making progress

i've been busy this weekend making flying geese. about half way through assembling and trimming these blocks to their proper size, it dawned on me that it would be more efficient to pick up the special flying geese ruler to make my life easier.

and it did.

that is, up until i went to set the stitches and press the seam on this strip...

how did i miss that? and this was after i had sewn about 75% of the units for my finished quilt. it was a sure sign that i needed to stop and go do something else.

last night i finished sewing all the units into strips and the strips into one piece, so the quilt top is done. tonight i will assemble the back, make the quilt sandwich and baste my layers together.

my deadline is looming.

holiday sewing

to keep my mind occupied during a very sad time, i pulled out some Happy Holiday fat quarters from my stash and started sewing these reversible little tote bags

it was good therapy for an afternoon.

i also found some time to work on these log cabin blocks, which eventually turned into a table runner and matching table pad for a christmas gift for my mother.

she has a glass top coffee table and matching side table in her living room which i designed the sizes for.

and the last bit of holiday sewing i worked on was this quilt for my nephew. you may recognize the fabric from diagonal madness which i made for my other nephew last year.

pensée en français

i am definitely on a French General kick. in addition to the unfinished Panier de Fleurs quilt top from my last post, i have started in on some pom pom de paris star blocks.

i've got a maison de garance quilt top done, ready for a backing to be put together.

la petite ecole...can't settle on a pattern quite yet, but the fabric cuts are screaming out to me!

not to mention the fa la la la la half-yards i have yet to take photos of!!

and no, this is not a sponsored post. french general is one of my favorite shops, and i love every fabric line that they have come out with. something about the contemporary interpretation of the old french style. perhaps it's that secret desire i have to get back to the south of france that drives me to their style every time.

oops! que je suis bete

this week i started a patriotic(-ish) quilt, trying to get it done by the 4th weekend.



the last time i was at French General, i picked up a few cuts of their upcoming line, Panier de Fleurs. not knowing what i was going to do with it, i just opted with 1/2-yard cuts of my selected prints. i decided to use these for my quilt and up until last night production has come to a halt...i don't have enough fabric.

i had the brilliant idea of schlepping it up to french general to pick up more, i live a good 45 minutes-to-an hour away. imagine my wave of emotions as i pulled up and saw the perfect parking spot right at the front door - the high, then came the low...as i walked up and noticed none of the lights were on and the door was shut, i read the sign and they've switched to their summer hours. CLOSED ON SATURDAY.

needless to say, this quilt is going to go unfinished, and there'll be sitting on the ground for us over the fourth!

hawaiian quilt

until i can muster up enough courage to attempt a hawaiian quilt, i have this to live with.

wowow

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i really wish i had the patience to make this quilt. it's so beautiful but i can already tell you that if i attempted to work on it i would probably only get to 2 maybe three of the blocks. if i am lucky.

first finish of 2011

ok, although this is the first finish of 2011, i have to admit i actually started this one over a year ago. i cut all the pieces and started sewing rows and soon realized i didn't like what was resulting. uneven rows, puckering...all the mistakes of a rookie. come to find out it was because i cut the triangles on the bias and as i sewed individual pieces together, i was ironing...key word ironing, not pressing, thus causing distortion. so i threw the project to the side never to see the light again.



it wasn't until about late summer that i came across the quilt again, ok actually gaetan asked me when i was going to finish his quilt, when the project was resurrected. by this point all that was left was the quilting - i had actually pieced the whole thing together and added the borders and basted the sandwich together before casting it aside. what?!? with that little left to do? i couldn't believe it.

uhm. yes, i could.



ok, so that took all of one day and then the unfortunate happened - i had no binding. so i put it aside and worked on other things and the cycle started all over again. it wasn't until about mid january when i finally got around to ordering that small piece of kona cotton in coffee (triggered by the fact that i needed to order some other kona cottons to finish the zigzag quilt for dee). so i cut into that half yard, put together my binding and finished off the quilt.



needless to say, now i have to get that zigzag quilt done.

seeing red

a friend of mine asked me to make a couple of quilts for him to take to the angels games to keep him warm while he knits. uhm, to watch baseball i mean. the only stipulation he gave me was that he wanted it to be red overall, as red is his favorite color.

so i quickly got a hold of a bunch of various reds and got going...



i knew i wanted to make two different quilts, but have them relate somehow. in the end, one was half square triangles with just the reds, and the other was concentric squares with a splash of aqua and black thrown in.



both are backed with kona cotton in various shades of red, as well i used kona cotton in chinese red for the binding on both.





i am glad he loved them both, and maybe i'll see them on tv when baseball season starts up again.

sweet treats

later on...we'll conspire, as we dream...by the fire.

i guess depending on your mood as well as the season, you can interpret the above in different ways.

diagonal madness, finally.



so i finally finished this Diagonal Madness. you remember, the one i started back in july? after the debacle of the month, i put this one on the non-urgent priority list and it hasn't resurfaced until the recipient's due date drew closer. well, little paulin finally came into the world yesterday and it needed to be done before he got here.

the pattern is based on the 'diagonal madness' quilt found in kaffe fasset's Country Gardens quilt book. if you look closely, you will notice a number of things: a) my version is quite pared down, b) no bordering 9-patch, c) my emphasis on the smaller squares going perpendicular to the larger squares on point are much subtler than the pattern calls for.





ok, it boils down to i did a lazier version of the real thing.

i backed this one with a row pieced together with the left over patched that didn't make it to the front, along with some kona cotton in brown. the binding was attached on the back, and topped stitched onto the front which created this great line of stitching alongside the binding fabric on the back.