Fans, progress, gift and sun

I am slowly making my way though this quilt. The colors are so wonderful to work with and I enjoy the hand sewing. 6 blocks down, 10 to go :)

Here's the layout - can't help but smile even with the bad picture below. Outside the sun is shining and it's the first warm spring day. Though not dark, the sun is just so strong that it makes everything else look dark. I love spring :)

I got a sweet little gift from my quilting friend - she had made me a folded needle book. Isn't it great? 

I'm totally in love with it. 

Quilt progress in pictures

A while ago I decided to do a string quilt. Not feeling the love of a traditional string block with muslin, I decided on making another stringy project  - as a fan quilt.

First deciding on the fabric - my left over Kate Spain fabrics screamed spring, summer and good mood to me, so that was an easy choice.

Then finding the inspiration and deciding on the placement of fans

Then cutting the strips

 

 

And then cutting a lot of 9 degree wedges

 

Sewing the wedges together in big  45 degree 20" fans

So far so good :) Next step is to figure out the background fabrics (Linnen? Small dots?) and start the appliqué.

This is an easy and fun project and I have a feeling this will end up being a really great quilt.

 

Becuase I'm using random size strips there has been very little measuremenst and no pinning so far, so it almost feels like cheating.

A great idea... The iron-caddy-board

 

I'm slowly adapting to my  new no-time-for-quilting-and-blogging-because-work-is-crazy lifestyle. And true to this style I now want to share a finish, that has actually been finished for a while. 

 

I was recently in beginning of February at a craft fair and saw a pattern for an iron caddy. I immediately thought of my friend Heidi and the two of us standing for a long time in a cold parking lot aftner a quilting class not too long ago, waiting for her iron to cool of before she could put it in the car. 

 

So I got this for her and in no time I had made the caddy, which also double function as a transportable iron board. Genious!

 

The pattern is from sisterscommonthread.com and holds enough bible quotes to make a girl like me blush. Well, bible quotes aside the pattern is really great. It comes with the heat resistant fabric included, so it's a bit pricier than other patterns.

 

The pattern it self was fairly easy. Reading through the pattern, I thought it was going to be more difficult than it was once I got started and did it step-by-step. In reality I had the bag ready in a few hours - including doing the binding.

 

 

 

I made the caddy in some Lark fabric. Heidi likes orange and green - I like blue. Perfect!  :) Now I'm just contemplating if I can live without one myself or not.