Flying North!

I was thumbing through Sunday Morning Quilts one day at a local shop and I saw the Up, Up, and Away quilt. I had the idea to recreate a wonky version of this quilt using charms. This is what I came up with:

The background yellow fabric is a 100% cotton woven fabric that I found at Jo Ann's. It's so soft, and washes up even softer - perfect for a baby quilt! The prints are all from Promenade by Riley Blake.

I quilted a zig zag pattern using the pieced triangles as a rough guide. I kept the quilting a bit wonky to flow with the piecing style.

I used two charm packs for this quilt. I used several of the prints more than once in the quilt top, because they were my favorites. All of the left over charms went on the back, along with a sprinkling of some yellow squares. I even threw in some squares that I had left over from the quilt top. Some yellow fabric above and below the piecing brought the backing up to size!

For the binding I chose a floral print from the Promenade line. I just love the pale lilac background in that print! (Note to self: snag some from the LQS soon!) On the back I included one of my labels.

I recently sent this quilt off to a college friend for her new baby girl. She didn't find out the sex of the baby before birth, but I started this quilt with her in mind because I had a feeling she would have a girl! I hope baby Grace is getting lots of use out of it!

Quilt Stats:

Size: Approximately 40" square, I think (oops, I forgot to measure it before I sent it off!)

Fabric: Promenade by Riley Blake and yellow woven from Jo Ann's

100% cotton batting

Wonky Zig Zag quilting

Playing The Name Game!

Did I ever tell the story of how I came up with my blog name? Hop on to over to The Name Game at my friend Cindy's blog, Live a Colorful Life, today and hear all about it! Don't forget to linger awhile - Cindy has so many great projects on her blog, and she's sweet as can be, too!

A Zelda Birthday!

Earlier this summer when Addy was looking through a catalog and trying to decide on a theme for her birthday party (she ultimately chose Ariel), she found some Zelda plates, napkins, cups, etc. She had just watched Matt "rescue the princess", and she instantly declared that we had to give him a Zelda birthday party.
In the weeks leading up to Matt's birthday I had a hard time deciding what to buy him. For the last few birthdays and Christmases I have mulled over the idea of making him a pillow of an old-school Nintendo character, but usually I think of it just days before the holiday....and promptly forget about it until just days before the next holiday! Well, this year was the year! In keeping with the theme of his "party" (read: Matt, Addy and I eating dinner and cake off of Zelda plates and then playing some silly games that she made up on the fly), I chose Link!

I found the image here, and used that to chose my colors (from scraps!) and place my squares of fabric. I used Quilter's Grid to make the piecing a bit easier. The squares were cut at 1" and finish at just 1/2"!

The pillow front is quite heavy with the quilter's grid plus all of those seams, so I simply quilted around Link and added some straight line quilting to the "stone" colored Quilter's Linen border.

For the back of the pillow I used the Quilter's Linen and added some random, straight line quilting. I love the orange zipper, too! There is no orange in the pillow front, but the color just seemed to go so well!

Pillow back detail:

This was one of those projects that took a lot less fabric, but more time, than expected - and I think it ended up being a great gift. Matt is always content with whatever we do for him, but I think this will be a favorite for a long time!

Ombre Rainbow

I started this quilt almost immediately after buying the jelly roll. I was so excited to play with these fun fabrics! The ombre effect lends itself well to just about any modern design you could think up, but I went with a simple rainbow.

I felt a bit silly sewing the jelly roll strips back together, but yardage isn't available for this collection quite yet so I made do with what I had on hand! Once I had my color blocks sewn together I played with placement. I ultimately decided on placing them in rainbow order separated by thin white strips of kona and a thin strip of the grey ombre. I pieced the grey ombre so that the colors faded outward in contrast to the color blocks, which fade towards the center of the quilt. Once I had that layout on the design wall I KNEW that I had to keep that element. It adds so much movement to the quilt!

For the quilting, I went with simple straight lines and I changed my thread color to blend with the background. I really like that the ombre effect in the fabric means that the quilting lines fade in and out just as the fabric does! That also meant that I could simply pull threads from my stash - I easily had thread to match some part of each color block!

For the backing I dug into my stash (yay!) and used up the last of my blue raindrops and blue flowers. I was a bit short on each print, so I added some Quilter's Linen. I love this green color!

A grey polka dot binding finishes this quilt off, and ties in so well with the grey ombre strips!

Ombre Fabrics: "Junior" Jelly Roll from Simply Color by V and Co. for Moda
Backing: Summersault by Erin McMorris and Quilter's Linen in Chartreuse
Binding: Charcoal Dumb Dots by Michael Miller
Finished size: 40" x 42"

Quilt is now listed in the Shop!

Zip Pouch Winner!

I'm a day late, I know! I don't think I've ever announced a giveaway winner on time. :)

Thanks for all of the great bag name suggestions! It was hard to choose a winner, but I think my favorite is:

Market Square Tote

suggested by Carly, who blogs at Citric Sugar.

Thanks to everyone who participated!

A Ruby Trip

I've been following along since the beginning of the year when Jessica of Twin Fibers picked back up on one of her UFOs. Seeing the project as it progressed, you wouldn't think I would be so blown away by the finished project - but I was! I just love the look of a traditional quilt made with such striking, modern fabric.

I couldn't commit to an entire quilt in this style, so instead I dug into my scraps and created a pillow! I love the Ruby fabric line by Bonnie and Camilla, so that was my starting point for this pillow. I added in some of the legacy Flea Market Fancy by Denyse Schmidt, Painter's Canvas in grass by Laura Gunn, a solid grey, some Mini Mikes in grey, and a few more prints from Ruby. Eventually I had enough scraps pulled out for an 11" square pillow.

 

I finished the pillow front with some all-over paisley quilting. This is quickly becoming a favorite of mine!

 

The back is an aqua polka dot from Ruby and an accent strip of the floral that inspired this color palette!

 

This pillow is now listed for sale on Etsy!

Name that Tote! *Giveaway!*

I've been babbling about this tote for what seems like forever now. I'm working on a pattern for it, and I also have a few of these totes for sale in a local shop and on etsy. I have worked out all of the details in the design and the instructions, but I'm stuck on a name for it! Here are some shots of a tote I made recently:

 

The original tote can be found here.

I made a custom tote, which I blogged about here.

And there are several other totes here.

Help me name my tote, and you could win this cute little zip pouch:

The pouch measures 5" tall x 8" wide x 2" deep and is lined with a laminated cotton print:

Before I send the pouch off, I will STUFF it full of some fun scraps!

Here's how to enter:
Let's set the limit to 3 suggestions per person.

Leave each suggestion in a SEPARATE comment.

In the event that more than one person suggests the name that I like best, the zip pouch will go to the first person to suggest the name.
I'll choose the name I like best some time Monday, August 6rd!

Ready...... set ...... GO!