Sew Sunshine

Yesterday my friend Jen and I got together to soak up some street art. I happened to have a few quilts I needed to post about so it was perfect.  Jen found this great wall and so I made her be my quilt holder.  This one is a scrappy coin improv quilt.  42"X 49" organic wavy line quilting You would think a lot of scraps were used but...not so much.  There she is (Jen) in this cool alley she found.  Another scrappy finish. This one a UFO from a year couple years ago. 50"x 59" scrap made fabric then set in the circle (so fun) cross square straight line quilting Another cool mural wall with a giant frog.  I should name it Peek-a-boo just for Jen! Again some scraps but not a lot. One thing Jen wanted to do was an activity with paint chips. We headed out to a couple places and found some fun colors.....um, quilt colors of course.  We were to somehow make a poem though so using the names of the paint chips here goes..... "Starting today, as the sun goes down ...

One of my local quilt guilds had a chance to work with the International Quilt Museum here in town and Gallery 1516 in Omaha. The show is called Modern Quilting on the Prairie.  Modern quilts were paired with quilts from the IQM and some quilts were just in a themed section inspired by Prairie. This is my entry "O Praire Girl"  My quilt was inspired by part of the Carl Sandburg poem Prairie -  "O prairie girl, be lonely, singing, dreaming, waiting— your lover comes—your child comes—the years creep with toes of April rain on new-turned sod. O prairie girl, whoever leaves you only crimson poppies to talk with, whoever puts a good-by kiss on your lips and never comes back— There is a song deep as the falltime redhaws, long as the layer of black loam we go to, the shine of the morning star over the corn belt, the wave line of dawn up a wheat valley." and this photo I took several years ago of farmland by my home growing up My piece is improvisation, applique, with simpl...

Okay I am winning against myself again ....I was looking through my stash for my Pride and Prejudice fabric scraps when I came across this bag of fabric from the 80's. You know back when calico fabric cost less than $5 a yard and it was most often than not 45" wide not counting the selvedge.  Well I chose burgandy and forest green fabrics back then and they even ended up being my wedding colors. Oh gosh, can't believe I still had some of this stuff.  Anyway, I thought this fabric looks more like Little house on the praire than Pride and Prejudice (you can see what I made with the P and P fabric  HERE ) So thoughts of Little house on the Praire by Laura Ingalls Wilder Rebecca of Sunny Brook Farm by Kate Wiggin Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery all fit this fabric.  So I searched for something inspiring and found this pattern called "One room school house" by Diane Nagle and jumped in. It measure aprox. 43" x 43"  it has plaidish orgainic line quiltin...

This week Project Quilting 14.4 theme is Novel Project So of course I remembered I had a scrap of Pride and Prejudice fabric. I decided size wise it had to be a small project so why not a pillow. I adore black and white fabrics anyway and had some fun script fabrics to use.  I was so happy to make a silhouette and have it capture some of the best parts of the fabric. The silhouette is Jane Austen at a younger age and it was a free clip art.  The pillow is 16" size applique and piecing minimal quilting and applique Linking this up with Kim @ Persimmon Dreams  Project quilting 14.4 My Quilt Infatuation Alycia Quilts finish or not friday Confessions of a Fabric addict Put your foot down From bolt to beauty Wendy's Quilts and more parade

UFO no more! I went looking in my stash for fabric for a backing for a quilt I am working on between Project Quilting. I saw an odd print in a bag and thought it has some different colors in it..I sat looking at it then thought wonder if it would go with a quilt top I made .........um, in 2014 HERE  as a QAL for Sharon  @Colorgirl quilts   I completed the quilt top back then and promptly folded it up and put away. It has lots of bias pieces and probably one of my first serious attempts at sewing lots of curves. All in all it was not too bad. The borders of Kaffe scraps was fun to do but a bit tricky to sew a curve onto.  I'm really going to call it 'Winners Circle' even though the pattern is Polka Dot Bikini. I really felt like a winner today sewing on the label. I mean 9 years in the making!! Woohoo Approx. 64" x 64" simple cross grid quilting I am so happy that I took the moment and just finished this little one. I hope you feel like a winner with whatever you a...

This week is another  Project Quilting season 14 challenge  14.3 based off a block called 54 -40 or Fight. I see it has a few other names one including 54-40 Flight or Fight. Still that is only a part of my inspiration.  We could use the block or be inspired by something. I really like the V blocks but wanted to add a curve to them so naturally since I am a certified instructor of the QCR (quick curve ruler by Sew kind of Wonderful) I looked there and what did I find? a pattern called Gaggle Battle quilt.  Mine is a little smaller than the pattern 47" x 47"  stash fabrics 4 variegated  Organic crosshatch quilting Reached into my backing supply stash and found this fun print that matched most of the 4 colors on the front. I really like how those leftover pieces of red and peach played together. It is hard to see in this photo.  Pictures outside were almost impossible. I almost caught a huge gaggle of geese flying by but a car was coming down the road. h...

The last 7 days I did a quick scrap friendly sew along with  Plains and Pine  #wildstarsal on instagram.  We made scrappy diamonds and then we were supposed to sew the background but I didn't have quite enough so had to improvise.  I have a ton more scraps but every little bit ...right? I have a bunch of this lovely vip calico fabric that worked great for a foundation for my scraps. It is very thin so the bulk barely is noticed when I quilted.  I hardly use decorative type stitches on my machines so thought I would try this multi-stitch zig zag.  I thought since this was called Wildstar that it should be out in the wild but it was very cold and windy today so not such a good idea.  39"x 38" after shrinkage stash scraps and grunge diamond straight line quilting Linking up  Life in Pieces Melva Loves Scraps