The New Kids are Coming + Sliced Coins

It's been an extremely hard week in my family.  Last week my 14 year old nephew was hit by a truck outside of his house in Washington.  Because of the extent of his injuries, he was put into a medically induced coma.  On Wednesday an MRI showed no brain function.  They took him off life support yesterday.  I know he's in a better place now, but our grief is deep.  He will be greatly missed.  When he was little, if he was upset or scared he used to say "The new kids are coming," like the New Kids on the Block were his personal body guards.  It was my favorite thing ever.  Hopefully the New Kids came to see him off in his dreams...

On a much lighter note, I was able to focus my sadness into some productivity last night while I couldn't sleep.  I am a bit behind on the sliced coins quilt along (click the button to the right  to join the fun!) but last night I got all my coins sliced.

I didn't really go into the slicing with much of a plan.  I used my 9.5x9.5" ruler to figure out what coin width would look good on each part of the fabric.  The smallest coins I cut were 2" and I cut some in each inch increment from 2-6".  I did find two spots that a 7" coin looked best, so I just went with that.  I used 10 fat quarters, so I'm sure I won't be using all my coins for the front, but I do love pieced backs.  Here's a shot of some of my fabrics all laid out

I think these are my favorite two of the entire line:

I'm working on this, and a couple other fat quarter projects right now, and I've gathered all these beautiful little selvages!  What to do with them??

Maybe I'll just keep them on my shelf for inspiration :) 

WiP Wednesday 1-26-11

The last week has flown by!  I can't believe it's Wednesday again! 

I did my very first machine quilting this week!  Yay!  I was really nervous so I decided just to do something simple.  I quilted my wall hanging that I've been working on for just this purpose.  Here it is all basted:

I was going to leave this plain but I decided to applique a few dragonflies on the front.  There are actually dragonflies in one of the prints, so I just traced one of them on photoshop and printed out the pattern that way. 

Then I just used my walking foot to quilt straight lines 1/4 of an inch from each seam.  I used monofilament because of the contrast in the fabrics (I couldn't find one that would blend all the way down or acroos). 

I am very pleased with how it turned out.  I'm nervous about binding it though.  I've never bound anything bigger than a mug rug.

I also finished block 7 for the layer cake quilt along (see button in sidebar.)  I am in love with this block design!!

So that's it for this week.  Happy Wednesday everyone!!



WiP Wednesday 1-19-11

Another Wednesday already?!  Its been an interesting week for me.  I stopped drinking Coke, which is a much bigger deal if you know I usually drink 6-8 every day.  I know its not healthy and my boyfriend and I are talking about having a baby within a year - so I figured this was the perfect motivation.  Its day 3 today and I'm not as miserable as I thought I'd be :)  Now... on to quilting!

First this one:

I've been fighting my Fandango Cabins quilt all week.  I originally was following a pattern, then I realized my fabrics were just too busy for that pattern.  So I decided to add some simpler blocks like this one

I loved this block, so I made some more just like it to go with my log cabin blocks. 

I have 2 problems though... first I have no idea what the layout should be; second I'm completely out of the blue fabric, so I have to go with what I have.  (My local quilt store is out of it too and of course I wasn't smart enough to write down the name of the color off the bolt when I bought it.)

I have been playing with the layout a lot.

First sketching

Then on my design wall (I will add another coloumn and/or row so its 5x5 or even 5x6):

Layout 1

Layout 2

Layout 3

I apologize for the quality of the pictures, my camera has been malfunctioning lately.

So which layout do you like?  Yes, you!  I want/need opinions on this one!  Let me know please.  Or if you have a different idea entirely, I'd love to know that too!

I've also gotten some hexies basted this week

So thats it for me this week.  Happy hump day!

Dupioni Silk

I was just looking through all the blogs I follow and I found this awesome post about using Dupioni Silk for quilting and other crafts.  I love these ideas!!  Click here to go over to the Stash Manicure blog and check it out.  I'm so inspired!!

LCQA Block #6

I just finished block #6 for the Layer Cake Quilt Along over at Moose on the Porch Quilts.  I was not a fan of this block when it was first posted.  The directions weren't as clear as I would've liked them to be, and I just wasn't sure it fit with our other 5 blocks.  I do have to say - now that I have it done, I really like it.  I used all scraps except the yellow border fabric. 

The block went together really fast too.  I also did some more organizing today too.  I got these little baskets for my fat quarters, and I guess I'll have to buy one more. 

One basket of fat quarters, one basket of kitten.  Louie slept like this the entire time I was in my sewing room ha ha. 

WIP Wednesday

Hey everyone!  Time for another check in on all our WiPs for the week. 

Since I've only been back for 2 days, I don't have a ton to report.  Today I hope to get block 6 of the Layer Cake Quilt Along finished.  I got block 5 done last night:

I spent a lot of time organizing yesterday so today could be a more productive day.

I also need to figure out which fabrics I'm going to use for the Sliced Coins Quilt Along.

So today I'm kind of boring :)  I did make a page for my WIPs that I've been updating daily.  If you'd like to see that click here. 

Happy WIP Wednesday!

LC Quilt Along Block 5

I spent most of today reorganizing my sewing room (which unfortunately is our dining room at the moment) and sewing my block 5 for the Layer Cake Quilt Along.  I'll be the first to admit that I was intimidated by this block.  I spent a lot of time on my trip thinking about what colors to use.  I am satisfied with the final turn out, although I would have loved to have used a pink or orange fabric along with these colors.  Unfortunately I didn't have any layer cake squares in those colors that would work.  This layer cake had a lot of stripes in it (which I really like) but I didn't want to worry about directionality with this block.  

I enjoyed sewing this one.  I think I'll do block # 6 tonight if I don't fall asleep :) I'm even more intimidated by that block!