Yearly Archives: 2015

Christmas Tree Table Topper • 6 Comments

sarah • December 25, 2015

Merry Christmas to those of you who are celebrating! Yesterday I had three quilt finishes! Nothing like a deadline to buckle down and get stuff done. ;-)

Here's the Christmas Tree mini that I made for my mom as a table topper. I'm happy to have gotten it done in time to deliver at the Christmas Eve dinner party last night. This one was also my December ALYoF goal.

These four orphan blocks came from a guild sale maybe ten years ago. They spent a long time deep in my stash and resurfaced when I got organized over a year ago. The project has been a low priority WIP on the list for the past five quarters. Since it's a holiday project I was motivated to get it done now, instead of letting it sit around for another year.

At the SCVQA 40th anniversary party I won a few fat quarters of Christmas fabric. I used the poinsettias here for the sashing and border, but didn't have quite enough, so I fussy cut the flowers on the green fabric for the corners. The backing and binding were both stash fabrics. It has simple quilting, just on the trees. Overall the table topper measures about 22" x 22".

I'm linking up to ALYoF December Finishes Party and Adrienne's 2015 Q4 Finish Along post. See all my Q4 goals here. Thanks for visiting!

WIP Wednesday: Lots of Binding • 8 Comments

sarah • December 23, 2015

Anyone else feel like they are on a race to complete goals before the end of the year? One of my big goals for 2015 was to work down my WIP list. Unfortunately, I added quite a few projects to the list this year, but I am doing my best to knock many of my projects into the finished column before the end of the year. Here's the binding for my next four quilt finishes. Okay, one is actually for my son's finish, but since I help him, then I get half credit, right?

Two of those are for Christmas gifts, so I'm just about down to the wire on those deadlines. I'm about 40% done quilting this 60" X 72" lap quilt. I was inspired by Jessica's woodgrain pattern that I saw on her Top 10 Tips: Quilting Large Quilts on Your Home Machine post. See her Stripey quilt in #9 of her post for my inspiration. Tons of great ideas in her 10 tips, too!

I'm quilting mine with aurifil #2915 (very light brass). I don't even know how I ended up with this spool. (Was it maybe in the sampler of aurifil that I got from you an eternity ago, Sarah N?) I like the rich color and the great contrast on my dark fabrics. It blends in somewhat with the backing fabric, which I'll show off when it's done.

We're nearing the end of this year's The Bee Hive quilting bee, I need to make the December block and then January is my month to be queen bee. So I worked a bit on both of those tasks. I'm making a couple Houndstooth blocks this month, so I printed my paper piecing patterns and cut fabric for those:

And I also pulled fabrics to make a couple sample blocks for my month so I can get that email out to my hive just after Christmas:

Perhaps I'll be sewing my sample blocks on Christmas Day?

Yesterday I didn't manage to spend any time sewing (oops), so this afternoon will be spent quilting and binding the Christmas gifts.

Thanks for visiting.

Purple Ninja Quilt, Finished at Last! • 22 Comments

sarah • December 21, 2015

Okay, so this has been a long, long time coming. We moved into our house in June of 2012 and painted our bedroom walls purple. I started looking for fabric in 2013 and finally purchased the feature fabric, designed by Elisha Jepson of Robyriker Designs, in May of 2014. For quite some time I was having a hard time finding the right tone of purple for the lighter coordinating/background fabric. With a little help form Molli Sparkles at Intrepid Thread I found what I needed (Valori Wells Blueprint Basics Dimple Dot in Lilac).

That fabric purchase was just in time to participate in Sarah's 4x7 Sewing Challenge for the month of February. It was very motivating to work on something daily that was for me. I finished the entire king-sized quilt top. It took me months to figure out who to have quilt it. I finally chose Patti Joki, a local long-arm quilter, to quilt it for me in July. It turned out great! But then I had to make and attach 400+ inches of binding. It was a daunting task. I made the binding while on our guild retreat at the beginning of November, but again I set it aside in favor of other projects. I am so pleased to finally have this really big finish to show you! Thank you to everyone who was involved in helping me to finish this project. It truly "takes a village" sometimes.

The backing fabric is pieced, I used a portion of the fabric that we stood under for our wedding. The white and silver print (which was accidentally died light purple in an unfortunate laundry incident long ago) was the canopy of our wedding chuppah. I think it's very fitting that now we sleep under it. It only took nearly 6 1/2 years. ;-)