Sampler Style

One of the best parts of my job is creating projects for our annual kids Quilt Camp each summer! I run 3 different skill levels which means 3 different projects each year.  This summer, I decided to start making my own quilt based on these projects - after 7 years, that's a total of 21 designs!

I pulled out all the samples from past Camps to use for reference and started sewing up blocks. Pulling fabrics was easy - use as many bright colors as possible and I worked in all of the School Block fabrics too. These fabrics show up in my work stash year after year so they'll add some good memories to my quilt.

It's quite a list of blocks/designs/sizes and today I had fun puzzling out a block layout. Looking forward to seeing this one come together!

Project Zebra - Complete!

Another finished quilt to share with you dear readers! Project Zebra was the code name I assigned since this was a secret surprise quilt for the recipient.

Two weeks ago, we found out a coworker was retiring and a couple of us decided we'd make a quilt for her as we've done for other staff members that have moved or retired or had a baby. S has been with the Quilt Museum since we opened almost 27 year ago so it was clear to me that she deserved a full-sized quilt and not just a small wall piece.

I modified block 1755 : Prairie Flower : from Barbara Brackman's book and decided on black and grey fabric for the background. Then I rounded up each staff member to choose a fabric to be the center of the block (flower) and pulled several staff to help cut and draw lines for making stitch 'n flip corners.

This was a lot of fun to piece and see how fabrics chosen by 25 different people can look amazing in the same quilt! It measure about 60"x 72" and I call it Stained Glass.

I quilted it on Gilbert - my trusty Janome. Using a variety of Aurifil threads to echo inside the center flowers and then in black thread to stipple in the black background fabric. Stitching black on black was a little tricky to follow, especially in the evening with less natural light - but I had a tight deadline and made it work.

We gifted it to S today and she loved it! :D  There's a piece of all of us in it to remember her many years of dedication to the Museum and I know she'll love it forever. Gifting quilts is the best!
Linking up::
Needle and Thread Thursday - at My Quilt Infatuation
 TGIFF - Thank Goodness It's Finished Friday - at Celtic Thistle Stitches
Finished or Not Friday -at Busy Hands Quilts
Finish It Up Friday - at CrazyMomQuilts

Story of a Quilt

We all know every quilt has a story, right? This story begins in 2015 with the Pantone color of the Year Challenge. The color chosen: Marsala.  I wasn't completely thrilled with this color choice on first glance, but that makes the challenge more exciting.  I doodled some designs and scrolled my Pinterest images for inspiration. 

 The color of the year is part of a color line for that season so I used those colors as my basis for pulling fabrics from my stash to go with all of the marsala fabrics I had on hand. Everything came from stash in this quilt, always nice to do! I free cut the curves, and machine appliqued the two triangles. The size of the quilt was partially determined by the contest, and the size of the pieces of my fabrics.

The top was completed in time and I was all ready to enter it into the contest. Sadly, I goofed on this one and missed the deadline accidentally by a couple of days. :( Read the original post here.

So the top sat and sat and showed up in my Finish Along lists quarter after quarter until I decided to just finish it already. It was a good top to use for playing with quilting designs and I used a variety of Aurifil threads - mostly 50 wt and a few 40 wt. colors too.

It measure 30"x42" and I dug out some scraps of the fabrics to use in the binding - managed to get a little of every fabric into it! Now all I need is to label it and come up with a good name - any suggestions readers?

Linking up at Finish It Up Friday with CrazyMomQuilts!

How many WIPs do you have?

radar wave 270/584

Seriously - do you keep track of those WIPs? Do you shove them to the bottom of your project stack? Are they forgotten and left to linger in the sewing room? Or do you finish everything in good time?


It seems to be a topic across blogland lately and got me to thinking. I've been participating in the Finish Along for several years now so I think I have a general idea of my WIP stack.





After some recent finishes, I took a quick look through the stack of WIPs in my sewing room to get an idea of what all I had in there (and to see how many there really were...)

Quilt Camp Sampler -blocks

marsala quilt

Turns out there aren't that many in that stack - only about 12 tops and a handful of other in-progress projects. :D  

Frosted Panes

Going through the stack is always good to remind myself what exactly I have in there to work on and I thought I'd post them here for the record as well. Most of these are finished tops as you can see, so there aren't lots of little pieces strewn across my sewing room.

GS stack

Mardi Gras Round Robin

Plus, it's always fun to see some of these unfinished projects and remind myself what I've created and think of how they can be quilted & bound. 

medallion

double wedding ring top

Some of these have popped into my Finish Along lists over the past few years and are waiting for me to get them quilted & bound.

mini charm quilt

Some of these tops were finished before I really knew how to actually quilt & finish them up!  Some are still blocks in progress. Don't get me started on the ideas for quilts, or stacks of fabrics pulled for projects that haven't been started yet....

hand-applique sunflowers

So even though they've been lingering in the WIP stack for a while, I'm still interested in quilting them and marking them in the finished column. 

So have you checked your WIP stack lately? Or would you rather not worry about the numbers in your WIP pile?

Linking up with Wednesday Wait Loss at Inquiring Quilter. #wedwaitloss

Pointless Wonder

mini quilts reveal

Sometime back this Sring or Summer, Momm & decided to do a mini quilt swap between ourselves. We've participated in several hosted by other people for various designs/patterns/etc., and thought hey, we know each other well enough so a plan was born.

Other than a 24"-ish size guideline, there were no rules! It was fun to send cryptic questions to suss out preferences or color choices and posting only a tiny peek at the progress without giving away the design! Our exchange was set for mid-September and now I can share what we made for our mom/daughter mini swap.

Cheers! made by me for Momm

 :Details::
Title: Cheers!
Fabrics from my stash
Glasses paper pieced pattern by During Quiet Play on Craftsy
Words are lyrics from Story of Tonight in Hamilton
All quilting is free motioned & done with Aurifil thread - both the words & background designs.
Inspiration: Our family enjoys toasting and celebrating both the small & big events/milestones/etc. So these clinking glasses was the perfect fit and I've bene wanting to use these lyrics for ages.

Here's what I received - this awesome retro TV block playing one of my favorites - Newsies! :)

Momm even made a couple extra fabric centers so that I can change the channel as desired! How cool is that?! Channels include: Star Wars, Tour de France, hockey & Doctor Who.

 Love it. Thanks Momm! Linking up with CrazyMomQuilts for Finish It Up Friday!

Pay It forward Handmade

Several months ago I was the happy recipient of this fantastic #payitforward handmade gift from @eileenpaints. 

For my part in paying it forward, I chose to make these 3 zipper bags using the Open Wide pattern from Anna over at Noodlehead. 

I've made a number of these since they are fun and pretty quick to put together. This time around I also added a handle to them using this tutorial over at busybean which was easy to follow. I like how the handle looks with the bag.

They'll be in the mail this week and continuing to #payitforward :handmade! What a great experience and way to meet some fellow crafters via instagram.

Linking up for Finish It Up Friday at CrazyMomQuilts today.  So nice to have a finish to share!

Quarter 3 Quilt Up

What am going to work on next?  Let me recap the first half of the year so far: I've finished 3/6 projects that were on my Quarter 1&2 lists, plus a couple smaller swaps that popped up during those months. Hooray! This quarter gets a bit more ambitious of a list.

With Quarter 3 link ups here, I had a look through some of my unfinished projects for inspiration. Here's what I'll be attempting to finish (or at least make progress on)::

project: medallion

 project: radar wave 270/584

project: marsala

project: frosted windows

Each of these are finished tops waiting to be finished quilts and hopefully they'll make it! I'm linking up with Charm About You for the start of Quarter 3 2017 Finish Along.

Shatterpoint

  

 Finished up the binding on Shatterpoint this week! Really happy with how this turned out in the finish- I used the same colors as the piecing in the binding so the design flows right off the edges.

     

Found a great new photo spot today in a nearby park & Momm was quilt holder extraordinaire for these pix- thx Momm! The sun angles really help to showcase the quilting texture. The curves against the angles of the piecing is just what I'd hoped.

 

Gratuitous magic light sparkles through the fountain that I couldn't resist.

  

A look at the pieced backing & the extra blocks used as my label. The quilt top was created in a class I took with Denyse Schmitt back in 2013 and I had Denyse sign that triangle in the square on the back. I really enjoyed this class and am happy to mark this one complete! 

I call it Shatterpoint and used Aurifil 2810 & 1125 for the quilting. So smooth. Measures 50" x 58"

It was one my Quarter 2 Finish along list found here, and am linking up at Charm About You for the 2017 Finish Along! Linking up with 2 finishes this week over at crazymomquilts for Finish it up Friday - don't miss my other post Mai tai. 

Mai Tai anyone?

...pineapples are in my head...                    *lyrics from song Pork Soda by Glass Animals*

This quilt uses blocks I received in the #pineappleblockswap through Instagram last Fall and it's a perfect Summer time finish. Found the perfect backdrop to photograph this quilt around town & show-off these technicolor pineapples!

The backing is a fun travel themed print that even has pineapples on it too! 

 

  

quilting detail

My signature bee made it into this quilt as well! 

I'm calling this quilt Mai Tai and it's already been promised to a friend who loves pineapples as much as I do. :)  

This was on my Quarter 2 Finish Along list (original post here)so I'll be linking up with Charm About You with the finish! Also linking to CrazyMomQuilts for Finish it up Friday - with two finishes this week so be sure to check out my other post: Shatterpoint!

Wednesday WIP

Over the weekend I managed to start quilting my Shatterpoint Improv quilt! Super exciting, considering the top has been waiting patiently since 2013 for me to get it basted. :)

I'm quilting multiple spirals into it with my walking foot and guide bar to keep the spacing consistent. I'm using Aurifil thread #2810 on top and #1125 in the bobbin. Looking forward to seeing how this turns out!

Star Wars Day

May the Fourth be with You! :D Happy Star Wars Day friends!

<-- I saw this on FB earlier and it made me laugh so I had to share.

On an endlessly rainy day that looks like Dagobah outside my office window, it's thrilling to celebrate all things from a galaxy far, far away. I'm rocking my lightsaber earrings and sharing photos of my Star Wars themed quilts, which you can also get a peek at over on my Instagram: @bumblybzs

This was my second year participating in the Instagram #maythe4thmqs2 mini quilt swap and it was fun creating a quilt to send off to my partner. I went classic Rebel Alliance with the logo and free-motion quilted in the words. You can read more about this one right here!

Here's the quilt I received as part of the swap - I'm a fan of the locations/travel posters around the web for Star Wars and am enjoying this Dagobah themed quilt:

Last year I went all-in on a pop art-Andy Warhol inspired mini to send to my partner - see this here!

In return I got a BB-8 - what a character!

I'll leave you with the trilogy set I made for Christmas gifts for my Dad & brother & one for me a couple years ago. (Episode IV - Episode V - Episode VI)