Jewel Frames

Well, I've been doing quite a lot of work with solids lately, and while I love them I also really love prints. I've had some Kaffe Fassett bundles stashed away for awhile now, and decided to make one of his patterns called "Jewel Frames" with them.

Going from solids to Kaffe Fassett is moving from one extreme to the other, as his fabrics are wild riots of colors and prints. I normally don't like cutting fabric all that much - it's fun for the first 1/2 hour, and after that not so much. But I don't get sick of looking at these lovely florals and enjoying the fearless color combinations

This should come together pretty fast - it's just big squares of each print bordered by the pink polka dots and then strips of sashing from the purple dots. This will be fun to sew!

Solar Flare

I started a new quilt over the weekend called "Solar Flare". It came together so quickly I didn't have a chance to take picture of the process until the top was finished!

This is made entirely of triangles, all in solids. I was worried about doing more triangles mostly because I'm still traumatized from all those weird ones in the Smithereens quilt. But these were super easy - good old equilateral triangles! Waay better than the obtuse kind.

So, you can kind of see in the first picture that the edges are not nice and straight on this thing, as it's constructed in such a way that parts stick out and need to be trimmed down later. I think I'll wait to trim it until I have it spread out for basting. I just don't have a good space to spread out a whole quilt on the floor here at the house.

Started and finished in 24 hours...haven't done that in awhile!

Smithereens Progress

I'm continuing to work on the Smithereens quilt, slowly but surely. I usually use it as mental bait in order to work on more engaging projects "You can start that new pattern AFTER you sew two rows of Smithereens!"

It's really not terrible - it's just tedious! The angles are tricky to get right, the seams don't nest nicely, so everything has to be pinned, and there are lots of colors and pieces to keep track of. I'm going to love this when it's finished, but I'll also be really really glad when it's over.

Only 7 rows to go!

Friday Finish: Bloom

My one act of sewing this week was to get the binding on to the Bloom quilt, which has otherwise been finished for a couple weeks now. Isn't this quilt the cutest thing? I love the bright happy old-fashioned feel of it, and I'm pleased with how the whole thing turned out.

I deviated a little from the pattern, in that I skipped the brown border, because...brown. Ick. I added a piano key border out of all the leftover scraps I had, because I love piano key borders. The backing and binding are from the clearance shelf at SR Harris, and it's from a Rowan collection according to the selvedge, but I'm not sure who the designer was.

I think it'd be fun to make another one of these using more modern fabrics and maybe a darker background. I've also embraced some different applique techniques, and I'd like to utilize those in a similar quilt. For now though, I'm just going to enjoy this finish and try and decide which block is my favorite - I think it's top row, 2nd one from the left! 

This 'n that

I haven't been able to sew very much the past week or two. The weather has finally turned beautiful here in MN, and my free time has been taken up with outdoor yoga classes, leisurely neighborhood walks, reading in our screened-in gazebo, and lots of chatting on the patio with some vino or a cocktail.

I have managed to do a little bit here and there though! I experimented with some scraps and made a few of these mosaic blocks...more to come with those I think. They'd be cool floating on a solid background or something.

I'm almost finished with the Amish Medallion quilt. The last two blocks to make were some finicky pieced flowers that had tons of y-seams, and then a bunch of strips sewn together to make triangles for along the outside of the quilt. The whole thing is constructed kind of differently - blocks are sewn together to make 4 big triangle pieces, and those are added on to the center part.

It's a little confusing for me, and I have to keep referring to the diagram below to make sure everything is oriented correctly. I have two of the triangles sewn on so far, and two more to go. Should be done by the end of the weekend!