Pointy Top Finish

The Pointy top is finished. This one came together fast after all the arrow blocks were made. It's added to the ever-growing stack of quilt tops I need to quilt. I've instituted a very new rule that I can't start anymore quilts until I finish at least half of my tops. I think you can guess what I'll be doing this weekend...

Pointy blocks

The Pointy quilt is coming together fast! I have all the arrows put together, and now I just have to sew them into blocks of 5, which then get arranged in alternating horizontal and vertical patterns. I love the clean graphic lines of this quilt, and I'm definitely a fan of the Essex Linen. I see many more linen quilts in my future!

Pointy Progress

So far the Pointy quilt is fun. After I sewed my strips together, they got cut on a 45 degree angle. these will be the arrow flanges - is the flange the right word? I think so...

After that I made the arrowhead blocks. This is all made out of solid fabrics, but the background is Essex Linen, which I've never sewed with before. It's a cotton/linen blend, and it's a little different than 100% cotton with more stretch and give, and a looser weave to it. I love the way it looks though!

Pointy

I've been wanting to start this quilt for awhile now! I love Elizabeth Hartman's patterns, but I've never made one of her designs before, so we'll see how it all goes. I'm off to a good start, as it's just sewing offset strips together. I think I can handle that.

Dreaming Top Finish

I finished the blocks to the Dreaming quilt and added two borders - a narrow yellowish one, and then a wider green one. I think these add a nice frame to the blocks and give your eyes a nice place to rest from all the saturated colors and shapes in the blocks.

Dreaming Blocks

So, I have all the components of the Dreaming quilt ready, and now it's time to assemble the blocks. Each block has 25 sub-units, so these will take a little time to put together. First though, I get to play around with color combinations. This might take awhile...

Scrappy Rail Fence

So, I finished the top of my scrappy rail fence project. I continued sewing strips together until it seemed to reach a decent lap-quilt size, and I finished it with a nice wide border from some material I've had since I was in my late teens - nice to finally use that!

Friday Finish: Sweet Sixteen

This was a fun quilt, start to finish. First of all, the color palate is one that I haven't worked with before. Secondly, I sewed it together so fast! Third, I was able to practice my long-arm skills with it, and it turned out so well - all of those are very fun things for a quilter.

To recap, this quilt uses the "Somerset" fabric collection by Fig Tree & Co. The quilting is a long arm design called "Paisley Feathers", and the backing is from a retired Tina Given's collection that I found at SR Harris. The binding is hand-sewn, and it's been awhile since I've done that. I like hand-work, but it takes forever.

This quilt is currently for sale in my Etsy Shop. 

Dreaming

I started a new project called "Dreaming". This is made completely out of batik fabric, which I have a deep love for, but haven't worked with in awhile. Batiks are kind of sneered at by lots of trendy modern quilters, and I don't really get why. I love the deep saturated colors and psychedelic patterns. There are lots of half-square triangles in this pattern, so I'm working on getting those sewn up, and then it's putting together lots of little 9 patch blocks.

Playing with Scraps

I'm having trouble stuffing anymore scraps into my scrap bin, so it's time to figure out a project to use them up! I've been sewing strips into sets and cutting them into six inch blocks, and arranging them in a simple Rail Fence pattern.

It's therapeutic to just sew strips of fabric together, and I'm making some progress with the scrap bin. We'll see how big this gets - I'm thinking maybe lap quilt will be good.

Quilt Top Finish: Dancing Quill

I wrote a while back that I was finally putting together the Valori Well's quilt that I started way back last winter. My excitement for this project has kind of ebbed and flowed over the past year, but I'm glad I finished it up, because I think it really is stunning, and outside of what I normally sew.

Snapshots Quilt-Along: July

The July Snapshots blocks is called "Up, Up, and Away" and was lots of fun to put together (thank goodness...I needed that after my disastrous June block).

It was made up mostly of flying geese units, and I love sewing flying geese. So, now I'm all caught up and ready for August!

Recipe Time: Fried Rice

http://www.gimmesomeoven.com/fried-rice-recipe/

I  haven't been cooking much this summer, but last week I finally reached the point where I couldn't stomach another pizza delivery. I enjoy cooking, I really do. It's just generally the last thing I want to think about when I get home from work. So, the name of the game has to be fast and easy. Let me tell you, this fried rice really fit the bill and was SO GOOD.

The key with fried rice? You have to use rice that was cooked a few days ago. You can't just boil up some rice and then decide to fry it right away or you'll end up with a big pan of mush. Believe me, I've tried it.

There are lots of recipes out there for fried rice, but I liked this one from Gimme Some Oven - everything she says was spot on, Old rice? Check. Butter instead of oil? Check. Fish sauce? Done. You know me though, I never follow any recipe to the letter. Here are my notes:

• I scrambled three eggs instead of two, because I like the eggy bits
• I threw in some leftover cooked chicken for some extra protein
• I didn't have any green onions on hand, so I skipped those.

This took me exactly 15 minutes to make, and would be awesome with some pot-stickers or egg rolls, although I just ate a big bowl of it and called it good.

Snapshots Quilt-Along: June

I'm behind on my Snapshots Quilt blocks, so I'm working on catching up before the August one gets released on the 15th.

So, the June block is called "Triple Scoop Sundae", and my god - for some reason I could NOT sew this thing together correctly for the life with me. Maybe because it was the first thing I put together after a week of vacation or something, who knows. But I seam-ripped. And seam-ripped. And finally finished it. And THEN?

I realized, there's still a huge mistake. It's pretty glaring when you look at it so I have no idea how I missed it, but the only way I can fix it now is to take the whole block apart, and I'll be damned if I'm doing that. So my triple scoop sundae is a little weird and wonky, but that's OK. I'm FINE with it!

I'm Back!

Well, that sewing I was maybe going to do on vacation? Yeah, that didn't happen. I started packing up all my sewing supplies to take with me, and quickly realized that dismantling my sewing room, setting it all up at the cabin, and then putting everything away again when I got home was a daunting task. So I just left it all behind.

Instead I floated in the lake:

Read lots of books:

And enjoyed some local wildlife:

Now it's back to work, which is not so exciting, but also back to sewing, which I'm very happy to start up again!