May Finishes

Nothing like a deadline and a goal to get me to my sewing room. These will be gifts in the coming weeks so they had to be done. It helped to make my May goal for A Lovely Year of Finishes to make both of these oval bags & here's my goal-setting post. It's always fun to choose fabrics I think the recipients will love.  

 This one is a graduation gift for a music lover! I had fun going through my music fabric stash to pick just the right combo.

Number two is a moving gift for one of the girls in a program I run at work. Hopefully she'll like the bright butterflies as much as I do!

**Edited 5/20/15:: pattern is from Aneela Hoey when it was a free tutorial, now available for sale in her shop.

Linking Up: 
Fiber of All Sorts for ALYOF:MAY
CrazyMomQuilts for Finish It Up Friday
A Quarter Inch from the Edge with TGIFF

Neon Mosaic Contest: #2

Stitched In Color is hosting another one of her fab fabric mosaic contests and I had to participate. This one is "Nuanced Neon" and I think you'll need sunglasses to view all the neon filled entries. Once you get started it's really hard to stop creating new fabric stacks with the mosaic maker. I like to place them just right in the layout. This time I decided to tone down the neon with the more grounded teal & grey, without losing the eye catching pop of the neon itself. A little less eye-smarting.  (Check out my first entry here: Dino-Brite!)

Here's my second entry & I call it: Curiouser

Neon Mosaic Contest: #1

Happy Friday! Stitched In Color is hosting another one of her fab fabric mosaic contests and I had to participate. This one is "Nuanced Neon" and I think you'll need sunglasses to view all the neon filled entries. I apparently didn't read it closely enough the first time and made a 12-fabric selection before noticing the contest asks for only 9. So I dropped a couple prints and will use those to start my second entry - yup, you can enter up to 2 mosaics with all the neon you can possibly stomach! (Check out my second entry here: Curiouser)

Here's my first entry & I call it: Dino-Brite!

May Projects

This month I have a couple work programs, 2 weddings, a workshop at work to manage, & a graduation in the coming weeks! It's gonna be crazy so I'm setting my May goal for ALYOF as a mostly simple one. I'm planning to make 2 oval box bags as gifts: 1 for the aforementioned graduation and 1 for one of the kids in my program at work who will be moving soon. I don't have the fabrics picked yet - but they will be the same style as the one in the picture. (this one was a previous graduation gift!)

These are fun to make and are easy to assembly line while watching Netflix...I've discovered they have select episodes of Ace of Cakes now - YAY! Linking up with Fiber of All Sorts for this month!

WIP :: 4/29/15

Last week was Paducah Quilt Week and our busiest week of the year at the Museum: we basically eat/sleep/breathe quilts. :) One of my favorite weeks to be sure - it's thrilling to have so many people in the galleries enjoying the quilts, to have quilters from all over the world in town and I get to be on TV talking about our nationwide kids contest. There were even a couple days where we had over 1,000 visitors through our doors! I was lucky to get to see all of the quilts on display at the show, visit the Rotary antique quilt show and visit some great vendors when not at work.

Another great thing about Quilt Week is that Momm comes to visit and we get to talk quilty all day long. I even get to put her to work in the gift shop as a helper (hehehe). After Show, I had an extra day off so Momm & I could spend time doing what else? Quilting! IT was nice to relax, watch some good movies and make progress on several projects.

Here's what I've been working on lately - enjoy! Linking up at Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday.

Indigo Dye:
Before Show I was able to test run Indigo Dyeing at work. #bestjobever  I'll be running a class for kids with indigo dye the next 2 Saturdays which will be a lot of fun. 

Postage Stamp:
Using a bunch of mini charm packs and a solid (Kona?) for this one and made great progress to join them into four patches and sets of eights. While re-watching the Marvel movies in order, I got all of these pressed last night. Now they are ready to be made into larger sections.

TDF:
This one's been in the works for a couple of years and I finally got to the actual sewing stage this wknd - hooray! I used the jersey colors of White, Green, Polka Dot & Yellow for the background and a fun Tour de France fabric for the stage profile. I used a technique learned in Katie Pasquini's class to get the profile ready and then it was top-stitched down.  It's basted and ready for quilting.

Baby Quilt:
Still can't show this one - as it's sort-of a surprise! (they know I'm making a quilt, but the reveal is a surprise). The top is finished, backing made and I basted it tonight so it's also ready for quilting.

Swap block:
Made my April block for the Bakers Dozen swap, a circle flying geese block. I'm finally making some of the blocks on my 'to make' list and it's a lot of fun! I'll probably end up making duplicates so I can keep some too - hehehe.

Even got sleeves on several quilts and hung Vibrato up on my wall! So dear readers, it's been a whirlwind these last few weeks but in the best way possible since it was full of quiltings - wishing you happy quilting.

Quarter 2 FAL Listy

This quarter is typically my toughest, as I have big work commitments bookending the quarter: Paducah Quilt Week & Quilt Camp. With that in mind I've got some smaller sized projects that are waiting to be finished for the Q2 list - hopefully they won't be too much to handle. Linking up with Adrianne at On the Windy Side, #150.


TDF quilt/runner
A carry over from past quarterly lists, I have the pattern and the fabric and the plan - also got the last other materials and can get stitching on this again.

Baby quilt!  *Edit: finished and blogged here!
  I'm working on a baby quilt for good friends of mine having their first. I love baby quilts and am super excited as they mentioned jungle animals when talking about the nursery. The top is made, the backing is laid out on the floor and i gotta get quilting so it's ready when baby comes. *no picture at the moment - will get one up here stat!


Big Bear
 I actually won this Tartankiwi pattern through a giveaway at On the Windy Side and after seeing Adrianne's knew mine had to be a polar bear! It's the biggest thing I've ever paper-pieced and I love it! I pieced the bulk of this at winter retreat in January and finished the top not too long afterwards. He'll be up in the wall as soon as I get him quilted.

Improv quilt
Another carry over from prior quarterly lists, as I still don't have a set plan for how to quilt this. Want to get it finished so hopefully I can pull together some backing and jump start the ideas.

Watercolor Quilt

All finished and linking up at On the Windy Side!

This was a fun project to work on over the last few months. Last Spring I took a class with Katie Pasquini Masopust at work (best job ever!) and learned her watercolor to quilt technique. This piece is a cropped section from a watercolor 'sketch' I made by blowing the paint with a straw. I got the whole top put together in class and then it sort of sat in my quilt room while I worked on other things.

Putting it on my Q1 list for the Finish-Along helped motivate me to get this one basted, quilted & bound. I pulled out my array of Aurifil threads in 50wt and matched up spool-to-fabric using all the colors you see in the following picture! I opted to leave the white blank and quilted different Free Motion designs in each color. Lots of fun once I got going and this piece was finished in no time. I chose one of the teal prints to use as binding to complete the look. Let's link all the things: so I'm also at Finish It Up Friday!

Quilts Stats:

Name: still working on that....

Size: 19" x 33"

Pattern: Original watercolor design!

Fabrics: pulled from stash

Quilting: Free-Motion designs in all the different fabrics