It's Just Ghastlie!

Last fall when the Moda Modern Building Blocks pattern arrived, I had originally thought I would do it similar to the pattern--in solids. I love solids But then I looked at my stash of Halloween fabric and changed course. And then I found my little bit of Ghastlies fabric and changed course again. So all of the cute novelty fabric just didn't seem to work with the crabby Ghastlie family and I ended up using a lot of my regular stash--orange, purple, lime green, grey and black.

I posted progress pictures along the way.

 

 

 

My favorite block:

It turns out that when making scrappy quilts, with piles and mountains of fabric strewn all over the place, I am highly motivated to actually finish the project, no matter the size. I'll have to keep that in mind!

So I'm happy to present the Ghastlies, completely quilted and in all their glory.

We have had some really foggy days around here and I was trying to capture that when I photographed the quilt. You can kind of see the ghostly trees in the background.

I have heard rumors that 2014 was the last year for any new additions to the Ghastlie line of fabric. So while I had intended to use only my stash, I bought one yard of the current line from 2014 to add to the back.

And included a bit of the selvage.

I'm thrilled with the quilt. It was beautifully quilted by someone I was following on Instagram, Darby from @quiltedsquid (quiltedsquid). It turns out we live less than an hour apart!

I'm linking to Amanda Jean at Crazy Mom Quilts and TGIFF.

Choose Your Own Block-Along, 1/26/15

All 100 City Sampler blocks are done! Yes, I powered through the second half of them this past week, motivated by putting away all the Christmas fabric. I knew if I put it away before the blocks were done, it was highly likely they would never be completed.

This is the very last block in the book, along with mountains of fabric. Scrappy sewing is a messy business. See why I was motivated?

I arranged all the blocks on my design wall using the design I had visualized. And it worked! The colors start in the upper left corner with very low-volume red and white, gradually add more color, along with green, then kind of swap in the middle and work their way back to very low-volume, this time with green and white. Oh, and the quilt has a name--Christmas in the City. Perfect, right?

I'll take the blocks down later this morning, carefully pinned together in rows, and set them aside for a quilting retreat at the end of February.

This is not a block, obviously, but I'm one quarter of the way through with the Coastal Ripple afghan.

And I have started an epic project, the New Hexagon Millefiori Quilt, using the fabulous book by Katja Marek. I'm using my stash of Denyse Schmidt fabrics, collected over the years.

I sure hope I don't run out...

Here is the center of the first rosette.

I purchased the acrylic templates from Paper Pieces, which make cutting a breeze. Too bad I forgot about the whole mirror image thing. I only had a fat 1/8th of the stripe and it is really the perfect fabric. But half of the pieces aren't cut properly for the left side of the diamond. So another fat quarter is on the way. Bummer, because I really wanted to use only the fabric I have on hand. But even Mark agreed that a replacement fabric purchase was in order. And...lesson learned.

What have you been working on in the past week? Here is what Rene' has been up to.

An InLinkz Link-up

Choose Your Own Block-Along, 1/19/15

I am nearly halfway through the 100 blocks of Tula Pink's City Sampler! The main motivation is that I want to put away the mountain of red, green and white Christmas fabric.

I have ten main color "categories," ranging from really low volume white/green and white/red, all the way to saturated red/green and green/red blocks. It is working really well to make the blocks in "pairs," especially as the book is divided into "shape" categories. So it is a bit of a challenge to make sure all the color categories are well represented within the shape categories. If that even makes any sense...

I finished off the "rectangle" category with this block. Oh, look--some cute Laurie Wisbrun holiday wellies fabric.

Block 34:

Then I moved into the triangle category.

Blocks 36 and 37:

Blocks 38 and 39 (fun fussy cutting of that red and white fahric):

Blocks 40 and 41:

Blocks 42 and 43:

Blocks 44 and 46:

Blocks 45 and 48:

Blocks 47 and 49 (the colors are a little off on this picture):

And my work for the week:

What you been working on in the past week? Don't forget to check to see what Rene' has been up to!

An InLinkz Link-up

Choose Your Own Block-Along, 1/12/15

As I mentioned last week, I really want to power through the Tula Pink City Sampler blocks so the Christmas fabric can be put away. In the meantime, there is only one more block remaining in the "Rectangles" section.

The blocks for this week included two green and white blocks, numbers 22 and 31,

and two red and white blocks, numbers 26 and 33.

Of course in both cases the background fabric showed through the white. So here they are on my design wall. Ah...much better.

I also worked on a block for Rene' for the Mid Century Modern bee, a little late as it was due in December. Having never made a Dresden plate before, I found it to be a lot of fun and it made me contemplate making a Dresden plate quilt of my own. Although I think enlisting the help of bee members might be the way to go.

What have you been working on this week? My goal for 2015 is to sew from my stash and finish as many projects as possible that have been on the shelves and just waiting for some attention.

I want to start the year by thanking everyone who takes the time to stop by and leave a comment. I appreciate you all so very much.

An InLinkz Link-up

Choose Your Own Block-Along, 1/5/15

I hope everyone has had an enjoyable holiday season. It's kind of hard to believe that the holidays are behind us and we are five days into the new year!

So...where were we? Oh, yes. I believe I had been sidetracked first by the Moda Building Blocks quilt using the Ghastlies fabric (and expect to see a finish--I just have to add the binding!!), and then all the cute Lori Holt Christmas quilt blocks.

That brings me back to my Tula Pink City Sampler blocks. I can't put away my Christmas fabric until the rest of the 70 blocks are complete! So prepare for red, white and green in the coming weeks.

Blocks 17 and 19:

Blocks 20 and 21:

Blocks 23 and 24:

Blocks 25 and 27:

Blocks 30 and 35:

What have you been working on?

An InLinkz Link-up

Choose Your Own Block-Along, 11/24/14

I've still been working on the "Have Yourself a Quilty Little Christmas" sew-along on Instagram, with all the instructions by Lori Holt from Bee in My Bonnet. This has been so much fun, I'm sorry to see it coming to an end.

 

 

 

What have you been working on? Link up and show us!

An InLinkz Link-up

With everything going on, I'm going to suspend the link-up until the first of the year. But keep sewing and plan on showing us your progress next year (wow, that sounds weird, doesn't it?!).

First Call for Fall

I'm so happy to have a quilt in the latest issue of Modern Patchwork. I named it First Call for Fall. The magazine shortened it to Call for Fall, but I'm sticking with the original name.

It all started with this logo. My husband was searching for contact information on a church website and when I saw the church logo, I had him wait long enough for me to take a screen shot.

With a few adjustments, I knew it would make a great quilt block. I love it when inspiration strikes from unexpected places.

The quilt is in a section of the magazine called Muted Moderns. Cool graphics...

I made the entire quilt top from my stash--also a bonus. I had enough Essex yarn-dyed linen, some Kona cottons in light colors, and scraps of Oakshott cottons in fall-ish colors.

I had a complete surprise when I was paging through the actual magazine for the first time: my quilt from the Summer 2014 issue, Chain Link, was used in the first article, right there across from Jacquie Gering, Alissa Haight Carlton and Latifah Saafir. As my grandson, Levi, has been saying a lot lately, "Holy smokes!!"

I'm linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts and TGIFF.  Have a great weekend!