Delicious Finish

My Honey Honey top is finished!

Sorry about the crappy picture. I finished this one at about 3:30am, and couldn't wait to post about it! Can you spot Charlotte? She was helping ;-)

I trucked through and finished the rows and borders in one sitting. It was pretty quick, except for all the pinning! I'm a little particular about my corners - remember these?

I fiddled around with the block layout for about a week or so, trying to even out the values and trying not to put prints in different color ways next to each other. That didn't work as well as I would have liked, I tend to find a print I like and buy it in every color it comes in ;-)

This baby finishes out at 71x86, and the solids are Kona white and candy green. The prints, of course, are Honey Honey by Kate Spain.

It might be a while before I will quilt is one, I forgot to order backing fabric, so that may take a hot second... Decisions, decisions...

Little Upgrades

I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but my kitchen has no counter space and next to no cabinet space. You might remember this picture from the last house tour:

(please pardon the orange walls - I'm planning to paint the kitchen and the living room and dining room at the same time, which will be quite the undertaking!)

Yep. What you see is what you get. The usable counter space is that little sliver between the sink and the stove. Seriously.

Here is a picture of the other side of the kitchen, which I didn't show last time (it has a tendency to be cluttered):

Very messy. The baker's rack is my attempt to free up some cabinet space. The rest is a mish-mash of random stuff that I just had available when I moved in. I've been toying with the idea of adding some cabinets and counters on this side of the room, but that would involve either trying to find cabinets that matched the original ones, or refacing the old ones to match the new ones.

That wasn't going to happen in any reasonable time frame.

BUT!

I went to this consignment shop a few weeks ago, and happened to find an amazing alternative.

Isn't it so pretty?

It's made from pieces of other furniture, and has a metal frame with casters. The back and sides are finished, so it will look good in the middle of a room too. Such a great find!!

I also updated the space by the front door. Here is the before:

And here is the piece I got at the same time as the island:

Yay! Storage galore! Now I can put the mail in the top of the secretary instead of on the coffee table. So much better! It'll look even better after I paint or refinish it (which will happen eventually...)

I haven't disappeared...

Well, maybe I have... But just for a moment! I've been relaxing, and reading for fun, and eating and sleeping and swimming, and all those things that people do on vacation!

I have, however, NOT been sewing. I'll get back to being productive soon enough though!

I'm just going to enjoy this while I can ~

So Close!

The other day, I mentioned that I had three blocks left to finish for Honey Honey.

Now I have none :-)

I still need to sew the blocks together, and add the border, but I'm still counting this one as almost done :-)

WIPs Galore!

A little snapshot/summary of what I'm working on...

From the top -
The still-being-quilted gray and red quilt (which has been a WIP waaaaay too long!)
Little corners of Honey Honey (so close!)
The Sisters Ten BOM, which will be a WIP all year, so that's ok.
Scrappy trip, which is I guess about halfway done.

Unpictured: Skill Builder BOM, which I'm admiring up on the design wall :-)

Scrappy Tripping

The other day I sat down and churned out a bunch of piecing for my Scrappy Trip. So far I have enough blocks (that are at least started) for a 6x6 block quilt. I think I'm going to go with 7x7 though. I'm still debating...

These things are pretty quick!

This is where they are now, ready to sub-cut into the pieced rows of squares. 

Here is the layout I've been thinking about, and all the blocks that are all the way done so far.

So I still have like 15 Scrappy Trip blocks left (after this batch is finished) and three(!!) Honey Honey blocks left!

Sisters Ten BOM - May

I finished the May blocks of the Sisters Ten BOM the other day. These blocks came together quickly and uneventfully - which is nice, but makes for some moderately boring blog posts! ;-)

I used the same blue fireworks print that I did on one of the January blocks so that there would be a little bit of blue on more than one block, for some balance.

I used some scraps from my Honey Honey quilt in this block. This one is a much lighter value than some of the others, which I think will give the finished top some interest.

Here are all of the blocks I've done so far! It kind of reminds me of confetti at a party, lol. Once I put in some negative space in the middle it will tone down a little!

Skill Builder BOM - April blocks finished!

Yay! These blocks are done! I was SURE that they were going to take forever, but they actually came together pretty quickly (for handwork). I love how they turned out!

The first block - the hexies - came together just like I expected, and I really like how the prints have a color progression. With my color scheme, I wasn't sure how I was  going to be able to represent that, but I found these prints and I think they work perfectly.

THIS block - oh, this block... The piecing was a little iffy, because these are weird shapes that I haven't done before, and those middle ones are teeny tiny. I actually sat down and pieced this one in one day, because I was just determined. I think part of it was that I was worried if I put it aside, I would forget how I had arranged the colors... I like the little sliver of purple in the middle.

Here are all the blocks I've done so far! I still need to put borders on most of them, and I'm definitely behind with the quilting, but at least they're up there!

More English Paper Piecing

I started the second May block of the Skill Builder BOM the other night. This one is also paper pieced, but it's very different from the first one! I've never done paper piecing with these shapes before, so that was fun. Except not really. But it was ok.

I started with this stack. The block is supposed to look like a gemstone when it's finished, so I wanted to get a bunch of different shades, so it would look like it was sparkling.

I printed the templates and cut them out, then decided how I was going to split up the colors.

Getting ready to baste.

I've actually finished both of these blocks, so I'll show them to you soon!

Obsessed

I'm kind of obsessed with this fabric pull right now. I don't know what it's going to be, but I sure like looking at it...

The inspiration was this spool of coral/salmon/peachy Aurifil. It's my new favorite color. 

The one print in the stack is one I used in a quilt for my best friend's baby. I have no idea what it is, so if you recognize it, please let me know! I'd love to find more!

Skill builder BOM April.... Progress

I've been kind of quiet about the Skill Builder BOM for April. That's because there isn't much going on. The blocks for this month are pieced by hand! I put off starting them forever, and finally got a move on the other day. I've done a very little bit of paper piecing in the past, and really like it. It's very meditative.

I cut the fabric and basted all these tinies one night while watching TV. It went really quick! I started piecing the rows too.

Of course, in the tradition of Ineptitude, I started piecing it wrong. This is what I started doing:

Seam ripping sucks to begin with, but ripping hand stitching sucks even worse!

This is what the block is supposed to look like! I'm really liking this! There is another block that I haven't started yet, so I'll share that one when it happens!

(Way) late to the party...

So there are a few informal quiltalongs that make the rounds on Instagram... I caught the bug on the xplusalong earlier this year, and I'm loving the results from that one. Soooo... I know I'm way late on this one, but the quilt I started the other day is a scrappy trip around the world!

I've seen these all over the internet, and they are all so fun. Katy has made like 20 already this year!

It took me a while to catch on to this one because I just didn't know what fabrics I wanted to use. I knew that I wanted the fabrics to at least sort of coordinate, and not be too dark. I decided to cut into a big ol' stack of FQs that I've been hoarding, and just go for it.

I'm liking this.

These blocks come together SO FAST!!! It's unbelievable. I've worked on this quilt twice total, and have 15 blocks done. And those two sessions included pressing and cutting all the fabric!

I've still got a while to go - I'm going to do 48 I think. I've even got an idea for the scraps for the back.

So yummy!

Some Instant Gratification...

The other day I mentioned that I was doing some quick, instant gratification projects to balance out the big quilts I'm working on. I shared the Summer bag last week, some Noodlepouches before that, and now I'm showing you another!

This is a tutorial that Elizabeth did for Sew Mama Sew a while back, and has been on my to do list (aka Pinterest) for ages. The other night I decided to just go ahead a give it a try!

I made the thread catcher first, so at least if I lost interest before finishing the rest I would have something useful to show for it...

I like it a lot, so I went ahead and did the pincushion/pocket part. This thing is so cute!

Right now I have it on the edge of my machine table, but I've been moving it around a lot. I might move it to the arm of the couch, for handwork projects. I always seem to have a little pile of threads on the side table... and a couple needles stuck in the arm of the couch. Not the safest thing ever with my little monkey in the house...

Not taking my own advice...

I know, after saying I was trying to finish this quilt before starting a new one the other day, I promptly went back on my word.

I cut into a FQ stack of Good Fortune that I've been hoarding for a year and a half. I don't know what got into me, I have three other quilts that I've had planned for a while, and that I have all the fabric pulls ready for. I also have this quilt that desperately needs to be finished quilting. That has been a WIP for waaaaay too long.

I guess I just needed a change of scenery?

It is a pretty view...

From Instagram: a fresh jar of selvages and 48 empty plates = a new quilt about to start!

Everything laid out, getting ready to fill those plates!

Here they are, all ready for stitching!