5 more asterisk blocks

The polka dot blocks were finished today. I had a paper due and an exam yesterday which is why there was a lack of progress, but now I only have one assignment due in a couple weeks and one final on the 13th before I graduate.

So now 1/3 of the blocks are complete. Doing them in 5 block chunks is nice; it's easy to do one group at a time and not have it feel daunting.

Green Baby - Spray Basting I LOVE YOU!

I was bad in taking process photos once I had assembled the green baby into the top, but now I've got pictures of the front, the back, and a detail on the all over loopy quilting. I used minky as the backing without any batting. Minky has enough heft to it for the quilt to be plenty sturdy. And it's still soft and moveable, good for wrapping around baby.

I used spray basting as I'd read on other blogs that it was great for minky. Initially I added in some safety pins, too, but I really didn't need them. There are few, if any, puckers, and it didn't get anything on the needle. I am completely sold. It also took a whopping 10 minutes to lay out the backing entirely flat, spray, then smooth the top over it. I could get used to that. Also, the meandering loops quilting took about an hour for the whole top.

Quilt facts: 36"x48"
Top: Kona Solids and Pink Castle Stash Stack Club for the patterns, I didn't pay too close attention to the selvege edges (oops!)
Back: Minky in Lime

Here it is! All that is needs is binding. 

 I think it's fantastic how the quilting shows up in the loft plush of the Minky. So even though it's solid, there's definitely interest on the back. And PS that is one continuous quilting design over the entire top, no stoppage during the process, and it used exactly one bobbin. 

 A close up of the meandering loops. 

Groupons are a Great Thing - Stash Building with a Purpose

I bought a 50% off coupon to one of the fabric stores near my mom's house a little over a month ago knowing that I'd be home for Thanksgiving and able to use it then. Well, I am now home for the holiday, and I went to G Street to use my coupon today. I've been using Pinterest lately as an inspiration source. And I won't let myself start on either of the projects for which I purchased fabric, until I finish the Asterisk and the Green Baby Quilt. The Green Baby is coming along nicely, and I will be assembling the rows this week - I brought it home with me, the beauty of having a mother who also has a sewing machine at home so I didn't have to bring mine.

I bought three brown batiks and a rich brown Moda Bella solid to use for the helix around a pole in color gradation. The deep wine color and the puple/pink batik will be used for the other, interwoven helix seen on the right with a charcoal as the background to let the saturated hues pop. This is just a sneak peak at what's to come since it'll probably be December/January time when I start on one of these. But since it's all squares/half square triangles, should come together fairly quickly.

Happy holidays to you all, and now I'm off to the dentist. 

Coming together!

Because of the layout I chose for the green squares baby quilt, I'm going to have to make two more blocks - one of the striped and one of the darker solid. That said, I have my lay out done and all but one row are ready to be joined.

48 blocks of baby quilt

All 48 blocks of this baby quilt are done ready for full assembly some time in the next few days. Although I've got an overnight at the hospital tonight, so my guess would be Saturday.

Chain Piecing :)

I had never chain pieced before today. I can tell you, that it will be happening a lot more now. It was amazing. I got 24 blocks sewn with their first seams in under half an hour. There are another 24 to go with the first strips, and I can tell you that will end up happening this evening because it goes so quickly.

Here you see the first 24 blocks so far and the stack of other green squares + white rectangles. These are for a baby that's due in March. The back will be lime green minky. 

In other news, I'm participating in a Color Wheel Swap. My assigned color was purple. This is the fabric I'm sending. The rules were it had to be high quality quilting cotton (duh, like I would get anything else), patterned, read as your assigned color, and not be batik. I have sent in my 8 fat quarters as off today, and sometime after Thanksgiving I'll get 8 fat quarters that are the whole rainbow back. 

And remember a week or two ago how I made a field trip to Ikea to get an actual coffee table. While there, I also stopped in the market place to get these .89 metal flower pots for scraps. They are now along the back of my sewing desk. I had never had a good way to organize. There are a few more pots not shown so I can have more color separation if needed (right now yellow and orange are together, but pink and red are separate, so depending on numbers for future projects, I could move stuff around). 

Irish Road Finished

This is a quilt top that I made in August, start to finish in 2.5 days. I had just finished the summer semester of an 18-month accelerated nursing program that encompased pediatric, OB, and community nursing (PS I graduate 38 days from now). At the bar after following our last final, the entire cohort was convinced that we'd all have to retake the semester. The next week turned into lots and lots of quilting to destress. We only got 3 weeks of summer and most of mine was spent with my sewing machine.

Here is the quilt in pictures through all its stages from August until this past weekend when I finished it on Saturday. I was delinquent in blogging because I didn't have light for taking pictures, and my cell phone's camera is severely lacking (and it only works about half the time).

Here are the blocks arranged on my floor before being sewn together. 

This was after the top was fully pieced, and with the backing fabric. 

The beginning of the quilting where I show that I'm outlining each of the big areas - this is my first quilt where I'm not just doing stitch in the ditch - doesn't hurt that I purchased a new, meant for quilting machine just before starting this. 

A close of up the quilting. You can see that each large area is outlined next to the green steps, then I did a line on either side of the all the long seams. 

Here is the full quilt outside my building.

With the back flipped up - pink and green are good complements. I didn't want this to come off as too girly because of the pink, and the green was the way to do that. 

 The binding is a slightly darker green that echoes the circles on the pale green on the top with little, round starburts all over. I also top stitched the binding down when I couldn't find any hand needles. This was a first, as well, and I'm quite pleased with the result. I slowed down the maximum speed of my machine and used the walking foot, and I can see myself doing that again in the future.