Learning how to Paper Piece, Kaleidoscope Blocks

I've been shying away from paper piecing for years!  I was afraid of it, just like I was afraid of applique.    When I saw this beautiful pillow made by Kerri at Lovely Little Handmades, I knew I had to bite the bullet and just go for it.  She said she used this tutorial by Brooke of Pitter Putter Stitch.  Don't you just LOVE the internet and blogging?  I find so much inspiration from everybody.

I chose navy blue, grass green and a natural linen.  The navy and greens were all scraps!  I'm trying to use scraps you guys, and it's still hard for me LOL!  I traced my paper pieces onto regular lined writing paper, and went to town making these blocks.

Since my sewing machine is in the shop getting a good cleaning, I haven't been able to sew this into a pillow yet.  I used a green Perle 8 cotton thread to hand quilt it.

This video also helped me a lot!!  I like having some visual references for sure.

And like two days after I pieced this all together, Rita at Red Pepper quilts had made a template and put it up for FREE at her Craftsy site.  Go download it!  It made me laugh, we are all on the same wavelength apparently.  Enjoy!!

Another Senior Quilt!

One of the youth that attend the church group I help teach graduated this year.  It has been fun seeing her go through the past few years of high school to grow up and become a beautiful and successful person.  Karigan asked Barbara and I to make a quilt for her.  Last year the girls wanted to make their own, or help make them.  I had a layer cake of an old Tula Pink line in my stash, so I added some matching prints to it and made this basic quilt for her.  I wish I would have had more time to make something a bit more "fancy" for her, but this is pretty too.  Barbara quilted it on her longarm in a pretty loop pattern.

I took my sewing machine in to be serviced, it takes two weeks! I get to attend our church young women camp next week for 5 days, I can't wait! I love girls camp, it's always fun.  It will be interesting to go as an adult I am sure :)  Today is the last day of school for my kids as well.  The year really went fast.  I've got all kinds of adventures planned for our summer vacation, I can't wait for it to start!

A few weeks ago we went to Washington D.C. to attend Mark's brothers wedding.  We had a wonderful time.  Here we are in front of the Capitol building.  Look at how big my kids have gotten.  Curren starts 7th grade in the fall, and Jessie 6th grade.  They are going to be 18 before I know it...

Phillip's T-Shirt Quilt

My friend approached me about making a t-shirt quilt for her son Phillip, who just graduated this year.  Congrats Phillip!  She had kept shirts clear back from the 3rd grade, he loves basketball, and she had all of his team shirts too.  It was great!  I had a good time cutting them up and making this big quilt for him.

I hadn't ever tried making a t-shirt quilt before, so I searched the internet for tutorials.  I found a great one over at Bunkhouse Quilts.  I found the interfacing at Joann's, it was really easy to do.

I went with my friend to choose all of the fabrics to make the quilt, I wanted to do a cohesive layout with the shirts, rather than random patchwork.  We chose a tone on tone gray, and navy for the sashing and a fun plaid for the border.  We put a navy flannel on the back too, it's a huge quilt!

I had my neighbor kids hold it up for me, on the trampoline netting haha!

Now, I need to start saving my kids' t-shirts :)

Craftsy class with Sarah Fielke

I've heard about Craftsy for quite awhile, and had wanted to try their classes, but didn't find the right one, until I saw the class by Sarah Fielke.  I love her work so much, and she had many techniques that she taught in her class that I wanted to know more about, so I finally signed up and tried it out.  The Craftsy website is super simple to use, and the classes couldn't have been better!  Sarah was really intuitive, and when I'd think a question in my head, she'd almost immediately answer it in her video haha!

I have been wanting to learn more about applique.  I had tried it a long time ago and really hated the process, but got over it, and decided to try again.  I loved it!  I took this on a recent family vacation and stitched it on the airplane, in the car, at the park, and suddenly it was finished.

It finished at about 24" square after I added the border.  I think I'm going to make a huge pillow for my bed!  Isn't it so pretty??  Another lesson I learned was to use my scraps.  I HATE using scraps.  It seems like whenever I'd pull scraps for a project, I wouldn't have the right size, it'd be too small, etc.  Anyways, this was a good exercise for me, and it loosened me up to not have it be too matchy, and to just make it fun!

I also hand quilted it using perle cotton thread.  I bought a big hoop at Joann's for $4.00 and went crazy.  I loved that part too!  

You learn things like how to make the bias stems, and nifty ways to trace your fabric pieces for needle turn applique.  I am so glad I signed up for this class. I have a huge project I am dying to make now, another Sarah Fielke pattern called Whirligig.  It is from her book Quilting from the Little Things.

Here is to new inspiration!!

A sweet little Posy quilt

I love the new fabric line by Aneela Hoey called Posy!  I picked up a fat eights bundle and cut it up the next day.  The soft springy colors were mesmerizing me haha!  I decided to make another quilt from the book Schnibbles times Two, by Carrie Nelson.  I love her patterns a lot, they are so great.  I had to modify the pattern however, a fat eight is only 9" across, and the book needed 10" squares, so the blocks are a bit smaller, but they still look great, and really used up all of the fabric.

The colors in my backyard are really vibrant this spring, it's a perfect setting for photos.

I used the stripes in the center of each block.

It's all washed and ready to go!

I used a matching mint floral print on the back that I had in my stash.

This quilt is for sale in my Etsy shop!