Friday Finish - Technicolor Galaxy

A long time ago, in a life that seems far, far away, I received an incredible birthday gift. Himself gave me the Skill Builder BOM 2015 course, the printed templates, AND The fabric kit. Heaven! And now 20 months later, Technicolor Galaxy is finished. Epic.

The greys of the Halifax waterfront seemed the perfect foil for this bit of rainbow madness.

I thought about taking pics of each and every spoke up close...

But there were limits to the attention spans of the toddlers who accompanied me on this mission!

I love the back of this quilt as much as the front. I wish there were an easy way to display both sides at once!

The quilting (as always) shows so well on the back!

And then there's the binding. Twelve different lovely Konas matched to the spokes of the quilt. I'm so glad I went with my own idea of rainbow instead of white. I think it really adds to the quilt

Wasn't it nice of the French navy to provide me with this lovely backdrop?

 

The Deets  

Title: Technicolor Galaxy
Size: 60 by 60 inches
Konas Used in Top: Breakers, Cardinal, Carrot, Cerise, Corn Yellow, Crimson, Deep Blue, Emerald, Flame, Grasshopper, Heliotrope, Lapis, Lime, Pacific, Peacock, Persimmon, Purple, Sangria, School Bus, Silver, Spruce, Rich Red, Wasabi, White, Yarrow
Konas Used in Back: Azure, Banana, Berry, Bonsai, Breakers, Brt Peri, Cardinal, Carrot, Cerise, Chartreuse, Copen, Corn Yellow, Crimson, Curry, Cyan, Goldfish, Grasshopper, Hibiscus, Jungle, Lapis, Kumquat, Red, Rich Red, Riviera, Tangerine, Tomato, Turquoise, Pacific, Peapod, Persimmon, School Bus, Ultramarine, Wasabi, White, Wisteria

Konas Used in Binding: Breakers, Brt Peri, Cardinal, Corn Yellow, Flame, Grasshopper, Heliotrope, Lapis, Lime, Pacific, Peacock, Persimmon, Rich Red, Sangria
Quilting: Free motion and straight line quilt as you go

You can read more about this unbelievable quilt adventure by checking out these posts. Set aside a few hours! ☺

Getting Started & Colour Wheel

Colour Wheel Continued

Piecing Star Points and Making the Colour Wheel

Quilting the Colour Wheel & Starpoints

Piecing the Scattered Geese

Piecing the Piano Keys

Piecing the Arrowheads 

Quilting the Scattered Geese, Piano Keys, & Arrowheads

Piecing the Flower Hexies - Part 1

Piecing the Flower Hexies - Part 2

Piecing the Orange Peels

Piecing the Moons

Quilting of Flower Hexies, Moons, & Orange Peels and Construction of Improv Star Corners

Trimming and Assembly

More Assembly

Wanna make your own? Head on over to Pile o Fabric and buy the course. Heck, buy the kit. And get ready for a wild skill building ride. If you stick to the monthly schedule, it's all very doable!

And that's that.

J

P.S. I'm linking up today with Finish Up Friday @ Crazy Mom Quilts, as well as TGIFF @ Busy Hands Quilts. Pop on over and see some more fab finishes.

P.P.S Many thanks to my very talented quilt holder, Ms Kelka!

WIP Wednesday - Where does the time go?

Ack. I've become one of THOSE bloggers. You know, the ones that don't post forever and then kvetch about it? Well, I'm skipping the kvetching and going straight to what I've been working on. Every once in a while the stars align and I have both the time and the energy to sew!

When last I shared about this epic WIP, Technicolor Galaxy, I was assembling the already quilted curved blocks into spokes. I have to admit that I've shown more on Instagram than I have on the blog about this one. If you're interested, you can follow me at A_Quarter_Inch_From_The_Edge. No pressure. Getting those seams just right was a royal PITA. But I got 'er done!

Honestly, I think I measured the center about... well... a thousand times. I was so afraid I'd make a mistake and end up with a centre medallion that was too small to fit in the hole in the quilt. The stuff of nightmares. Thankfully, my "measure a dozen times, cut once" strategy worked. And my freezer paper template worked beautifully.

 Nerve wracking. But here is that (very first block) centre medallion all cut out and ready to go.

All that remained was to make some more bias binding and get that medallion in place! It was a tedious business, but being so close to the end kept me motivated!

As if there wasn't enough in this quilt, I opted to forego the suggested white binding and went for a matched rainbow one. I was a little fiddly, but I think it's worth it in the end!

I can't help but tease you a little here. But I will say that you won't have to wait much longer to see the finished creation.

I'm linking up with Let's Bee Social over at Sew Fresh Quilts. It's been a while! And stay with me people, there's a big finish coming this Friday!

J

Mini Mini Monday - Me-ow!

I love a swap! So I was very happy when Jennifer @ Little Black Cat Quilting agreed to swap with me. We've been commenting back and forth on each others blog s for some time now and it was fun to come up with a mini mini to send her.

I couldn't resist sending her a little black cat of my own making. All those black low volumes needed something bright to set them off and this Blueberry Park on Kona Limelight fit the bill nicely. You can see my wee sketches in the background. I based this mini mini on Elizabeth Hartman's wee kitties.

 It was half planned, half improv-ed. And I managed not to repeat any blacks on the front!

I wanted to make the back interesting too. I find it tricky to improv small letters, but these came together nicely!

I love quilting mini minis. You can go crazy with dense quilting and not spend a year finishing it!

This Little Black Cat wanted to go play in the yard. Who I am I to say no?

I used Crazy Mom Quilts tutorial for binding tiny things (yet again). It just works so well!

The quilting is very dense and best seen from the back.

What's a swap with a surprise or two? If you're paying attention, you can find some fun notebooks and school supplies that are suspiciously quilty-like. Jenn loves her some Orange Peels, so this was a perfect fit. And everyone loves a sassy little quilt button!

 And look what she sent me! I am absolutely flabbergasted!

Can you even believe this? She made a mini mini of my (as yet unfinished) Technicolor Galaxy. It's bonkers!

She even did rainbow hand quilting! I feel like I should send her a pile more mini minis to even out the awesome! And there was chocolate in the envelope. How lucky am I?

I'm linking up with Cooking Up Quilts for Main Crush Mondays!

J 

Friday Finish - In the Bag!

Tumbleweeds. Crickets. It's been a little quiet here lately. With preparing to go back to work and transitioning DT to days without Mamma, there hasn't been a lot of blogging going on! But I have been squeezing in some sewing in the form of some drawstring bags to organize DT's toys.

It all started with this adorable Ann Kelle fox print. I bought it a while back with plans to make shorts for DT, but summer has come (and is almost gone) and they didn't really need more shorts. As much as I hated to use (up) any of my precious Mini Pearl Bracelet hoarde,  it was the perfect match for those green foxes.

For the lining, I decided to go with blue, but didn't have quite enough of any one Kona to get the job done. Then it occurred to me that I was making a bag to store toddler toys. They don't care if the lining is pieced or doesn't match PERFECTLY. In the name of using one's stash, I kept on truckin'!

 A little more Ann Kelle (Oval Remix) for the drawstring and that's that!
The best part about this bag is that it's big enough to store a bunch more Mega Bloks! It's the laundry size from Jeni Baker's fabulous Lined Drawstring Bag pattern.

For the second toy bag (to store their pompoms and accoutrements), I went back to the Ann Kelle stash. This time, alligators and more Oval Remix. Some chunks of Kona Papaya made up the lining. This one is the Project Bag size.

Once I got going, I just couldn't stop! Remember that C+S cat print that Ms. K liked on our South Shore getaway? Well, I grabbbed some C+S Netorious from the stash and got to sewing. A little Kona Emerald for the outside accent rounded out the pull.

Here it is all sewn up and ready to fill with some Back to School goodies. Ms K is so good to DT and I, I can't help but treat her once in a while.

If you'd like to make a bag or two of your own, you can pop over to In Color Order and check out the tutorial. I loved it so much I bought the pattern! 

I'm linking up today with TGIFF @ Quilt Matters as well as Finish Up Friday @ Crazy Mom Quilts (I'm so happy she's back from her social media holiday!)

J

Friday Finish - Teeny tinies

Not a lot of big finishes around here these days! This one is wee indeed, but I just had to share.

For fabric selection, I started with my grey & white low volumes... there are a lot of scraps in that bag! Then I decided a little pop of colour was needed and grabbed some teal and orange prints. I love that combo! I'm also proud to say that there are no repeats! (Just for you, Dena!)

When you can only fit one paperclip on your hexies to be basted, you know it's going to be tricky!

These hexies looked so good in my new bowl... I almost didn't piece them together!

It took a few evenings to get an EPP blob big enough for a pincushion. Not a big pincushion, but that's okay with me!

 I wasn't sure I was going to be able to get those paper foundations out.

 They're the first ones that I won't be re-using. Way too crumpled!

I quilted the living daylights out of it, passing through the mid point on the side of each hexie. (P.S. I tweaked this pic using this tutorial from Janice @ Color, Creating, and Quilting).

I can hardly believe that I used a charm square to back the pincushion and that I had to trim this much off!

For the first time ever, I used crushed walnut shells to fill the pincushion. It gives it a lovely weight... especially when you put in as much as I did!

This backing fabric seemed fitting. I almost didn't swap this at last night's Maritime Modern Quilt Guild meeting. So tempting. But seeing the look on C's face when she unwrapped that last package and found this in it? Priceless!

When I got this lovely pincushion from Granny Maud's Girl a while back, I couldn't imagine making hexies that small. Apparently, I've worked my way up to it!

I'm linking up with TGIFF @ Quilting is More Fun than Housework (I love that blog name... reminds me of what really matters!)

J

WIP Wednesday - Turning up the volume!

In my attempts to avoid napping when DT does (I've got to break that habit before I go back to school!), I've been spending the afternoons at the machine. It's given me lots of time to piece sixteen patch blocks for that massive low volume project I've got going. When you get 1450 2½ inch squares in the mail, even a basic project gets complicated!

I've started making two other kinds of blocks. A four patch in a square and a square in a square. I'm hoping to use lots of those 2½ inch squares from my Birthday Bonus Club haul, but I want to break things up a little too!

This one is really a pieced block! Don't look too closely at those 2½ inch strips that make up the outer square! This is what comes of not measuring (and being too lazy to take apart a block to redo it)!

45 of 132 done! I'm aiming for a queen size...

If that wasn't enough, I reached a major milestone with the assembly of Technicolor Galaxy (a.k.a the neverending BOM). After completing six of twelve spokes, I was sidelined by bias binding production. No matter how I looked at it, I couldn't get the fancy version I used last time to work. Screw it. I just those strips on the 45 and sewed them up. I've built my skills. I need to finish this thing!

In the same vein, I decided to ditch the glue basting for this assembly session. It works, but it's fiddly and time consuming. I've proven to myself that I can do it. Now I'm breaking out the Wonderclips!

 Did the world end? Nope. And I cut my assembly time down to 10 minutes a spoke!

Et voilà! All twelve spokes are assembled! Next step is to make some straight grain binding to join the spokes. Can I get this done for the end of September and achieve one of my FAL 2016 Q3 goals? Fingers crossed!

I'm linking up today with Let's Bee Social @ Sew Fresh Quilts, as well as Midweek Makers @ Quilt Fabrications. Pop on over and see what others are working on this week!

J