Low Volume Quilt

I was inspired by this gorgeous low volume quilt on Crazy Mom Quilts blog to make one for myself. I love the light, cool, summer-like feel of it. I went through my scraps and began to separate out fabric that I thought might work. I didn't have nearly enough, so I went shopping! That was the fun part.

I have been cutting and cutting and cutting for the last few days. Yesterday I put my strips up on the design wall. Then I moved them around. And around. And around. I thought I had them all where I wanted them. But last night I changed my mind again and added some new fabrics and took out others. 

Finally, at 2:00am, I decided that this was my "final" design. I'm sure I will tweak it some as I begin to sew. I'm not so sure about this quilt at all. I'm used to scrappy, but this one seems to go beyond scrappy to "too busy!"  Time will tell. I'm going to start sewing on it today. 

Happy stitching.

Happy Birthday, Annie!

Today is Anne's birthday. Pam and I can't be with our BFF, so we have mailed her a "small gift" this year.

Last year Pam suggested that for our birthdays we send each other quilt blocks. I agreed and so for Anne's birthday we each sent her 12 green and cream quilt blocks in "Annie's Choice" pattern. For Pam's birthday, Anne mailed Pam blocks made of Japanese Diawabo fabrics. (My arm was in a cast and I wasn't doing any sewing or quilting at the time.) I don't think either of them has put those fabrics into a quilt top yet. I told the two of them that if they gave me another UFO for my birthday I might scream!! So, they blessed me with this beautiful old quilt.

I think we have now decided that the gift of quilt blocks may not be the best idea for us! We all have so many projects going on already that we don't need another one thrown in the batch.

Pam and I are both "into" mini quilts right now. So we thought it would be fun to make Anne a few for her birthday. We bought a wire frame that holds three mini quilts and we decided to make her the quilts to hang on it.

Pam came for a quick visit in early May and we went to work on these. We giggled like school girls as we designed and stitched.

It's really fun to see what you can shrink down and make in 6 X 10". It's addictive!

We paper-pieced these 15 little 2" log cabins--there are 255 pieces in this tiny quilt! It was SO fun to see it come together!

Happy Birthday, Annie!! We hope you enjoy your little gift. Love and quilty hugs from Pam and Marcia. 

2015 Swap Blocks-May Blocks

All of my May blocks have arrived from our swap. I am loving them more each month and can't wait until we have them all together, ready for assembly! 

This month Pam made three lights and one dark, so she is right back on track! I have to really watch myself, because I will be the next one to do this! I know these things, because I have already cut the strips that surround the center block 1/2" too short on, not ONE, but FOUR, blocks already!! Thank goodness I was able to still use them, because I could hide my mistake under the corner triangle. Shhh.....don't tell anyone!!

May all your mistakes be happy ones :)

Pam's Doll Quilt from Cecile

Pam also participated in the doll swap on Lori's blog and since she doesn't have her own blog, Pam asked me to please show her quilt for her. The only problem is that Pam is hundreds of miles away from home, taking care of her daughter who just had surgery and her three very active grandsons. With no pictures of her quilt for me. 

Pam's swap quilt was made by Cecile, who lives in France. Pam was tickled to death and took a picture of herself (sans makeup) with the quilt as soon as it arrived. She asked me NOT to post that picture. ;)

An adorable pink, brown and cream nine-patch! Who wouldn't love it? It reminds of neopolitan ice cream. It definitely looks good enough to eat!

Even the back is as cute as can be! 

Cecile has a blog too, and you can read more about Pam's quilt here. Be sure to hit the translate button-unless you can read French. I would be remiss if I didn't thank Cecile for the pictures I lifted from her blog!! You'll recognize them :)

Happy swapping. 

Doll Quilt Swap-Part Two

I wrote about the doll quilt swap that I was in with Lori from Humble Quilts and showed the quilt that I made for Frances. 

But, now it's time to show you the fabulous quilt that I got from Kelly Meanix who lives in PA. She had emailed me to let me know it was on its way, so I waited my the mailbox for it to arrive!!

And was I ever thrilled when it did!! Isn't it gorgeous??? I love Nine Patch blocks and that blue is to die for!

Kelly also sent me a wonderful flower paper piecing book and the left over fabrics from my little quilt. It was so sweet of her! The book is wonderful and I can't wait to make some of the flowers in it. And the fabrics went straight into my scrap basket. Don't be surprised if you see them again soon. :)

The back is just as cute as the front-I love a pieced back! Kelly added triangles to the corners for me to hang my quilt. My husband (the woodworker) had the perfect size dowel for me and cut it to length immediately.

I hung it up with command hooks-don't you just love those things?

I think it makes a great addition to my growing wall of minis.

Thank you's to Kelly, for my beautiful quilt, and to Lori, for hosting this swap.  

Kelly has a wonderful blog called Pinkadot Quilts. I'm a new reader and fan! Check it out here. And, If you want to see more of the quilts that were swapped, head over to Lori's blog here. 

Happy quilting!

Doll Quilt Swap-Part One

I am an avid blog reader and have many that I follow. Since I only have one quilting friend who lives near me (and she's almost an hour away), blogs are great sources of inspiration for me. One of my favorites is Humble Quilts.  On April 20, Lori announced she was going to host a Doll Quilt Swap. The rules sounded simple and fun. The finished quilt was to measure no larger than 24X24", it was to be made from Civil War reproduction fabrics (love them!!), and have a label on it. Mailing deadline was May 30th. I signed up immediately and talked Pam into it too!!

My biggest challenge was deciding what to make......Nine Patch? Log Cabin? Pinwheels? I finally decided on a Scrappy Patches quilt. I had made one for myself several years ago and have it hanging in my quilt room. 

Each of the shirting blocks is cut 2X3" (finishing at 1 1/2" X 2 1/2") so this doll quilt is 11X15". I have a LARGE basket of Civil War Scraps and decided that was a great place to start. I used 126 different fabrics to make this little quilt--all of them out of my scrap basket!

Once I had all the pieces cut, I decided to sew them up on my Featherweight. 

Let the chain piecing begin! The top went together quickly.

Here you can see the quilting better. I added little triangles in the corners in case she wanted to hang it that way. I didn't include the label in this photo because it has personal info on it that I didn't want to show on my blog.

Here is the finished top. I put it in the mail the day I finished it and away it went-across the pond to England.

Yesterday I got an email from Frances. Her mini quilt arrived and she blogged about it on her blog called Fabadashery. I'm so tickled she is pleased!!

Lori is going to have a linky party on Monday for everyone to link their blog post with their doll quilt. I'm posting about the precious quilt I received tomorrow. I will include a link to Lori's blog post on Monday with Linky party info.

Happy Quilting! 

Pincushions

I've made several pincushions for friends lately and I thought I would share some pictures with you. They are all very basic, simple pincushions, but I have had a great time making them.

In March, I made this one for Karen from some of my 1930s scraps. Since her birthday is near Easter I thought the little bunny in the center was fun. 

I have a charm pack of these cute fabrics and for the life of me I can't remember what line they are from (naturally, I have lost the band around it with the name!) One of the fabrics has definitions of sewing terms printed on it, another has pinwheels, a third has the names of quilt blocks printed on it. You get the idea. I thought the sewing theme made the fabrics cute to use for pincushions.

I made my BFF's each one and tucked them into little packages for them. They have arrived, so I can blog about them now. :)

The centers of these log cabins are 1" squares and the strips around them are 1/2" strips. They finished as 3" squares. I stuffed them with polyfil and crushed walnut shells. The log cabins were fun to make, so I decided to "branch out" to nine patches. 

The log cabin pincushions were so much fun to make that I decided to do a couple nine-patch ones out of the same fabrics. I can see now that I am finished and taking the pictures, that the middle block is off center. If I am going to feature a fabric-I need to get it right. These are my first pincushions and I am learning as I go. 

These are made with 1" squares, so these pincushions also finish up 3". I made these to send to two people as small thank you's for their parts in the doll quilt swap I participated in. 

I hope they can appreciate the thought, since the end result isn't perfect!

Happy pinning.

Fabric! Glorious Fabric!

I LOVE FABRIC!! I love the colors, the texture, the feel of it as my hand glides over it! It is an addiction-and I've got it bad! And I think this is an excellent theme song for me!

All of my recent inspiration from blog reading got me digging through my scrap bag. I sorted everything by color and pulled out all of the fabrics I thought might work in a low volume quilt. Next I went through three cabinets of stash fabrics. I get distracted easily (maybe a little ADD?) So, instead of focusing on low volume fabrics, I was weeding out old fabrics that I know I will never use in a quilt. Some of them said to me "what were you thinking when you bought me?" Other fabrics I have no recollection of ever purchasing!!

These fabrics didn't make the cut. Out with the old and in with the new. I'm going to let them hang in the closet for a while and then I'll go through them again--but I think they are going to end up in someone else's stash before long.

While going thru all of my fabrics I noticed a recurring theme--polka dots. I really do love them and had no idea I had collected so many thru the years. I decided to stack them all together and use them all in a future quilt. Aren't they cute?

After all  of the sorting and folding and ditching, it was time to do some shopping! My first stop is always my favorite quilt shop (A Scarlet Thread in McDonough, GA). This time I was hunting for lots of low volume fabrics. 

I think I was pretty successful. I can't wait to cut into them and get started!!

Next I went to Tiny Stitches quilt shop in Marietta, GA and found these 12 fat quarters. They are going to work nicely.

After that I hit the internet, where I quickly lost focus! I ordered anything and everything that appealed to me at the moment. Dangerous!!

These fabrics came from Burkholder's Fabrics in Denver, PA. I have shopped in their brick and mortar store and love it there. Their internet prices are great, their shipping costs are low, and, best of all-their selection is awesome!! So, I ordered some low-volume, some black and white and one French General that caught my eye. 

I found a new-to-me website, Bloomerie Fabrics, that has REALLY cute fabrics!! Her website just makes you happy to be there. I ordered these eight fabrics and will use a few of them in my low-volume quilt. The rest are just hanging in my stash.

Fat Quarter Shop is always a great place to shop online. I bought these Kim Diehl fabrics and split my order with my friend Pam. We each now have a fat quarter-perfect for a Kim Diehl applique quilt. 

Every day Fat Quarter Shop has a 24 hour flash sale. It starts at 10:00am central time, and runs until the next day at the same time or until the fabric sells out!! And some days it does. :) My daughter and I couldn't pass these up! 

I still wasn't finished shopping, though! It's like I'm fighting some kind of addiction. One I don't want to kick either!! I went to two quilt shops with my friend Judy last Thursday and I picked up several fat quarters for different projects.

I think I'm finished shopping for a while (I did order six yards from Fat Quarter Shop's 24 hour flash sale yesterday!! Four of the yards were to back a quilt, and at $5.38/yard, I just couldn't pass it up. 

I'm completely ready to start some new quilts. I have several other projects I need to finish up and then I am going to dig into these new fabrics!!

Happy fabric shopping!!

2015 Block Swap-April Blocks

I got out my fabrics the other day to start making my May swap blocks to mail in June and realized that I never posted my April blocks. Bad Grammy :(

Anne, Karen and Pam are wonderful swap partners. Their blocks are always beautiful and arrive on time--or early! Pam realized after she put these in the mail that she had made three blocks with dark centers and one with a light center (bottom row). She is rectifying that next month by making three with light centers. I have to admit that I am more attracted to the blocks with dark centers, too and have caught myself wanting to make all four that way!!

I mailed mine out to everyone else on time, but left my own sitting for a couple weeks before I finished stitching them. Probably another reason I forgot to post a picture. :) Here is a picture with all of our April blocks.