The Place Holder Baby Quilt

 I am in love with how this little quilt turned out!  It was made by using two charm packs of Sandy Gervais's Flirt fabric line for Moda.  The pattern is Four Square Layer Cake Quilt by Sherri McConnell and is a free pattern over at Moda Fabrics.  The original pattern makes a 70"x 80" quilt, which I made back in 2012 for my mom's birthday.

When I found out my co-worker and his wife were expecting their first baby, I knew I would make a quilt.  I ordered a special print of fabric that the mother loved to use in the quilt.  Unfortunately, I knew it wouldn't arrive in time for me to make a quilt for the shower.  So I needed a cute quilt ASAP to use as what I call the "place holder" quilt.  It's a quilt.  And it's your quilt.  But it's not the original quilt I planned...it's still in the works...this is just a place holder.  Yes, you keep both quilts.  Only a quilter would think like that, right?

So, I quickly got to work on the place holder quilt.

I knew I wanted to stitch fun scallops in the border, so I opted for a larger sized border than what the pattern called for.  Bigger is better in most things.

I quilted all the curves using Natalia Bonner's 4-N-1 Mini Ruler.  All of the quilting was done using a 50wt light pink Aurifil thread.

To finish this one off, I opted for a flanged binding.  It's probably my favorite way to bind a quilt.

I am happy to report the quilt has been delivered and is patiently waiting on the little bundle of joy to arrive.  For me, I need to get to work on the "real quilt".  Arrival date for baby is mid January, so that's like a million years in quilter's math.

Garnet Fireburst

I am bursting at the seams over here!  I finally have my first (of 5) Fireburst Mystery Quilt finish!  This is technically the quilt that started it all.  It was to be my submission to a guild challenge using birthstone colors (I ended up using another project).  As I pieced the quilt together I kept thinking it would make a great mystery quilt and I think as a mystery it held up pretty good.  Today I want to talk about the quilting on this quilt.

Bohemian Baby Star Burst

Time to celebrate a long over due quilt finish!!  When a quilty friend of mine told me a few months ago she was expecting, I was so happy for her!!!  I know this baby will never grow up wanting for quilts, because it is being born into a family rich with quilters, but I had to make a quilt.  That's what we do!  After inquiring about how she intended to decorate the nursery, I knew these prints in Kate Spain's Voyage would be perfect; modern, fun and kind of bohemian.

Star Blossom is a beginner friendly, piece up quickly and an original design here in Wonderland.  If you'd like to learn more about it or pick up a copy you can find it here in my Craftsy Store.

Baby Quilt Finish

I'm celebrating a quilt finish today and it feels good.  As of right now, it doesn't have a name.  This was due to be the next quilt pattern release for Wonderland, but due to some technical difficulties, that has been delayed, but we won't get into that.  It's neither here nor there.  I still want to share this fun finish.

Garnet Star Crystal

I can finally cross this one off the list and call it finished.  Though it hasn't been hanging around for to long, as far as WIP's and UFO's go, I have set it down a few times to work on other things.  This is my version of Yvonne at Quilting Jetgirl's Star Crystal Quilt.  How did this mini come to life?

I introduced a challenge to guild members to create something in their birth month colors to be revealed at our June meeting.  Being a January baby, meant my project would be full of rich dark brownish reds, representing the garnet.  I have to admit, this has never been my favorite color and I wasn't necessarily turning cartwheels at the idea of my color palette.  Then I found a pretty paisley fabric that would allow me to stay true to the concept but sneak in a few more colors...like blue.

 I decided to use an original design by myself and David.  I cut all my pieces and quickly went to work.  Standing back and admiring my work, I couldn't help but think, man this would make a great mystery quilt.  I talked the idea over with the mister who said, go for it!  So I did and Fireburst Mystery Quilt (going on now here) was born.  However this left me, the thrower down of the challenge, without a challenge project.  So back to the drawing board.

I needed something quick and easy.  I've been wanting to make the Star Crystal Quilt for quite some time and decided this would be the perfect opportunity.  Instead of the whole quilt, I went with just one block.  Lucky for me, I had just enough fabric left over from Fireburst to pull the one block wonder off.  Well I didn't of that deep red, but did of a more medium tone.

Once I was able to focus on the quilting, I was able to quilt it in just a few hours.  I wanted to keep my quilting threads matchy matchy with my fabrics.

My weapons of choice was Aurifil #2021 Natural White for the yummy Moda Grunge fabric and Aurifil #2460 Dark Carmine Red and, my personal favorite, #2260 Wine.  This is probably the only time it is acceptable to spill wine on a quilt...and spill Wine I did...all over that delicious dark red fabric.

I started in the background fabric first.  I knew I wanted straight lines and lots of them.  I just love the texture it gives. 

A little dot to dot ruler fun in the darker sections of the star.

Just for fun I added some continuous curves and pebbling in the other star points.  I have to admit the paisley fabric threw me for a loop...or swirl...or what ever paisleys actually are.  I didn't want to spend much time putting a filler in there because chances are the fabric is so busy you wouldn't see it.  So I went with straight lines like in the background.

I LOVE all the quilty texture I was able to cram into this little one.  After all that quilting and Aurifil Wine, I was drunk and in love.

I was able to finish this one in time for the local quilt show, but we will talk about that in another post soon.  Now I will bombard you with quilt pictures but I promise quilty goodness as well. 

I cannot wait to reveal my challenge project at the meeting next month and see what everyone else came up with.  Super Dave has his project pieced and if he doesn't quilt it soon, I may just have to steal it and quilt it for him.  Hopefully, the ladies will give me permission to share their projects with you as well.  Does your guild participate in challenges?  I'd love to hear about it.


Today I'm linking up with TGIFF, and Can I Get A Whoop! Whoop!

**As of Friday, blogger doesn't seem to be emailing of comment notifications and I am currently trying to figure out how to reply to comments by email without their help.  If you do not hear from me, know that I appreciate your comments and I'm tring to figure out how to fix this.  Hopefully, Blogger will fix it as well.**

Star Cross #2 Finished

Another one off the list!!!  I actually finished this version of Star Cross a few days before the end of the year.  I just didn't brave the cold snowy weather to take pictures.  Oh what a difference 24 hours can make.  I have non snow and snow pictures to show.

If you are looking for a quick easy project to practice ruler work on, this one is a great one.  Geraldine at Living Water Quilter hosted a quilt along for the project, walking you through the steps of quilting it using a straight quilting ruler.  You can find it here.

This time around, I decided to add borders to the mini quilt to make it a bit bigger, 30" square.  I also added hanging tabs to the back, so that it could be used as a wall hanging or possibly a table piece.  It will either be gifted, or donated to the next cause that calls my name.

I still have one more of these to quilt up.  David made a version of the small quilt right before I made this one.  I may try to quilt his a bit differently and may even ask him to draw me up a quilting plan.  But it will have to wait for a little bit, other projects are calling for my attention right now.

If you know someone who is new to quilt blogging or has been thinking about starting one up, please let them know the 2018 New Quilt Bloggers Blog Hop will be having sign ups starting February 1st.  If you or someone you know has been blogging for less than 3 years, you can sign up (even if you participated last year).  I promise it will be a good time!

If you have been blogging for more than 3 years, I hope you will consider following along and supporting this years new group of quilting peeps.  I think I've made new friends every year thanks to the blog hop, just hopping around and getting to know the bloggers.  Plus there will be prizes...and who doesn't love those??  More info will be coming soon as we are finalize the details for this year's hop.

For now I'm going to celebrate this small UFO victory and prepare for our linky party starting on Saturday.  What will you be working on?  Are you tackling a UFO or WIP?  Are you distracting yourself and completely ignoring them?  I hope to find out just what you are up to this weekend.  So write up a post and feel free to join me.  

Today I'm linking up with Let's Bee Social and Midweek Makers.

Roundabout--A Finish

Where to start with this quite unexpected finish?  This little quilt is a UFO from a little ways back, basted and forgotten, until now.  There is a whole bunch of things that leave me scratching my head as to the existence of the quilt at all.  Like why did I buy this charm pack?  A good sale maybe?  I couldn't even remember the name of it.  After an image search of the fabric turned up nothing on google, I turned to Pinterest with the words "Moda Fabric whale tales," and low and behold the third image was from this charm pack.  That lead me to the words Sea Salt.  Then back to google with "Moda Fabric Sea Salt" and bam, this picture and the fabric line name...Salt Air.

How is that for blind luck?  I'm guessing this fabric line came out in 2012 (based on finding a pattern featuring the fabric on Moda Bake Shop).  I probably pieced the quilt top around 2013/2014 after purchasing the book 101 Fabulous Small Quilts by The Patchwork Place.

No clue why, but I decided to piece this little charm pack into a relatively quick and easy pattern called, Roundabout.

There appeared to be some sloppy seams as I quilted it, and I vaguely remember there being some partial seams involved i the quilt's construction.  But hey, we all have to start somewhere.  And so the story of this quilt pretty much goes into a coma after being pieced.

After making a list of UFO's at the end of last year, I was feeling super pumped and decided to baste several quilts in the early spring.  If it's basted you have to quilt it, right?  Wrong.  It's still just been hanging out in a pile waiting.  I have had zero and I mean ZERO quilting inspiration when it comes to this quilt.  Is it bad that I felt nothing...yikes, that sounds harsh. 

Let's skip to last weekend.  David had just enjoyed yet another quilt top finish, while I was starting to feel a bit overwhelmed by quilting the Butterfly Meadow Mystery quilt.  So as I was stitching, this little fellow popped into my head.  Figuring he could use some practice quilting, why not pawn it off  offer it to him to practice quilting on.  (More like I'm quilting for you, you can quilt for me)

To my surprise on Sunday, he presented me with this drawing as a quilting option.

Well, now, isn't this interesting.  I kind of liked it.  It's different.  He offered to quilt it, pointing out it would take him longer than it would me to accomplish it, but since is was getting late I wanted to think on it.

By the next morning, as much as I loved the drawing (wouldn't this make a great mini quilt too!), I wasn't sold on all those lines with the "o" shapes.  So I messaged Sandra at mmm!quilts with all the information and she had the same reaction I did, it needs curves or swirls or something.  Taking into consideration we share a brain, I had to ask myself, are we right?   I like to preach, "there is no wrong way to quilt a quilt."  So was I being a bit of a hypocrite, even though I wasn't feeling it?

I came up with a second test, Julie at Pink Doxies.  I've found that she and David share similar tastes when it comes to quilting.  I texted the same information to see what her thoughts were.  I decided if she likes it, I'm going for it (I needed a break from the Butterfly Quilt and decided this little project might be a great recharger).  If she said, eh, back to the drawing board.  Guess what?  She loved it.

So Monday evening, quilting commenced.  David's design required absolutely no marking and could easily be achieved using quilting rulers.  My thread choice was Aurifil 2021 Natural White.  I could tell you I chose this thread because, as a white, it is a wonderful neutral and would play nicely across the quilt (which it does), but the fact that my machines (piecing and quilting) where already threaded with this colored helped too.  I could have just as easily chose 2908 Spearmint or even 2405 Oyster.  My point there are always lots of choices.

After a few laps around the quilt with my walking foot I headed to my Handi Quilter Sweet Sixteen to finish up.  After I had the bottom section finished, I pulled it off to have a look.

Not bad at all, though it's really hard to see some of the details.  Several interruptions later I had a finished quilt top.  A quick trip to the quilt shop at lunch and I was able to find a solid fabric that matched the quilt pretty nicely.  After dragging myself in after the homecoming parade and pep rally, a quick stop at the Dollar General (non quilting related) and five 2 1/2" strips later, I had myself a bound mini quilt and one item crossed off a list of many.

This finish feels GOOD.  I really didn't have any expectations for this little project, but I absolutely love how it turned out.  If you are having trouble figuring out how to quilt something, don't be afraid to ask a quilting buddy for help.  Most importantly, don't be afraid to step outside your comfort zone.  Sometimes the vision of someone else isn't as clear to us in the beginning.

This little 20 minute photo shoot happened right after getting off of work and rushing to my friend's house for a little evening out.  Last night she and I went to a live production of The Rocky Horror Picture show performed by our local theater group.  The same group that preformed the musical Quilters two years ago.  Talk about two very different shows, but one AMAZING group of performers.

Needless to say, a good time was had by all.  We knew many of the performers in the show and virgins that were drug to the stage.  If you have ever seen a live performance you will understand that last reference.  Sometimes you just need an evening to let go and have fun.  Thank you Lori for dragging me out of the house and making me be social.  When left to my own devices, I would have chose my sewing machine.

Today I'm linking up with TGIFF, Finished or Not Friday and Can I Get A Whoop! Whoop!