Bloggers' Quilt Festival: Retro Flowers

I bought Christina's Retro Flowers pattern a little while ago, when Curves Class was first announced. The quiltalong came at a perfect time for me so I signed myself up! I knew I wanted to test out the pattern a little before jumping in with both feet & making a huge quilt. My leftover 'Pretty Bird' bits & pieces seemed like a good place to start. Not unlike the last time I used these fabrics, they grew on me the longer I worked with them. I had wanted to use up all my Kona Ocean...but when my little test project started to become more, I had to order more fabric! (Such a shame, eh?)


My little machine gave me some trouble during the piecing process...so glad I stuck it out though! I turned my blocks on point & a baby quilt was born. The plan was to use Kona Tangerine for the binding, with a mostly Ocean backing. Well, immediately after making the orange binding, I knew it wasn't going to work for me. It had to be Ocean. I was not about to wait on another order of Ocean, so the backing became a mish mash of all the leftover fabrics from the front.

Quilt StatsFabric: Pretty Bird by Pillow & Maxfield
 Kona Ocean & Robin's Egg
Size: 36 x 48"
Pattern: Retro Flowers
Quilting: All quilting is done by me, on my clunky old Kenmore

Little Retro Flowers

This is a quick one! Lots of projects still in the almost finished stage & while I don't count this as 'finished', I wanted to show it off anyway!

I decided on changing up the fabric placement a little. Arranged this way, my eye sees the inside pink swirly flower shape first, then I do little figure 8's around the blue & white petals. I have to look to see the original flower shapes & I like that.



I love this pattern. The cutting was not nearly as time consuming as I thought it would be (this template helped a lot!). Sewing the curves (without pins) was fun! The trouble came for me when I was trying to piece everything together. My sewing machine had a hard time handling these thick seams. It got me thinking...if my machine somehow committed suicide via the window, would I magically find the money for a nice new one? Let's just hope nothing bad happens to it for now...
With some advice from awesome flickr group peeps, my walking foot got me through. Not easily, but well enough.
This little baby will either have more solids added as borders to beef it up, or I will bind it & call it a mini, not sure yet.

I have plans to make a much larger version with the traditional layout (fabric to be determined). I will not tackle it with my current machine though. Guess I better save my pennies nickels! (Did you hear, Canada is nixing the penny!)

Linking up to crazy mom quilts for finish it up Friday & to amylouwho for Sew & Tell.

Mini...now finished!

I really, really wanted to have a completed mini to share for the party today, but it was not in the cards. Starting on Wednesday evening could have a lot to do with that! I am happy with how quickly it came together to this point though & hope to have it quilted up soon. I used the starflower block tutorial from Jennifer @ Ellison Lane. The Summer Sampler Series had me literally cursing half square triangles (HST's) and then I decided to make them for fun? Weird - but I totally liked them better this time! It's so satisfying to trim up my sloppy looking squares into perfect little HST's. I enjoy the teeny tiny scraps they make too. They are so little, I don't feel the need to hoard them. haha.

'Son of a Bee Sting!' pencil in anticipation of swears!

I am so happy that all my points lined up so well! Good results really fuel the HST love!




Go check out all the other [finished] minis that joined the party today!

Edited: Finished this little one today & here she is! 14 x 21" and not washed up yet.
Not sure why I had a little bit of puckering, haven't had that problem since getting my walking foot. It was my first time using a fusible batting & maybe that is the culprit. (?!)

Natural light is not available at the moment, unfortunately - this is the best I could get!

This little mini is destined to be a doll quilt for the owner of the Pretty Bird Quilt.

Pretty Bird Quilt

My latest finish is a quilt & pillow set commissioned by a relative for her little girl. She chose the fabric collection 'Pretty Bird' by Pillow & Maxfield & I added in some Kona Ocean, Grass & Robin's Egg Blue to round things out.
It is approx 45x60" and I quilted it with straight lines.

Pretty Bird Quilt a photo by twelfthzodiac on Flickr.

Side B


I am proud of this project! The pillows all have invisible zippers - it was my first time using these & they turned out so good, it's hard to find the zips even when you're looking for them... lol...that could be just me though :P

Getting back into the s[e]wing of things

I can't say if it has been the warm weather finally arriving or what, but I have not been able to sew much lately. Sewing is always on my mind & I frequently go look at my fabrics/ideas, jot down notes & to do lists, organize bits of my 'studio'...but I haven't been all that productive. And there are things that need to be done around here!
This top is waiting for a back....



Pretty Bird quilt

It must wait for coordinating pillows to be finished up first, but things are moving along now.  :)

On the to do list:

• Baby boy quilt
• Baby girl quilt
• Helping my young neighbour make a baby girl quilt
• Mom's quilt

Here's hoping for a few productive days coming up!
Happy Saturday!