Show & Tell Tuesday - Wedding Quilt #4...

...and I hope the last of 2013!  I feel like all I've been doing this year is making wedding quilts!  This is another gift for my daughter to give a longtime girlfriend at her wedding next month.  The sleuthing revealed the couple likes neutrals.

So, I pulled a bunch of neutrals from my stash...

I started with this bunch which include some Essex linen blend fabrics for some good texture...

And this stack of Classical Elements from P&B Textiles (I just knew I'd find something great to do with these when I bought them months ago!)...

This stack didn't make the cut (but will be perfect for something else I'm sure!)...

I also pulled out this leftover brown from Bill's quilt for contrast...

And since this wedding is coming up very quickly, I needed a very easy pattern.  Luckily, I quickly found the Buttercup pattern from Heather Mulder Peterson's book Stop, Drop and Roll...

Obviously, my version will have a very different look ( and no applique!).  So, I cut all my strips...

and sewed and sewed and sewed for the last couple of weeks and this past weekend, I started quilting!

I'm using the Razor Grass panto.  It's a dense pattern, but it looks great.  A very modern design for this very modern quilt....

And, I got a bonus from this quilt....over a hundred of these!!

If I had time, I'd make a pillow or something to go with the quilt, but that's not happening.  So, all of these HSTs have been put safely away for another time!

I should also show off these great place mats I made for the bridal shower that took place last month (notice the neutral theme here too?)....

The bride said to my daughter (and I quote) "These are nicer than anything I could buy.  Your mom is unreal!"  I'll take that as the compliment it was meant to be - LOL.  I'm thinking she'll really like the quilt!  Not only did I make these four, but I also needed six more for a housewarming so I needed and easy pattern.  The six were brown, cream and blue and I am kicking myself that I didn't get a photo of them.  Use your imagination please - they really looked awesome! I used this tutorial by the awesome Alissa Haight Carlton.

I'm linking up with Randi's Show & Tell Tuesday.  You can see more great Show & Tell over there!
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And for all one of you who may care (Hi Luanne!), hubby and I were happy dancing around the kitchen a little while ago... we opened the mail today and saw this invitation regarding our upcoming Disney vacation.....

I've been scheming to try and get us invited to be testers for Disney's new "guest experience" program but didn't know how.  And they just picked us!  (Yes, us and I'm sure about 5,000 others-LOL)  Hey, Mickey, we'll be there soon!!! o:)

Summertime Sewing

I made some fun things this summer, not the least of which was this fabulous beach tote designed by Jill Finley from Jilllily Studio.  This was a free pattern on the Henry Glass website.

I saw the bag on one of Jill's blog posts and she promised it was super easy.  It was!  I decided I needed to make it immediately and went hunting through my stash and chose this fun print from the Twirl line by Me & My Sister for Moda.  I had a bunch of Mirror Ball Dots leftover and I picked out three matching colors and got sewing.  I already had a package of Soft & Stable on hand purchased for another project that never got started.  If you haven't used Soft & Stable, it was very easy to work with.  I'll definitely buy more.

Here is my bag modeling some quilting supplies!  Look at all of those great pockets - 6 in all - to hold whatever....

I needed some nice white cording for the handles and found some on eBay from tlollini.  Now I think it cost all of $2.98 or something for 3 yards.  Just plain old cording.  Look at the beautiful way it was packaged.....

It was like getting a little present.  I was very impressed, she could have just stuck this in an envelope and she went the extra mile!

I couldn't wait to show my bag to my daughter-in-law and I knew she'd fall in love with it.  She saw it, she fell in love and then she said "wouldn't it be cute in flip flop fabric?"  So, of course I went in search of cute flip flop fabric.  And, you know what?  There is lots and lots of cute flip flop fabric to choose from.  We settled on these two (one for the outside, one for the lining) and found matching chevron prints...

Too cute!!

Raqhel was sure stylin' at the beach this summer!

I however, didn't get to go the beach, so my bag still has quilt supplies in it - LOL!  (Don't feel too sorry for me - I've got a vacay coming up next month!)

String of Pearls Quilt-a-Long

My String of Pearls quilt...from beginning.....

to middle....

To quilting (and lmost another "Oops" with not enough batting!!)...

 to end!

You notice the black binding.  I was going to do a scrappy binding with all of the "pearl" colors, but hubby saw the quilt asked if it could be his.   I said sure, then he asked what I was binding it with.  He really preferred the black (he's seeing computer screens in this quilt NOT a String of Pearls - LOL!)  

I'll just keep that scrappy binding because I still have quite a stash of Pearl Bracelet fabrics to use it with!

I want to thank Christa from Christa Quilts for hosting this quilt-a-long.  It was a lot of fun and if you want to see some really creative takes on this pattern, go check out the Flickr site.  Very inspiring!!