Minikins: I-Spy Pouch

When I saw the promotional video that Sara Lawson of Sew Sweetness put out about the Minikins, I was pretty excited. Minikins are a 12-piece collection of accessory pouches, like pencil bags, makeup pouches, and even a lunch bag, and they're as adorable as their name implies. I'm always looking for video workshops to help me gain confidence in sewing, so I was happy to sign up!

My first minikin is the I-Spy pouch, which is a zippered vinyl pouch. For the fabric, I'm using some rainbow fabrics from a Kim Shaefer bundle. I also found a purple zipper in my zipper collection that I thought would complement nicely!

True to name, this minikin came together in 15 steps or less ... 9, in fact. All in all it was really fast and easy to put together. I made mine the large size so it's the perfect size to hold colored pencils!

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Supernova ~ Ready to Quilt!

Well, I've done it. I officially have a quilt top that I can say I spent more time on than the ill-fated Aviatrix Medallion. My Supernova quilt made with Alison Glass fabrics is now officially the most-time-consuming quilt I've ever worked on. But it was worth it!

Working on an English Paper Piecing project is such a different mentality for me because it is almost deliberately slow. I can't rush through it, so I just slow down and enjoy it. Plus, it really gives me an excuse to have movie marathons and not feel like I'm wasting time!

After I finished assembling the pieces, I did something I never thought I would do. I actually hand appliqued it to the background fabric! I figured that I already spent 6 months on this project, what's a few more days? I do like the look better than machine applique, and in particular I feel like I can control the dog ears a bit better when I hand applique. My hand applique stitches are absolutely terrible, but at least nobody can see it!

I'm already in love with it, and I haven't even quilted it yet! I have a feeling this one will take quite awhile to quilt, because I will have to do a lot of thread changing, but I look forward to quilting it ... some day!

Tangled: A Paper Quilt

Since I've been on a mini quilt kick lately, I thought I'd show my latest finished mini quilt. Except this one is not sewn, it's drawn!

I took a Zentangle class at International Quilt Festival in Rosemont a few months ago, and this was one of the class projects. Out of all the classes I've taken, this is the first one that produced a project I actually really like. In a way, Zentangle is just like free-motion quilting, and indeed some of the motifs are very similar. I used 25 different motifs in the "block" section which is meant to resemble cathedral windows, and I decorated the sides with some fancy feathers and some "free-motion" swirls.

One of the reasons I took the class is to help me with being more free with my doodling in general, which I hope will translate into more creative free-motion quilting. And since the last part of Zentangling is to sign your work, I tried my hand at calligraphy and signed my initials.

This will be hung in my quilting studio along with the other minis I finished. I highly recommend trying zentangling as not only a relaxing way to play on paper, but to practice doodling to improve free-motion quilting!

Waterfall Runner

A few months ago I pieced a quilt top using a bundle of Craftsy's Boundless Blenders Ombre in Waterfall. It had some gorgeous blues, greens, and yellows, and since the quilt had a lot of flippy corners in the construction, it also meant I was left with a lot of triangles after trimming. I promptly made them into half-square triangles.

I love half-square triangles, and I was delighted to find that I had enough left over for a table runner. However, the layout options for half-square triangles are endless, and it was so hard to pick one! Eventually I decided on a radiating diamond design in order to accommodate the quilting plan I had in my head: lots of long straight lines.

I quilted straight lines in the white channels and several curvy designs in the colored portions. I love straight lines, and they look even better when contrasted with curvy designs.

This was such a quick and easy project, and I love how I didn't have to break into any new fabrics for this, that it was made up entirely of waste fabric from a different project. It looks great on my table, and really conveys the spirit of summer!

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Linking up with: Crazy Mom Quilts, My Quilt Infatuation, Busy Hands Quilts, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Cooking Up Quilts, Sew Can She, Powered by Quilting, and The Devoted Quilter.

Feathered Star Quilt Along ~ The Audition

When Rebecca Bryan announced her Feathered Star Quilt Along several weeks ago, I admit I was intrigued. I've never joined a quit along before, mostly because I like to do things on my own schedule, but I became very interested in this one. The Feathered Star is a rather intricate-looking quilt pattern and if not for this quilt along, I would never have had the courage to work on it.

For the fabric audition, I did have several bundles of Panache that I could have broken out so that my quilt will look just like the cover, but I decided to make mine a teensy bit more unique. I found a gorgeous bundle of rainbow brights called Geogram by Samarra Khaja from my stash, and I'm still pairing it with a black/white stripe from the Panache collection.

I'm excited and scared at the same time. Will I succeed and up my piecing game with this quilt, or fail miserably with badly matched seams and stretched-out blocks? I don't know, but I'll find out!

Taking a Shortcut

From the minute I picked up Zen Chic Inspired, I knew I wanted to make the quilt On the Ball. I even had the perfect fabric in mind for it: a happy, colorful print with lots of circles on it by Cynthia Rowley called Paint Box.

But when I actually read the instructions, I was a bit dismayed ... because it involved slice and insert. The last slice and insert quilt I did was Think Pink, and getting those intersections to match was really difficult, if not outright impossible. And that one is a lot easier than this pattern!

So I put it on the proverbial shelf and didn't think about it any longer. But then one day, I suddenly got an idea after using a bias tape maker. What if, instead of slash and insert, I used a bias tape maker and then just appliqued the strips? I'd get a similar look but it'd be so much easier.

And it worked! The strips look totally continuous (because they are) and I wouldn't have been able to make them look so continuous if I did slice and insert. It was surprisingly fast to do as there was no pressing and no lining the pieces up.

I'm very happy with it, and I think I got a very similar look to the original quilt, but it's much easier! I'm going to call this quilt Pick-Up Sticks, because that's what it reminds me of.

Skyways

A little over a year ago I completed Tokyo Subway Map, and while I loved it, I also thought I wouldn't want to do another quilt with so many little pieces. And then, I ran across Tangled by Rita Hodge, and I really wanted to make it. While it doesn't actually have as many pieces, it sure feels like it!

Auditioning fabrics for this quilt was really fun. I knew that I needed 25 colors, so I either had to pick 25 loose fat quarters from my stash, or use a coordinated bundle that has 25 or more colors. I ended up going with some Cotton + Steel basics.

This quilt was easy but took quite awhile to make because there are so many pieces. The arrangement of blocks was quite like a puzzle, and since I used different fabrics than the pattern, I had to make a key and refer to it constantly. I was fearful the whole time that I'd make a mistake and wouldn't discover it until it was going to be annoying to remove!

This quilt was really fun to quilt. I named this quilt Skyways because I'm imagining this futuristic world with floating cities where all the pathways are up in the air criss-crossing.

I did a simple piano key design for all the pathways and I like how they contrast really well with the negative space.

I like the front of this quilt a lot, but I think the back looks really cool too!

I had such a good time working on this quilt, and I'm very pleased with the outcome.

My little model was so excited to be in the picture!

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Linking up with: Crazy Mom Quilts, My Quilt Infatuation, Busy Hands Quilts, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Cooking Up Quilts, Sew Can She, Powered by Quilting, and The Devoted Quilter.