Mini City

I finally finished my mini city quilt inspired by Tula Pink's City Sampler book, and I really like how it came out.

I used some of my favorite fabrics from Tsuru, Architextures, Lizzy House, Art Gallery, and blenders from my stash for the blocks in mustard, navy, light gray and raspberry. For the background and the back I used shot cottons. I am contemplating doing an entire city sampler in shot cottons.

I pieced together some of the shot cottons for the back, because I didn't want to waste them.

I can't decide if my favorite part is the colored strip in the binding, the background, or the blocks themselves. It's all just so fun!

To see my progress on this quilt click here and here

I am linking up to Jennifer's mini quilt challenge over at Ellison Lane. Be sure to check out the gorgeous mini quilts other people have made!

Blogger's Quilt Festival: Baby Love

Crazy how much time flies, I can't believe it is time for another edition of the Blogger's Quilt Festival over at AmysCreativeSide. I really do look forward to this each year because I love looking at all the fabulous quilts people have made...and quite often I discover a few new blogs to follow. This year I am out of town for most of the festival so I will have to do a lot of catch up reading.

Anyway, after a lot of thought I finally settled on the heart quilt I made for my friend's new baby girl. This quilt holds a special place in my heart because it is for one of my friends who struggled to have children for quite sometime and then was blessed enough to give birth to a healthy baby girl.

I really enjoyed making this quilt because it has all of my favorite quilting elements...simple, linen, solids, half square triangles, purple...and I am especially fond of the ombre effect in the binding.

I am entering this quilt in the favorite baby quilt category.
For more posts about this quilt click here and here and here.

Packaged up & ready to go

There is just something about seeing a quilt all packaged up and ready to send to its new home. It makes me all giddy inside...anyone else feel the same way?

I love a finish!

My friend is due to give birth to her first baby girl any day now so I had to take a break from my studies and make her a baby quilt. I have been inspired by all the heart and pixelated quilts I've seen around the blogosphere recently, so decided this was the perfect excuse to finally make one myself...only with my own twist.

We all know how much I love half square triangles and negative space so I decided to go with a pixelated heart using half square triangles in various shades of pinks and purples placed in the bottom right corner of the quilt. 

I think it worked nicely.

I used Kona Berry, Cerise, Bubble Gum and Dusty Peach with some Bella Solid Magenta to make the pixelated heart. The background is Robert Kaufman Natural linen - I love the feel and look of the linen. This was my first time using linen and it was a bit of a pain to cut and such since it stretched a lot, but it was worth it. The backing is some pink I had in my stash (love when that happens!) I quilted it in an all over stippling pattern using lavender thread. My favorite part is where I added some of each of the colors from the heart into the binding.

Blogger's Quilt Festival: Zig-Zag Quilt

It's my favorite time of the year...fall! Which means lots of changing leaves, apple pie, thanksgiving, and then of course Christmas (aka the best holiday ever). But before I go getting ahead of myself, the fall also has one of my favorite blogging events - the blogger's quilt festival. I can spend hours looking through the entries on Amy's site, but usually don't have time. However, with the lovely Frankenstorm or Hurricane Sandy as she is known, it looks like I might have hours to spend indoors. So bring on the quilts!

After much hemming and hawing, I settled on sharing with you my zig-zag quilt I made in celebration of the birth of my cousin's first child.

I really wanted to create a bold, graphic quilt that featured pink paired with some unexpected colors. I think that the magenta and golden oranges are really framed nicely against my favorite Kona Coal.  Because I wanted the color to be the focus of the quilt, I paired some tone-on-tone prints with a few solids for some visual interest...and as a fun surprise when you looked closer. I backed it with solid magenta and used a golden orange binding.

To make the chevrons, I used half square triangles that I pieced together. I really do enjoy working with half square triangles -- and find it isn't so bad if I trim and prep a bunch of them at once. =)

I quilted it on my machine using straight lines echoing the zig-zags. I really like how it turned out, and it gives a nice touch of texture to the quilt - especially in the gray areas.

Hope you like it! And don't forget to check out the other awesome entries for the Blogger's Quilt Festival.

Zig-Zag Quilt Stats:
Measurements: Baby Blanket about 36" x 52"
Special Techniques used: half square triangle piecing
Quilted by: me! on my lovely sewing machine -- echoed the zig-zags.
Best Category: Baby Quilt/Quilt Photography
Quilt Entry #: 411

Mini Quilt

Recently I participated in a mini quilt swap with the members of my do.good.stitches circle. I made this lovely sewing machine mini for Kelly. She is such a fun person who is extremely creative - check out her blog to be prepared to be creative!

Anyway, Kelly requested a super small quilt to put in her sewing room, which is decorated with bright greens and blues. 

So I made her a mini sewing machine quilt. It was my first time paper piecing such an intricate pattern. I found it available for free here - it was relatively simple to follow and when I did get confused, I just sent her an email and Charise answered my question right away. She was so helpful! Anyway, here's my quilt. I love the fabric I used on the back - the crosshatch aqua is one of my favorite staples for my stash.

Zig-Zag Quilt: A Wordless Post

Plus Quilt

The other day I realized I never shared this quilt with you. Back in August, I really wanted to make a plus quilt and when I learned that some of my good friends were expecting their first child this year, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to give it a try. Overall, I'm pretty pleased with the results. 

 

Quilt Stats:

Fabrics: Assorted blue, yellow, pinks, and kona white from my stash. 

Quilting: stitch in the ditch around each plus.

Bloggers Quilt Festival: Citrus Sails!!

I am so excited because it's time for the Bloggers Quilt Festival over at Amy's Creative Side. Twice a year she hosts an awesome linky party where bloggers can link up a quilt of their choice. I have seriously been looking forward to this for quite sometime...and not just because I have something to share for the first time - but because there is always a ton of inspiration to be found.

Anyway so I put my thinking cap on and was trying to decide what quilt I wanted to share. I wanted it to be something I was really proud of and that would showcase who I am as a quilter/designer. I had one in mind that was almost finished (dang binding needs to be sewn on!), but due to my recent hand injury that would have to wait. So I decided to show the Citrus Sails Quilt. Yes, I know I recently blogged about it (in hindsight, I could have waited to post that until today but I was too excited to wait) but now you can read about it all over again! =)

 I am seriously am in love with this quilt. I was lucky enough to have some help piecing it from my fellow uber talented members of the Inspire Circle of the do.good.stitches charity sewing bee. I think that this quilt reflects my quilting style - simple, bright, a bit different and incorporates the use of solids. When I first designed this quilt, I knew I wanted to feature triangles and at the time I was enamored with half square triangles and thought it would be a great bee quilt. Having spent many days in a hospital myself, I wanted to create a quilt that could bring some cheerfulness to an otherwise drab hospital room. I immediately thought of bright citrus colors paired with gray. The gals in the circle did an awesome job of helping make my vision into a reality.

As much as I love the front of this quilt, I almost love the back more. Originally I was going to use a solid gray back but since I had 3 leftover squares, I decided to highlight them in each of the colors and sew a strip down the back. I really like this effect. I am a fan of solid on the back because I think it showcases the quilting, which I quilted on my machine in straight lines on a diagonal to bring some dimension to the quilt.

I finished it up with a dark gray binding (kona pepper, I believe) which I think frames it nicely. After I washed it and took it out of the dryer I took it up to the mountains for a photo shoot. And as luck would have it the bright summer colors looked nice against the fall leaves. Yay.

Lest you think that this entire experience was a cakewalk - think again (lining up all those points was a nightmare!) I also chose this quilt to showcase because I learned a very important lesson: Sometimes it is the imperfections that make the quilt perfect. Yup that's right, who cares if the points don't all line up. It still looks great at the end!

Anyway I'm going to sit back with my Starbucks salted carmel hot chocolate (aka the best fall drink ever) and spend some quality time being inspired by the many quilts at the bloggers quilt festival. Join me. But first go get a salted carmel hot chocolate, you'll thank me later - trust me.