Superstar!

In addition to getting this quilt pin basted and quilted, this week...I'm finishing up my Superstar blocks. Here they are on the design wall - not yet arranged at all. (I know all the lights are in a row).
This quilt is less colorful than my usual creations, but I'm loving the sophistication and richness it has. I always have certain blocks I love more than others (unlike children).
This one too.
And this one.
Agh!! I knew this would be either an awesome block or a hideous block! I had to give it a try. I love the graphic background print, but it definitely needs to be used somewhere else! You never know till you try. It's one of the fun things about quilting!

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Fabric...

If you don't like blog posts about fabric, you can skip this one. Remember I said after reading Jeni's series The Art of Choosing, I decided to organize my stash in a more efficient way. Well, it took me all week. I touched every piece of fabric I own, weeded out some oldies, folded every one into a neat little package and organized by color.I chose to organize my fabrics within each color by grouping tone-on-tones and color + white together; then grouping color + accent color together. So all the blue with green went together, all the aqua with red together, brown with blue, etc. I think it will make it easier to pull coordinates for a project. I ended up with these bins from Target. They held 2 rows of folded fabric and fit perfectly on my large shelf. (I even went to Lowe's to have additional shelves cut).
My fabric had been previously stacked on these shelves. Now they're holding my books, multicolored fabrics and creams. I've also got a little overflow of grays and black & whites. I'm going to try to follow Peter Walsh's advice to stay within my bins!
I've been collecting gray fabrics and I've learned that I have "enough already!"
But I'm really short on purple and plum. 4 pieces! And the second one on the right is really more pink!
I'm loving the fact that when I needed some pinks today I could just pull the bin to my cutting table and use what I needed.
It took a lot of time to reorganize but I do have a whole new vision of what I have on hand. It was really fun as I folded and admired each of my lovely fabrics. Very Zen! Thanks Jeni for the push!

Look what came today. A few more AMH voiles for my project...
And as long as I was ordering, I just had to add some Spring Street. It's luscious!!

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Quilting Potpourri...

I'm home again and I think it's going to be a busy week in the sewing room. These blocks on my design wall are calling for more!I'm also folding fabric. Joan from wishes, true and kind mentioned she was using a fabric folding tip from In Color Order. I hopped over and read all of Jeni's posts on "Order: The Art of Choosing". Mine really needed a makeover, so I joined in and started folding. I love that she suggests organizing by color (tone-on-tones and color + white), but also by color + accent color. These are my blues...

And these are my blue + green (yes, I really do like that color combination!) So this week I'm working on a color or two per day. Hopefully by the end of the week I'll be organized and ready to put together some coordinated scrappy quilts.
When I visited Maisonette, I picked up some knits to make these adorable hats for the girls.
I also bought some AMH voiles. I've got an idea to turn these into a simple, soft lightweight quilt. Stay tuned...
I got an email from Debbie and she shared the quilt she made from my MBS Building Blocks quilt. Six times the quilt size made a beautiful bed quilt.

My friend, Jean is planning on using the pattern to make a large quilt with Central Park. I redrafted the block to an 8" size. This can also be cut from a 10" layer cake.

Here's the alternate cutting:

1 strip 3 1/2"; trim to 3 1/2" x 8 1/2"

1 strip 4 1/2"; trim to one 3 1/2" x 4 1/2", one 4 1/2" x 4 1/2", and one 1 1/2" x 4 1/2"

1 strip 1 1/2"; trim to 1 1/2" x 8 1/2"

So for me a week of a mixture of sewing activities... potpourri. How about you?

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Maisonette

I've been in beautiful, southern California soaking up the sunny weather and playing with my grand-daughters this week. An added bonus is this find. Maisonnette is an adorable fabric shop nestled in a little white house in Oceanside, CA. It's filled with exclusively modern fabric, including quilting cottons, voiles, velveteens, home dec weight and trims, patterns and ideas.
Laminated cottons and the newest Japanese designer fabrics.
Artful displays...






We found this beautiful echino fabric and made floor pillows.Of course, I left with a few half yards in my bag. I'll show you those when I get home next week!

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Baby Quilt...

My friend, Rene made this adorable quilt using my Moda Bake shop recipe. Love the pinks with black and white.Looks like it will be perfect for her niece's little one!

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Flower Pot Parade

"the original"

Calico Needlers is a local guild filled with talented quilters. Each year they work on a Block-of-the-Month together and for 2010 chose my Flower Pots quilt. This week I got to see the results and were they beautiful! Unfortunately I had to photograph them in a room with florescent lights (bad for pictures). I did my best, but believe me they are all prettier in "person".

The book is still available and really a fun one to make!

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Hand work...

Have you noticed I've been absent this week? Saturday night I took my husband to the Emergency Room and he landed in the hospital for 4 days. Nothing too serious (although it could have been, had we not acted), just an infection that required intravenous antibiotics.

Thank goodness I had hand work ready to go! Back in the days of car pools and soccer games, I always had some hand work in the car to pass time. Luckily this week I grabbed this cute pincushion from the STL MQG swap and my Dresden blocks and took advantage of the natural sunlight in the hospital room.
I've changed things up a bit. I found this collection of Kona cottons, coordinated to Soul Blossoms at Sew Fresh Fabrics, and decided to go with solid centers on my Dresdens.
I like how the solids let the prints shine.



This quilt came back from the quilter a few weeks ago and now has the binding hand sewn down.
We're home and all is well. But I better get some hand work prepped just in case!

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