Going Round and Round

Am I blowing you all away with my renewed blogging vim and vigor?!! Now that I'm ensconced in my new home and not driving cross-country or living out of my mom's house (which we did for weeks waiting to get into our house—thanks mom!), I'm actually able to sit down a little bit every day to blog. Yay! I've missed chatting with you all!

One of the project I started with my friends back in Utah was a round robin. We each made our own 18 inch square medallion center, then passed it along to the next person on the list. A new talented person every month. I thought I took a picture of my center before I passed it along, but now I can't find it. Sigh. So picture this: I made an extra large spool using selvedges from favorite fabrics. I then waved it goodbye and handed it over to the ever-talented Ella to work on before she passes it down the line. Each person adds at least a 3 inch border, so when we get it back (sometime at the end of the year), we'll have a finished quilt. I'm not sure what size. It'll be so amazing to have a quilt collectively made by such special and talented friends. Oh wait! I already have a quilt like that (see my Gratitude post!), but now I'll have another!

I've been so so amazed and humbled by the incredible talent of the women in this round robin! I don't want to give anything away about what others have done, but let's just say that everyone has set a high bar and I'm a bit freaked out about keeping up with the quality and creativity!

I totally want to write about what I'm doing on this round robin, but have to find a way to do it without giving it away for anyone who might be involved and reading this . . . any ideas? I'll at least show you some of the centers that people have done, editing out the borders that have been added.

Here are two that I'm about to work on:

Aren't these just gorgeous?! So different and each so creative!

Elves busy at work!

Happy holiday season everyone!

The household has finally emerged from 3 solid weeks of battling the plague, just in time to finish up last-minute sewing and quilting projects, tackle holiday cards, and ship off gifts to the four corners of the globe. Phew! I've been doing a ton of sewing lately, but most of it has to stay under wraps until the gifts are unwrapped! 

I'm not good at keeping secrets, however, so I did let Karen open her gift early. Here's the pieced border scrap quilt which I've been working on recently: 

\

It's 65x65 (I'm not one for standard-size quilts if it's not meant for a bed), so it's a perfect snuggle nap quilt. I contemplated (briefly) quilting concentric squares in the white, but my little machine has such a small neck I couldn't bear the thought of wrestling with the quilt that much almost broke me! So, I stuck with the straight line approach. Not too exciting, but it's much easier to manage with my machine! 

Other projects will have to wait for their reveal until after the holidays!

Okay, back to the salt mines; more holiday cards to send off!

Lilly Done!

She's finished! I finally got my act together and got up the nerve to baste the largest quilt I've ever wrestled with! I got Karen to help me pull it taut as I pinned it together, but how do y'all baste quilts all by yourselves (or do you all rely on help for this as well?!). I wasn't sure how I wanted to quilt it, then decided I wanted to do straight lines, with alternating groups of lines with some open space in between. I'm really pleased with how it came out. Yay!

We drove across country in our trek to visit family, so I had PLENTY of time to do the binding. I think I've finally mastered my blind stitch! It was kind of strange to have a quilt spread out on my lap in the car when it was 105 degrees outside in Iowa! Yikes! It's a relief to now be in Boston where it's only in the 70s. Phew!

So, with much fanfare, may I present my current pride and joy, Mama Lilly:

As I've mentioned in previous posts, I've made it for my mother out of her old, much beloved Lilly Pulitzer golf skirts. My mom is a marvelous golfer who had many great golf matches in those skirts, and I loved being able to use that great, totally crazy bright and unique fabric in this way. I've wanted to make a quilt out of these skirts for almost 20 years, much much longer than I've been able to sew, so it's actually a fairly emotional experience for me to have finished this quilt and to be so pleased with the finished product. I'm arriving at my mom's house on Monday and will present it to her then. Nothing like a warm cozy quilt right in the middle of the hot, humid summer!! If I had patience I would wait until her birthday in October, but I wasn't imbued with that kind of restraint!

Here's another shot with a peek of the outrageous Lilly Pulitzer peacock fabric I used for the backing:

I took these shots in my brother and sister-in-law's gorgeous backyard garden in Boston, where we're visiting this weekend. They have a beautifully landscaped yard, and with the weather mild and sunny I just had to take advantage of it for my photo shoot!

May Update: Quilting Edition

Joining in on Lee's Wednesday WIP! Happy Day Everyone!

I've done it! My very first official quilt! Now, I've made quilts before, but not quite official quilts. The difference being in the quilting. I've done tied quilts before, but never a fully quilted patchwork quilt. I pulled up my BGP (Big Girl Panties), took a few deep breaths, relied heavily on the kindness and continued encouragement of my sewing ladies, and I did it! And here, without further ado, here she is, my Rainbow Sprout quilt:

First of all, let me acknowledge officially how cool it is to have the friendship and support of a very cool bunch of sewing ladies, especially when you're starting out in the sewing/quilting world. Ella hosted an amazing retreat last weekend, and it helped push me over the edge into finishing this quilt. All I had to do was finish the binding over the weekend! The combined humor, advice, wisdom, friendship and encouragement from April, Ella, Jenny (needs a blog!), Marion, Pamela, and Sue (get a blog!! :-)) has been such a true godsend! Thank you! There's so much more to report on the retreat, but stay tuned for that in another post . . .  I'm on the road and couldn't take photos of all the goodies that came out of the retreat!

I discovered the marvelous tutorial for this quilt from Hooked on Needles. And when I say it's an entirely manageable tutorial, BELIEVE IT! It's a great first-timers' quilt. I think it's a great go-to quilt for a baby gift. I'm kind of all raring to go to make another. I made this for our nephew, Cameron Derek, and I was a bit teary packing it up and sending it off yesterday, as joyful as I am to have this wrap him in love and blessings! Most of the charm squares come from Emily's swap I did earlier this year, but I did throw in a few I Spy squares. I even cut into my beloved Heather Ross Munki Munki--both the gnomes and the VW vans (Cameron's dad is a VW fan)!

For the quilting I did what I'm calling a wonky geometric design, essentially square-ish, but deliberately not perfect squares. I guess we officially call those rectangles (from what I recall of Geometry?). I was originally going to just do straight line quilting, but I wanted to do something with a bit more movement in it.

So this, is my proud photo of work accomplished! I also, with TONS of guidance and inspired help from my dear friend Sue over our fabulous retreat weekend finally finished my pincushion/scrapbag (photos to come).

As for works in progress, Oy! So much in the WIP line! I still have miles to go on:
- My messenger bag
- The valance for my mother's house
- Dare try to make a scrapbag/pincushion for my mother-in-law
- Finish the baby quilt for our friend's almost year-old baby (should I just scrap it and do another Rainbow Sprout quilt?)
- There's so much more I can't even remember anymore!