the rainbow village

the crazy thing is, that this project started pre-shutdown, and yet ended up representing the 2020 quarantine to a T. what better way to represent this chaos than rows and rows of houses that are likely filled with people at their windows waiting to go outside again.  but we all know that feeling all to well, since we've been living it.

back in february, a local quilt shop (that in a weird turn of quarantine events, i now work for) started to host a weekly "village quilt along" making all the houses for the moda village quilt.  i ran out and bought the pattern from the local shop (caliquiltco, holla!) and then debated my stash 10 THOUSAND times before coming up with a decision.  i figured that since i had so much kona left over from my paper piecing projects, i may as well chop through it to make all my houses and really clear out some inventory.

there were larger chunks of some colors compared to others (for example... red was from the beauty and the beast rose pillow, and greens were from boba fett) so balancing out the quilt was an event to come later on.  in the end, it became very clear this was a quilt i could't just donate and never see again... i mean... JUST LOOK AT IT!

my houses were made with rainbow colors galore... piglet pinks, tigger oranges, zazu blues and so much more.  knowing each of these fabrics came from a variety of projects made the rainbow of homes that much more special.  i decided to do chimneys sporadically on different homes, just to add some variety in to the mix.having all the doors shades of gray helped unify everything, and kept me from going crazy trying to fussy cut something to put in each doorway... because i totally went that vibe with my brain at one point.  the simple white kona helped everything pop... and i just love looking at it. now you see why it was so hard to just give away?  not yet?  okay.  let's look at more.<the crazy thing is, that this project started pre-shutdown, and yet ended up representing the 2020 quarantine to a T. what better way to represent this chaos than rows and rows of houses that are likely filled with people at their windows waiting to go outside again.  but we all know that feeling all to well, since we've been living it.

back in february, a local quilt shop (that in a weird turn of quarantine events, i now work for) started to host a weekly "village quilt along" making all the houses for the moda village quilt.  i ran out and bought the pattern from the local shop (caliquiltco, holla!) and then debated my stash 10 THOUSAND times before coming up with a decision.  i figured that since i had so much kona left over from my paper piecing projects, i may as well chop through it to make all my houses and really clear out some inventory.

there were larger chunks of some colors compared to others (for example... red was from the beauty and the beast rose pillow, and greens were from boba fett) so balancing out the quilt was an event to come later on.  in the end, it became very clear this was a quilt i could't just donate and never see again... i mean... JUST LOOK AT IT!

my houses were made with rainbow colors galore... piglet pinks, tigger oranges, zazu blues and so much more.  knowing each of these fabrics came from a variety of projects made the rainbow of homes that much more special.  i decided to do chimneys sporadically on different homes, just to add some variety in to the mix.having all the doors shades of gray helped unify everything, and kept me from going crazy trying to fussy cut something to put in each doorway... because i totally went that vibe with my brain at one point.  the simple white kona helped everything pop... and i just love looking at it. now you see why it was so hard to just give away?  not yet?  okay.  let's look at more.the colorful houses also remind me of the painted ladies in san francisco. 90's kids... you know the scene from the opening credits of full house that i'm talking about...the quilting took a little more thought than originally planned.  i knew it was going to be light blue, since that's one of my three colors of isocord that i have, and it also blended well with the blues in the quilt.  but the pantograph was another debate.  it could have been puppy paws or hearts or flowers of sorts... but i didn't want it to be too obvious if my lines were off.  i thought i had settled on one (and subtlety asked the decided recipient which she liked) but when i arrived to quilt this sucker, i found this ivy-ish design that reminded me so much of my favorite storybook that i had to use it.  that's right.  madeline has moved to SF and brought her vine covered lifestyle with her.  as usual, i nearly second guessed myself when i stitched out the first row.  after staring at it for a long time and deciding not to rip it out, i kept going and in the end... it is perfection. mind you, that is by my standards, not actual perfection.the binding was purchased after the quilting was complete, and i knew i needed a shade of blue kona to tie it all together.  none of my scraps were big enough, so i called up caliquiltco to see what they had, and blueprint became the color of choice.  so on a tuesday afternoon, which was also the recipient's birthday, the binding was attached and the quilt was complete!
but before we finish, we gotta talk about the back.  this is basically a quilt in of itself.  apparently the term for that is afterquilt?  (or so i was told by karen brown of just get it done quilts)

i was determined to piece this back and use up a ton of scraps and have it look "cool scrappy" not "crappy scrappy"

and my mental image turned out perfect.

i knew i wanted us to have our own houses on the back (mine is blue, hers is orange for the giants) with cats in our yards.  from there, i scrappy pieced low volume fabric to make that row, plus pieced the large chunks of blue and gray to create the bottom.  another chunk of gray for the top row with a hint of baseball to fit the width.  now, i didn't pick blue at random.  i do recall it is one of her favorite colors.  if i had a large amount of giant's fabric, that would have also made the cut... but for now, her orange house must do.  speaking of our houses...i knew these fingerprint cats would be perfect for us to have in our "yards", especially since her cat kyo is in fact an orange chub.  there wasn't a single elroy looking fingerprint cat, so i went with this funny little guy eating next to mine.  seems appropriate enough.i decided this would not just be a birthday gift, but instead be considered an "open adoption" to ease the stress of receiving a handmade gift (her mom is a quilter, so she knows the time and effort that goes in to such a task).  considering the last "quilt" i made her was a dophin rag quilt probably about 10 years ago, it was about time that she got something legit.  as much fun and importance it is to make charity quilts, i just really needed this particular quilt to go to a hand selected home.  and i've already seen photos of it in use, so that's even better.

would i make this quilt again?  probably.  i still have a whole bunch of kona that didn't make the cut for this color way.  it was hard to have owl and kanga brown houses mixed in with the bright colors!

pattern: moda village

quilt count: 133

stars and stripes lap quilt

so this quilt had been on my "to do" list forever, and when it came up that julia with red rainboots handmade was planning to do a sew along, i was all about that!  i easily had blue and red scraps in my stash, and bought the perfect backing on clearance a few months prior, so i just knew i had to jump on in and do it!  plus, this would FINALLY be a quilt for me again.  which had a whole lot of pros, but a few cons as well.  well, just the one con being that it tended to fall down the totem pole as far as priority goes...  more on that later!
i like the idea of seasonal quilts to have for couch sitting and TV watching, so having a little bit of summer time good ol' american spirit was the perfect vibe to have.  plus, we current have a red couch in our living room with my teal accented stuff all over the place, so it was clearly a match that was meant to be!
like i mentioned before, i had the fabric bits for the flags already (just needed a good white since i chopped it all up for another project) but while i was out shopping for the background fabric, i found the adorable tic tac toe fabric as well as the red with white polka dots.  clearly, it was meant to be!  i booted some red ones i wasn't 100% sold on, which made me end up liking things so much more anyways.  the blues were all pulled from my stash, 100 blocks quilt as well as the stash from my fussy cut sampler.
i was hoping to find that super cute tic tac toe again for binding, but when i went back they didn't have the yardage anymore.  i do like the simplicity of the red/white to tie in to the quilt without being super IN YOUR FACE as if it were a striped print.  the flags remain the focus all over, as they should be :)
the downfall of this all came by being a quilt for me when the sew along had ended.  i kept up with everything down to the very last finished top post (i think mine was quilted even by that point) but i just could NOT get the binding on in time for whatever reason!  i was easily prioritizing other projects, which made this one sit and sit and sit some more.  i made and attached the binding at a maker monday, got it all completed, and then for whatever reason, burying the broken threads from quilting it just didn't happen.  i probably had a stack of three quilts waiting on binding alone (which FINALLY two of the three are done.  FINALLY) but i definetly missed the time frame of which to have this thrown on the couch for the 4th of july.  it is now nearly pumpkin quilt season!  but much like the pumpkin quilt, being completed after it's "season" just means it will be ready for next year, right?  which is something i've been saying about my christmas quilt as well... oops.
once everything was purchased for this quilt, it went together SO easily that i could definitely see myself making this quilt again if someone asked (or if i felt obligated) to do so.  i feel like sometimes i play safely "by the rules" so my colors were all as listed on the pattern (but lets be real... they're SO GOOD) but it was so fun seeing the different variations of this quilt done on instagram.  there were pride flags, blue line flags, traditional flags and more!  maybe i'll take a little risk the next time i make it?  who knows!
pattern information: stars and stripes by thimble blossoms (camille roskelley)
quilt count: 122

garden snails 2.0

in the midst of all my "i'm going to catch up on my blogging!" hooplah, my laptop decided to give me a big fat OH NO YOU WON'T when it came to getting things done.  so after multiple chats with adobe representatives to get my serial numbers for programs to load on to my desktop and reinstalling my good friend "blogstomp" on there as well... we are back in action!  the same can't be said for my photography website... but that's another story for another day.
it is a little poetic that my first long arming experience at meissner's was practicing on my first garden snails quilt from the sew along hosted by gnome angel, and this 2.0 version was done at my last session there.  yes, that is exactly how long this quilt has been sitting around, quilted and waiting for binding.  the binding went on earlier this year, and then it sat some more.  it didn't have a home to rush off to, because i ended up loving it so much, i'm keeping it for myself.  granted, it is in no way any size to keep me warm... so some future child will be gifted with a snail quilt from years before.  its weird, its adorable... so there.
the main differences about this quilt compared to the first version is the background as well as the paper pieced shells.  i had a lot of fun making the scrappy shells for these, alternating in with the solid batik shells that i am STILL working my way through all the scraps from.  the bodies of the snails come from the scraps of my disgust halloween costume (which also got pieced on to the back as well)
the quilting pantograph is called "malachite" which in a sense gives it a wobbly snail trail kind of look.  it was actually fairly easy to quilt, and the wobbles just made it look a little more all over the place in case of mistakes.
this was also one of my first attempts at machine sewing binding, and with this one, i also used elmer's glue to help hold the binding in place instead of just wonder clips.  i can't remember who i saw that trick from on instagram, but shout out to them, it totally worked!  i finished this during the instagram quilt fest in march... so that goes to show you how long i have been delaying photographing and posting.  oy!
>revisiting this quilt (combined with a recent conversation about my closet shelf bowing from weight and fabric collecting and fabric using are two different hobbies) made me realize how much i enjoy stash busting to make quilts... which is clearly something i need to get underway.  i have so many pieces waiting to be used, which will help me validate the future of buying more (quality) fabric!
pattern information: garden snails by pen and paper patterns
quilt count: 120

january so far

i figured it would probably be a good idea to do an update post of sorts mid month, since i don't have any finished projects to share yet... and that some of my plans have already changed a bit!  nothing too drastic, just that things have switched around here and there.
we had our first smqg meeting this past weekend, and got off to a great start for the new year!  talked a lot about what we might want to hear about and played an ice breaker game where we asked someone a question in relation to quilting.  someone asked me how my stash is organized, and i was glad i was able to say that it actually is at the moment!  a week or so, i would have been saying that there was fabric in piles all over my floor by color.  which was 100% true.  there was NO floor to be seen on 2/3 of the floor around my bed because of fabric.
speaking of smqg, we also had our first block party this past wednesday!  darryl (who is also on the guild board) hosted at his home, made us soup & salad and we chatted a lot and made him some half square triangles for his project.  a solid 3 hours of sewing and chatting was a wonderful way to spend a wednesday evening.
my fussy cut block of the month is coming along quite well, and i currently have 3/4 of the blocks for the chapter done.  i find myself buying more fabric that fits my theme quicker than i actually use it.  oops.  but with my colors being blues, greens & yellows, i know they'll get used at some point in my quilting life.  i did the makelight year of colour analysis for my instagram account, and the biggest dot on my "map" was of course, a shade of blue.  i'll probably be working on my 4th block next saturday, since that seems to be when things fall in to place for working on fussy cutting.
now my stashbusting and sew alongs currently go hand in hand.
i had thought about joining the elizabeth hartman all the animals sew along with gnome angel, but it slipped to not being my first priority.  some other things came up that i cannot quite share just yet (good secrets, i promise) and so the fancy foxes weren't on my list of must do right now.  instead, i've (crazily) jumped in to schnitzel & boo's candy cats quilt along on instagram.  she's using the candy cat pattern by unicornharts for this super fun sew along.  there are prizes, which also perked my ears!  how am i stashbusting for this, you ask?  all my cat parts i already had.  the only thing i've purchased is the background fabric, because i wanted that to be consistent.  my plan is to make 16 of these cats and have a 4x4 grid.  it has an intended home, but i don't want that secret to get out until it is time :)  here's a peek at my first 3 kitties!
i'm using greens, oranges, reds & yellows for the cats with this denim-ish blue looking fabric for the surrounding.  hopefully, none of my colors will repeat (if my method of the ear color becomes the next cat's body color works)  my mom suggested pete the cat fabric for the back of the quilt, which the more i look at these cats, the more i think it is a great fit!
want to join in the fun?
you can get the pattern here: candy cat on craftsy
p.s. it's FREE
so far, i feel pretty confident in what i've gotten done so far (i also have a quilt basted to be quilted... i really need to get on that...) and what i have yet to come.  so far, no over sized queen size quilt projects on the brain for this year, which is a good feeling!  but then again, there wasn't one for last year either, then my cousin moved his wedding date up.
i'll check in again soon with my fussy cut blocks before month 2's class begins, so stay tuned!