Finished Pinwheel Quilt Top!

Woo hoo!  I have finished the pinwheel baby quilt from my Craftsy class.  This quilt is made of nine blocks, each made with four strip pieced sub-units.  It finishes at about 36 x 36 inches, which is perfect for the little girl I have in mind.  

I found making these blocks entirely meditative as they are chain pieced units of straight lines on a slight diagonal.  Still, when pulled together they have impact.  This was great fun to make, a fab way to play around with Peggy Martin's method of piecing.  I can already see how her strip piecing can be used in my New York Beauty blocks, so I am delighted with how that Craftsy class keeps on giving.

It was a beautifully sunny day when I took these photos.  With the sun, though, comes shadows which make it hard to see the top.  I had to take the very non-artistic option and just toss it on the drive to avoid tree branches.  It is not as pretty of a background, but you can indeed see the top better.  Gotta do what you can, right?  I am surely not going to be the only person in all of Ireland complaining about this spectacular weather!

Can you see how some of the points of the yellow squares are lost in some blocks?  I am not entirely sure why that happened as I was only following the line on the template - there is no place to go wrong really.  It must have been how I trimmed the units?  Or maybe how I joined them together?  I think it will be lost in the quilting and washing so I am surely not going to bother ripping the blocks apart.

So, does it need a border or will I finish it off as it is?  If you are voting border, which fabric do you think I should use?  I was imagining the pink floral as it has bits of the yellow in the center of the flowers, but that is quite a small print and usually I go for larger prints in the border.  Any suggestions from here are totally welcome!

As usual, I had my photographic assistant next to me while taking these photos.  She has been so very happy to spend time rolling grass now that the warm sun is out.  She'd spend all day sunning her belly if I let her, the little cutie.

Bee Blessed Sampler Quilt

This past weekend I finished a quilt top!  I am so happy to have this project completed - it is a very special quilt top that has slept dormant in my sewing room for WAY too long.  You see, this is not just any old quilt top, but a top created with blocks donated by members of the Modern Quilters of Ireland and supporting quilters (blogged about here).

The idea was to create a top for Bee Blessed that might be suitable for a fella.  The only instructions to members was to use blue/green in the block on a white background.  What the members created was just beautiful, with each block complimenting the next.  

I was only to arrange them, add sashing and finish the top off with a border.  I had arranged them nicely on my design wall, so that the lights/darks were evenly distributed.  However, when I stitched the rows together, rows two and three got switched around.  This lands the two "heavy" blocks together in rows three and four.  Ah, well.  These things happen.  

I decided to sash it with a Moda print I had remaining after a 241 Tote I made for my Mom years ago.  I have always really liked this print, but it does not jive well with the rest of my stash. It therefore is never used.  This fabric is a tone on tone blue with navy filigree pattern.  It's not too floral for a fella, I liked the blue with the blocks and I had more than enough yardage.  Score.

This top will leave Galway this week to live in Belfast.  Judith and Sarah, we love what you have created with Bee Blessed and we hope you can find a nice home for this quit.  

Pezzy Pizazz

A top!  I finally have my little pezzy prints into a top!  It took a long, long time to tame  trim my HSTs into submission shape, but in the end all of that effort was 100% worth while.

This pattern came together so very quickly once the HSTs were uniform size.  Without a bother the points just seemed to match up perfectly.  I will say, this was also a wonderful pattern for seams nesting to give some guidance when sewing.  By pressing the seams always to the print, each I sewed a seam the pieces just melted together and the points were nice and crisp.  

On the back I'll use a Kona Corn Yellow.  I haven't worked out how I'll bind it yet, but that will come while I'm quilting away.  

Any suggestions on how to quilt it?  I could do diagonal straight lines easily, but I'm starting to feel like that's a cop-out.  Concentric semi circles?  

Granny Mania Top Finished

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I have missed you guys!  I just could not get myself together and focused for the past two weeks to blog let alone sew.  I miss reading your blogs, miss chatting with you and miss the inspiration each of you gives me.  With any luck, life will return to my old pattern starting on Monday.

In the mean time, I wanted to show you my Granny Mania top.  It's finally finished and I am simply thrilled.

This is my attempt at baby quilt that might be suited for a little fella.  Usually the quilts I make are much more feminine, but I thought that the Stitched in Color line might work well for a little boy.  I just love the oranges and greens here.  The Stitched in Color used here was a mix of jelly roll "scraps" and a charm pack, so it was super easy to make little 2.5 inch squares and to mix and match making squares that are high contrast.  Love it, love it, love it.

I used Kona Coal as the background fabric.  This is my first time using Coal as I'm more of a Kona White girl, but I just love how the dark grey makes the colors pop.  Again, it might work better this way for a little guy, too.  I'll try at least.

As you know, I'm piecing the back.  I'm taking your wonderful advice and will cut the pin wheel blocks to fit the Coal and all will be fine.  I just need a quiet minute to unpick a bit and re-stitch again.  It's pretty straight forward if I could just focus.

Don't forget that the Kona challenge is closing on Sunday night, so get your entries in this weekend!  Voting will begin on Monday.  Good luck!