wise craft

sliced swoon quilt

My niece in North Carolina is getting married in June. It's the first wedding in our family in quite a while, and I am plenty excited. I love weddings. And isn't a wedding gift a great excuse to make a quilt? I think yes!

Not knowing what the couple's home decor looks like, or even what my niece wants it to look like, I wasn't sure where to start. But after a little snooping around her pinterest boards I did get one home decor clue, the color blue is apparently favored.

I decided on Swoon by Camille Roskelley (pattern available here), it felt like the perfect choice. Am I the last one to make a Swoon quilt?  Maybe so, but if you haven't made one, I highly recommend it. Anyway, thinking about the color blue, and wanting to stay away from flowers and feminine prints, all the Sketch Basic blues came to mind. I used the same color formula for each of the blocks and always kept the deeper-valued blue in the same position for each "star", to keep them all visually weighted the same. Also, my version cuts the side star blocks in half (the "sliced" part). Just a personal preference, but I do not like to use square-sized quilts, it just feels like an odd size, but I'm probably the weird one here.

It's well-documented by now that I really love a design that just runs off the edges of the quilt. So this one finishes out around 54" x 80".

The back is pieced with the scraps of Sketch and Joel Dewberry's Notting Hill "Historic Tile" in Citron. Straight line quilting (I would space them farther apart next time) and Essex linen/cotton binding.

 

Here's hoping it will loved and used for years to come!

bermuda bag

I'm excited to finally share a project that I made last year for the folks at Stitch. I was asked by Tricia Waddell to contribute a project to her upcoming book, The Best of Stitch: Bags to Sew. I immediately said yes, and for once, I knew exactly what I wanted to make. One updated bermuda bag, coming up.

This bag has the same wooden handles of my preppy youth, but this time they are painted, which I think gives them a summery feel on this bag. Lotta's premiere fabric collection, new at the time, seemed like the perfect palette to create the patchwork squares. I set them on point to give it a bit of a retro feel.

Look for this book out and the end of April, there are gorgeous bags in there (Malka's cover model is on my list to make)

jewel boxes

I began this quilt, or should I say, I began the scrappy improvisation blocks for this quilt, during the first workshop I took with Denyse Schmidt. You can see my blocks from that weekend more in the second part of the write-up. In the class, we randomly grabbed and pieced small strips together using her paper bag piecing method. This is just what it sounds like, grabbing little bits of fabric from brown paper bags, with absolutely no thought as to what gets paired with what, or what color combinations result. (This is exactly why so many of the blocks you see from her classes have that beautifully random, "use what you have" homespun look.)

friendship bracelet quilt revisited

I've been wanting to play with my Friendship Bracelet quilt pattern again. Someone once asked if this pattern could be done with pre-cut jelly rolls, and after the Jelly Roll Race quilt and the Echo Star, I decided to actually try it. I thought it should work, but wanted to sew one up to be sure. Plus, this quilt is so quick to sew up, I knew it would be a relatively fast project.

how i now pin baste my quilt layers together on a tabletop

Thank you all so much for all the kind words on the Echo Star quilt! The quilt pattern for it is currently in work and will be available very soon, I will keep you posted. And I can't wait to see the Echo Stars you guys make!

I already mentioned wanting to try out a new way to baste my quilt layers together. After some research, I have basted 2 quilts using this "new" method and I decided to write up a tutorial for it, in case anyone else would like to try it out.

friday favorites: echo star quilt

Updated to add: The Echo Star quilt is now available as a PDF pattern here!

 

 

 

 

Sometimes making a quilt from my head is all about exploration of what looks right together, or what type of patterning might seem harmonious, really just playing with the possibilities, hoping I will like the outcome. (That was definitely the case with Sunshine Medallion.) But there are times when my mind's eye has a crystal clear vision from the very beginning of what I want the end result to be. That was the case with this quilt, Echo Star.

echo star quilt progess

Updated 5/6/13- This quilt is now completed, and available as a PDF pattern!

Oh...this quilt.... I love it so much. What began as a painting, then became a pillow, and now this large version. It has been so incredibly nice to just hunker down and work feverishly sewing this up during the drear and drip of winter. Somehow it feels so cheerful to me.

make a jelly roll race quilt

The jelly roll race quilt. Maybe you've heard of it? For those that haven't, it is one of the quite possible on of the fastest quilt tops you will ever make (I made mine in an hour once I made my strips). I was looking for a project to practice free motion quilting doodle flowers on (I'm still doodling flowers on everything), and this seemed perfect for that.

in the studio

making it merry

Christmas feels very simple and good right now. We didn't put up every single decoration we have this year. Sometimes putting every single piece of it up just feels like clutter. This year it feel like just enough.

I did make one more ornament though.

I purchased some wooden disks from Modern Needleworks on etsy. These are laser cut wooden bases for cross stitching and embroidery. I embroidered a simple geometric pattern, but when I was trying to decide whether or not this would become an ornament or a necklace, I added some sparkle with some Swarovski crystal beads.

Adding that little bit of sparkle suddenly made it seem perfect for the tree. I covered the back with a piece of leather to hide my crazy stitches and added a jump ring at the top.

I have another base I'd like to stitch up, if I could only remember where I put it.

I am going take a blog break for the holiday season. I plan to spend some time with family and finish the writing I need to do for the book. There's some movies to watch, some presents to open, an eggnog habit to kick, some family to see.

Thank you for being out there, for stopping by this space, for being excited about what I do, and for being the awesome people you are. I wish you peace this holiday season.

See you in January!

Love,

Blair