June Schnibble - Leap Year

It's time for the unveiling of my June Schnibble - Leap Year!  Designer Carrie Nelson was kind enough to provide all of us Schnibblers with the pattern.  You can get your very own here.

This was fun and quick to make.  I started with a couple of charm packs of Deb Strain's Luv You line.  Cute and summery...

In progress...

My first completed block...

A couple of blocks closeups.  for the sashing and borders, I pulled a white-on-white polka dot out of my stash which I think goes really well with the prints...

I didn't think I was going to get this quilted by today's deadline. I ordered this cute print for the backing week before last and it only arrived a few days ago. I couldn't get to the quilting before today.

But I started the quilting this morning...

and just put the last stitches in the binding at 5:30 this evening! Ta Da!

Another Schnibble down. I wonder what the July Schnibble will be??? Hop on over to Sinta and Sherri's blogs tomorrow to see the parade of what I am sure will some awesome Leap Year Schnibbles!

Modern Siggy Block Swap & SMQ Bee

I've been working hard on my blocks for The Crafty Blackbird's Modern Siggy Block Swap.  We're up to 57 participants so far.  I think I've made about 65 and sign up is closed as of June 30.  They don't take long at all, so if I need to make some more that will be fine.

My stack so far...

I have a lot of Denyse Schmidt and a little Kate Spain in there...I think that's Modern enough!

Next is to write my name and location info.  That's the part that scares me - my handwriting isn't the greatest - particularly on fabric, so I hope I'm legible!  It's the first time I've participated in something like this so I'm excited to receive my blocks from all over the world (I'm guessing it's not just the US) in August!

We've exchanged our first set of blocks in the Sunday Morning Quilts Bee.  We are making "slab" blocks from the Sunday Morning Quilts book.  I received these beauties from Bee Hostess Charlotte (Grammie Q's).  That girl has some great yellow fabrics in her stash! 

I particularly love the little birds in this print...

I'm ahead of myself on this one.  July's going to be a busy month, so I did my July blocks yesterday.  July's color is blue.  It was fun to revisit the blue stack of fabrics in my stash!

Next post will be a recap of the Denyse Schmidt lecture and workshop hosted by the PMQG last weekend, so stay tuned!

Twirl!

Presenting....Twirl...well, the top anyway...

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How summery and cute is this quilt?  Using a layer cake of Twirl by Me & My Sisters Designs, some Kona White and some yardage.   

I can't wait to quilt this one up - some kind of twirly design of course!

I went shopping the other weekend with some quilting buddies and we stopped at one of my favorite quilt shops - Generations - a small but mighty little quilt shop.  I can't say it's an LQS for me because it's about an hour away, but I'm so glad my friend lives close by. 

I'm loving the yellow, orange and light blues in this bundle...

And I finally broke down and bought some Emperor's Garden by Maywood Fabrics.  I've had my eye on this for months.  Sigh....

And I didn't get this at the shop, but I woke up one day last week and decided I had to have some Lucy's Crab Shack.  Now. 

o:)

Lilly's Shop

I'm very pleased to announce that I have finally stocked my Etsy shop!  I created Lilly's Shop

name after this little lady...

a couple of years ago and that's as far as it got.  Until now!  I finally took the time to post a few of the quilts I created especially for the shop.  Most are simple but fun baby quilts along with a couple of lap quilts.

Here are a few of the quilts I posted....

I call this the Chrysanthemum quilt...at my LQS, I saw a FQ stack of lovely pastels with a chrysanthemum print on them...I paired them with a crisp white background and Asian-inspired fabrics.   I love this quilt (but I love a lot of my quilts and I just can't keep them all)

This was made with leftovers of one of Robyn Pandolph's Folk Art Christmas lines.  Certainly doesn't scream Christmas!

Here's a cute baby quilt with an "Under the Sea" theme...

And I can't get a photo that does this quilt justice - a soft yellow and pink quilt with a beautiful toile for a sweet baby girl...

Feels good to finally get these quilts posted - and just maybe I can make room for more quilts around here!!

Oh, and here are my first blocks for the new Sunday Morning quilts bee - June was our yellow month!  These were fun to make, but I found I mostly either have largish-chunks of fabrics or strings.  Not much in-between, so I found myself "making scraps" from my stash - LOLOL!

Some winnings and a Charity Quilt

I've been a very lucky girl having won two giveaways recently!  The first was from Laura at Needles, Pins and Baking Tins with this very modern assortment of prints from Spoonflower.  She sent these to me all the way from England (one of my very favorites places, well, besides Scotland that is.  Oh, and Disney World. o:) )  The photo of these fabrics on Laura's blog is so much better than this, but here they are...

There was a little caveat to this win...you had to promise to make a quilt for the Siblings Together charity.  The aim of the charity is to promote contact between siblings who have been separated due to foster care or adoption.  Lily's Quilts blog has a good post on the charity.  As I like to make at least a couple of quilts each year for a charity, I was more than happy to oblige.  I decided to make (another) of Julie Herman's Dot Party quilts (this is Dot Party quilt #4 and counting!)  I thought it would show off these large prints nicely.

I had a hard time deciding on a background - I didn't want any of the fabrics to blend in.  I finally chose some tan quilter's linen I had in my stash.  Now I need to find a back and get this quilted and on it's way to a child who can cuddle it up.  Thanks again, Laura!

Next, I found out I won three - count 'em, three - charm packs of Little Apples!  This was courtesy of Annie at Annies Ruby Slipperz.  And, I was a bad, bad giveaway-enterer.  I read her blog every time there's a new post but I totally missed reading the part about me winning and she had to track me down.  Which was so very, very nice of her.  And I am thrilled with my Little Apples.  I decided I'm going to use my friend's Sizzix to cut tumblers.  Her die makes a 4" finished tumbler so I think it's big enough to really show off these fun prints!

On another charitable note, on Memorial Day I read Beth's (Love Laugh Quilt) post on her wish to donate a few star quilts to a local Veterans' Hospital and asked if anyone would like to contribute a block.  I have quite the stash of "patriotic" fabrics - I probably should have contributed a few more.

It's fun to both give and receive!

May Schnibble of the Month - Doc!

The May Schnibble of the Month was Doc.  I don't remember why Carrie calls it Doc, but it's a card trick block.  And it was lots of fun!  I started out with two charm packs of Martinique and made lots of HSTs...

I cut the red charms for the corner stones and used Moda Bella Snow for the background.

Here are my first blocks...you have to lay the blocks out carefully by your machine (not a lot of chain-piecing on this one!) and make them one at a time.  Not hard, you just need to be focused.  And (unusual for me) I didn't mis-sew any of the blocks!

And here is Doc quilted and bound.

You can't really see the quilting, but I used a new pantograph called Cloudy Skies by Meadow Lyon Designs that I picked up at MQX last month.  It was super quick to do.  I also used a creamy white Fil-Tec Glide Thread bought at MQX last month.  This is the second time I used Glide and I sure wish I had bought more of it..  I had as good an experience as the first time I used it.  Tension was perfect and it looks great and the thread didn't break once.

I used this piece I had in my stash for the back ...

And I pulled two pinks from a FQ bundle of Martinique I have to do the binding. 

And, I'm in just under the deadline!  Check out Sherry and Sinta's blogs on June 1st to see lots of other Docs in the Parade of Schnibbles (and I've seen some really cool ones around the blogs so far)!!

Quilt Stats:

Pattern - Doc Schnibble by Carrie Nelson

Size:  42"x42"

Fabrics - Martinique by 3 Sisters and Moda Bella Snow

Started:  5/21/2012  Finished 5/28/2012

Flea Market Frames

I'm thrilled to present my first FMF quilt - Flea Market Frames!

I cut into my treasured stash of the new Flea Market Fancy reprints to make this quilt.  Luckily, I only needed a couple of strips from each piece so have lots left over.

When trying to find a good pattern to use just a little bit of each print, I came across Little Miss Shabby's FMF quilt and thought it was incredibly adorable.  You can find the link to the free pattern that LMS modified to make her quilt in her post.  Thank you LMS!  I'm quite thrilled with my version of it.

When I first read the pattern and saw it called for offsetting the outside block wedges by 7/8" on two sides and 1/4" on the other two, I thought uh-oh, this might be a little too tedious for me.  It wasn't at all.  If you're careful, the blocks come out beautifully - with a lot of starch, I might add, to tame the bias edges.

I found this fun print for the back - it looks like jelly candies to me.  It looks a bit washed out here, but it's really a lot more colorful.

I just quilted a large meander on the quilt in white thread and bound it in one my favorite prints from the line.

And now my quilt is finished just in time for summer!