WIP Wednesday-First Post for July

I made a deal with myself to try really hard to post more this year, and so far I am doing pretty good. I found that for me, finding things I was working on and being able to link up with others was a big help and incentive to post more and get a bit more traffic here at the ol' blog.  Happy Wednesday all. Here is what I am working on today:

 Remember these lovelies? I had been looking for the perfect showcase for them for so long and I finally found it.

 I began sewing blocks and just throwing them up on the design wall to see how they played. This was the beginning of some great quilt love for me.

 Then, I switched it up and decided to alternate rows and I loved the way that  looked. It was much better than the jumbled method above.

 The colors, the pattern, these fabrics are just gorgeous. Art Gallery really knows what they are doing.

 The blocks went together pretty fast and I made the number of blocks I wanted to get the size quilt I wanted. This is one of those you can easily adjust like that.

Here is the final layout of my Belle Waves quilt. My sweet husband helped me rearrange until we arrived at this. He is good at that part of the process. I have two rows sewn together and hope to finish the top by the weekend. Have a great Wednesday everyone. Linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced.

Got Nothing Finished Friday

I realized I had not been here since Monday. I love being able to link up with all the Friday Finish posts and have people stopping by, but I seem to have so many things in progress that are taking longer to complete. Hence the title of today's post.

So here is what I have in the works right now...

 This is my Belle Waves quilt top. I finally got another couple yards of Kona white so I can continue on with the piecing of this. I am half way done. I did swap out the two partial blocks at the top for some made with the Essentials floral print in keeping with the pattern I have in mind.

 Then this guy got a backing an all pinned up in anticipation of quilting. I can't believe how many pins it took and how long. But my Aurifil 40 weight thread that I ordered came, so now I am ready!

And lastly, a bit wrinkled, here is the first half of the queen size Concerto quilt I am piecing for my daughter and her new husband. I love this pattern and each size requires different size blocks, so it is going together quite nicely and quickly too. These squares are 7 3/4 inches.  This one really gets me excited to see it together.

And so, these are the projects that are keeping me busy these days. Thank you for dropping by, even if a linky didn't get you here, I love that you did. Talk to you soon.

Summertime and the Living is Busy

I know things are supposed to slow down in the summer, but really, do they? I don't have kids at home any more and I am still very busy with work and projects and planning vacations. I know those who still have little ones at home are busy now that school is out. There are camps and swim lessons and trips to take and family to visit. When I was a kid, we had maybe one week or so where we took a trip, but other than that, summer was very unstructured and loose. I miss those days.

So in the land of projects, here is some (not all) of what I have going on:

 I cut out all the rest of the pieces for my Belle Waves quilt. I am about a yard short on the Kona white, so I will pick some up later this week.

 I changed the arrangement of the blocks to one I like better. I am putting all the squared elements blocks in a row and then the essentials block in a row and alternating them. I just realized this morning that the two partial blocks on top need to be switched out for essentials, so I will do that too.

 These are really making my heart sing! The fabrics are so very soft and the colors so joyful to me.

 Then, I got the fabric for the boys' quilt backs. I was able to take advantage of a Kona sale at Fort Worth Fabrics and bought 4 yards of these two. I love the blue. The yellow was originally going to be Kona Curry, but they didn't have that so I bought a brighter yellow, which I think will be just fine. For now they sit for a few days while I wait for the thread to arrive. I ordered some 40 weight Aurifil from Hawthorne Threads to do the quilting with. I want to test out other weights of threads. I am also looking for a project to use an even heavier weight thread for quilting.

And lastly, for today, I have made these. These are two balls of string scrap "yarn" to make a crochet rag rug like Crazy Mom made. The tutorial can be found here. This is going to be my beach project. I need a hand work project to take with me to the beach in August. For my rag rug I will need 3 balls of this that each weigh one pound. One of these is done and one need a few more ounces to weigh in at a pound. I am using my kitchen scale to weigh them. I can't wait to get started crocheting on this! Have a great week and I will see you back here soon.

A New Project-WIP Wednesday

I am so very excited to be working on a new project! It took me so long to piece the boys quilt tops and I tried so hard to stay focused. Now that they are done and ready to quilt, I am allowing myself to start piecing something new.
I saw a quilt on facebook and I loved the design so after some investigation I found it on Flickr and then found the person who designed it is Faith of Fresh Lemons and hooray, it is a free design so I am now making it.

 I just love Art Gallery fabric. So soft and pretty that I had to buy all the Squared elements I could find and then the Essentials flowers, all by Pat Bravo. They play so well together, don't you think? I was just waiting for the perfect idea to strike in order to cut into theses beauties.  So here it is...

The pattern is Belle Wave by Faith of Fresh Lemons. Easy to piece and each one goes together pretty quickly. I am still playing with the arrangement, but I am loving each block so far. This will be a nice size throw when I am finished. Linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday.

Lots of Blocks

I am happy to have done my Sunday Morning Quilts Bee blocks already for June. I just packed them up to put into the mail. A good thing too, since they are traveling so far this month. Some to Australia and some to England. I love thinking of them going to live in a quilt in another part of the world. Here they are:

 Tessophia requested 16 patch blocks to put into a checkerboard quilt for her daughter. This is going to be a lovely quilt.

 Treewytch requested blocks like the Grass Quilt in the book (Sunday Morning Quilts) but in a different colorway. This is going to be a bright quilt.

And then,  Chelsea at Pins and Bobbins put out a call to make blocks for a Quilt for Aneela, using Aneela Hoey fabrics. So I dug around and found that I still had a few charm squares from Little Apples and Sherbet Pips and I made these to send:

If you want to make some blocks for Aneela's Quilt, go here for more information. Have a great day.

Sewjo Saturday-Twice as Nice

Well I have been pushing and pushing myself to finish these quilt tops. And today...they are done.

 What held things up was all these little pieces that had to be sewn and then trimmed down and sewn again.

 That made these, which I used as a border to enlarge the quilt on the sides. I am aiming for twin.

 Here is the quilt top for V. The fabric line is Riley Blake's Rocket Age. The quilt design is my own.

 I love the little diamond borders down each side. The backing of this will be a Kona solid blue so it won't detract from the busy design which is the star.

The next quilt top is the one that started the whole thing for me...B's quilt. When I saw the Sasparilla fabric line, I knew I wanted to make B a quilt for his first big boy bed.

 He just turned 2, so it will be soon. I bought half yard cuts of my favorites, got out the graph paper and went to work. I quickly found I didn't have enough fabric, so I bought some more.

 The quilt looks a bit more washed out here than it really is, but once it's quilted, It will be great. The back of this one will be a Kona solid yellow.

 The boys share a room, so to have two quilts similar, but not identical seemed a good choice. I counted how many fabrics I used for B's quilt and when I saw Rocket Age, I picked out the same quantity of fabrics for V. This time I knew how much to buy the first time.

I am so happy with how these came out. Once I get them quilted, I will be back to show them off. Linking up with Kim for Sewjo Saturday.

Quilt for Aneela

Chelsea over at Pins and Bobbins is heading up a campaign to make quilt blocks for a quilt for Aneela Hoey. Aneela is the sweet artist behind such fabric lines as Little Apples, Sherbet Pips and Cherry Christmas, just to name a few. Aneela is going in for surgery for breast cancer and Chelsea had the wonderful idea to make her a quilt to show the support of our wonderful community of quilting bloggers.


If you are interested in being a part of this project, visit Chelsea's blog here for more information. She would like to have the blocks by July 1 and all blocks will be made from Aneela's fabric lines. The directions on how to make the x and o blocks is also available through Chelsea's blog which has a link to the free tutorial.
Let's join together and show Aneela how loved she is in our quilting community.