Orange Peels Midway

I made a bunch of orange peel blocks so I could join in with the QAL at Quilty Habit, and here they are!

The backgrounds are 5 inch blocks cut from my stash of low volume fabrics.  The orange peels are cut from a stack of fat quarters that a friend gave me for my birthday last year.  The fabric line is called Mimi by Chez Moi for Moda.  I love the large florals in oranges, greens, teals, and pinks!

My plan so far is to make a table topper from these orange peels.  But that remains to be seen!
Linking up for the Midway Linky Party.

A Different Design Idea!

Somehow, this:

And this:

Turned into this:

I spent some time over the last few days arranging and rearranging the eight 4 inch x 22 inch strips of various greens from my stash, and ended up sewing them all together without any sashing.  It made an interesting pattern because I started with four strips and cut each of them in half.  I really like the gradation of color from light to dark that you see when they are sewn together this way!

 

Right now this quilt is 24 inches wide, so just about perfect for a table topper or a mini.  I just have to decide if I want to add a border to make it bigger or not.  This will be a good size project to try some FMQ on.  I definitely need the practice!

 

This quilt is inspired by Quilting is More Fun than Houseworks's Scrap-a-Palooza series, Quilt #7. (Even though I really took off on a completely different tangent!)  It has been fun to experiment with color!

A New Favorite

Right now,  I am definitely affected by Quilter's ADD!  I have multiple projects to work on, but I just needed to start a new one.  So, I found this stack of fabric:

And turned it into this:

Yes, it is a Noodlehead 241 Tote!  And I love it!  I had been wanting to make one ever since I first saw the pattern, probably a year ago.  It turned out to be pretty straightforward to put together, with clear directions, and I didn't make too many mistakes.  Just a few places where my seam ripper was needed!  I even installed a magnetic snap, which was easy as can be.  It is the perfect size to tote around what I need on a daily basis.



So glad I gave it a try!

A Finish and a WiP

Last night I finished a quilt I started in February!  I decided I wanted to make a Jelly Roll Race quilt, so I watched this video from Missouri Star Quilt Company to see how it was done.  I bought a jelly roll of Road 15 by Sweetwater for Moda and I thought it might make a fun quilt for my youngest son who turned 30 yesterday.  I loved many of the fabrics because they made me think of the small town in Kansas where he lives, and also the trip he is taking next week to Las Vegas for the Star Trek Convention.  He is so excited!

 

 

 

It has been really fun to look at all the fabrics in this line as I stitched them together!  Since it was February when I made the basic quilt itself, I couldn't take it outside to lay out all 1600 (or however many it is!) inches when they were sewn together end to end, so I had to run up and down the stairs with all it night long!  I told my friends at work the next day that I now have proof that quilting is an aerobic activity! 

 



 

Unfortunately, I think I missed one important part of the video in my haste to sew all the strips together:  I forgot to cut off part of the very first strip to offset the seams.  That caused me to end up with a lot of seams close together in rows that touch.  Probably not a huge mistake, but noticeable to people who have made this quilt before!

 

 

I decided to add a border to make the quilt bigger for my son, so I used a gray solid.  I backed and bound it in a marbled dark gray fabric I found at Hobby Lobby.  I liked the way my quilting showed up on the dark gray on the back and the way it framed the lighter gray solid on the front.

 

 

 

In spite of my mistakes, I really do like how this quilt turned out, and I hope he will, too!  I'll be seeing him next week to give it to him.

 

This week, I also got started on some orange peels so that I can quilt along with Jessica of Quilty Habit!  They were fun to make, and I'm loving how they look.  My plan is to make a table topper wiith them, and I think they're going to work great for that purpose.

 

 

 

The backgrounds are 5 inch squares cut from my Low Volume stash that I have been collecting recently, and the orange peels are from a fat quarter stack that a friend gave me last fall for my birthday, a fabric line called Mimi by Chez Moi for Moda.  They are beautiful larger florals in greens, pinks, oranges, and teal.  Fun to sew with!  Can't wait to put the whole thing together and see how it turns out!

 





Linking up with Sew Cute Tuesday and Needle and Thread Thursday this week!

A Design Idea

The other day I decided to dump out my scrap basket and see what color I had the most of.  That was kind of a fun thing to do because I really didn't have any idea!  (I have to admit, I don't have any wonderful storage system for my scraps and strings... I just dump them in this basket.)  Come to find out, I have a lot of green!

 

I sorted all of these bits and pieces into darks, mediums, and lights.

 

 

 

 I sewed strips of these fabrics into blocks that were approximately 9" by 22" in a sort of graduated color scheme.

I also added a strip of Kona Maize onto the end of each block.

 

My next step was to trim up these big blocks into eight smaller 4" by 22" blocks.  I have a good sized yardage of the Kona Maize to use as a background, so now I'm trying to decide how they should be laid out.  I'm thinking about cutting the maize into 4 inch strips and off-setting the blocks of green with some maize on either end and in between.  I'm not sure what finished size that would give me, but because I'm playing around with the idea right now, I don't really care!

 

 

 It's so great to have some time this summer for playing with fabric and design!  Following along with Cyndy's Scrap-a-Palooza!

Playing with Black and Yellow

I have always loved the color combination of black, gray, white and yellow, so when I found a little kit for a table runner at the Quilter's Oasis in Mesa, Arizona, this spring, I knew I wanted to make it. It was an easy and quick finish that only took a few hours.  

The kit included about 11 different 2 1/2 inch strips of various black, gray, white, and yellow prints. The herringbone placement was fun to figure out, and then I used the leftovers to make the binding. I just added in a little bit of a black and white polka dot leftover from a previous project for the rest of the binding and the backing.

I really love little projects!