Ridiculously Small Granny

Mini Granny, a photo by simple girl, simple life on Flickr.

I joined another couple doll quilt swaps on Flickr. At this point you would be correct in assuming I am officially a doll quilt addict. For me they are surprisingly satisfying.

This particular block is for a round of the DS Quilts Doll Quilt Swap, where the only requirement is using any and all prints of Denyse Schmidt. For the record she would be my one and only fabric crush!

I am trying to stretch myself in all things creative, so for this project I am trying super tiny piecing. This block is, of course, the wildly popular granny square block from Blue Elephant Stitches. I chose to stay out of the granny square madness that was going on awhile back but now that it has died down a bit I'm ready to give it a go.

I started with 1.5 inch strips so this block finishes somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 inches. That  means each square is 1 inch finished.  Ridiculous, I know, but you have no idea how giddy it makes me to have such tiny blocks! Does that qualify me as a quilting nerd?? I think so. But I'm good with that. :) 

I've got a few more blocks to make before I'm finished. Then it's back to brainstorming for the last doll quilt swap I joined. Wish me luck...

The Last of the Red Blocks

  I had a goal of getting all the red blocks for my Anniversary Quilt set in a top before my last club meeting in February. Buuut...That didn't happen.

After laying out my original 15 or so blocks from my ladies I felt like I needed to make a few more to increase the finished size a bit.  I think I needed to make 6 more blocks for an even 20.  That would give me a nice 4 x 5 layout, as well as being a nice big throw size.

Here are the last three blocks I made!!

(I'm definitely ready to tie this project up as it's been almost a year in the making.)

The whole feel of this quilt is going to be "scrappy sampler" so I tried to add a variety of blocks.  I think these will go well with my others.

After all my tiny paper piecing madness on my doll quilt, I decided to enlarge the block pattern to make a 12.5 inch block.  I really love it!  My quilt club ladies wanted me to teach them some simple paper piecing techniques, so this is the block I taught them at our last meeting.  :)

A little improv...

I still need lots of practice, but who doesn't love a little improv now and then?

 And my personal fav: geese in a circle block.
I've made it at least three other times and am still not tired of it.

So there your have it.  By the time we get back from our sewing weekend these blocks will be in flimsy top form.  Yeah!
I'll show you next week when I get back...

Emily

BTW: I'll be posting up-to-the-minute photos of our weekend on instagram if you want to follow all the fun!  I am @ simplegirlsimplelife.

A Queen-Sized Preview

Besides doll quilting, most of my January was spent turning this lovely stack of fabrics

into this MONSTER of a quilt for my daughter's new room.

She is ecstatic about how it's turning out, which you know, as a mother is all that really matters.  To top it off, in Math she has been learning about proportions and fractions via quilt blocks.  Awesome, right?!  My daughter was able to take in her quilt to show her class one day last week, which made her super happy.  Her teacher was very sweet and made a huge deal about it, even letting her take it around to the other 5th grade classes for some show and tell.
Teachers can be so awesome...  As can learning about fractions with quilts.

Emily

Scrapper's Delight -- A Bowtie Block Top

Over Christmas break I pulled out some UFO's and tried to make a little headway on them. 

First up were my bowtie blocks which have been sitting around for some time now.  

They were in various stages of completion and needed just a few final touches.

After cutting and sewing my little heart out, my blocks...

turned into this lovely top.

It's not the prettiest quilt I've ever made, but definitely a scrapper's delight.
I think it finishes somewhere in the neighborhood of twin sized.  That's seems to be my go-to-size as of late.  But since we like BIG quilts to snuggle with I'm sure no one will be complaining.

I have no idea how I will finish it off or who the recipient will be, so for now it will go into the closet until I figure that out.  But another WIP checked off the list. Yea!

 

Happy Scrapping!

Emily

P.S. Another round of the Bowtie Block Swap is going on now.  Check out the flickr page for sign-ups and details.

Block directions Here.

Goals: Out With the Old, In With the New

(This picture has nothing to do with anything.  Just some random picture of me on my birthday in a pose we like to call the "Flaming Inferno."  Just light up the candles, turn off the lights, and snap a picture minus the flash. Ta-da!  Flaming Inferno. Believe me, it gets better with age!)

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I love looking back over the previous year's accomplishments/failures and taking stock for the new year.  I wanted to update my goals for 2013, if only for my own personal record keeping, so bear with me while I do just that. :)

2012 was a pretty productive year for me.  I made somewhere in the ballpark of 20 quilts and I-don't-know-how-many bee blocks.  (I'm pretty sure that won't happen again this year.)  Here's a look back on the goals I set for myself last year how I did:

*Definitely one (maybe two!) scrap quilts for the year.  I think I got this one covered!  I made at least 3 baby scrap quilts as well as my Paint Box Blocks quilt.

*A few "Solids Only" projects I've got brewing in my head.  I have an Amish Buggy top started and finished a doll quilt

*Finish my Grandma Quilt   Here

*And a bed quilt for me and the hubs.  (Barely got this started in 2012, but it is on the top of my list for 2013.)

 

 I'm guessing I will be a bit less productive in 2013 as I have made a conscience decision not to get too caught up on quantity.

So my goals for 2013 will again be simple. I want to:

*Make another "solid's only" quilt

*Finish the low volume quilt for mine/hubs bed

*Make a quilt using only improv techniques

*Make a big-kid quilt for my 8 yr old son
*Keep on top of my WIP list
and

*Make a bed quilt for 11 yr old daughter's new room 

What about you... What are your sewing goals for this year?

 Here's to Fresh Starts!
Emily

Fabric Pull

We are smack in the middle of finishing our basement.  I'm sure if any of you have been through that process you know what a "joy" it can be.  My husband is doing all the work himself so the trade off of saving lots of money is that the process takes a bit longer than normal.  While I dream of the day we can actually live in a whole house and not a partial house (we've never lived in a house with a finished basement) there is lots of design planning/scheming going on in my head.  

  First off will be a new tween room for the 11yr old sans her 6 year old sister. She is my Hawaii loving daughter so a room with ocean colors is her request.
 (Her REAL request was a room with turquoise and lime walls...Um, no!)

  We did a little fabric pull over the weekend and came up with this lovely stack.

We started with the backing fabric.  I found it at JoAnn's and liked that it was in the colors she loved as well as being a big/bold print.  The rest of the fabrics came from my stash.  Some are long-hoarded pieces and some not.  But I love the mix of eclectic prints.   I'm thinking the quilt/color scheme should satisfy my need for "beauty" and her need for "bright" colors.

Happy New Year!

Emily

The start of something new...

I've had this stack of fabrics on my cutting table for quite some time now.  

They've been patiently waiting while I've finished up all my WIP's.  

Now that my list is completed I've finally given myself permission to cut loose on something totally new!

This will be a remake of a vintage quilt that my husband's grandma made many years ago from her old house dresses. It's a challenge project to myself.  Not because it's a hard project, but because it's a meaningful project.  Can I create the "feel" of her old quilt with these "new" fabrics?  

Only time will tell...

Bowtie Blocks

I needed to take inventory of my projects, so a little housekeeping was in order.  

Do you ever do that?

I pulled out my bowtie blocks to see where I was at with that project.

 After 2 rounds of swapping I found I have a total of fifteen completed 12" blocks.

 It's quite the eclectic mix of fabrics, don't you think?

But just as all scrap quilts end up, those "eclectic" fabrics soon become a beautiful mix of color that blend seamlessly.

I'm hoping for a good-sized throw so a few more rounds of swapping should get me there.

What swaps are you doing these days??

Emily

A Dresden Collage

  August was my month for my Bee Vintage Group.  I asked the ladies to make me Dresdens.

This week I did a little mock up of the blocks I've received so far.   I'm excited about how it's coming together. 

A dresden is one of those patterns that involves lots of pieces, so having others help you make them (in the form of a bee) is awesome!  I'm not sure I'd ever tackle a whole quilt like this on my own.

 I really want to turn these into a bed quilt for my daughters' room.  Am I crazy?  I'm kind of panicking over all the white in the background.  Surely no 6 yr old could keep it clean, huh?  But it would look so pretty... What to do, what to do?!

Emily

UPDATED: Finished quilt can be seen HERE.

New Project

Look what I tried this week!

I'll post pics of the finished project on Saturday...

Fabrics:  Lucy's Crab Shack and Cherry Christmas
Tutorial From Aneela Hoey

Getting My Improv On

I will admit that I am not much of an improv/wonky thinker.  Especially in my sewing life.  

It sort of scares me a bit. Or should I  say... a LOT!  

We all grew up sewing clothing, so precision and accuracy are critical skills if you don't want your clothes to "look" homemade.   Those skills work well for quilting, too, but maybe not as much for improv/wonky type things.  You need to be a bit more "free-thinking."  I'm trying, but I'll admit it's hard to unlearn some of that.  

So I am challenging myself to some improv this week.

These are my slabs made using the technique from the Sunday Morning Quilts book.  I was going to turn them into scrap boxes as suggested, but I'm sort of hung up on another idea I have brewing... So maybe boxes, and maybe not.  We will see.  But I'm happy with how they turned out.  Quite addicting!
  
How do you feel about improv?

Emily

Colorful

I started working on the layout for my Amish Blocks this week.  I found that because of the layout I chose I needed to make a few more blocks to fill in the blanks.  It took me awhile to settle on color combos for those blocks since I was trying to balance all the colors out.  I'm not sure that I succeeded, but the extra blocks were made and inserted none the less.

I'm going with a 6 by 8 layout which gives the finished dimensions of 48" by 64."  I want it to end up a twin so I'm going to add some borders to round out the size.  Hopefully the vision I have in my head translates to well to reality.  Right now I'm only seeing blocks that I probably should've shuffled around and didn't... Oh well. I don't unpick.

While the blocks have been hanging out on my sewing room floor my oldest (13yr old son) has been saying things like, "Wow, that's a colorful quilt!" each time he walks by.  When I ask him if that means he likes it, he says, "Ya, it's cool...it's just that it's reeeaaally colorful."

Maybe the Amish would scoff at my interpretation, but I think it's coming along beautifully.  

Kind of reminds me of the 80's a bit, too.

It's definitely bright!

Emily

P.S. I'm loving Amber's version.  It was an idea from Quilty magazine.  If we do a 2nd round for this swap I am going in that direction for sure!  Jodi's is going true 80's style! Also, a cool one.  :)

Another Amish Buggy Blocks Update

Just a quick update for those playing along:
The deadline for mailing blocks is fast approaching. (Please mail by MONDAY July 16th) Blocks have been arriving in my mailbox and they are beautiful!  I am pretty excited to start swapping.  Again, the flickr group is providing lots of eye candy in the form of finished blocks if you need some motivation.

Here are the blocks that Renae and I have made so far:

Blocks by Renae

Blocks by Emily

Also, I am trying to get my mailing address to a few participants (over yonder and krum family)

but can't seem to find your emails on your blogs or profile. If you email me I will give it to you right away so you can send your blocks.  Thanks!  emilylovesbaskets@msn.com

Stop the Presses!

I've managed to make a quilt using a single line of fabric!

It's a first for me.

It's also my oldest work in progress.

(from 2010)

To be honest, I'm still not a huge fan of single line quilts, 

but this line has a very "retro/vintage-y" feel.  

You know I love that! 

Fabric is American Jane Snippets by Sandy Klop

Directions from Moda Bake Shop

UPDATED:  You can find the finished quilt HERE.

Stained Glass

Yay!

Another WIP that can be crossed off the list.

This is the original idea I had for my blushing squares.

Updated:  Finished Quilt Can Be Seen Here