A lot of pink and green

My quilting friends at work are making a baby quilt for a co-worker.  The past 5 babies have been boys.   We decided on wonky crosses again.  Here are the ones that I made.

 Here are the rest of them.

We sent the fabric around and made 2 or three each and then decided to go with 16 blocks today.  I was going to be first for the second round but then just decided to make up all 6 of the ones we needed since the large ones go together really quickly.  We didn't communicate what the finished size of the block should be so they currently range from 12.5 to 10.5.  Interesting math to put it all together.

Remade

The moral of the story, if it bothers me that much and it doesn't take that much time, I'll just make a new block.  
 Quilts for Boston.

Diamond Eye Pillow pattern from Quilting Modern.

Boston

I decided to take part in the two MQG efforts for Boston.  The Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild started "To Boston With Love" and the Boston Modern Quilt Guild is collecting quilt blocks.  

 The HST for the flags are left over from the Round and Round quilts.  Unfinished squares were 2 inches and a random length of white was added to the top and bottom to equal the 8.25" needed before stitching the flag together.  I'm hoping to send these in with a few more from people from the MQG in the area, but the first meeting isn't until Wednesday.  There are 102 people in the Facebook group and I'm curious how many will actually show up.  Should be interesting.

 This block for Quilts for Boston is based on the Diamond Eye Pillow in Quilting Modern.  I wish I would have used a royal blue instead of a navy just so it seemed to match the color scheme a bit better (there is navy in the fabric pull picture though). Unfortunately I didn't regret my choice until after I had trimmed it to 12.5" and I really don't want to try to perfectly match up everything to unpick and put in the royal.  In the pictures, it looks almost black, but it isn't.  I could always try to add in a royal blue line parallel to the yellow in the lower left corner.  I'll ponder that for awhile.

The second block was just using random strings of the right colors from my string box.  I got to use white from my scrap bag as well and didn't have to cut any more from the main stash.   That made me happy.  

And since the last post, I've sewn a lovely neon green Oval Elements Lazy Days Skirt for Neon Day and a new flannel nightgown.  No pictures of those because they've been worn frequently.  I think I also might be prepared to participate in the SewMamaSew Giveaway Day this year.  

Fruitcake scrappy strings

Lately I've felt the need to use up fabric and complete the quilts that I bought fabric for but never did get beyond the planning stage.  I bought a Fruitcake fat eighth bundle and two charm packs and made the Charming Stars quilt for my sister in law in 2011.  That left 4.5 x 14" strips, the 2 charm packs, 2 quarter yards of red and green grunge solid, and some extra white and green snowflake fabric from the backing.  

 The extra backing fabric became my center strings.  I used up the rest of the fat eight bundle on the strips immediately to either side and then started piecing together charm squares and other random fabrics to make more strings.  For the Charming Stars quilt, we chose not to use the mostly white fabric for stars because there wasn't enough contrast.  Those ended up being cut on the diagonal and turned into the final pieces of each block (along with less than 11 5" squares of Kona white when I ran out of the other whites)

 The scrappy strings and the large white triangles weren't in the game plan originally, but it was an easy way to make the quilt a reasonable lap size and not purchase more fabric to complete the quilt top.  So, now I have 56 8.5" string blocks ready to be pieced into a quilt and a whole lot of paper to tear off.

But, it is one less bag of fabric waiting in a bin for me to start and finish a project on my to do list.  Or, the "I should really use this stuff up before I get anything else" list.

Unwind for Sarah

      I finished my niece's quilt this weekend using Unwind by Jaybird Quilts.  The pattern was very easy to follow and I was really happy with how it turned out.  I should have pressed the white parts in batches so the 6.5" squares would have been a bit more accurate.  I did check the line up of the first few but then forged on without checking again and had to trim the blocks to 12.25" instead of leaving them at 12.5".  Oops.
 

 

     It took a little bit to get a rhythm with the quilting.  Julie's quilt had swirls in the strip parts and so I decided to try it as well.  Half of one row was an attempt to do swirl quilting without a firm plan.  After that, I switched to using the strips to guide how large to make the swirls and to give me a clear path to follow.  I do appreciate having a walking foot for straighter lines and easier straight line quilting but turning the quilt so many times is not as much fun.  

Pattern: Unwind by Jaybird Quilts
Size:  approximately 59 x 70"
Fabric: Kona White, Freebird by MoMo for Moda
Binding: purple eggs from Freebird
Backing: Various Freebird prints (bought at $3.50/yard at DelRay Fabrics)
Quilted by me with swirls in the zigzags and straight lines in the stars

Second Starburst and the April bee block

I've made a second Starburst quilt top.  Since this one has no definite recipient, it is sitting while I do some other things instead.  Perhaps I don't need to buy as much fabric next time since I still have more extras.  Or, I need to make more coordinating pillows.

.  

And the April block for Beejeebers for Lindsay based on this tutorial.  I'm not wonderful at curves yet and this one needed some large pieces of fabric.  I tried to use some scraps for the smaller parts but had to turn to larger pieces for the outsides of the circles.  Can you notice the pieced brown background?  If I don't look carefully, it seems as though I actually matched up the perimeter of the circle.  

Follow my blog with Bloglovin