hand-to-hand market

A few photos from last weekend's craft fair, where Kait and I shared a table:

New pillows, baby quilts, and lunch totes I made for the show, along with napkins and cross-stitch buttons.

 Vintage suitcase with pillows and a quilt.

Kait's adorable cup sleeves, pouches, and tea wallets.

Thank you to everyone who stopped by the table and supported our little businesses!

upcoming craft fair!

For the past few weeks, I've been cross-stitching and quilting up a storm in preparation for the upcoming Hand to Hand Market in Greensboro. The market will take place on Sunday, May 20, and Kait and I will be sharing a table at the event and selling our handmade things from 1:00 to 6:00 p.m. There'll be lots of craft vendors, food trucks, and an after party with live bands. If you're in the area, I hope you'll stop by!

LMP+QG april challenge: peanut, the wee elephant

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. 

For this month's challenge, Kait and I made little elephants. While this project was a bit of a challenge for me (and some of the directions were a bit vague), I'm happy to report that Peanut turned out to be pretty darn cute.

For Peanut's body and ears, I used two fabrics from Heather Ross's latest line for Spoonflower, and I found a coordinating blue gingham in my stash for Peanut's blanket.

I especially love the little details, including the snout, felt eyes, and perle cotton tail.

See Kait's adorable elephant here.

Coming up next month: Summer Breeze quilt

the tempest quilt

Last year, while still living in Maryland, I made the drive up to Philadelphia to take a class with Cherri House at Spool (I've always been a big fan of Cherri's solids-only quilt patterns). For the class, we pieced together blocks for a quilt that Cherri designed: The Tempest.

The blocks sat around my studio until the top was pieced together early last summer, and then the top hung in my studio closet until a month or two ago when I finally, finally, sent it off to Joanne, my long-arm quilter.

I asked Joanne to quilt it with a cloud pattern, and I am so, so happy with the results. I backed the top with a vintage sheet-inspired print from Urban Chik's Dream On collection and bound the quilt with a blue and white stripe. This was the first stripy binding I've done, and it definitely won't be my last---I love how it looks!

Even though it took my a year to finish, I'm so happy to finally have this quilt on our bed!

gingham quilt

When Amanda Jean posted an in-progress shot of her gingham quilt back in 2010, I knew I had to make my own. Fast forward to last fall, to right before we moved into a new house, when I finally did. Using remnants from my stash (including scraps from our gray wedding day tablecloths), I made a mini version to hang above our bed.

I backed it with a cute Lizzy House print, hand quilted it using gray perle cotton, and bound it with a mini yellow gingham.

Though it's simple in design, and came together really quickly, it is one of my favorite quilts to date!

LMP+QG march challenge: pieced pillow [quilt]

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. 

So for the month of March, Kait and I decided to make the Pieced Pillows from LMP+QG. However, my husband and I already have a number of pillows around our house (see Exhibits A, B and C), so I decided to revise the plan slightly. Instead of making completed pillows, I made two pillow tops which I then turned into quilt blocks for a baby quilt that I'll be donating to a local children's hospital. 

The blocks came together super quickly (it took about ten minutes to cut and sew each one), and it was fun to do a bit of improv sewing when placing the white stripes.

As I've mentioned before, I'm trying to use these monthly challenges as an opportunity to try out new fabrics and techniques. So for the top and part of the back, I used fat quarters from Laurie Wisbrun's new collection, Jack and Jenny. I wouldn't normally opt for fabrics in this color palette (or with donkeys and rain boots on them!), but I have to say, I love the results! I think this will be a great quilt for a little boy.

I also decided to stretch myself a bit in the quilting department, and chose to free-motion quilt the entire thing---my first time doing so! Though it's not perfect, I'm really happy with the overall effect of the stitching and look forward to practicing and perfecting the technique more. For binding, I used scraps of orange and yellow, which added a fun and surprising pop of color.

 

See Kait's gorgeous Pieced Pillows here.

Coming up next month: Peanut, the Wee Elephant

quilting project: white and navy log cabin

In January, right before my parents arrived for a visit, I managed to finish their Christmas gift: a queen-size log cabin quilt made from navy prints and solid white.

I collected the navy prints from a variety of places (including Whipstitch, CityCraft, and Stitch Lab) over a number of months and based the design on quilts I saw in Modern Log Cabin Quilting and Last-Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts. For the back, I pieced together all of the leftover scraps.

I sent it off to Joanne, who beautifully quilted it with loops, and then bound it with solid navy (and a little bit of white) when it returned. It's the largest quilt I've made to date, and I'm so, so happy with how it turned out.