It’s Friday, which means time for another Color Play post!

If you’re new here, Color Play is something I do each week with Trina from In An Otter Life.

Here are the rules:

1. Each week, one of us will select a picture from our joint Pinterest board. These are all pictures that one of us has taken on our adventures.
2. We each create a palette using colors from that picture
3. We then create a bundle of 5-8 fabrics that is inspired by that palette. They don’t have to be an exact match to our palette, and we can throw in contrasting or accent colors, but the bundle should look inspired by the palette.
4. We don’t see the other person’s palette or bundle before we both post on Friday.
5. That’s it! It’s going to be so fun to see what we each come up with.

Today’s photo is from the Metropolitan Market in Seattle and comes to us courtesy of Trina.

I chose this photo because of all the wonderful fall colors in those bouquets. The days are getting chillier here and I wanted to celebrate that by playing with some reds, oranges and yellows.

This fabric bundle went in a completely different direction than I expected. Given the range of colors in the palette, I was worried that I would end up with something that looked like a Kindergarten classroom (lots of bright, primary colors).

But even though I chose vivid colors, they are all pretty light in value, making it look a little more mellow than the palette. Also, the grey background in the floral print really calms the whole bundle down. (And I have to point out that I didn’t completely ignore the dark, slate grey of my palette! See the little grey flowers in the far left print?)

Here are the fabrics in my bundle:

Kelly Ventura, Flora 

Lizzy House Jewels

Amy Butler, Bright Heart, Oh Dear in Coral

Amanda Jean Nyberg, Good Neighbors, Peaks in Orangina

Amanda Jean Nyberg, Good Neighbors, Two Tone Stripe in Lemon

Don’t forget to stop by In An Otter Life and see Trina’s bundle!

Would you like to play along? You’re welcome to join in the fun by using the #colorplayfriday hashtag on Instagram and Twitter.

~Happy Sewing!

Hello friends!

Have you heard about the new Periscope app? I first heard about it on a post from Night Quilter where she tells about a Studio Hop in which she participated. Basically, you can use it to live stream to your followers whenever you want. I thought it was a great way of connecting, but didn’t join up until a couple of days ago.

Well, I love it.

You can follow people, and when they’re broadcasting live you get a notification on your phone.  You can either connect live or watch the ‘Scope’ anytime in the following 24 hours, after which they’re gone.  I’m told you can use the Katchme app to make your videos available permanently. I’ve downloaded that app, but haven’t used it yet so I can’t tell you how it works!

I’d love it if you headed on over to watch my Scope or become a follower if you missed it this time around. I’m really excited about being able to connect with you in a new way.

And since this post doesn’t have any pictures yet, here’s some quilty eye candy to tide you over! This is the rainbow portion of my stash.

Happy Sewing! ~L

Hello friends! This week, I’ve been settling in to the school year. I miss my kids already, but having a quiet house sure does help me get more work done!

Yesterday I finished the machine quilting portion of the Quilt of Champions. If you’re new to the blog, check here and here for some of the the previous posts about this quilt. This was my first real English paper piecing project, my first applique project, and my first hand quilting project…. all wrapped into one! I haven’t started the hand quilting on this yet, but the appliqued sphere will be all hand quilted.

(I have to say that the wonkiness in this picture comes not from poor craftsmanship on my part, but a really bad job hanging the thing. I promise its straight in real life!)

I will be buying my quilting hoop and making final decisions about thread colors in the next couple of days.

 I’m going back and forth between contrasting the thread color or blending it with the piecing. I like the idea of contrast, but I don’t want to distract from the beautiful design that’s already there.

The binding on this will be lime green.

Make sure to stop by again at the end of this week to see my latest Color Play Friday post!

This week, I’m linking up to:

Happy    Sewing!

~L

Yeah, you read that right, a broken machine! 😦

Let me start at the beginning. As of Tuesday night, I had three quilts basted and ready to quilt.

First, I had this one. I didn’t piece this. I saw at a garage sale last spring and I just didn’t have the heart to leave it there. I spoke with the maker, and got her name so I can give her credit on the label. I’ve decided to name this one “Via Gleneagle” after the neighborhood where I found it.

I did minimal quilting on this one and honestly didn’t do that great of a job. I was really sick at the time (I’m getting better!) and probably wasn’t as careful as I should have been. I have a few big puckers in the back that I’ll be fixing. I kept the quilting minimal on this because I thought it gave it a more old-fashioned, poofy, ‘snuggle on grandma’s couch’ sort of feeling that matched the design of the front.

The next quilt I had basted and ready to go was my Quilt of Champions. I am taking the quilting on this one a lot slower because I really love this quilt and don’t want to screw it up! I managed to get the quilting around the circle done this week. I WANTED to get it completely quilted, but c’est la vie!

Lastly, I have this quilt, which I haven’t shown on the blog yet. You’ll have to excuse the terrible photo. I know I had good shots of this at one point, but they seem to have gotten deleted off my computer. After this photo was taken, I added a bunch of white and put the diamond in the lower right side. It’s been basted for months and months and I’ve been trying to decide how to quilt all that negative space. I have a plan in mind now, so it’s just a matter of getting the thread and getting to it. This is a big one, and I free motion quilt on my domestic machine, so I have to be really careful.

Speaking of my machine…. my poor machine.

Sewing blogger confession time.

I sew on a 15-year old, very basic Kenmore sewing machine that my husband bought me when we were first married. This machine sat neglected for years in the crawl space of my house until I realized two and a half years ago that I love quilting.

It’s not even close to being the best machine out there, but it’s always done everything I’ve asked it to- until this week.

 Over the last week, the cord on my foot pedal was acting a bit sketchy. When I’d turn my machine on, it would take a bit of wiggling before it would jump into action.  And then, yesterday, it just stopped mid-seam.

I knew the day was going to come eventually. So I starting scoping out new machines. And then like a good, budget-conscience sewist….. I ordered a replacement pedal.

Dear Lord, I hope it works! In the meantime, I’m just going to be working on my embroidery skills!

Happy sewing! ~L

About a month ago, I mentioned that I had made some Home is Where the Heart is blocks. This week, I decided to do a few more blocks in aqua and coral.

You can get the pattern for these blocks by taking Amy Gibson’s For Keeps Pledge. Amy is accepting donations and will be making these blocks into quilts for an organization called People Comforters of Evergreen, Colorado. I’m planning on sending these out in the next few days.

Another thing I did today was add a border to the quilt I talked about last week. I decided to name this one The Quilt of Champions, since it’s been completed during sports practices. Practice is where champions are made!

With this border, I’ve finished the quilt top. I will be basting it and starting the quilting later this week.

What are you all up to this week? I’d love to hear from you!

Happy Sewing, ~L

This week, I’m linking up to:

Whew! The end-of-summer madness is in full swing, and I’ve been a busy girl! I realized today that it’s been three WEEKS since I last posted anything to the blog.

In those few weeks, I’ve done some non-quilting sewing that included helping a friend sew a cover for her baby carrier and getting together with a great group of ladies for some assembly-line pillowcase dress making. I was the shoulder strap sewist! The dresses will be going to a pastor in Uganda who visited my church back in April. He’ll be giving them to the girls in his congregation.

It was really nice getting together with other ladies and working towards making something to give. There was a lady in the group who brought and donated 67 adorable dresses that she’s made over the last year. And she also sews for Project Linus. Amazing.

I’ve only been a quilter for a couple of years, and I’m constantly learning more and more how absolutely generous my fellow quilters are. Not many other pastimes include spending countless hours working on something that you turn around and give to a stranger. And I know some of you out there are doing it all the time. You inspire me!

So on that note: Today I’m sharing my latest finish, which will be donated through my guild to a local hospital.

Choosing a quilting design

This one was started as an entry for Pat Sloan’s Hip to Be Square challenge. The challenge was to make a quilt with 2.5″ squares, with an emphasis on using up scraps. I also challenged myself to see if I could make a quilt that I loved out of fabric that I most definitely did not love.

The answer was a resounding no.

Honestly, I don’t like this quilt and wasn’t going to put it on the blog. And then I quilted and washed it and sort of fell in love with the crinkly goodness of it all.

I was able to grab this backing fabric out of the charity quilt fabric bin at the guild. I felt like the seafoam color cooled the quilt down a bit and the busy floral went along well with the crazy florals on the front.

One thing I do love about this one is the quilting pattern. It created these crazy, bunched up sections that gave it the perfect amount of old-fashioned texture. I know I’ll be using that one again really soon.

I also wanted to update you on the progress of the Windows Into My World quilt that I talked about here and here.

I’m proud to say that after a ton of work, I’ve finished the hand piecing of the Windows AND appliqued them to the background!

I’m very excited about this one! I will be framing out what I have so far in Kona Coal Grey and either doing a blue or lime green binding. I haven’t come up with a name for this one yet, but it has to be sports related. For one, it’s Seahawks colors (you see these colors EVERYWHERE where I live!). And second, I worked on this mostly during my kids’ Tae Kwon Do and Cross Country practices. Any name suggestions?

This week, I’m linking up to:

Happy Sewing! ~L

Welcome to the last Color Play Friday of 2015!  Trina and I have doing this for a few months now, and it’s been more fun than I had even hoped. I’ve come up with some bundles of fabric that I never would have put together in a million years had it not been for this exercise. And having a post to write every week has made me keep at it even when life gets a little too busy.

Trina and I will be taking a break for the next two weeks to enjoy a little holiday time with our families. Please join us back here on New Year’s Day for our next Color Play Friday! 

More about Color Play Friday:

Trina from In An Otter Life and I created Color Play Friday one day after a nice trip to the fabric store together.

 Here are the rules:

1. Each week, Trina or I will select a picture from our joint Pinterest board. These are all pictures that one of us has taken on our adventures.
2. We each create a palette using colors from that picture
3. We then create a bundle of 5-8 fabrics that is inspired by that palette. They don’t have to be an exact match to our palette, and we can throw in contrasting or accent colors, but the bundle should look inspired by the palette.
4. We don’t see anyone else’s palette or bundle before we post on Friday.
5. That’s it! It’s going to be so fun to see what we each come up with.

This week’s photo was taken at a shop called Kris Kringl in Leavenworth, WA. Leavenworth is an amazing tourist hot spot, and I’m glad Trina chose this picture for this week because I will actually be in Leavenworth tomorrow for the Christmas Lighting Ceremony!

Here are the fabrics I chose:

Bari J, Petals and Plume, Seeing Stars in Violet

Bari J, Millie Fleur, Ripples in Pink

Cotton and Steel Basics, Sprinkles in Summer Camp

Warner Brothers, Silly Snowman, Snowflakes in Royal Blue

Robert Kaufman, Metro Living, Metro Circles in Turquoise

Makower UK, Christmas 2015 Wonderland, Cars

A note about scale:

• While I believe scale is a very important part of fabric selection, the fabrics shown in my Color Play images are not always perfectly to scale. I do my best, by you should always double check scale before ordering!

Don’t forget to head over to In an Otter Life to see what Trina came up with and to Shimmy and More to see Steph’s bundle!

You can also head over to my Color Play Friday page to see my palettes and bundles from previous weeks.

Are you enjoying Color Play Friday? We’d love for you to get in on the fun and create your own Color Play post! You can create a bundle of fabric, select yarns or embroidery threads, or create a project inspired by our photo. Be sure to let Trina or I know so we can link up to you. You can get in contact with me via email, or by tagging me on Instagram.  

I hope you can join us next week!

Happy Sewing, ~L

This week I started piecing the black and white Sparkler quilt. This is for my 14-year-old son.

I decided on a dark grey solid (Kona Charcoal)  along with various black, white and grey patterned fabrics. There’s a lot of geometric designs with some math and techie stuff thrown in. He’s proud to be a total geek, so it’s perfect for him.

I only had a half yard of the Charcoal to start, so my progress is stopped until I can get more of that.

If you follow me on Instagram, you may have also seen that I’m trying to make some progress on my Windows into My World quilt. I’m basting the final ‘windows’ now, and it should come together fairly quickly after that, but it has been a exercise in patience! Hopefully I can finish it before Seahawks season…. aka ‘football season’ starts.

This week, I’m linking up to:

Thanks for stopping by, and Happy Sewing!

~L