Choose Your Own Block-Along, 10/27/14

Once again, it's been a Ghastlie week. The good news is that the quilt top is completely together!

I was going to take pictures outside, but amazingly, here in central California it finally feels like fall and has been quite breezy. So indoor photos it is.

 

 The block stats on this quilt are as follows:
2-36" blocks
1-30" block
1-24" block
5-18" blocks
9-12" blocks
30 (yes 30)-6" blocks

I worked on 6" blocks most of the week. 

Every once in awhile, there was a block that had only two to four pieces. Lots of times they had 40+ pieces. It brought back memories of making the Farmer's Wife quilt, all those many pieces contained in a little 6" block.

The 6" blocks were grouped together throughout the quilt top.

 

 

 

 

 And some of them had a little something that amused me.

 

I'm so happy that this quilt top is completed. Here's the interesting thing: I'm not a huge fan of Halloween, yet for some reason I had a quite-sizable Halloween fabric stash. How does that even happen? But once I decided on including the few pieces of the Ghastlies, I couldn't really use any of my "cutesie" Halloween fabrics. The Ghastlies are most decidedly NOT "cutesie" people. So I still haven't busted much of my Halloween stash but I did dig into my stash of purple, orange and lime green!

And then I made a cute selvage pincushion.

What have you been up to this week?

Don't forget to see what Rene' and Michelle have been working on.

An InLinkz Link-up

Choose Your Own Block-Along, 10/20/14

It's been a simply GHASTLIE week!

This is a 24" block.

The next four blocks are each 18".

 

 

 

The rest are 12" blocks.

 

 

 

Everything but the thirty 6" blocks.

See what I mean? GHASTLIE!

Check out the progress of Rene' and Michelle.

What have you been up to this week?

An InLinkz Link-up

Choose Your Own Block-Along, 10/13/14

My block-along took a bit of  a "ghastlie" detour this week when I had the brainiac idea to start the Modern Building Blocks quilt by Moda with a Halloween theme.

The following blocks will really give you no idea of scale because they all appear to be the same size, but maybe you can find them in the pattern above.

This one is 18". (Hint: It is the green and white block above, left side, right above the midpoint.)

 The next two are each a whopping 36"! (This one is the large one near the bottom on the right.)

(This is near the center of the quilt, the two-tone aqua with the red and white triangles.)

This is 30".(This is in the upper right-hand corner.)

Maybe I'll be back to 6" squares next week. At this rate, I could have probably finished all the blocks in the City Sampler!

What have you been up to this week? Don't forget to check out Rene's progress this week!

An InLinkz Link-up

Choose Your Own Block-Along, 10/6/14

Welcome to this week's edition of Choose Your Own Block-Along. I am having such a good time making the blocks from Tula Pink's City Sampler that I made four instead of two this week.

No. 11

No. 12

No. 13

I wish I would have cut the longer pieces where the green "wheels" were more dense

No. 14

Definitely my favorite this week

All four blocks playing together.

My "plan" is definitely coming together, all the way from very low-volume blocks to the ones with more color and less white.

Check out Rene' and Michelle to see their progress.

If you are playing along, link up here. It's been fun to see what everyone is working on--and the progress being made!

 

An InLinkz Link-up

Miss Kate

I tend to save "precious" fabric rather than cut into it. No longer. Why? Because when you cut into it and sew it back together, it can become even more precious.

Last year, this "Ruby" quilt went to a sweet little girl named Ruby.

The new quilt started with one block from my Charm Parade pattern.

 

Soon there were more.

 

Instead of procrastinating with the basting phase, as is often the case with me, I cut out some "Ruby" flannel for the back (so soft) and got started. . . And fell in love with crosshatch quilting.

I made the binding.

And for the first time, I finished the binding by machine rather than by hand. It's not perfect by a long shot and I'll keep practicing, but I'm pretty pleased with my first attempt. (Thanks to Crazy Mom Quilts and her great tutorials and hints.)

I saved a selvage for the label.

And took a few more pictures. How could I resist? I love this quilt!

 

 

 

Soon it will be on its way to a cute and spunky little girl named Kate.The thing is, I knew as soon as I started working on this quilt that it would be going to this particular Kate, so I thought about her the whole time I was sewing. One of my favorite parts of sewing--when it's destined for someone in particular. And bonus--she and Ruby are friends, 4th generation friends. Isn't that amazing?

Stats:
Pattern (my design): Charm Parade
Size: 30" x 40"
Made and machine quilted by me (in a record amount of time, I might add)

Are you ready to turn some of your precious fabric into something special?

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

Choose Your Own Block-Along, 9/29/14

Welcome to this week's edition of the Choose Your Own Block-Along, and thanks to those of you who are linking your progress!

This week I made blocks 9 and 10 in the Tula Pink's City Sampler book.

I think it takes longer to choose the fabrics than it does to sew the blocks!

Block 9

 

Block 10

I have now made one block for each of the ten color/value categories I set up. I'll be sure to post a picture of them next week, along with the new blocks.

Be sure to see what blocks Rene' and Michelle have made in the past week.

An InLinkz Link-up

Friendship X and + Block Exchange: The Big Reveal

This all started back in October of last year. Has it really been nearly a whole year? Carla (Lollyquiltz) and Susan (Patchwork and Play) came up with a plan for a block swap that sounded like too much fun.

It involved choosing a partner and between the two of you, choosing a palette of colors to work with and then swapping  x and + blocks--we used the tutorial by Badskirt Amy.  I barely had finished reading the guidelines when I quickly sent an email to Carla (Grace and Favour) and she agreed to partner up with me. Together we chose this palette:

Every month we each made a set of blocks for ourselves and an identical set for our swap partner. We decided on a total of 64 blocks. This was my first set--four for me, and an identical set for Carla.

It was so much fun to choose the fabrics for the blocks each month, and to open that package from Carla to see what fabric choices she had made.

At some point she showed a peek at the fabric she was going to use for the backing. It was a simple texty print with all the months of the year--perfect. I ordered the same thing! ("8 days a week" by Ampersand Design Studio for Windham Fabrics, in case you are curious).

Last weekend I worked on the machine quilting, something I am not proficient at, and at this point, straight line quilting is the only thing in my arsenal. I was so anxious to get it completed by today's deadline so there was no way I was going to attempt to try something else.

By mid week I was ready to finish the binding, a step of the process that I really enjoy.

So are you ready for the unveiling?I'm so happy with this quilt. Working in tandem with a friend whose work I admire so much has been a wonderful connection and we are already talking about another project. I alternated the blocks in each row, so each of my blocks is sharing a seam with one made by Carla. That thought makes me happy.

Here is the back, which I just love.

When I was getting ready to piece the backing, I decided that I needed to match up the words and make is seem, well, seamless. It's right about in the center of this portion of the quilt back, a vertical seam. Can't see it?  Even close up, I have a hard time finding it myself.

Thankfully, it actually has started to feel like fall here in central California. We even had quite a breeze when I took these pictures.

The final closing shot.

Carla, thank you so much for saying yes to that email last year. This will always be a very special quilt.

I'm linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts and TGIFF.