WIP Thursday - A day late and a dollar short...

I know that WIP Thursday just doesn't have the same ring to it as WIP Wednesday, but things just didn't come together the way I'd planned yesterday! Oh well...

Last week, we had a new arrival at our house... nope, not Double Trouble, but the long awaited sectional  that we ordered (seemingly) forever ago. It's very comfy and looks great in the family room. But it needs some softening up. Those expanses of dark brown leather cry out for some pillows. My inspiration for the fabric pull came from a striped cotton twill that I've used to cover some big 'ole floor pillows.  Here's what I came up with....

I know, I know.... what's with the dull colours? Where did these Konas even come from?  They are (from the top) Mustard, Green Tea, Bonsai, Avocado, Robin Egg, Caribbean, Chocolate, & Snow. The reality is that as bright as my quilts can be at times, those tones don't always work practically in my home. Himself does like to have a say... and he's more of an earth tone kinda guy.

Anyway, I opted to make two of The Metro from Pillow Pop. Have I mentioned how great this book is? No need for me to include it in The Library Project - I've made more projects from it than from any other book I own!
This pillow is currently living on the couch... its 20 inch square size makes it perfect for lounging on, but the colours don't really work! These work much better...

 Can you figure out what Kona got dropped and what two got added? We'll see who really knows their stuff... I'm looking at you, Lynn from Buttons Quilts or perhaps you, Aimee from Candy Coated Quilts.
 ☺
On to the quilting... I keep a few less than stellar prints in my stash to use as the backing when I'm making pillows. I don't like having the batting exposed and you barely see the backing once you put an envelope back on the pillow.

I went with random straight line quilting... unoriginal since this is just how it's quilted in the book. But it's quick and easy... works for me!

I marked with my trusty Frixion pen... I went for blue as I've had some troubles with red leaving ghost marks on white backgrounds.

 Here's the same section... post ironing. I just love those pens! I think it's that they mark like a ballpoint pen (since that's what they are) instead of the scratchiness of the usual fabric marking pen.

Once the pillows were trimmed, I moved on to the envelope backing. I always mean to branch out into zipper backs, but never have the right colour on hand when I need it. When I'm this close to finishing, there are no trips to the LQS! After auditioning a few backings (and finding that I really don't have a lot of large pieces of fabric in these colours!), I went for Bluebird Park by Kate & Byrdie that I bought in Montréal this summer.
Love that selvage! Such a junkie...

When I sew an envelope backing, I always make sure to start and end at the section where the two backing pieces overlap. I figure that if it's going to rip, this is the likely breaking point, so I stitch it a few times!

As for the pillow form, I went for re-purposing this time around. We've recently gone from two spare beds to one air mattress, so there are extra pillows floating around (and no extra closet space to store them in). I also hate throwing out pillows when they get a little long in the tooth. It's not like throw pillows get slept on nightly!

You need some sharp scissors to get through all that stuffing, but it's kind of fun! I even take the stuffing from the cut off section and bulk up the section to be used for the pillow.

And they're already on the couch... they made watching Gray's Anatomy this evening so much more comfy!

Even though this print is a little cutesy, I think it works! And there are hedgies. Honestly, I should do an entire quilt of hedgies. Perhaps a Polaroid quilt?

Though I'm a day late and a dollar short, I'm linking up with Let's Bee Social @ Sew Fresh Quilts! Thank goodness Lorna is generous with her link-up closure time! Head on over and see what others are making this week!

J

P.S. And since this WIP turned into a Finish, I'll likely be linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts for Finish it Up Friday! ☺

WiP - Pillows, pillows, pillows!

Have I mentioned that I love making pillows lately? It all started with the purchase of Pillow Pop back in the summer. Since then, I've made a quite a few!

I made lots of progress on my new living room pillows this week. I branched out from EPP hexies and made a more complex pattern with squares and diamonds. I finished the bulk of the EPP last week, but Himself felt it needed to be bigger. Sadly, he didn't offer to piece the extra row and column. Oh well.

I wasn't feeling too confident before I added the borders. I opted to mark the straight edges rather than squaring off before adding the border.

 It always makes me sad to trim away those little corners...

I don't normally mark my quilts, but I wanted to carry the lines through into the borders. It started getting complicated fast! I don't know if I marked it properly, but I used my trusty Frixion pen and ruler. It got the job done to my mind!

 Once again, I almost stopped after doing the chocolate brown stitching through the cream squares...
But I pressed on and quilted cream lines through the diamonds. I quilted the heck out of it and I love it!

 

I also quilted the pillow top that I made a couple weeks ago and blogged about here. I wanted each cross/plus to pop, so stitching in the ditch just wouldn't do. I stitched just inside each in white.

 I'm pretty pleased with how this turned out. It's a going to be BIG pillow when it's done!

I also finished the January blocks for my online bees: some for Global Scrap Bee and one for ModQImprov (check back tomorrow for that block!) Another week of keeping myself just a quarter inch from the edge. I'm linking up today with WiP Wednesdays at Freshly Pieced!

J

Week-end update - Part 1

Well, it's happened. Labour Day week-end is upon us. In our little household (like a lot of others), Labour Day is the official end of summer. Himself begins a long season of fieldwork and I... gulp... head back into the classroom. Oh well. To everything there is a season, right?

I was very productive outside the studio in the last days of August and rewarded myself with hours upon hours of sew time. First, up the Double Irish Chain Redux. If you're unfamiliar with this old school goodie, check out this link. I made no excuses for the authors colour choices. To each her own.
For yesterday's session, I finished up the Block As. I only made one whilst quilting with Adrienne, which meant I had a pile of strips to cut into lovely little sections and sew back together. Sometimes, when I write things like that, this creative pass-time seems absurd.

Then I moved on to Block B... the one that goes together even faster! It always seems silly to me to sew strips of the same fabric together. But it does balance the seams in the completed block.

 Production line pressing... my favourite!

 Completed Block B. See what I mean about the seams?

And at this point in my day's sewing, I realized I had no where near enough fabric to make the large twin I had planned. The initial plan called for 32 Block As and 31 Block Bs. This, my friends, is what comes of buying fabric without a firm plan. And purchasing fabric in a land far away...

So there I was with only 16 Block As and 12 Block Bs. If I could just make a couple more Block Bs, the quilt could be 5 by 6 blocks... a respectable size, especially add borders. This is when having an unhealthy quantity of Kona in your stash is helpful. Enter Berry!

I managed 3 more Block Bs using Kona Berry in place of the plum dots. I'm going to say they add a little unexpected something... like in Ocean Waves by Denyse Schmidt (photo from Stitched in Colour) It harkens back to the days when you made quilts with what you had... not what you bought on-line. Right? Such quilt pretention! ☺

 
 Ah... a semi-completed quilt top. I'll save the full monty for when it's all quilted... here's a sneaky peaky!

 

On a deep subconscious level, I must really like the plum dot print in this quilt. I inadvertently selected it as the colour for Saturday's Back to S___ pedicure!

With this project as completed as it was going to get for the moment, I moved on to a "Just Because" project. Love 'em!

At the end of the school year, one of the lovely little creatures gave me a gift certificate to a certain big box bookstore. I treated myself to an impulse purchase...


So far, I've made two pillows from it... neither of which were destined to stay with me. But this time, it's for the newly made over spare room. It's not a large space, so it's tricky to photograph. In any case, it's soon going to have yet another quilty project on the bed. This room has so many it could be a post of it's own... hmmm.

The design wall got taped up again for this one... I couldn't see any other way to audition all those fabrics. I figure I'll leave it there until it falls down again! ☺ The bulk of these are Amy Butler scraps left over from the Qui-vet. Love, love, love! And that's Kona White acting as a buffer for that riot of colour.

 On to sewing.

Unfortunately, I ended up with a couple pieces that didn't seem to fit right. I went back and checked the pattern and remeasured, but never found the solution. I think the size of two pieces must have gotten switched and no one picked up the error pre-publishing. No worries...one got snipped and another got an unplanned for bit of sashing.

 Oooh... I do love Amy Butler prints. Too bad they don't always play well with others.

And here it is all together! I hate to think that my days of photographing with grassy backdrops may be drawing to a close!

 Random straight line quilting... why did I never think of this before. So easy and so effective.

And now for the big news! I've been tempted into the wide world of English Paper Piecing (EPP)... that's handstitching for those non-quilt obsessed readers out there. Try not to fall off your chairs. I like the idea of having a project (other than quilt binding) that I can stitch while watching TV. It seems like this technique is really portable... I'm picturing more productive quilt guild meetings and Bee sessions. This book from the library gave me a great overview with a modern perspective.

For my first project (and to see if I even like this silliness), I've decided on this little sewing kit. Useful if I get hooked, non?

I hit the scrap bin for these... you don't even have to cut hexagon shapes. Squares are just fine. Who knew?

I didn't really expect to baste all these hexies in one go, but it was fun once I got going. I'm particularly proud of those two grey hexies with the fussy cuts. Cute little thimble!

Tonight, I'm going to take on whipstitching them together. I'll let you know how it goes.

Off to be non-sewing productive and earn myself more hours in the studio!
And I am out of here!

J