Vacation Time

I've been away for my annual cabin get-away, which involves lots of swimming, reading, and sleeping. It does NOT involve any sewing, so I need to buckle down now and start cranking out some finishes!

In the meantime, I'm proud of all the reading I accomplished instead.

This and That

The blog has been quiet lately, but I've been sewing away....on clothes! Yes, I've taken a brief detour into garment making. It started with a trial subscription to Creativebug, where I became quickly seduced by all the cutesy garment-making classes they have on their for beginners. These are quick classes too - like 30 minutes, which I'm a fan of.

So far I've made a tank top out of linen and a lightweight shirt from some rayon chambray stuff. They were both really basic patterns, but challenging for me because I'm just not used to sewing clothes and they require a completely different set of techniques than quilting does. This is where the step-by-step video tutorials come in handy! Both of these tops actually fit me and look nice. I've been eyeing the pants class next.

Tank top - not the one I made, but this is how it looks

Basic Shirt - also not the one I made, but you get the idea!

I've been cutting out my next quilt project using fabric from Tula Pink's collection "Spirit Animal". I just love the colors in this collection! The quilt will be mostly made up of flying geese units and those aren't fast, so this one will take me a bit.

Finally, I basted the "Solar Flare" quilt top today at work, and getting it quilted will be my weekend project (provided I can stay away from pants classes on Creativebug). I think there's a chance that this one will be hanging in my church sanctuary during my quilt exhibit this fall, which I'm excited for.

Friday Finish: Color Wheels

This has been done for awhile now, I just kept procrastinating on sewing the binding on. I finally buckled down and got it done last night, and here it is!

This was a really fun quilt to work on. I made the circles all out of scraps, and they were paper-pieced, so it was low-key and easy. The background gray part uses curved piecing, which can sometimes be tricky, but the curves were fairly gentle, and overall this came together nicely and is something I think would be fun to make again - maybe with a lighter background, or using prints.

The backing is a Riley Blake print of multi-colored gears that I think echoes the circles in the front nicely. I quilted this with my walking foot in a simple angled cross-hatch, and I think the simplicity of that works well. I've learned that when it comes to the actual quilting with me, simple is best. I'm not good enough at it to try and get all fancy!