Pillow Talk Swap 7 Received

Look at this amazing pillow that came in the mail on Friday!



I was so happy to open the mail box and see a package sitting there for me. Val seriously hit the nail on the head with this one. In my mosaic, which served as inspiration for the swap, I had a lot of images of stars, strings, and rainbows. This pillow incorporates them all!



She made a purple star that didn't end up fitting in with the design, but she sent it along anyway. I'm so excited to use this block and make another pillow or wall hanging out of it.



She also included a bag full of scraps for me. There are some great fabrics in there and I can definitely put them to good use!



Thanks again, Val!

WIP Wednesday 2/22/12

I've been working on a few things this week, but only have one finish. Oh how I wish I could stick to one WIP at a time!

Finished This Week

Pillow Talk Swap Pillow

You can read about this pillow in yesterday's post.



Bee Block for Rachel

Read about it here.



WIPs Worked on This Week

Mom's Quilt

I finished cutting the fat quarters for my mom's quilt, which will be a variation of my dad's quilt (below). I ordered the solid sashing for her quilt yesterday and hope to get it in the mail later this week. Speaking of fabric purchases, I ordered a motherload of fabric over the last two days without spending a fortune. But more on that later.



New Projects

I just couldn't help myself and started a few new projects this week.

I cut up the fabric for Sukie's bee block. She's having us make carpenter stars based on Cherie's awesome tutorial. This is the one I made for Cherie in January.



I love this block so much that I decided to change course and make my Christmas quilt out of this pattern using my Figgy Pudding stash. I started cutting the blocks for this quilt this past week. That way, whenever I have a spare minute, I can sew a block or two.



I set a goal for myself this year not to start new projects before finishing old ones. I realized though that a lot of the sewing I accomplish during the week all depends on the type of project and time that I have. So, it's not really realistic for me to set that goal. If I have time to cut, then I cut. If I have time to piece a back, then I piece a back. My sewing time during the week isn't always conducive to completing one project start to finish. So maybe my goal should be to try not to start too many new projects before finishing old ones.

Anyway, I started a new project last night...I can't really explain why I'm drawn to the granny squares that have been popping up all over the place lately (check out the Flickr group quilt-along and the block tutorial), but I am. I went through my scraps and pulled out a bunch in every color. I cut up the pinks and purples at around 10 last night. Gotta love all these temptations to distract me from getting other WIPs done.

This Weeks's Stats
Finished: 1
In Progress: 6
New: 3

Look! It's finished!

I promise this will be the last post I write about round seven of the Pillow Talk Swap (except to show off the pillow I receive, of course). I finished my partner's pillow over the weekend and I am so pleased with how it turned out!



Except for the binding. That just about did me in. I had to rip out a couple sections and redo them.

I changed my fabric choice for the binding as I was getting ready to make it. The multi Pezzy Print wasn't cutting it. I opted for a solid to help balance out all the different patterns.



I straight-line quilted each piece (front and two back flaps). The front and part of the back features parallel straight lines that measure about 1/4 to 3/8 inches apart.



I also quilted zig zags the same distance apart, along with a decorative wavy stitch on the Washi fabric strip on the back.



On one of the back flaps, I quilted wavy lines with my walking foot.



I'm excited to ship this puppy tomorrow and see what my partner thinks when the pillow arrives at its new home!

Pillow Stats
Size: ~18.5 inches (fits 20-inch pillow form snuggly)
Pattern: Drunkard's path die from Accuquilt Go! Baby
Design: Me
Quilting: Straight line by me
Fabrics: Variety of prints, including Washi, Hometown, Make Life, Metro Living, to name a few

Pillow Talk Swap 7 Progress and Another Bee Block

My sewing time lately has been spent working on my pillow for round 7 of the Pillow Talk Swap.

My initial idea was this (a mix of single girl and retro flowers):



My partner said that she preferred idea #2 (displayed later), but I got a lot of positive feedback for this design and decided to try it out anyway.



I have since put all the pieces together. I'm glad that my partner said she likes idea #2 better though because I wasn't pleased with how the curves came together with the internal retro flower blocks. I am okay with it for myself, but I don't think it's up-to-snuff for sending to someone else.

So, I moved on to idea #2.





I had initially planned on using the text print in the bottom of this stack, but once I pieced the drunkard's path circles, I felt like the text print just gave a muddied look to the overall pillow. So, I used a dark charcoal print from Rashida Coleman-Hale's Washi line that I just happened to have recently purchased.



I really like how it has come together so far (and, thankfully, my partner does too - yay!). Now I just need to quilt it, sew the front and back pieces together, and add the binding. I plan to finish it during my sewing time next week.

***
The other bit of sewing I did this week was to make the Interlocking Seasons block Rachel requested for her month in our local bee.



I procrastinated a bit and ended up finishing about two hours before our quilt guild meeting last night. This block was a bit of a challenge for me (notice the skiwampus center square). I did a lot of unpicking and re-stitching. Overall, it's a great design and I think Rachel's quilt will be amazing with a bunch of these blocks together.

Pillow Talk Swap 7 - Mosaic and Brainstorming

The beginning of 2011 was full of swaps for me. I got burned out, to tell you the truth. I'm sure a big part of it was because I was in my first trimester of my last pregnancy and feeling all-around miserable. I swore off swaps for the rest of the year - forever? BUT, round seven of the Pillow Talk Swap was starting up and I thought it would be fun to do it again since I had such a great experience last time with this swap. So, I set to work browsing through my favorites and this is what I put together.



After getting my partner assignment, I started brainstorming ideas and here's some of what I came up with (ignore my poor art skills).

Idea 1: A mix of Single Girl and Retro Flowers



Ideas 2 and 3:



So far, the consensus is for idea number 1, which is great because it's my favorite idea, but also scary because it'll really stretch me. Hopefully, I can pull it off.