Frolic Around the House

I started three quilts this past week. Ambitious, I know. I only intended to start two, one at my family quilting bee and another for a gift down the road. I was looking through my stash and noticed a Frolic layer cake that I didn't have any plans for so I thought I would use it for another quilt to be gifted. I pieced this top on Friday night. I'm calling it Frolic Around the House.


This was another fast piecing. As with the Make Life baby quilt, I didn't want to place each 10 inch square side-by-side, but I still wanted it to come together quickly, so I broke it up with some white sashing. I headed to Joann's Saturday morning and found some good quality goldenrod colored fabric with a fun design. Thanks to my 50% off coupon and the Memorial Day 10% off your total purchase sale, I got five yards at a steal. Since I used up the layer cake on the front, the back isn't pieced. (I'm deciding this is the way to go when you want the backing to come together easy peasy.) I'll be using the same fabric for the binding. The quilt measures about 60 by 70 inches.


I basted this quilt on the same day as Peekaboo Blush on my mom's hard floors. I had read on a few different blogs that they thought it was easier to baste several quilts at once so I thought I'd give it a try. It was great! I'm definitely going to do it this way from now on. I'm also going to practice free-motion quilting on this one. Hopefully it turns out well, even though I know the recipient won't care either way. There's just something about wanting things to be perfect when I'm giving a handmade gift to someone.

I'll post photos of both this quilt and Peekaboo Blush when they're finished. I'm excited to be getting more quilts under my belt.

Peekaboo Blush

Saturday morning, I finished piecing the quilt top that I started at our family quilting bee last Saturday, Peekaboo Blush (which is what I'm calling this quilt with a square in square design using a Blush layer cake). I had finished all the blocks last Sunday, pieced them into rows on Tuesday, then pieced the rows together and added a two-inch border Saturday morning.

To make the blocks, I separated the layer cake into high-patterned and low-patterned prints. Then I cut the layer cake squares so that the border or outer square of each block would be the same fabric. Halfway through, I thought it would add a bit more visual interest if I used four different fabrics for the outer square on the rest of the blocks.

One of the solid outer squares.


A high-patterned, scrappy outer square.


A low-patterned, scrappy outer square.


When I pieced the top, I tried to alternate between solid outer squares and scrappy outer squares, but it didn't turn out that way. I thought I had the same number of each type, but I had some spots where I had to put the same type of block next to each other. Oh well, I think it turned out just fine.


For the back, I originally planned on just using the fabrics below, but then opted to add some red. Cutting the correct sizes for this was a challenge this time around; for some reason I kept miscalculating and had to add more to the ends here and there. This back is definitely more "pieced" than it should have been.



My mom recently got new floors put in her kitchen/dining room so I headed over there yesterday to take advantage of a non-carpet place to baste this quilt (I usually baste on my living room floor). Oh man! What a difference it makes to have a hard floor surface for basting. My sister helped me and I think we got this whipped out, ready to quilt in about 30 minutes.

As of now, it's ready for quilting. I hope to get to it this week. I'm doing free-motion again to see if I can get more practice. Plus, free-motion seems to go a lot faster than straight line.

Playing Catch-up

After my back went out last week, I didn't get the chance to do very much sewing. But, I certainly made up for it the other night. I've been nursing this terrible sinus headache/earache/toothache over the last few days and was so sick of it that I just needed to get something done to get my mind off how much my head was killing me.

So, I made block #4 in the Jelly Roll Quilt Along (ignore the lack of pressing).

Click the photo to see the full image on Flickr, along with the other participants' blocks.



And I made the Buttercup bag for Terre. I was pleased that it only took me two hours instead of four like the last time.


She ordered the floral print from Joann's and had it sent to me since she lives about five hours away. It's a really soft cotton. I interfaced the lining pieces with the curtain that I've used on all the other bags I've made to give it extra strength. Because the fabric was thinner quilting cotton, I was able to add the decorative piece where the buttons are sewn.


After finishing those two things, I got nearly 1/3 of the way through quilting my Life Is What You Make It quilt. I didn't want to do straight line quilting so I played around with some of the decorative stitches on my machine and decided on a wavy line that runs the width of the quilt. I think it's going to look great once it's bound, washed, and scrunched up. Photos to come when it's finished.

I also went to my first quilt guild meeting on Thursday. It was really fun to meet some of the girls whose blogs I frequent and admire their talent. Some day I'll be as good as them.

More on Life Is What You Make It Quilt

I spent the evening last night piecing the back of my Life Is What You Make It quilt. After that was finished, I cut the batting and basted the quilt. I shouldn't have cut my nails yesterday morning...it made closing those pins extra hard (not to mention ouchy). I haven't decided how I'm going to quilt it yet, but I hope to get some of it done before the quilt guild meeting on Thursday night so I have something to show off.

Instead of separating the two backing fabrics with the row of charms 2/3 of the way up, I opted to just split it half since the fabric width was pretty much perfect. (If I can find a way to make things easier, I will.) And even though the fabrics are different colors, I think the white paisley print is busy enough to balance out the green dots.





I also cut out another Buttercup bag for my good friend, Terre. Don't you love the fabric she picked out?


Joann's has been having some great fabric sales this month. I went the other day and picked up a few more half-yard cuts for a new quilt that I haven't planned out yet (surprise, surprise).


I also got the backing fabric for my Swirling Stars quilt. This pattern will look great with some free motion quilting (if I get the hang of it before I get around to finishing that quilt).

Organizing my stash

I went to get goodies for our Easter baskets yesterday. Since my two kiddos are young and just starting to get a feel for holidays (well, at least the oldest is) we haven't done Easter baskets before. Instead of just doing junk, we opted to get them a couple sweets and a toy. While I was shopping, I decided to get gifts for my husband and myself as well. For me, some bins to start organizing my fabric stash.

Here is most of my fabric. Keep in mind that I'm a beginner and didn't really start buying fabric until December 09. I have some more fabric that wouldn't fit in this three-drawer organizer. It's still in my cedar chest.


The top drawer has most of the designer fabric I've bought. There's some Blush, Oz, Panache, the fat quarter pack I won, Figgy Pudding, Cutie Pie, Arcadia, Goodnight Monkey, and some others that I can't think of off the top of my head.


The second drawer has most of what I've bought at Joann's for different projects. Skirts and pillow covers, the spring quilt, scraps from my sister and mom, etc.


The bottom drawer has my flannel. There is flannel for two rag quilts to be made in there as well as the leftovers from the two rag quilts I made in the last few months for my kiddos.


I love having my fabric better organized. Although I need to buy at least one more unit, it's nice getting the fabric out of the plastic bags they came home in and into something a little more see-through and accessible.


Maybe organizing my stash this way will be a good way of getting the big TV off the floor. Maybe we'll have to get a new flat screen to hang on the wall and make floor space for the fabric bins. The mister would love that!

Stay tuned: This weekend I'm going to work on finishing piecing the top of my Life Is What You Make It quilt as well as piecing the eight remaining stars/pinwheels for my Swirling Stars quilt.