quilting project: heather ross travel pillow

Soon after moving to North Carolina, I joined the Triangle Modern Quilt Guild (which has been a lot of fun to be a part of). For this past month's meeting, I participated in a travel pillow swap and created a pillow for my swap partner, John, of Quilt Dad fame. 

Using Ashley's quilt block tutorial as a starting point, I created the pillow from limited-edition Heather Ross for Spoonflower fabric and coordinating solids. I opted for an envelope-style back and straight-line quilting for the front. All in all, I was pleased with how it turned out.

P.S. Have you seen Heather's newest line, Far Far Away III? Love!

quilting inspiration

Amish quilt spotted at the American Folk Art Museum in New York City last weekend.

quilting project: ziggity mug rug

When I spotted John's tutorial for an adorable mug rug over on Sew Mama Sew!, I was instantly inspired and decided to whip one up. Which I did. In one evening.

I opted to use all solid scraps on the front, and a floral thrift-store print on the back. This literally took me three hours to make (that included picking fabric, piecing, and hand-sewing the binding), which made it such a fun and satisfying project. 

quilting project: zig-zag quilt

Back in February, my friends had the most adorable baby girl named Luna Maria. I, of course, wanted to make a quilt to mark the special occasion. Using this tutorial from the Purl Bee, which I'd been eyeing for quite some time, I created this zig-zag quilt for her. 

I stuck to solids on the front (most of them from my stash) and a 1920s/30s reproduction kids' print on the back that I picked up at G Street Fabrics. I quilted it on my machine, used a solid turquoise fabric for the binding, and added a hand-embroidered tag to the back with Luna's name and birthday. 

I really love working with solids (and half-square triangles!), and was so pleased with how this quilt turned out.

potholder swap: what i sent

So my dear blogging friend Adaiha and I recently decided it was time for another swap. (We've done a few successful crafty swaps in the past.) This time, we decided to swap potholders. I figured this would be the perfect opportunity for me to use up some of my scraps (I love scrap-busting projects!) and practice the English paper-piecing skills I picked up in a hand-quilting class I took at Spool in Philadelphia a few months ago. So using little one-inch hexagons, I made Adaiha a blue and green potholder, lined with thermal fleece. 

I then used this tutorial to assemble the back of the potholder. Everything was completely hand sewn---a first for me in a very long time!---and I was really pleased with the results.

quilting project: half-square triangle placemats

Before I moved down here to North Carolina (which I'm loving so far, by the way!), one of the projects I managed to finish, and gift, was a set of four quilted placemats.

Each one was made up of half square triangles, which I made from green and turquoise scraps in my stash, and backed with a coincidentally complementary print by Kathy Davis (also used on the back of this project and this one).

 

I've been experimenting a lot with half-square triangles lately--the layout possibilities are endless!--so I'll try and post some of my other projects in the coming weeks.

quilt tops for charity

So things have been quiet on the ol' blog for a number of reasons lately, including this one: I'm moving to North Carolina! To prepare for the big move, I've been organizing my sewing room and finishing up some projects including this one:

This is one of two quilt tops that I'll be sending off to Wrap Them in Love. My friend Andrea and I started this project over a year ago, while I was still living in Austin. I must say that it's so nice to finally have these tops done and on their way to such a great organization!

 Small stack of quilt tops, blocks, and fabric now on its way to Wrap Them in Love.