Mid Month Finish

My version of Carole's Scrap Dance Minuet is now a finished quilt! I was inspired by Carole using up some of her floral fabrics and I was very happy to clear out some very old stash.
Here is the clothesline shot.

It is a hard quilt to photograph, although I'm not quite sure why. The floral fabrics don't look nearly as pretty in the photos as in real life, but when I try to brighten the colour balance, it makes some of the fabrics look very strange... especially the one with yellow flowers.

Here is the quilt from the back. Can you see some of the machine quilting? It doesn't look nearly as bad as I had feared when I couldn't remember my original quilting design and changed it up a couple of times by mistake. I really like the curved lines I did in the last 2 borders.
Thanks to Carole for another fun mystery adventure! 

Design Wall Monday - Arrowhead

My blue Arrowhead quilt top is done! This project was started at a class with Deb Beirnes last summer. The original project was a 30 block quilt, but I really liked making these 9" blocks, so I kept making more blocks until I had enough for a larger quilt. There is a lot of sewing in this project, and it's all bias seams, so I am incredibly proud that the quilt top lays relatively flat.

I don't spend a lot of time on layout because it drives me crazy. I used to rearrange blocks endlessly. And I mean for hours, always thinking there must be a correct layout where everything is perfect. But in rearranging blocks, you fix one thing you did't like and create something else you don't like.  And it's one of the hang ups that used to result in piles of blocks and unfinished projects being stored in the UFO closet, because I couldn't get it "right". 

I have been greatly inspired by Cathy over at the Sane, Crazy, Crumby Quilting blog as she creates incredible quilts with random block placement. 
It is my goal to be more like her, and 'go with the flow', and spend less time fussing over layouts, and more time actually enjoying finishing my quilts!
This quilt top measures 54" x 81" and that's a good size for this one, so I don't think I'm going to add a border, and just bind with a navy blue.
To see my miniature project using a 3.5" version of this Arrowhead block click here.
To see more design wall postings, hop over to Small Quilts.

Slow Sunday Stitching

Welcome to the weekly hand stitching party!

Today I will be enjoying hand stitching the binding on my Scrap Dance Minuet mystery. This is one of my favourite hand stitching activities.
And if I finish it today, which I probably will because it's a lap size quilt, I plan to do add some hand quilting stitches to my Friendship Album quilt.
What are you slowly working on today? Link up your blog or instagram post below and share your hand stitching project with us.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Scrappy Saturday

3.5" Arrowhead Blocks

I'm having fun with the pink scraps this month. I must admit that I love pink.  I don't wear pink clothing and don't want to see pink in my home or office, but I do love sewing it in quilts. It brings energy to a scrappy quilt and it's such a happy colour. The Rainbow Scrap Challenge is a great opportunity to play with all the colours!
These are the most recently made mini Arrowhead blocks. The pattern can be found here, and to learn how to make it in different sizes, click here.

Here is the 42 block collection on the design wall! 
Wow I love it! Although the blocks are small (finish at 3" in the quilt) I can totally see myself making a bed sized quilt of these because they are fun to sew, and because I love the look of it!

To see more scrappy endeavours, hop over to the RSC weekly link up and Oh Scrap!

Machine Quilting

Hasty free motion quilting started late at night!

I probably should be quilting my July UFO, but this Scrap Dance Minuet quilt was calling to me. As soon as the pin basting was finished, I immediately started the quilting. It was late at night and I probably shouldn't have done that, but I did. What can I say? I was excited!

Thoughtful walking foot quilting during the day!

And then when I came back the next day I forgot my design idea and started quilting something else! Let's just say that nothing is symmetrical about the quilting on this... it's kind of loosey goosey random. I did remember that I wanted to make some straight diagonal lines across the quilt. You can see the pretty blue backing fabric (which was a fabulous sale purchase) on the right side of the photo.

This is a smaller sized quilt so the quilting was finished quickly. This pretty blue Aurifil thread is one of my favourite colours. I used it in the bobbin and to attach the binding.
And now I will be enjoying some relaxing hand binding!

Summer Hand Quilting Project

In January I started the hand piecing quilt along over at Elm Street Quilts. Nine block patterns were taught and I finished my sampler at the end of April (you can see it here). 
Because the quilt top was completely made by hand, I decided it should also be hand quilted. It is the perfectly sized summer take along hand stitching project, so this week I got the quilt top pin basted and started quilting.

Kristin and Patty (project creators) named 5 of the complex patterns after the names of the characters in a book called Friendship Album 1933 written by Frances O'Roark Dowell.  The names are Eula, Bess, Dorothy, Florence, and Emmeline. While I have been quilting this project, I have been listening to the free podcasts of the author reading her historical novel about a quilting bee in the 1930s. The quilters are contemplating making quilts for the Chicago World's Fair and although there are a lot of characters to keep track of, I'm really enjoying the story so far.

Because it's a small project, I am not using a hoop for the quilting, which is a little bit different for me. 
I'm calling my quilt "Friendship Album" (named after the novel) and as you can see I'm just starting to quilt the "Eula" block, who is one of the main characters in the story.

Startitis Flareup!

I have been feeling quite under the weather the past week and I'm blaming my poor health for a flare up of another chronic condition ... the dreaded "startitis"! 
This is a chronic, progressive illness which attacks creative people and causes them to randomly start too many new projects. It's just like a terrible addiction and the sufferer has no control over their starting behaviour.
I think I am starting 4 new quilts! 

1) Kevin is hosting a scrappy summer mystery using up stash. So of course I have to start that one! I'm using up old batik stash, plus a couple of new fabrics added in for some sparkle.
One of the great things about this quilt is that you can use any size of square you want. I am using a 2" square.

2) Cheryl is sharing her Mosaic Mystery running from July to April next year. I'm thinking of a pink/teal/brown combination. 

3) Bonnie Hunter announced the new Leader/Ender Challenge and the 4" block size is perfect for sewing up small scraps. So I HAD to start that one.

4) And the Fat Quarter Shop is posting a Christmas in July mystery table topper quilt called Merry Mini Quilt. The first block pattern called Pointsettia is here.


Maybe I need some kind of immunization, or intervention or something else, like say...
a 15 quilt store July Shop Hop to get this Startitis out of my system?!? *wink*
Anyone else noticing recent symptoms of Startitis?!?