LMP+QG august challenge: kelly's pincushions

Each month, my friend Kait and I are making a project from the book, Last-Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts ("LMP+QG" for short). You can see previous projects here. 

 

Last weekend, Kait and I spent the afternoon together and did this month's project---an adorable scrappy pincushion---in just a few hours. For me, the hardest part was figuring out what color scheme to go with, and in the end, I opted for navy and aqua.

Kait was super industrious and wound up making two pincushions in the time it took me to make one, using colorful scraps (pictured above and below).

The project was simple and quick and I loved the results---it'll be a great project for Christmas gifts!

You can see Kait's post about our sewing afternoon together here.

Coming up next month: Color Wheel Quilt

blue baby quilt

One of my good friends is due with her third little boy in October, so for her baby shower a few weeks ago, I made her a quilt.

I started with two cute jungle animal prints by Eleanor Grosch, which I picked up from Spool during a trip to Philadelphia last year, and then pulled two coordinating dots and a solid blue to go along with them. I wanted to keep things simple, and show off the adorable prints, so I stuck with large squares for the top.

For the back, I pieced together the top leftovers, and as is usually the case, I love the back even more than the front. To personalize it, I added a hand-embroidered label---my first in awhile.

I did the entire quilt in a weekend (yay for small baby quilts!) and was so excited to make it with fabric and batting I had on hand. It always feels like such an accomplishment to work exclusively from my stash!

jelly roll quilt

For my sister-in-law's birthday back in June (can you tell I'm just now catching up on things since our July move?), I made her a quilt. I knew I wanted to do something simple, yet try out a new technique, so when I saw Deborah's quilt made from the Jelly Roll 1600 quilt tutorial, I knew it would be the perfect project.

For the quilt top, I used an all-solids jelly roll from Moda that I'd been hoarding for over a year.

For the back, I used a Nani Iro double gauze (so soft and pretty and perfect for the back of a quilt, though a bit fussy to work with!) and paired it with two simple prints, including one by Denyse Schmidt. Thanks to the double gauze, the quilt turned out super cuddly.

I love how the quilt turned out---as did my sister-in-law!---and how quickly it came together. It's definitely a pattern I'll be using again.

handprinted: a fabric swap II

Lately, I've been wanting to try my hand at printing my own fabric, so when I heard about the hand-printed fabric swap organized by Leslie over at Maze and Vale back in June, I immediately knew I wanted to participate.

After a bit of brainstorming, research, and experimenting, I settled on a simple triangle design.

I created a stamp using adhesive-backed foam and a plastic cap for the base and stamped away using black, aqua, and coral fabric paint. I made four fat quarters for my four swap partners.

I was super happy with the results of this experiment in fabric stamping---and only wish I'd made a fifth to keep for myself!

You can see the beautiful fabric I received in return here, here, and here.