Never Say Never . . .

I've finished my Picking Petals Medallion Quilt.  

For the center I started with Taunja's Picking Petals pattern.  (Available here)

I made  mine bigger and added more squares to the center block.

Then I added this pink and green border.  So far so good.

Next I added this red border, which I really like, but think it overpowers the rest of the quilt.  I should have added more red prints that had different colors in them, to tone down the red some.

After that I added a row of geese, big geese, 4" x 8" geese.

Now my quilt is 72" x 72", my favorite size.  But I don't think it looks done and the red is still bugging me.

 I decide to add some stripy Friendship Star blocks from the Sister Sampler Quilts book.  I made a 9" block first, but thought it wasn't big enough, the petal blocks in the center were big, so I thought the outer blocks needed the same look, I went with the 12" block.

I selected blue middles in the stars to pull out the blue border in the center and stayed with the scrappy theme, just like the center square, for the star points.

Which I think finished things off nicely.  

There's a lot to take in when you look at this quilt, but I think that last border helped with the red, my eyes are drawn more to the outer border and less on the red middle.  I'm also planning to use red binding which I think will help even things out. (fingers crossed)

This is Lifetime Quilt Number 176

The center pattern is Picking Petals by Carried Away Quilting

The fabric is all Bonnie and Camille for Moda, mostly Hello Darling.

It finished at 96" x 96"

It has approximately 1,944 pieces.

Making a medallion quilt was one of my 2016 Goals.  I'm very happy with how this turned out and enjoyed piecing every block.  I particularly love the center block, and if I didn't have so many other quilts that I wanted to make, I would make another medallion quilt using that center but go with different borders, I think the possibilities are endless.

Last year I blogged about being out of the kingsize quilt business, well this top finished kingsize, but that's just the way it was supposed to be.

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Something New

I started a new project.  I saw the pattern Picking Petals by Carried Away Quilting on Instagram and thought it would make a great center for a medallion quilt. 

The pattern is available here.

I changed it up a little.

I made my pieces bigger and added a few extra squares to that center block.

I'm going totally Bonnie & Camille scrappy.

After studying these books I've decided to add three additional borders.

This is the first border, two more to go!

I can't believe it's April 1st.  Where did winter go?!?!?  The good news, I promised myself I could get out my Vintage Tulip quilt today! Even though April showers bring May flowers, it's tulip time around here, outside and in!

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Just a little sewing going on . . .

I've been doing some spring cleaning, office organizing, old document shredding and income tax preparing. It feels good to be organized but it left me with very little sewing time.

One thing I did work on every now and then were my Village houses.  This is Carrie's Village.

My original goal was to make houses from scraps from my finished projects for 2016, having a quilt at the end of the year that represented all my work from this year.  While that's a good idea, so far I've not had enough scraps to make more than 4 houses per project, not nearly enough,  the pattern calls for 132 houses.  If I finished 15 projects I would need 8 or 9 scrap houses.  So I got to thinking how to supplement my Village.

One idea is to add holiday houses.

Here are my Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, and Easter additions.

This Easter house is my latest favorite.

In addition to holiday houses, and project scrap houses, I figure I'll also add some houses from fabric that meant something from 2016, fabric I like but will never use for a project, and also using some of my all time favorite fabric.

Lil' Red is an example of a family of fabric I like but probably wouldn't use in large project, perfect for my Village project.

I won some Sewing Box by Gina Martin for Moda as a door prize and added some of that to the mix.

As I'm piecing these assorted houses it occurred to me that maybe I was creating a hot mess, so I put all my pieced houses on my design wall.

And I think I'm on track.  I'm also feeling good about that light yellow background fabric, because it's always a sunny day in this village.


Michele/Island Life Quilts and Sherri/A Quilting Life host a monthly sew along.  Every month they pick a great project and every month I don't seem to make their parade.  Their latest project is Village, and they're giving us two months to finish.  I'm sticking with my 2016 theme, so I won't be done by in time, but you could join in!

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One of Four

One of my 2016 Quilting Goals is to finish 4 Christmas quilts for gifts this year.  I've pieced my first one, 3 more to go. 

This is Lifetime Quilt Number 174

The pattern is All Wrapped Up by Kate Spain (it's a free pattern, click here)

It finished at 55" x 65"

It has approximately 282 pieces

I used random Kate Spain holiday fabrics from several families for this top.  10 inch squares worked perfectly.

I think the size and style of this quilt makes it a perfect gift.  It could be hung on a wall or used as a lap quilt.

I need to not procrastinate on piecing the back and getting it quilted!

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I'm Home!

I went to QuiltCon! 

At check in all the attendees received this cool Carolyn Friedlander bag filled with goodies!  

This was the official giveaway Quilt Con quilt, named Eidos.  I bought a few raffle tickets but have not gotten a call, I'm guessing that's not a good sign.

But I love this quilt and have yet to make a quilt using diamond blocks, I'm adding that to my 2016 Goals List.  

I was only at QuiltCon two days and took classes both days, the time flew by.

The first class was taught by Victoria Findlay Wolfe.  (Victoria blogged about her class here,  look for me in the back of the class!)

Each person in the class was given this die that cut all the pieces you see below.   Getting the die was wonderful and enabled all of us to cut as many pieces and parts as we wanted.

I used the ombre prints by V & Co for Moda for my project.

Now I just need to sew those pieces into blocks.

The other class I took was a basic EQ7 class.  It was taught by Christa Watson of ChristaQuilts.  I've had EQ7 loaded on my computer for a good while but never really understood how to use it.  Christa did a wonderful job of explaining the basics, and even though I only understand a small portion of how this powerful software works, I did learn enough to be able to create blocks and create a quilt.  The day was well worth my time.  Now that I understand the basics I"ll be able to work on my own to learn so much more.  

I think I took a picture of every quilt, I won't post all the pictures but here are a few of my favorites.

This quilt is Patch Nine by Dora Cary.

This quilt is Fraction Louise Orth

This is Fish and Visitors  by Rebecca Burnett.

I've been to several big quilt shows, and they each have their own individual vibe.  There were several things about QuiltCon that made it a very special experience for me.  First off, there were not the crowds that I normally find at the bigger shows.  It's almost impossible to walk the aisles and you have to wait your turn to work your way up to the front of a quilt to get a good picture at some shows.  There was so much space in Pasadena, I never felt crowded and was able to study and enjoy each quilt in the show.  I also thought my fellow attendees seemed so happy to be there, everyone was in a great mood and friendly.  QuiltCon 2017 will be held in Savannah, Georgia.  I sure hope to be there!

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