Little Penguin Quilts Through the Year

Little Penguin Quilts Through the Year

Sunday, May 25, 2014

Finally, a finish!

I have been on a slow stitching path these last few weeks.  It's probably due to it being the end of the school year, with many demands on my time!  The last day of school is Friday, and I am  SO looking forward to more sewing time this summer!

I was able to finally finish my Rainbow Scrappy Bars quilt based on Quilting is More Fun than Housework's Scrap-a-Palooza series.  I am in love with scrappy quilts these days, and having a ton of fun seeing what I can do with fabric in my stash.  Here's how my Scrappy Bars turned out:


I really enjoyed quilting it with concentric circles using my walking foot.  I had never done that before, and will definitely try it again.  


I used some of the leftover blue and green polka dots from my Charm Pack Cherry quilt for the backing as well as some of the bars in the blue section of the quilt.  I was able to throw in some of the scraps on the back as well.  For a scrappy binding I used mostly blues, with a bit of red thrown in.


The finished size is about 40" by 50," a baby quilt size.  Even though that is small for use by an adult, I'm keeping it for now, since I don't have any babies to give it to, and I love how it turned out!  Can you ever have too many quilts?


Hoping to link up with some of my favorite parties later this week.  Happy Memorial Day, everyone!



Sunday, May 4, 2014

A Little Random-ness... Quilty and otherwise

A fun find for the weekend:


I love the name of this wine, and it is tasty, too!

Dinner with good friends, celebrating retirement and engagement:


and... I have been having fun quilting my Rainbow Scrappy Bars quilt this weekend, as well.  I wanted to try something I had never done before, concentric circle quilting.

 
 
I started by tracing a circle with a dinner plate, and stitching around that circle.  Then I just kept adding larger and larger circles about 1/4 inch away from each line of stitching before it.  It is really an easy way to quilt with my walking foot.  It got harder when I wanted to stitch the inner circles.  When I got to what I thought would be the smallest circle, I decided to try a heart.  It ended up looking more like a philodendron leaf!  But since it is on a green piece of fabric, I guess that works!
 
 
 
I really love how this is turning out!  I did not start my circle in the center of the quilt.  Instead I off-centered it, and I think that makes it look fun and modern!
 
 
 
At this point, I am close to finishing the quilting, and hopefully, next weekend I will be binding it.  Thanks to Quilting is More Fun Than Housework for her Scrap-a-Palooza Series!  I am having fun following along, and getting lots of inspiration!