Happy Fall

 Well, now it is officially fall, or Autumn, if you prefer. Days are getting shorter, temperatures are cooling down a bit. It's awesome! Here's what I have been doing the last couple of weeks.

I made all these balls of fabric "yarn" from string scraps that I have been saving for the past two years. A number of years ago, Crazy Mom had a tutorial on how to crochet or knit a throw rug with these. I have made a few of them over the years. I want to do one more. This will be my last. I'm not saving these kinds of scraps any more.

This was the table as I sorted all the scraps. After I made the very first one, I decided to sort into color groups and I like the look it gives me much better.

It takes about 3 pounds of this yarn to crochet a decent size rug. The blue is the largest ball I have and you  can see it is close to a pound. I weighed all the balls and together there is 4.8 pounds, so this will be a sizeable rug.

I also finished this lovely EPP piece. I am going to look for a backing fabric so I can remove the papers and quilt it. I will finish the edges without binding. That should be interesting. 

I hope you are all doing well. I will be back with more projects to share.

Lavender Quilt

My Lavender quilt top is finally done! I can now focus on quilting it. In case you don't remember, or don't know, the Lavender quilt is an EPP quilt from Jodi Godfrey's book Seedling Quilts. When I saw this quilt, I just had to get the book and try it. It really made my heart sing.

This first picture, since I find it hard to rearrange in blogger, is a piece I got on sale for the backing of this quilt. I love that hot pink!

This is a (slightly wrinkly) picture of the whole quilt top. It is 54 inches square. I chose the honey ombre fabric for the borders, as well as th wedges inside the quilt design. I wanted lots of color movement.

The changes I get with the ombre are, I think, pretty cool. I love that it is not one flat color.

The triangles were all made from scraps from other projects. They are all low volume, which is not something I have lots of. I plan on lots of quilting, to tame these wrinkles and to really anchor the fabrics down since they are all hand stitched together.

The small triangles are Confetti Ombre Metallic in a deep red-ish purple color. Sorry I don't remember the name of the color. I chose that so I could use one fabric, and still have some color variation.

I love how this quilt to came out, even though it really doesn't look exactly like it did in my mind. I can't wait to get it quilted. I hope that part works out the way I have it planned.

Talk to you soon.

Lavender Quilt

So in my last post, I told you about the Seedlings quilt minis I am making from the panels of the Seedlings Quilt. This is a wonderful new book by Jodi Godfrey from Tales of Cloth. There is one quilt in the book that I just really fell in love with, and I have chosen to make the whole Lavender quilt.

The quilt in the book uses white for these triangles, but I decided to use some low volume fabrics that I had on hand instead.

 For the fabric to represent the flowers, instead of scraps, I decided to use V and Company Ombre Confetti Metallic. I knew I could get a range of pretty color from the ombre and the metallic would add a fun touch.

I also decided, instead of a flat yellow color, to use V and Company Ombre in Honey. I feel like that will give me a bit of variation throughout the quilt.

So I have begun making my blocks for this quilt. I really like the consistency I get with EPP. The larger size pieces are a bit of a challenge for me. I am used to hand stitching my paper pieces, but I found that these larger sizes work better for me if I glue them. So I am.

 I got some blocks done, and laid them out to see how it was looking. I am very happy with my color choices. I know it will take me quite some time to finish this quilt, but I really am enjoying the process so much.

So now, I am off to stitch a bit more on this fun project. If you want to see another colorway of this quilt, Rachel, of Stitched in Color did one in blues and I think, scraps. Go to her blog to see how different and unique hers is.
Talk to you soon.

Seedlings Mini Quilts

So if you are on Instagram, and you follow Jodi at Tales of Cloth, you know she is doing a Seedlings QAL there. Now, I have the book and I love the book, but I don't really have time to do this QAL right now. So I am working on doing the panels for the Seedlings quilt, but I am doing them as minis.

The first one I did was Caraway. I am very happy with how that one turned out. Some hand quilting and some quilting with Perle cotton.

The next one I completed is Honeysuckle. I love the shape for the leaves and I just made my vine as long as I wanted it to be.

 I decided to just do one vine so the panel would be long and skinny. And I really like it.

I machine quilted it with a fancy vine stitch that my machine does. And then I hand embroidered the name of the quilt block on the side. I have several more of these I want to make until my collection is complete. I am having fun with this, and I can go at whatever pace my time allows.
Have a great afternoon friends.

I Might Be a Squirrel

Hi there. I have missed you. I have been busy, and traveling and clearly, not here in this space. I must confess, it's partly because I have been busy, and partly because I have been lazy. I have trouble getting around to taking and uploading pictures to blog about, because that's really the point of blogging here.

Right before I left for two weeks in North Carolina to see the the kids and the grand kids, I got this book. Now I just started EPP last year with a sew along with Rachel from Stitched in Color and Jodi from Tales of Cloth. But I wanted to go beyond hexagons and until this book came along, I wasn't sure how that was going to happen.

This book not only made that happen for me, I think it turned me into a squirrel. I wanted to make ALL the quilts. And I wanted to make them NOW! So when I got home, after a week of acclimating to being home, and then doing a craft fair, I started.

 First, I made the honeycomb paper shapes, and began that project. Very close to hexagons, so very easy to stitch. I liked so many of the quilts, I decided to just do some small versions of the panels for the big Seedlings quilt as mini quilts.

 Then, I branched out into the shapes for the peppermint quilt panel. This was a very different shape for me to tackle, but still pretty easy. These are my first few, and I am not sure how many I will do. I have 6 now and 9 might be my limit.

This is a closeup of the Caraway panel. It is the first one to be finished. I hand quilted with Perle cotton on the Caraway plants, and then hand quilted around the rows of plants.

This shot is a little blurry, but it is quilted and bound. I used a chain stitch to embroider the name on it and I think I will do that for all of them. I am not sure how many of these I will make. There are 12 quilts in the book.

So far I am really enjoying this process. I thought about buying the shapes, but decided to make them myself to save some money. It's not hard, but it does take time. I finished the Honeysuckle panel yesterday, but haven't photographed it yet. That will be in my next post.

The one full size quilt I will be making from the book is the Lavender quilt. Hands down, my favorite. I think that one will take me quite some time, but I will take some progress photos for you.
And lest you think I am not squirrely enough, I am also doing some sewing projects, Christmas ornaments, and still crocheting on a blanket.

This is the most recent picture, and it is taken in North Carolina. This is the back side of my Dune blanket from Lucy at Attic 24. I am several more colors deep into it now. I will also do a post on it very soon with more pictures.
So there you have it. I am all over the place, and I still have one more craft fair to do in two weeks!
I will talk to you soon.