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!!

Quick Pics

Just a quickie post to throw up some pictures of the progress on the wedding quilt.

The first 4 are the "special blocks" with centers made from material I couldn't slice into 2.5 inch strips. 

My grandmother made this one herself! It's from Mardi Gras 2008, when we went as Ghostbusters to their "departed spirits", complete with handmade proton packs and everything.

From my coworker Maryrita, a shirt from the company  we worked for before being bought out by...

...Pega.  This one is from another coworker, Lisa, who cleverly got this from a mouse pad.  Love it.

And last but not least, from a former coworker and dear friend, Jen, a bookshelf.  :-) 

Sorry for the poor lighting on this one.  This is what all the rest of the blocks will look like, more or less. 

5 down, 31 to go! 

Slicing, Dicing Design Wall

I know I'm a day late with my design wall, but better late than never, right?

First up, I've unearthed the Valentine's quilt from last year.  It's currently about 60x80, so I'm going to add some borders to it, then sometime this week I'll figure out something for the backing and baste that sucker.  Hopefully it'll be ready to ship by mid-month.

Next up, the Shower Quilt.  I've been slaving away, slicing and dicing the fabric for this, and wouldn't you know it?  By sheer dumb luck, I have EXACTLY as much fabric as I need from what people gave me.  My back up plan was to use the stuff I got when I went to pick up our marriage license. That'll go on the back now.

See, not so organized, huh?

Believe it or not, there's a method here.

The final stack up.  Some 430ish strips later, I'm ready to start piecing. 

And a picture of the older brother of the wedding quilt.