Summer Sampler, so far...a couple seasons behind!

There was absolutely no start to a new block last night, so I will just show you what I have finished to date. I hadn't looked at these blocks in a while [months] and I was pleasantly surprised with how much I really like them! I remember liking them before, but I guess I forgot how much! It is totally motivating me to get paper piecing some more!





I finished up this top last night. I kind of needed the design wall space, so I figured I should get crackin on it. The corners aren't sewn on in this photo because it was snapped at nap time. I am not brave enough to sew at nap time, it is for cutting & ironing only!




I really love it! Might have to make the backing this weekend, finish it up & get it in the hands of it's rightful owner...she is coming up on 5 months old now, so I am beyond 'fashionably late' at this point!

Why not, there are more hours in the day now, right?

Here we are, a whole day later...and I am adding two more projects to my 'to do' list!

I've decided that I need to make a Sparkle quilt with some of the Little Apples fabric I bought over the holidays. The large center squares will be perfect to showcase some of the cute little scenes of children playing/trees/turtles. I knew a pattern that would allow me to avoid chopping it all to bits would be best & I think this is it. I will make the baby size & then hopefully find a baby who wants it! It's generally not a good idea for me to make quilts without recipients in mind, they tend to just hang around & look lonely.

The second addition isn't a whole other quilt, thank goodness! Faith of Fresh Lemons is doing tutorials for solstice star blocks. My Summer Sampler quilt [in progress] needs a few more blocks so I can finish it up. I had a couple picked out already, but have not started on them. The completed blocks are sitting in a pile in my studio, gathering dust. I finished them up (um, pretty much...) with the help of Faith & the other bloggers who hosted/taught us how to make them - maybe I need to follow along with these too! You know, to increase the odds of them actually being finished. Maybe I need sewing buddies, even if they are only on the computer & don't even know who I am. I like the push it gives you to get going!
 I'm kind of into peer pressure. You should be too.

 

Summer Sampler: Blocks 5-10

blocks 5 thru 10 a photo by twelfthzodiac on Flickr.

There is still a little bit of summer left for me to finish these, 2 to go!
If you are keeping track, you will notice there is no photo of block #4. My 'garden path' looks more like 'underwater vomit'. It is an explosion of blue, in a bad way that I didn't notice until it was all finished. Then it became glaringly obvious! I *think* I will keep it anyway, so it will make an appearance in a later post, all quilted up & looking less vomit-y. (Here's hoping!)
Of these last blocks, the top left 'Evening Star' & bottom middle 'Lucky Pieces' are my favourites.
I have a plan for piecing everything together into a quilt top, but unfortunately, I will have to wait for fabric in the mail in order to finish. Fabric that isn't even ordered yet...! But, I have a plan, yay! That's something! lol Considering the different sizes of some of my blocks, I am happy for a plan that I think will even everything out perfectly.

Summer Sampler Series - The First Three

Has anyone else been following this quilt along? I first read about it on Faith's blog,  fresh lemons (although there are three blog hosts contributing) & I think the striking solid colour mock-ups are what convinced me to give it a try! I mean, just look at that awesome badge over there -->  I can't wait to see Faith's quilt all finished up in those colours.

Having finished the first 3 blocks & spending some time looking through the flickr group, I have to say that the solid fabric blocks are my favourite! If I had them on me, I'd use them too. Which is actually shocking to me as I am using one of my all time favourite collections, Modern Meadow. It just looks so good in solids!

This will be a quilt for myself  :)
Here are my first 3 blocks.

North Star, Greek Cross & Mosaic

These blocks are growing on me... I think my issue is that I am not used to this type of piecing so I'm not able to visualize what the block will end up looking like, which makes fabric selection more like guesswork. If I were making more than one block with the same design, I could play around with the fabrics a little more, mix & match to see what I like best.

 I'm not even sure you could call what I have done in my quilting career up to this point 'piecing'. My strip quilts & 'make it up as I go' patterns are so much easier than this! These are the first triangles I've ever done. I was laughing through the first 2 blocks, but 'mosiac', with all those HST (half square triangles)?! omg. That was so not fun! I am finding my 1/4" seam is not very accurate & that threw off everything. I only let myself rip out one line of stitching that desperately needed it. For everything else I am reminding myself that this quilt is for me & it doesn't have to be perfect.

I hope to tackle the next two tonight. After all the HST's of block #4, I will be so grateful to try paper piecing! So many firsts here for me. It may not feel comfortable yet, but I'm happy to be learning a few things & challenging myself to the point where I *feel* the challenge, but I don't want to throw my sewing machine out the window. Yet.