What I'm working on...

No finishes to share this week! But I did cut into some fat quarters of Simply Style by Vanessa Christenson. Oh how I love her 2 lines - they're such beautiful, colorful, modern, graphic lines. And they work really well together.

I've had this block drawn up in my design notebook for a while. Then I saw Rita's version over at Red Pepper Quilts and couldn't wait to try it. Vanessa's fabric was perfect for the look I wanted with a couple of stash pieces added for more variety.

The half-square triangles finish at 2 1/2", which makes the star 40" square. I added a small white border to separate it from the binding.

I'm also working on finishing up my Steam Punk quilt. Yeah!

The quilting on this one is a bit unusual from most...
I started out by quilting in the ditch along all of the gray sashing strips.

Then I machine quilted around each of the center circles in the blocks and did the setting triangles. I used this wonderful graphic piece in the triangles which actually gave me some quilting lines to follow. Love when that happens! Since the edges were all stitched down, I decided to finish it off with the binding.

And now I'm hand quilting 2 concentric circles in each block. The hand quilting is giving the quilt the needed texture without super-obvious lines that could be distracting. It's making for some nice relaxing summer evenings. I've been watching Friday Night Lights and catching up on the past years' movies on DVD. I'd welcome any movie suggestions!

Finally, I love to do embroidery. Haven't picked up in years. I probably did my first when I was 8 or 9 years old - learned from my grandmother who was an amazing needleworker! Some day I'll tell you more about her...

These are from Anna Maria Horner's Love from A to Z and for my granddaughters, Elyse and Madelyn.

Well, this looks like a WIP post and it's Wednesday. Guess I ought to link up to Lee over at Freshly Pieced! What are you working on?

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Dwell... a quilt from Simply Retro

I took advantage of the nice weather yesterday and my "quilt-holder" being home to snap some photos of my Dwell quilt. The pattern is from the new book Simply Retro by Camille Roskelley. I've had a simple house quilt on my to-do list for a while and I started cutting the day the book arrived!

It was one of those quilts where you make one block and then you just want to make another in different fabrics. I love those! Never get bored!

I found this wonderful house print fabric at one of our local shops - Janie lou. The colors were perfect and I bought enough to do a vertical strip along with a coordinating green on each side.

 When I got it home I realized that if I ran it vertically my houses would be laying on their sides. We do have tornados here - but I certainly didn't want to create that kind of vibe! I ended up doing some creative piecing and surprisingly ended with a big "H" for house :)

In the white background I quilted flowers since I have flowers behind my own house. After several complicated scenarios on how to quilt the houses themselves, I remembered what Camille had written in my autographed copy of the book...

So I decided to "Keep it Simple!" and did straight lines 1" apart on the blocks. Easy!

And finally it got a gray striped binding. This piece from Little Red Riding Hood is simply a wonderful binding piece. A good one to stock up on!

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WIP Wednesday! Another Sunburst!

I can't believe it's been a week since I blogged. I'll blame it on the lazy summer-time!

But I have been up to some sewing and finally it was nice enough today to take some pictures.

This is my third Sunburst quilt. I made it a little bigger by adding a few more rows of diamonds.

I also added a border on this one that the original didn't have...

The beautiful quilting was done by one of our talented local long-arm quilters - Terri Kanyuk.

I have loved every one of these quilts... it lends itself so well to almost any fabric collection. The pattern is currently available in this book (affiliate link to amazon.com)

I'm also excited because I finally finished my Lone Starburst paper pieced blocks at our St Louis MQG sew-in last Saturday. After lots of trial and error I came up with this setting and couldn't be more thrilled! More to come on this one!

Linking up today to Lee at Freshly Pieced!

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Lucky Stars BOM progress...

Yeah me! I've kept on top of my Lucky Stars BOM patterns and the June block is done!

One of my problems with these year long projects is that I'm so flighty when it comes to color and fabric choices. I can't even remember the palette I started with ~ I've been foolishly adding and subtracting as I go.

So I thought it might be a good idea to look at my first six blocks together and see how things are developing. Goodness, the purply-pink was supposed to be an accent color and the green has almost disappeared. I've been pretty consistent with the navy ~ that's good. Looks like we need a bit more of that yellowy-green.

Stay tuned to see what happens next month!



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Triangles and Geese and Swans...

July is my month in the Redbird Bee! This year we're focusing on different techniques and mine is triangles. I wanted to do Flying Geese and when I saw this quilt from QuiltCon on my friend Casey's blog, I knew I had it! And the challenge of figuring out *how* to put it together ~ well, that's right up my alley!

You can see the quilt on Flickr here.

The quilt was designed and made by Lotje who blogs here, with more details on the quilt and a link to instructions here.

So I went about trying to find an easy way to re-create the design. I'm sharing my method here for the Bee gals and for any of you who might want to try it!

This is the block they're making...

I have all the pieces cut and we're using the rectangle and folded square method of making the Flying Geese. They're are lots of ways to make Flying Geese and I think this is one of the easiest. There's a great tutorial of this method and 3 other ways to sew Flying Geese on this post of Martingale's blog.

For this block, you'll make a total of 10 Flying Geese (mine are 2 1/2" x 5" finished). Sew six of them together in 3 rows of two and sew the rows together for half of the block.

To make the Flying Geese that look like they're sitting behind a big one, sew a rectangle that's the same size as the Flying Goose (in this case 3" x 5 1/2") along the long edge of the triangle. Press the seam open.

Place this unit on a 5 1/2" x 10 1/2" rectangle with the point of the goose facing to the center. Draw a line from corner to corner. Sew on the line, flip, press and trim.

Here's the result...

Repeat with a second Flying Goose/Rectangle unit on the opposite side. Again make sure the goose is pointing in to the center.

Sew the 2 remaining Flying Geese together and add them along the top to complete the second half of the block. Sew the two halves together.

 I'll be making some additional blocks with the small triangles (lower right) to add to the final quilt. Mine will have 35 blocks and finish at 50" x 52 1/2".

I'm hoping it turns out as pretty as Lotje's!!!

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Ohio Star blocks...

My house has gone quiet. After four weeks of visitors big and small, my husband and I are appreciating  the quiet. But we sure do miss the patter-patter of little feet, the "hey, Nana"s, and the expressions of unconditional love.

I Love You Nana A Lot (with 100s of smiles and zero frowns)

Seems the perfect time to start a new project. My St Louis Modern Quilt Guild has issued this years' challenge ~ make a modern quilt using the traditional block Ohio Star.

I came up with a plan, pulled out my collection of Washi fabric and started cutting triangles.

So here's a start ~ one cute little 6" Ohio Star block...

And another...

I'm up to eight out of the seventeen that I need. Oh, and lots of other blocks too!

You won't see the rest of this one until the final reveal in September. Hope it turns out as well as it looks in my head!

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Tsuru Sampler

First up, if you're in a Reader, take a moment and click on over to the blog. I've got a new design and I'd love to know what you think! Thanks to Beth Bradford for not only coming up with a design that really fits my style, but doing all the technical work to make it appear!

I'm excited to now have links to all my social media sites. With a click you'll find me on Flickr, Instagram, and Pinterest. Google Reader is disappearing soon, so you'll also find a link to my feed on Bloglovin'. And finally a quick link to email me!

Next up, I'm excited to share my Tsuru Sampler. My very first quilt was a sampler and I always think of them as a good learning quilt. This one was no exception. Having signed up for the Quilt Design tool on Threadbias and needing a project to play around with and learn the program, I started designing several different blocks. Tsuru was sitting on my cutting table at the time and I just started playing - stitching up each block as I drew.

I had fun sewing up some blocks I had never tried before...

And challenged by some of the graphic prints in the line...

This turned out to be one of my favorite blocks...

Perfect block for this sampler ~ Birds in the Air...

And I love how these cross blocks sneak into the border...

I even tried some custom quilting designs that were definitely new to me!

One of the things I love about quilting is that there's always something new to try and something different to learn! Well, that and all the gorgeous fabric :)

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