Single Girl with Retro Flowers - A Finished Quilt. (Oh, and anniversary celebrations too.)

Way back during round 7 of the Pillow Talk Swap, I played around with the idea of combining the Single Girl pattern (by Denyse Schmidt) with the Retro Flowers pattern (by Christina, The Sometimes Crafter). When I showed my three ideas in the Flickr group, my partner picked a different design as her favorite so I decided to turn this pillow top into a quilt top by setting it a bit askew and adding some borders.

I used a bunch of scraps and then added Kona Bahama Blue and Stone as well as Albert and Victoria books for the top and backing. For the binding, I used a blue plaid from Riley Blake's Play Ball line.

I've also been trying to break out of my quilting style a bit by trying some new things from Angela Walter's free-motion quilting book. I thought this quilt would be a good one to practice on.

I finished this one up just in time to give to my friend who's been in the hospital on bed rest with placenta previa. She made it to 35 weeks (hooray!), so her doctors say she can have the baby any time between now and 37 weeks so she doesn't run the risk of needing a blood transfusion.

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A few posts back, I mentioned some anniversaries happening around here. My parents celebrated their golden, 50th anniversary! My sister made a cake for their special day. Not only did it look great, but it was absolutely delicious! We set out some photos and cards too. For their gift, we made them a voice quilt. Family and friends placed calls that were recorded and then we compiled all the messages onto a CD that my parents can listen to whenever they want.

My dad is in poor health, so it was the perfect way to celebrate.

The mister and I also celebrated our 9th anniversary. We headed downtown and went to the place where we got engaged. We reminisced about our engagement and gave each other "new" rings (we got mine resized and got a new one for him that fit...sometimes marriage makes you comfortable and you gain weight, making your rings not fit you anymore).

We went to dinner then caught a double feature before turning in for the night. The next morning, we ate brunch at The Grand America in Salt Lake. I'm telling you, if you ever get a chance to have Sunday morning brunch there, DO IT! So, if you're coming into town for The Sewing Summit, head across the street to the Grand America and stuff your face with really good food. You won't regret it.

WIP Wednesday: Therapy Edition (2/29/12)

Mondays are generally crummy. This last Monday was especially so. First, I woke up with a migraine, complete with nausea and vomiting. Then a mom threatened to hit my son in the face because he hit her daughter (which was totally not okay for either of them). And to top it all off, we learned that my son's name wasn't drawn in the lottery for attending this school we wanted him to go to so now he's on the waiting list. It was a pretty terrible day all around.

I was definitely in need of some sewing therapy! And that brings me to WIP Wednesday.

On Friday, I put together this quilt top using the Single Girl/Retro flower pillow top I tried out for the Pillow Talk Swap. Everything came from my stash, including the backing! (This cell phone pic is what I posted to Facebook. I'll have better shots once I finish the quilt.)


















I also made another iPad cover using Faith's tutorial:





And a notebook cover:





I've been cutting out more squares for my Granny Squares quilt. I'm excited to get started on that one soon. I also cut out the fabric to make another iPad case for my sister.

So, there you have it. A short and sweet WIP Wednesday report. Here's this week's stats:

Finished: 2
In Progress: 10
New (but finished): 2

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.

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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.