#300-A Friday Finish and A Giveaway

So here we are at post number 300! I almost can't believe it. That is a lot of words and pictures. I have come a long way since I started. I have learned so much from the quilting and blogging community and I want to say thank you to all of you who have inspired me.

For my Friday finish this week, I raced to finish one of the many baby quilt tops I am working on this year. I really wanted to get this top done, and I did, but there is a small mistake that will have to be ripped out and fixed. Let's take a look.

 I tried to arrange all the blocks to spread out the colors. When I make a quilt like this, I don't plan it out very much, so I just grabbed two fabrics that paired well with each other to frame the center. I always figure I can work out the block arrangement afterwards.

 See the two blocks in the top row that are blue on the outside? Those weren't supposed to be together, and I don't think they were, when I laid things out. But in my haste to finish the top, something got mixed up.  So they will be separated before I quilt this.

 So many fabrics in this one. Sweetwater's Noteworthy, Pearl Bracelets, Squared Elements, Flea Market Fancy, Malka Dubrawsky, and some other older fabrics from my stash. This was a fun fabric pull. Now, a few of my favorite blocks:

              The blue fabric here is a batik that I love, with tiny yellow and orange dots.

 One of my favorite grey stripes from Sweetwater, and I am sorry I can't remember which line.

 Navy blue Dimples surrounded by a great stripe from the Noteworthy line from Sweetwater.

                       Here is Denyse Schmidt playing nicely with Squared Elements.

I love this quilt already and I hope the new parents love it too. I don't know the gender of the baby yet, but I think this is cute enough to go either way. Now, since you have read all this way, let's talk giveaway.

 I have this pretty fat quarter bundle that I put together. These are all Kona Cottons I bought at my LQS. I wanted something bright and springy to give to you.

 I looked at lots of fabrics and chose these to hopefully appeal to a wide audience. And then, for fun I added a spool of Aurifil thread from my stash and some pretty springy zippers from Zippit.

I know you could find something fun to make with these. So, in order to be entered into the draw, since it's spring and all, in your comment please tell me what your favorite spring flower is. That's it. I will draw a winner next Friday, May 2nd. Drawing is open to any and all. I will ship internationally. Thank you again for reading about my quilting adventures here.
Linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts.
Giveaway over. Winner has been chosen.

Sunday Stash #10

I got just a couple of new things this week.  I am planning a wedding quilt for my middle daughter and she loves fall colors. I wanted to make something modern using fall colors and I am going to use mostly Kona solids, so I had to start getting some of them. Sorry the pics are not brighter, but cloudy and rainy is the order of the day here.

This is the pattern and the first of the fabrics. The pattern is Concerto by Aria Lane, a pattern company that was started by Alyssa Lichner of Pile O' Fabric. I fell in love with this quilt when I first saw it and am so happy to have a reason to make it now. I still need to work out what other fabrics I want to incorporate. The pattern and fabrics came from Christa Quilts. Colors are lipstick red 1194, orange 1265 and Canary yellow 26.
Next, I was blog reading and saw an adorable quilt by Allison of Cluck Cluck Sew using this sweet goldfish fabric by Timeless Treasures. I fell in love with it. It is actually a brighter white background.

I scoured the internet and found it at Fabric.com. They are out of it now, so I am thinking I am not the only one.  I bought a yard to use in a baby quilt. Allison has a great pattern that she used this in, but I haven't quite decided if I am going to use that pattern or another.
Here is the fabric I pulled from my stash to go with this one:

         This is the complete pull, for now. I may add or subtract. Still thinking on it.

 Some Sweetwater, Squared elements, Emily Herrick, Malka Dubrawsky and some older blues.

        Some Pearl bracelets, Denyse Schmidt, Alison Glass, and Laurie Wisbrun.

                                 These are the darker blues I chose.

And this is an older batik that I have used pieces of in many things. It is a bit hard to tell, but the dots in it range from a yellowish orange to a darker red orange. I have always loved it and it will be perfect in this.  Linking up to Sunday Stash.

Mosaic Tiles Quilt Along

So I got this great book for Christmas Modern Bee: 13 Quilts to Make with Friends. I had been perusing all the pages, drooling over the quilts, wondering which ones I could actually make by myself without too much fuss. Then, Lindsay at Craft Buds, whose book it is, posted a Quilt Along with the January quilt which is Mosaic Tiles. The quilt was actually made by Suki Newbold, with the help of her bee mates. This, I thought, is a great place to start. So I did and here, today is my take on the quilt.

 I have to tell you up front, that I am sewing from my stash. I am trying so hard not to buy fabric, although my husband has said I could if it was a very special fabric, or a very important line in quilting world. So far, no purchases for 2014. I had most of a charm pack of Simple Marks Summer, by Malka Dubrawsky. I love the saturated colors of this line and have been trying to come up with a way to use it. I had a couple of yards of City Scenes by Jane Dixon for Andover that I bought to use as a possible backing for a quilt.

I loved how the colors popped against the grey and I loved how the grey was not plain and flat with all the black and white lines. The only thing I didn't have was the red that I wanted for the cross piece. Since I elected to start this project so early, I was able to buy the red, Simple Color, from an earlier line of Malka's. I always get to buy some fabric at the 35% of new year's day anniversary sale at my LQS. So really, I haven't broken my fast since I hadn't started yet at that point.

 I did audition some other reds for this space, but none would do. I decided to make a smaller version of this quilt, since I had less that one full charm pack of the fabric to work with. I ended up making 13 blocks and putting the 13th on the back.

 I used some already cut, extra strips of th City Scenes for the binding. I didn't want to detract from the rest of the quilt.

 I quilted the red cross pieces in straight line 1/2 inch apart, going in the direction of the cross, and turning corners so it started and ended at the edge of the quilt.

 The back is all greys from my stash of leftovers from other projects. There is the 13th block and the rest of the City Scenes.

 Here you can see the quilting. I quilted loops on the rest of the quilt using a lovely reddish orange shade of Auriful.

And here is my label in the bottom corner. I had one warmish day to take pictures outside and I grabbed it, even though the quilt has not been washed yet, so it lacks the crinkly goodness.

One more fun pic before I go. Thanks to Lindsay for putting together a great book. I will definitely be trying some of the other projects in there this year, as I sew my way through my stash.

WIP Wednesday

Here it is, Wednesday again and I am still stitching away from my stash. Proud to say, even though there are a few things I would like to have, I haven't caved yet.  Here is this week's progress:

 This little sweetie is going to be a table topper for a small round table in my living room. All made from charms I collected and pin basted and ready to quilt. The border print is from Malka Dubrasky's line, Stitch in Color. I have been looking for something to do with this for a long time. I even mitered the corners!

 Here is my Flags quilt top. This is from Cheryl Arkison's book A Month of Sundays. I changed the layout to be able to use the fabric I had chosen, even though it wasn't quite enough. I have decide to put a thin row of dots in between each row of flags. Still trying to find my way through this one.

And last, but not least, this is the back of another small quilt. I am pin basting this today. I am not ready to show the front off just yet. This is for the Mosaic Tiles Quilt Along on Craft Buds.  Hope you are having a great week. Linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced. Talk to you soon.