Pez!

(I asked my husband if he had a Pez dispenser laying around.  Apparently, he has a whole box of them.  Why, I ask.  Just why????)

No, no, no. Wrong Pez!

I mean these Pez...

I think I mentioned in an earlier post how I couldn't resist this little pack of Pez charms while checking out at Sew Smart...this is what it turned into...

Cute!  It's little - 44" x 47", but it will make a great crib quilt.  I pulled coordinating solids from my stash to alternate HSTs with the pez prints. It was quick and easy to make.
I'm quilting it with the Popcorn pantograph...

I really wanted Red Multi Pez for the backing

but instead settled for this little random dot print to back it with that I found at the new LQS - The Round Bobbin.

I'm binding it a Kona solid red.  (Still wish I had some of that Red Multi Pez though....)

I'm off early tomorrow to take the train up to MQX in Providence, RI.  Yay!  I'm more than a little excited  (eeeep!)

Echo

Here is the story of my Echo quilt.

I listen to lots of quilting podcasts on my commute to and from work everyday.  One of my favorites is Katie's Quilting Corner.  Katie used to talk a lot about the Missouri Star Quilt Company (oh, goodness, I hope it was Katie!)  I had never heard of MSQC before and I didn't go check them out for a long time.  Katie would also talk about their "Daily Deals".  I finally caved and went to their site.  The first deal I saw was a  layer cake of Lotta Jansdotter's Echo line for a ridiculously low price.  I quickly took advantage of that deal.  (I don't check out the deals very much any more, it is way too dangerous!!  But, they are awesome deals.)

My lovely layer cake of Echo came and there were only 24 layers, so there was only half the fabric of your standard layer cake.  So, what to do, what to do.  Also there is a lot of white in this line, so I had to be careful of what to use as a "neutral" or background. 

I came up with a triangle quilt ...I will tell you that, unfortunately, the layers were not nicely cut at 10", most all of them were off a bit, but since I was cutting triangles, it didn't matter.  Whew!

I broke open my Tri Recs tools that I've had for forever to make the triangles and the half triangles for the sides. 

And black Kona cotton for the alternating triangles...

Perfect!

This went together quickly.  I wasn't planning on doing borders, but it was a little small and I had no more Echo.

 

So, I got some yardage of the gold fabric and bought this print for the back and binding....

I did a small inner border of the Kona black and a 6" border of the gold.

And now it's big enough.  And I love it.   (But, maybe I should have mitered those borders.)

And that's the story of my Echo quilt! 

Swoon - Blocks 4 and 5

Luckily, my bloggy friend Karin of Cascade Quilts keeps up with my postings better than I do and she informed that when I stated I finished four Swoon blocks, I had only posted three.  I could have sworn I had posted number four, but alas, Karin was right and I completed skipped it.   So here it is in all it's glory...

In the meantime, I finished block five too!  TA DA!

[how do you like that fancy fussy cutting of the center block!]

This color combo is quite a departure from the first four.  I think it will give the quilt some pop!

Now, I feel like I'm in the homestretch.  I should finished up block six tonight and then only three more to go!

Presenting March Schnibbles - Bibelot

I worked so hard on this quilt and I almost missed the posting deadline!  Totally forgot this is the 31st, but luckily as soon as I opened my Google Reader, I saw someone's post about it.  Whew!  I wouldn't have wanted all that hard work to go to waste.

So, without further adieu....presenting.....

BIBELOT

 Only I'm calling it "T-Squared".  And the amazing Thelma of Cupcakes 'n Daisies is calling it "T is for  Thelma"  (When I say "amazing", you really need to see her Red & White Tribute quilt - and every other quilt she's ever made. I am in awe of her.  The linked post tells the story and the quilt is at the end - A-Maz-Ing!)

So, T-Squared took a long, fiddly time to do.  At the end, though, I am happy with it.  But, I wish I would have caught the fact that there is no white sashing between the T's on the bottom right.  Maybe I'll unpick and fix it.  But I probably won't.  You were supposed to be random when putting the Ts together.  I have a hard time being random.

I used two of Moda's Collections for a Cause charm packs and some Kona Snow - I forget which collection I used though - maybe it was Legacy.  Anyway, I thought these fabrics really worked in this pattern.  It finishes at 38-1/2" square.

You can check out the parade of Schnibbles at Sinta and Sherri's blogs starting April 1st (is it really April 1st already tomorrow?  Where is this year going???)

Today I am off to visit a newly opened LQS - YAY!!!!  It's called the Round Bobbin Quilt Shop and I've been eagerly anticipating its opening. 

Last night, members of the PMQG met for a Sew Night at Granny's Sewing Den.   I didn't bring my camera, so no photos, but it was fun seeing all of the great things everyone was making (like Pat's triangle quilt - I had serious quilt envy over that one.  And Bobbi swoooned over a piece of Andrew's fabric.  I believe a good time was had by all.  I know I had a great time - didn't get much done, but that's not really the point.  Before I knew it, it was about 9:30pm.  I can't wait for our next sew day!

Granny Squares - the next four

Now we're up to ten!  Here are four more Granny Squares...

Ten more to go and we'll have a quilt!

I'm planning to be a little less scrappy with the next ten.  In these first ten, I didn't use the same fabric twice in a square.  For the next batch, I'm planning to use some of the same fabrics in a square.   I think it will look fine if I disperse them throughout the quilt.  I also have to figure out color schemes for the remainder of the squares. 

I'm excited to see what this quilt is going to look like then it's all done!

Happy Birthday to Me!

It's my birthday and I bought myself a birthday present!  It came on Friday ... my tummy had butterflies as I opened the box ...  it was just as beautiful in person as I thought it would be ....

I wasn't going to be left off the bandwagon this time!  I didn't get any of the original FMF and then there was none to be found.  I've been haunting Hawthorne Threads' site for weeks, I even emailed them (they are so nice there).  And, as soon as it was available, I placed my order for Flea Market Fancy.  It arrived in two days! 

I love, love, love it.  These pictures do not do it justice.  Now, to decide what to do with it.  There's enough for a few quilts here. Yay!

In other quilting news, I bought a layer cake of Lotta Jansdotter's Echo when it was the Daily Deal on the Missouri Star Quilt Company's website.  I decided to make a triangle quilt.  It was kind of small, the layer cake only had 24 "layers", so I decided to put a couple of borders on it.  I love the way it came out and it's the perfect size for my office wall.  Since there was so much white in the fabrics, I chose to alternate the prints with black triangles.  

I chose this print for the backing and binding...

I think I'm going to quilt straight lines in the print triangles following the triangle shape and then meandering in the black.  I hope to start on this tomorrow (I took tomorrow off - it's a BIG birthday today and I'll need to recover by having a quilting day - LOL!)

Now, I'm going to go roll around in my FMF for a while before the family comes over to help me celebrate!

It's Hard to Find Good Help These Days

Happy National Quilting Day everyone!  Hope you can all do something quilty today! I was planning on posting this midweek, but, well that didn't happen obviously.  The week just got away from me.  Between work and jury duty (I only had to go one day, but what a looonnnggg day and I missed getting picked for a really scary trial by a hair - whew!)  Anyway.....

My Countdown to Christmas Twister quilt has been finished sitting folded up on my wing chair in the living room for a month or so now waiting for its photo session.  Well,  the moon and stars aligned and I was able to get some quilt holder helpers to hold it up (I don't have any cool places to drape my quilts for "artsy" photos - I think I would like to move just so I stage better quilt photos - that, and a bigger dining room - LOL!)  I don't think my quilt holder-uppers did a very good job, but at least it's done!

Ariel tried to hold the quilt up by herself at first, but we kept getting the head bump in the middle of the quilt.  So, then we got Dad to come out and help, much hilarity ensued and I got this really bad shot.  But, like I said it's done...

I love the snowflake quilting...

An outtake...

You can see Lilly looking out the door saying "why didn't you ask me to help???"

Last week I also made up my I Spy 9 Patches my guild is making to put together charity quilts.  At our last meeting, we all brought novelty fabrics and spent some time cutting them into 5" squares and then putting together sets for members to take home and sew.  It was fun working with these cute fabrics. We're going to set them with solids.  I think they'll be really cute.  We had a boatload of fabric, so I'm thinking we'll be able to make quite a few quilts! 

I was glad to be able to contribute a lot of fabric for this cause.   I've been working on an I Spy quilt for about 100 years.  Seriously, this has been in progress for about 10 years.  I've collected lots of novelty fabrics for this, friends have given me pieces and this is how far I've gotten...

Yep, six short rows - LOL.  It's one of those "long-term" projects I guess.  I swear I'll finish it someday.
So, I'm not giving up by giving away some of the fabrics because I had enough novelties to make 5 I Spy quilts, and if I can't even finish one, it's probably better to put them to good use elsewhere!

Ooooh, and I am SO (yes, I'm shouting) excited about this...I found out last Friday I got into the class I really wanted to take at MQX next month.  It was sold out by the time I made up my mind to go, but my waitlist came through! 

 I'll be a McTavishing fool when I'm done (I hope!)