so it might just be the perfect size anyway :)

I bought some extra thick fleece backing. Today is an absolutely perfect autumn day with the softest light and small breeze but with this quilt we're (almost) ready to brace cold weather and long dark evenings.

With this one almost off the sewing table I'm ready to move on to the next project - the Chevron QAL. My fabrics are still in piles but now with pencil markings on the lighter fabric. In other words, I'm ready for chain sewing a lot of HTS's. So yes...another HTS project  :)  But very different from the one above.

One or four dimensions...

My blog has got to be the worlds smallest blog. A very quiet corner in an otherwise buzzing place. I see it mostly as my quilting business card. Those who follow will know I have two cheeky basket playing sons and a world-class hubby, who makes world-class caffe lattes for me every day. But there's also plenty of things that I don't share here, like my job, my values and my friends. I don't juice things up by talking about the other aspects of life here (not that it's very interesting anyway - I blend in with the masses pretty well). So I know that judging from this blog I will appear to be a one-dimensional woman. But then something unexpected happens. Today I found a lovely postcard from far, far away in my mail box. From someone I know only from quilting blogs. And I feel this overwhelming joy that someone out there has taken the time to write ME a postcard on a otherwise busy trip. And I want to say that even if I appear one-dimensional  most of the time, I'm really a four-dimensional person. And today I feel all 4 dimensions.

Thank you for making my day.

Now back to something quilting related  :)

Yesterday I finished my first bag. I've always shyed away from bags out of fear of failure. But a while I ago I saw a pattern that 1) didn't have any zippers and 2) really looked like my kind of bag.... 'All about Anna' from Lofts Creation. This weekend I saw a perfect fabric for the bag.  Just like 2 and 2 is 4 I had to start the bag.

It was actually not hard at all. The pattern was easily read and understood. And after about 2-3 hours of interrupted quilting (blame those darn basketball playing sons) I had a bag. Not knowing where to stop I of course had to make a coordinated key strap and a purse as well.

And this is me on a dark, rainy Sunday afternoon. Frizzy hair,  no make up, but very, very happy with my first ever bag :)

Wednesday WIP

Wednesday again... and a very good one I might add. The kids behaved like angles all week giving their old mama plenty of time, sweet hubby has made cafe latte for me every morning and every night and I've done a fair amount of quilting. Doesn't get much better than that here in my casa.

This week I started a new project - KD's quilt along. If you're looking for a fast and not too difficult yet satisfying project consider joining. I'm making a 'guy' quilt and using a mixture of  (I think) really cool fabrics. Love the Kaffe Fasset squares. The piles are high but to be honest I haven't counted the pieces. I'll make more if needed as I go along. (See KD's original quilt here)

This week I also started paper piecing again - the project stalled a bit this summer. I was considering to frame the EPP with borders but after a while realised that I wasn't done yet. So now I'm back at it... and enjoying it. It looks wrinkled here (and it is because I turn and turn it all the time) but I'm quite proud of my sewing this time. It is petite and accurate. I think once it's basted it will be really great.

I also started piecing my warm/cool scrap quilt. I'm halfway. It's not going fast to be honest but I enjoy it when I work on it. The wonders of the warm/cool effect still amazes me. Up cloce the individual blocks look really messy and uncordinated... and yet somehow in the big picture it works.



Last weekend I also finished the last two blocks of the Blogger BOM resulting in this - next month will all be about piecing. Looking forward to see Jackies suggestion:

Finally I made a few small bags - all from the really small cut offs from other project. I'm even using strips less than 1". It is so much fun making these:



Linking up to Lee's