February days...

The Portland Modern Quilt Guild meeting last week was so much fun. Barbara and I rode together, it’s so nice to have somebody to drive with! We saw a lot of gorgeous quilts, learned all about color, and had a good tutorial using glue basting, which I am going to try soon with my Single Girl Quilt. It is always great to go to these meetings, so those of you who live in the Portland area should really come to them!

In other news, Jessie and I are working on an “I-Spy” quilt for her little cousin. I bought a package of 6” novelty squares from The Center Diamond in Cannon Beach about 3 years ago, and they have just been sitting in my stash waiting patiently. Jessie laid out the squares by herself, and pieced and ironed everything, look at her go! I am going to quilt it for her, she said she wants it to have the squiggly quilting with rainbow thread on top. How cute is she? So, we basted it the other day, here she is hard at work.

I started working on a new quilt, I always like having a dozen things going on at once to be creatively happy. So, I pulled out my Martinique Jelly Roll and started the pattern Garden Trellis in the Jelly Roll Quilts book. It’s the first time I am actually using this book, I’ve been drooling over the patterns for a long time now.

Martinique is an amazing fabric line, the colors are gorgeous. There are aquas, pinks, reds and a nice gray color. It was fun putting this together. I am halfway done getting the blocks sewn together.

It is supposed to snow today, you know Portland, it just rains most of the time, so snow would be fun.

Mermaids Riding the Wave

I've been hoarding fabric, nothing new really. The Mendocino Mermaids that Heather Ross designed are one of my all time fave fabrics. The colors are my favorite, it is ocean themed, and hello cute little girls? This quilt was started back in June of 2010. It took awhile to cut out, and then I didn't really get any further. This past month I finished the top up. It's really big, just the way I like a quilt!

The pattern is called New Wave by Elizabeth Hartman. The pattern had instructions written for all quilt sizes, which was great. I chose the twin size. I had enough fabric to do a king haha! I kept it smaller :)

I bought some really nice flannel at Fabric Depot for the backing, it's washed and ready to be basted now. I can't wait to get this quilted. And this quilt is staying at home with me!

We drove out to Sauvie Island again today to see birds and let the dog run and play. Mark took this picture of us, I loved it. Look at how big my kids are getting!

Beach Mat

The Portland Modern Quilt Guild meeting is tomorrow night. I am so excited to go! They asked everyone to bring a "mug rug" to the meeting. A smallish placemat is what it is. To put your mug of coffee or hot cocoa and a treat on. There are some adorable ones floating around on Flickr.

My first thought was a "mini" picture. Then of course my thoughts drifted to the beach. That is where my mind is a lot, at the beach. We love it there. So naturally I thought of surfing, my husband the addict. He loves surfing. Anyways, surfing made me think of Heather Ross, and the AWESOME surfboard she put her artwork on. I want one so bad to hang in my bedroom. As if I'd use it for surfing!

The beach hut has it's very own Mermaid surfboard! Ha, see I got my surfboard after all. Awesome right?? There you have it, my very first beach mat. Sorry, can't call it a mug rug, it's made for the beach.

You all want this board don't you?? I know I do.

Single Girl Quilt

I've had the pattern to make the Single Girl quilt for over a year now. I've seen several made, and they are all just beautiful. Jenn showed me the one she started, and I loved it.

There is a group starting up to do a quilt along, and they'll have pictures and help for all of us who don't know how to sew a curved seam *raises hand* This should be perfect for me.

I pulled the fabrics I want to use, all from my stash. And of course they'll be blue and green. My favorite combination. It should be lots of fun.

My husband insisted we go on a drive this morning to get out of the house. We all kind of drug our feet, but once we got to Sauvie Island, we were all wide eyed and loving it. There were birds everywhere. My new camera with the zoom lens caught this big bald eagle in a tall tree, look at how pretty he is! I love it here.

These horses were pretty too, they scared that huge flock of geese up into the air. It was a perfect morning to go for a drive. Thanks Mark :)

Nine Patch Lattice Quilt Top

First off, I want to say thank you to everyone who has left such nice comments about the Hexagon Quilt on my last post. You are all so nice! I love that you can appreciate the work that goes into a quilt and how beautiful they are. Your comments make me want to go out and try more things, you all inspire me, so thank you. Blogging is sure fun isn’t it?

So, I am a month into - Stashpact11 - buying no fabric. *shock! gasp!* That’s pretty good I think. For one thing I’ve been pretty busy, so the quilting time has been cut back a bit, which makes me not want to buy anything anyway. When we get a few months into the year will be when it gets hard! Usually after I finish things I tell myself I deserve more fabric… pshaw! I do not!

I had pulled several greens, tans and orange fabrics from my stash last month. I wanted to make a smaller quilt with them for a boy. So, I remembered the tutorial on Oh Fransson! I have loved this quilt, and the wonky blocks, they are so cute. I’ve never made a wonky block in my life, so this was pretty fun to do. Her tutorial makes it very easy. And you really don’t use much fabric. So, I still have a large pile of leftovers :)

I wanted a nice tan solid for the background blocks on this quilt, I was worried I wouldn't have any. I didn’t want to buy fabric… Why do I worry? Of course I had some, not like I remembered or anything :)

The backing will have to be pieced, I have 4 blocks leftover I can use, and a solid green I found. The binding will be orange :) This is a quick and fun quilt to make, go give it a shot.

Next up?? The New Wave quilt I started forever ago using those sweet mermaids…

Hexagon Quilt Finished

Well here she is, after almost a year of working on. The hexagon quilt is officially done and ready for use! I kept the quilting straightforward and simple. I outlined the star and the inside pattern of the block. I used a turquoise print for the binding, my favorite color.

I got creative with the back, I only had 3 yards of the flower and bird print. So... using the leftover triangles from the blocks, I pieced them into long rows and added them. I had the pink in my stash and it was just the right color, so I added a strip of that to the bottom.

This is for sure the hardest quilt I've pieced, but all of that hard work and unpicking of seams and re-ironing was worth it. It's such a pretty quilt. The fabric I used is called Plume. Tula Pink designed it for Moda. It was a jelly roll, with white background fabric. Julie at Jaybird Quilts had a quiltalong for it. I really encourage you to make one!

I'm all over the place

After a quilting power session on Sunday morning I was able to finish the quilting for the Hexagon quilt. It turned out nice, and I am getting ready to bind it now. I was asked how I quilt this? I have a Baby Lock Quilters Choice sewing machine, it has a table on it. I do all of my free motion quilting on it. This can be done on any machine, you really need an extension table though. Since I quilted this quilt with straight lines, I used a 90/14 needle and a walking foot. I lengthened my stitches just a bit, and off I went! It requires a lot of patience, and a lot of breaks. I can usually quilt 15-20 minutes at a time, then I have to get up and walk around. So, if you all want to give it a go, you should :)

This week I am teaching quilt class at church. I’ve been teaching a block of the month to whomever is interested. It has been a lot of fun. This month we are learning the leaf block. I am using all aquas and oranges for my blocks. It’ll be fun to see everybody’s come together.

I started cutting up the stack of fabrics I had put together that are green, orange and brown. I am using the tutorial from Oh Fransson! called Crazy Nine Patch Lattice Quilt. It's super fun! Elizabeth is brilliant.

So many projects...

On Saturday the sun came out here in Portland. This is practically unheard of for January. Mark and I decided we had to get out and do something, so we headed to the Columbia River Gorge to do a hike. We went to Beacon Rock State Park. It is in Washington, and the hike is straight up Beacon Rock (850’), with a great view all the way up. Then you wander straight back down. It was a very fun hike. I had to stop and rest on the way up, my kids ran up the whole way, they are crazy!

After that we drove back to Vancouver, and went to Fort Vancouver. We love history and this place was fascinating and just beautiful. It helped of course that the sun was shining, and not a cloud could be seen. We had fun exploring the building and learning all about the trades that went on in the 1800’s. No money was exchanged really, the currency was beaver pelts. How cool!

My shoulders hurt

After consulting my BFF Becky on how to quilt my Hexagon quilt, we came to the conclusion that stars should be outlined. Of course that would look good right??? When I came home and considered that even more, I realized just how much it would require moving, stopping, moving, stopping, readjusting... oh man! This is why I love free motion quilting, it's not nearly so involved. As much as I wanted to just stipple quilt this top, I did the right thing and am outlining those stars. With pink thread!

I'm almost half way done... my shoulders are killing me! Off to do some yoga, maybe that will loosen me up. I think quilting this quilt totally counts as a workout in itself. :P

Stash...

I joined a Flickr group called StashPact11. They are trying hard not to buy any fabric (or yarn for those knitters out there) for the whole year. You can make your own pact, and write it down over there, and we all help each other to stick to it. It’s going to be hard, I’m not gonna lie. I love buying fabric, I am addicted to it I think (I know). So, this will be fun to talk to other people about it, and it’ll be even funner to use all that pretty fabric I’ve got in my house waiting so patiently.

So, in joining this group it has focused me looking at the fabrics I’ve got, and all of my patterns. I plan to get started on this right away. I’ve been making piles of fabric and joining them up with patterns that might look good with them… it’s soooo fun. There are stacks all over my bedroom right now!

Here is a stack I am loving right now. I want to make a baby boy quilt using these greens, browns and maybe a little orange. I can’t decide for sure on the orange, but I kind of like it. I want to do a simple square in a square pattern.

This fabric is for another red/blue/tan quilt. I made one last year and gave it to my coworker. My sister is needing one now too I think. I’ll probably do another half square triangle quilt with them, and use a different layout.

And this pretty jellyroll I want to use and make this quilt from the Jelly Roll Quilts book I am constantly drooling over.

Then there is the quilt from Elizabeth Hartman’s book I am loving. I have a lot of fabrics that would look adorable with this pattern I think…

But what about my Rural Jardin Fat Quarter bundle? Cathy is making a quilt using these fabrics, which led me to commenting on how pretty it was, which led her to commenting back that I should use mine and we could sew them together… which is leading me to wanting to start this quilt right now. *edited to add* The pattern is called Stella Blue and is by Miss Rosie's Quilt Company :)

This is too fun isn’t it? Now you go to your stash and do the same, you’ll love it!

Rectangle Squared Quilt Top

I’ve been in a sewing mood lately, as in, all I want to do is be home and SEW. I dream of quilts all day long! I am in La-La Land! This week I have been working on the Rectangle Squared Quilt. The pattern is free over at Film in the Fridge. She made her quilt a bit smaller than this one, I added another row of blocks to it. You know me, I don’t like making small quilts.

I played with the layout of it for awhile…

Made a big mess on my kitchen table (yes, I sew on my kitchen table)

And last night added the final border to it, using that pretty fabric called Love by Amy Butler.

This is another quilt top that I need to get quilted up now :D Woohoo!

Re-decorating

Mark and I went on a date last night. We wanted to get out, even though we were both really tired from the busy week we had. First we went to eat some Pad Thai, it was delicious. We both looked at each other after eating and said "now what??" We started driving towards downtown Portland, and ended up somehow clear at IKEA. So, we made the best of it! We had fun looking at all of the stuff, that place is so huge. We ended up getting some cool decorations for the kid's bedrooms. When we got home from our date we told them if they cleaned their rooms really good they'd get a gift from us, we didn't tell them what we got. Well, today we cleaned and cleaned for hours... I am exhausted! It was really great to get it all done though.

I really want to paint their bedrooms, but it seems so daunting. All of the bedrooms in our house have huge vaulted ceilings, so the walls go up forever and ever. Putting a color on a wall that big freaks me out! Jessie's room needed a new light fixture, and since she has those high ceilings she got a big one. I love this light, it's so super fun isn't it?? It's like 30" in diameter haha!

Also in Jessie's room I put up some new pictures on her wall, just because. We went to an artsy show a few months ago, and I picked up the cutest postcards from Oh My Cavalier!. Her art was so interesting and pretty. I framed three of our favorites and hung them in Jessie's room. The mirrors I bought a long time ago, and it's about time they were hung.

Curren got a new chair, it hangs from the rafter in his room. He sat in it for hours today playing his Nintendo DSi. He was in HEAVEN.

Happy house, happy kids. Life is good.

Hexagon Quilt Top

You guys, I finished the hexagon quilt top! Can you believe it? I am so excited about how it turned out. It was one of the hardest quilt tops I've ever pieced, but I learned a lot and loved the process. A challenge is always good... which is why it took almost a year to complete the top :)

The quilt is a lap size, it's not too big. All of those little pointy corners were a bear to put together. I feel like an expert on them now though :) The fabric I used is called Plume designed by Tula Pink for Moda. I used a Jelly Roll and white yardage. Julie at Jaybird Quilts started it all, with the hexagon quilt along. I also used a book called Sizzlin' Sixties by Heather Mulder Peterson. There are a lot of tutorials and good tips out there, so if you want to make your own hexagon quilt, jump right in!

This is the backing I chose for the quilt, I bought about 3 yards of it, and it won't be enough, so I'll have to find some other stuff in my stash that will match it. It's so pretty isn't it? I love Tula Pink's fabric designs, they are so artsy.

Now, to figure out how to quilt it...