Quilt Positive

The plus blocks are moving again!  I had gotten a bit stalled on designing borders so, armed with the need to make progress somewhere, I started putting blocks together.  I was trying for a pretty even distribution of colors - a truly random layout is hard for me to commit to, and the gradient layout didn't look as good as I hoped.  I think it looks much better put together than it was feeling up on my design wall!

And now it's back to borders!  ^_~

Linking up with Let's Bee Social.

Music in the Air

My poor keyboard spends way too much time collecting dust, so I wanted to whip up something rainbow-y and musical to help protect it.  I started by trying to work up some music notes, but they just weren't feeling quite right.  In the end I found myself liking the simpler designs, and the final pattern mimics the black keys on a keyboard by grouping the colored fabrics into alternating twos and threes.

The quilting was done on my long arm and the pattern is called modern stars revisited - it reminds me of notes on a staff.  I like how it ended up musical, but a bit abstract.

The backing is Robert Kaufman All That Jazz with one stripe of color to separate the extra piece of fabric needed to make the back long enough.

This runner finishes at 10.5 x 52".

Linking up with Let's Bee Social.

Rainbow Scrap Challenge - March

Red is the most recently selected color of the rainbow over at soscrappy, and two more scrap jar stars have now been added to my collection!

I don't have a very wide selection of reds, and though I keep waffling about whether the star points have enough contrast against the black... I think I was able to find a few good lights and darks.

I've been trying to pick fabrics for the corners that start to branch out from the color of the month, and to that end the corners of March have some rainbow squiggles on them. However, it is possible that I have been forgetting they are part of the fabric and have been trying to pick threads off of the corners.  Whoops! 

Linking up with Let's Bee Social and Scrap Happy Saturday.

The Hexie Bug - Still Infected!

It all started with a flower.  Then there was a pillow top.  And now I'm trying my hand at starting an actual quilt!  I'm still not entirely sure about what I'm getting myself into; a blanket is a lot of hexies.  But it's becoming clear that I have caught the hexie bug pretty bad (or pretty good, depending on perspective)!

I was inspired by this Stars and Diamonds quilt by Jennifleur.  I've only seen in progress pictures, so I don't know if she's finished it, but I'm looking forward to having something similar someday... in the very distant future.  Two hexes down... only about 2300 to go!

New uses for an old pencil case!

Linking up with Slow Stitching Sunday.

Rainbow Scrappy Challenge - Getting Started!

I finally did it!  I finally joined the rainbow scrap challenge.  A slew of deadlines hit in January, and then the quilt parade was so pretty, that I just couldn't resist picking up a nice slow project.

I am using my scraps to make Amber's Scrap Jar Stars (from A Little Bit Biased).  I haven't seen this block paired with a dark background, and I do love rainbows on black backgrounds, so this star strewn fabric was given new purpose.  I was even able to start with the scraps from my first project!

January's Purple stars were made mostly from my scrap bins.  The larger points broke into the larger, less scrappy scraps, but all fabrics had already been used. 

On the other hand, February are a mix of scrap jar stars and stash shelf stars.  Apparently I have more plans to use teal than actually teal usage.  I clearly need to work on that!  I love all the little fussy cut pieces that turned up in February though - the light-bulb and the atom are my favorite pieces!

Linking up with soscrappy and Fabric Frenzy Friday.

Celtic Knots - A Finish

One last Christmas finish, running a little late.  Good thing I'll have another opportunity to see this quilt on it's way soon!

There are three different designs quilted into this piece - a Celtic twist pattern in the border, a Celtic knot pattern in the dark diamonds, and stitch in the ditch done around the pieced knots.  That design is easiest to see from the back.













I learned that trying to center a design on the back is more complicated than I thought it would be.  Despite pinning the edges of the back where the top should lie, the large knot is a little off center. But the design didn't run off the edge, so I'm still happy with how it turned out.

I had debated using the blue to wrap it up, but I think the cream frames it nicely and adds an extra little pop!

Linking up with Let's Bee Social.

An Evergreen Finish

I've wanted some quilted Christmas decorations around the house for several years now, but actually making them has kept getting pushed off for one reason or another.  However, not so this year!

This year I have two new holiday pieces up on display!  My first finish was a holiday frost table runner (shown here), and the second is an evergreen tree advent calendar.  The top (inspired by this tree by Turid of densyendehimmel.) was completed in May.  Then it was quilted with a holly and berry motif and bound in one of the gold fabrics used in the stars.

There are small green buttons sewn on the tree as hanging hardware that blend in better than I hoped.  The one downside is that I think the ornaments might have been easier to hang if I had put the buttons on backwards - there's not a lot of room for the twine to rest, as is, and not all of the ornaments can be hung at all spots.  Still, it's a pretty minor problem and something I could fix in the future if need be!

The ornament buttons were collected over the past year, and there is one for every day of December leading up to Christmas.  Some peppermint twine pulled from my stash seemed a perfect touch!  It's a lot of fun to watch this little tree fill up!

Linking up with Let's Bee Social.