Tumbling Down

My Tumbling Down pattern is finally available for sale!  If you haven't seen it (or forget what it looked like) here is the finished wall hanging.

I have written the pattern for 2 sizes. A 30x39" wall hanging as seen here, and a 78x59" lap quilt. The only difference between the two is the size of the template used. Both templates come in the same set - Marti Michell's Perfect Patchwork Templates Set H (Large Hexagons Plus).  Pattern is available from my Craftsy store, for only $5.00 US.

Design Wall Monday

This would be why I don't make scrappy quilts very often. I decided to make this one - a scrappy pineapple, completely from scraps. That is, all the little leftover bits that I have stuffed into bins and drawers, not all those nice folded fat quarters and yardage sitting on my shelf, although there is enough variety there to make a nice scrappy quilt. This scrap quilt is taking over my sewing room. I have a pile of scraps on my ironing board - to be ironed so that I can use them. A pile of scraps on my cutting table - to be cut into 1 3/4" strips (or thereabouts) for this project. And this pile of scraps beside my sewing machine, from which I pull strips as I go.

I like the result - and I'm really amazed how much I'm liking my scrappy background. There's a mixture of grey, cream, white, beige and maybe even a couple of yellows tossed in there.  Normally even for a scrappy quilt I'd be trying to stick to one colourway, but this time I decided to go all out, and just pulled every light scrap of fabric I could find.

Four blocks done, lots more to go. The blocks finish at 10", so I probably need at least 35 to make a decent sized quilt. I'll just keep sewing along until I run out of my bright scraps.  Then I may have to turn around and make a dark version, just to use up more.  As I'm sure most of you suspect, even with all these piles of scraps scattered around my sewing room, my scrap bins are still overflowing.

Drop by Patchwork Times for more design wall fun today. I missed WIPs be Gone, although maybe that's for the best since once again I'm creating a WIP rather than finishing one.  The finishes are here and here :)

Stash Report - July 12

I finally broke down. This Paris fabric has been calling my name ever since it arrived at the shop.  I finally broke down yesterday and brought home a  yard of it, plus some friends for it to play with. Not sure what's going to evolve from this pile of fabric, but it sure is pretty.

That purchase adds 4.5 yards to my stash report. But I get to balance it out with 3 finishes this week.
mystery quilt - 7.5 yards
quiltie, top and backing - 1 1/4 yards
1 fabric quilt - 5 yards

In this week - 4 1/2 yards
out this week - 14 1/4 yards

Stash totals for the year:
95 1/2 yards in
181 1/2 yards out
Total: 86 yards out

Drop by Judy's blog to see more stash reports. 

Another Top

I stitched away this past week, and finished assembling my latest top.  Loosely based on the technique found in "One-derful 1 Fabric Quilts" by Kay Nickols.

This was an interesting experiment. Not 100% successful, but it was fun to do. I learned a few things about fabric that might make a good one-fabric quilt.  More variety in the stripes would be the key, I think. The large sections of green in this one made the cutting a challenge, to get 4 nice blocks out of one cut.  I ended up making many differently placed cuts, hence my wide variety of block layouts.

There is also a heck of a lot of bias in this quilt (ie, every single square and all the edges). I'm not planning to add a border, but that might have been a good idea just to stabilize the whole thing.

Design Wall Monday

I finished my Border Creek Station mystery quilt this weekend.  I've set aside the rest of the fabric to make the backing. I'm not convinced I like the borders, but that's what the design called for, and it's certainly better than what I auditioned last week.

I also made lots of progress on my new project.  Almost all the pieces are cut and sewn into squares. I think this layout is what I'll go with, but it will age on my design wall for a few days before I start sewing squares together.  It's not quite what I was expecting, but I kind of like it. I've now cut every scrap of fabric there is, so these are the blocks I'm working with.

New Project

Yet again, I had the greatest of intentions to finish up some projects, but instead I seem to have started something new. This fabric was a possibility for the border of my mystery quilt, but once the quilt was assembled and I auditioned the fabric, it was clear that this would not work. The print is much too dark for the quilt.

So, back to the pattern for the pieced border. But now I needed a new project for this border print.

Enter, "One-derful 1Fabric Quilts" by Kay Nickols.  Glancing through the book, this looks interesting so I proceeded to cut up a couple of meters of fabric to play with. Here's what I have so far.  I think I can make this work with a creative placement of squares and careful cutting, so onward I go.

Join me over at WIPs Be Gone for more eye-candy.  And maybe eventually I'll actually post something that lives up to the name of that linkup :)

Row by Row

I was away at a conference for a few days, and took the long way home - through a bunch of quilt stores.  A few (well, maybe more than a few) Row-by-Row kits jumped into my car.  Now what?  I guess first I'd better get some hometown rows. Can't have all those American rows showing us up. Then apparently I have some quilts to make :)

In case you can't tell, the license plates (and kits) are from Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York, from Grand Rapids to Ogdensburg. 

If you haven't checked it out, I highly recommend the Row by Row Experience going on this summer. Details can be found at www.rowbyrowexperience.com, including a full list of quilt shops and a handy-dandy map that will let you find all the participating shops in your area. Or on your route of travel if you are vacationing by car this summer. 

Over 2500 shops are participating this year - I picked up rows from 18 of them in a 2 day stretch - and I only stopped at shops within about 5 minutes of my route.