Monday, February 14, 2011

Design Stuff Monday

Yesterday I did a bunch of shopping for MOTU, so to reward myself I went to Joann's and used up some coupons.  I got this nifty book which has literally opened up entire new worlds for me.  I never thought to quilt using paper stencils.  Duh.  I think I need to get myself some thinner paper, but for now just plain printer paper is working ok.

I played around with the new stencils, using some leftovers from the last round of QFKs. I made a couple of these and turned them into Valentine's gifts for some unsuspecting friends.  Muahaha.
The paper should be thinner...it's hard to get off as is.  If I wet it, it mostly works but some stuff still lingers.  If I don't, I'm afraid I'll rip the stitches.
I kind of like the slightly damp effect here.
I have (as usual) a couple projects going on right now.  In addition to the quilt for the neighbor, I signed up for one of the kids in the Wrapped in Hope program.  My girl likes dancing (but not ballet) and the color orange.  Her birthday is in March, so I need to get working on this.  I'm cheating and using a modified version of the QFK pattern for this.  I have a lot of the dark orange and a bit of the pink/orange hearts and the lighter orange.  So that pic up there is the basic pattern I'm using.  Grey is the focus print (dancers), and the rest of the colors are self-explanatory.
Blocks and strips cut.
Trying out the first few blocks.  I'm still mid-strip-sewing, but I wanted to see if this would even look ok.  I think it works.  I'm excited to try some of my new paper patterns to quilt on these!!

I also have the wedding quilt and the colonial quilt for our bed in progress as well...should really put some more time in on those.  They're just really big and slightly overwhelming right now.  But I'll get there.  Really.


UPDATE!!

I actually finished the entire top before going to bed last night.  I don't have a good picture of the whole thing, but here's a sneak peek anyway:

Happy Monday!!

9 comments:

Julie Kaye from KS said...

You've been busy. Love your dancing fabric!

Tamera said...

Goodness! You've been busy!

Connie Kresin Campbell said...

Love the dancing fabric and looks like you will be having a lot of fun with your new quilting book!

Diane said...

I too love the dancing fabric and the other fabrics your using w/it-looks great.
thinner paper will help, did you reduce your stitch length? that will help too-and I sometimes forget to do it, which really makes me mad!

Barb said...

You have alot of fun things going on over there....can't wait to see the full top!

Judy D in WA said...

I think I might have to go buy that book! Love the fabrics and your girl is going to be thrilled with this quilt!

Annie said...

You can use a tear-away stabilizer to draw quilting lines on. It comes off easily. Or you could buy a roll of Golden Threads Quilting Paper, which is made to tear away easily.

Mary-Kay said...

Mary Covey has 4 books in her quilting series. you can use Golden Threads paper for your quilting patterns. It tears away really easy. You can buy it on the roll in 18" and 24" or you can buy it in sheets. Good luck and the heart is one of my favourites.

Mary Ann said...

Love your quilting! I thought of perhaps purchasing these paper piecing books, too, but wondered how it would work...thank you for sharing!