a start

This is a section of what is up on my "design wall" (batting) today.

Attending Kaffe Fassett's lecture Concentrate on Color, a month ago, I had the pleasure of both seeing and touching this very pretty Diagonal Madness Quilt:

I just fell in love right there...

When I received his book Country Garden Quilts, a week later, I stumbled across the design again. What can a girl do?

After digging through my stash, doing some additional fabric shopping, washing and cutting the fabric, I was ready to trow myself into the madness...

Love the craziness and colors. So far, so good....

Have a great weekend!

another wip

Taking advantage of my new "design wall", the big piece of batting taped to my dining room wall, I have put together the stars that I made this january. The solid fabric was a very lucky find at Kaktus Quilts for a great bargain price. I only bought 1 meter (about 40"), and that was enough for 16 out of the 17 solid patches I needed. Looking in my stash, there was a pretty Jo Morton fat quarter that made a nice complement to the rest.

Next I started auditioning the framing. I had enough of this brown rose fabric for a wider outer border in my stash, and wanted to find a narrow inner border to tie it together.

I tried out a lot of different ones, before finding not one, but two, that I really liked. So now I am quite stuck here, should I pick the blue, or the light one with tiny red roses?

Have changed my mind a few times already, seem to like them both....

Any input is very welcome on this "difficult" matter.

A bit stuck for now, hope you all are enjoying your weekends...

love of lavender

Inspired by the colors in my garden, I wanted to bring some of these inside... A little something for the table. Starting with strings in a range of green and purple, just improvising...

Nothing finished yet. We'll see.

a little sunshine - 2 of 5

Photos are taken outside in the sun with a little help of hubby. I have blogged about this a few times earlier. Now it is all finished, quilted with simple stippling. For some reason that didn't go so smooth :(.

Still I love it, the colors and the bits of favorite Kaffe Fassett and Heather Ross fabrics.

I think this one will stay with me!

swap twins

This is the placemat I made for Michelle in the placemat swap.

She mentioned a little design I made earlier, so I wanted to make her a little girl with an orange dress. When I saw her, I knew she wanted a twin, for me to keep... So I had to make one...

happy 4th of july!

pink peonies

I have blogged about this quilt earlier. And now it's finished - my Pink Peonies is up on my bedroom wall as my indoor summer garden. The first picture show how it is hung in the curtain slider solution with clips, real easy - no hanging sleeve.

I quilted this on machine in straight rows, 1.5" apart, with stitch length 4.5. It is 27" by 60" with a bleached, white cotton batting. Very happy with how it turned out.

Hope you all have some pretty flowers to look at, indoor or outdoor...

a little finish

This little 26" by 29" is fresh from the washing machine. Scraps leftover from another quilt with some wonky stars. One of my oldest ufo's. It is quilted by machine in straight lines 1.5" apart, and has cotton batting. Soft and sweet...

We have beautiful, WARM summer weather, and I am slowly working through some ufo's and wip's.

Happy quilting, folks...

random vs planned?

A new quilt is in the making. Inspired by the bold and colorful big prints from Anna Maria Horner, I have been playing with these 6" squares in red / pink colors with a hint of yellow. They are mostly from Good Folks, her latest line.

I like the idea of random. Maybe the idea more than the result. So I start to put a bit of structure into the randomness.

Haven't decided yet which I like the most.... The only problem is that my design "wall" is actually the floor in our living room. And that means I will have to look at this all weekend, or make up my mind. Hmm...

What do you think? The random or the organized version? I am also considering adding a solid sashing between the 9 patches. Any thoughts on this is welcome.

Wish you all a nice weekend!

quilt-along

There is a great quilt-along over at Old Red Barn. I decided to play along, and made this quilt top. It's only 50" by 60" and will probably be a summer quilt. I love these old fashion fabrics that strongly remind me of visiting my grandmother as a small girl...

The best part of the quilt- along is to see all the pictures over at the flickr group and get inspired. I am also waiting to see some great tips on how to quilt this flimsy. And of course, there are great prices to win...

do you twitter?

I have had some fun making these improv wonly log cabin blocks. Love the bird fabric! And I used both solids and a linen/cotton blend. The blend is soft and a bit more tricky to sew, but I love the feel of it. Maybe you can tell, but I have to admit I love the turquise color! I also think the blocks ended up a bit brighter than I was aiming for...

I might put them together as a square, or a row - haven't decided yet.

Wish you all a nice weekend

; )

improv top

Good morning - sunshine ...

Come on ...

Hurry up!

Some know how to enjoy an indoor garden. And some can't wait to get outside to the real thing...

I have started making improv blocks. My first attempt is these simple box in a box squares. I wanted to make an indoor garden, and looked trough my scraps and stash for big flower prints and fussy cut them into rectangles of different shapes. Arranging them on my design wall quilt, I wasn't happy until I made them square. I centered them and lined them up i 9 inch blocks. The solid is a Kona Snow. This top is now 27" by 72" and will be a wallhanging: "Peonies".

The quilt is inspired by this beauty.

Next on my list is to try some improv wonky log cabins. But for now, I'll just enjoy some of the beautiful sunny Sunday ; )

Enjoy your weekend...

6 of 5

This weekend I had a little sandwich party:

And then a quilting feast (or beast?) This quilt is now heavily quilted with leaf shapes on a thin polyester batting. The thin batting made it quite challeging to find the right thread tension!

I am now handstitching the binding, a Michal James fabric from my stash that was a perfect colormatch... This will be my birthday present, a bit late. Love it, a nice summer quilt. I don't have any name for it yet. Any suggestions?

And yes, it is 6 of 5, using the backing from here.

And I want to share a picture from my garden. The tulips are pretty even if it is their very final stage. These are nice and quite tall flowers. I only have a few, and they where even fewer after "Venus the menace" started jumping for them.

Happy stitching, everyone.

1 of 5

Here is the finished quilt from wordless wednesday. It is the first finish out of the 5 tops waiting to be quilted.

This has been one of my oldest ufo's. I purchased most of the batiks in 2005 and started stitching the 4 patches. The layout has changed a few times, and the top has spent more than a year at a time hiding in the closet waiting for good ideas on how to finish it.

I named the quilt "What's Up". It will be a gift for somebody with a boat and a goldfish pond in his garden. The quilt measures 90" 65" and is machine quilted. I use Hobb's Thermore polyester batting, so even if it's big, it is not heavy.

Somebody has not received the gift yet, and I hope he likes it....

wordless wednesday

5

A stack of 5 finished tops waiting to be layered, basted and quilted; 3 strings, 1 bargello and 1 batik...

Friday I was lucky to find backings for several of them at a great sales at Kaktus Quilts. So, where to start?



Venus is in stitches for the time being, so she has to wear this collar. No fun at all, poor thing. Monday she had to sew three stitches in her tail after an unfriendly meeting with another cat.

And I have started a new project, cutting some strips ....

Happy stitching....