quilting

Finished: Scrappy Rainbow Quilt

I recently noticed that although I have been pretty active on Instagram, I haven’t been updating here with my finished projects! This one has been done for a while, but I hadn’t taken decent pictures of it. So today, my son and I went outside for a quick little photo shoot.

For this quilt, I shopped my scrap and FQ stashes to get lots of variation in my fabrics. I made random strippy panels (similar to a jelly roll race quilt) and then cut the blocks from them. It wasn’t the most efficient process to make the blocks, but I knew it would force me into a randomness that I wouldn’t get using foundation strip piecing. I know myself- I like controlling things too much!


This was my first project on the long arm, and I was happy with the way it turned out. I am definitely still learning, but with as many tops as I have to finish in the next few months, I should be an old hand at it soon!

I love laying this one out for BBQs and to relax in the back yard, but she is currently hanging in my studio opposite my design wall keeping my works-in-progress company. I love coming in each day to this view!

 

Happy Sewing, ~Lorinda

Linking up to:

sew-fresh-quilts-ets-bee-social     my-quilt-infatuation-needle-and-thread-thursday

Farm Girl Vintage Quilt

I know I’m about a year behind on the Farm Girl Vintage quilt craze. But when I decided to make a quit for my mom, I knew this had to be the one! blocks
When I first got the book, I flipped through  to pick out what I thought she might like.  I was really impressed with the number of blocks in the book and all the different layout options. It felt like a choose your own adventure book!

hens

Although there were so many great blocks to choose from, I knew that my focus had to be the hen and chick blocks. My mom loves her chickens and cares for them into their old age, long after they’ve stopped laying eggs.

She also loves old barns so when I saw the barn blocks I knew I had to choose at least two or three.barn 1

Barn 2

About a week later, she came to my house and had a look through the book. I was very pleasantly surprised when she chose for herself all the blocks that I had guessed she would want.

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The color scheme of this quilt came from the design in my moms house. Although it has a farm look, I think it looks a bit more modern because of the fabric choices and vivid colors. It definitely has a bit of my style!

I’m not sure how I’ll do the layout of this quilt. For now, I’m just throwing blocks up on the design wall as I finish them.

I’ll keep you updated!

Happy Sewing, ~Lorinda

This week, I’m linking up to:

Fabric TuesdaySew-Cute-Tuesday-e1384841858599LinkyBeeswip wednesdayNTT Button 1

 

Color Play Friday: Kla Ha Ya Days

Hi Guys! Thank Goodness it’s (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.

I took this week’s photo at Kla Ha Ya Days, a festival held each summer in my hometown of Snohomish, Washington. There’s normal festival entertainment: carnival, parade, icecream eating contest… Then you have the more quirky events: hot air balloon glow, bed races (yes, real beds on wheels), a baby crawling race, and the classic frog jump contest. You can’t make this stuff up.

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A couple of summers ago, my family went to watch the balloon glow and stopped at the carnival beforehand so the kids could go on some rides. This photo was a failed attempt at trying to get a picture of my son on the ride, but I liked how the movement created a blur. It almost gives you the same sort of dizzy feeling you get when you are on a carnival ride with lights whizzing by.

 Laurel and Pine The Kiddos

It was a bit of a magical night watching the rides and dancing with my kids in a field while waiting for the balloons to fill up. It ended up being too windy and the balloon glow was a bust, but the time together as a family is one of the best memories!

 Laurel and Pine Balloon Glow Dancing

So, here’s my palette and bundle!

Kla Ha Ya Days Palette and Bundle

I loved in this picture how the bright colors of the swings contrasted with the slate grey of the sky at sunset.

Here are the fabrics I chose:

Alison Glass, Ex Libris, Grey Panel

Zen Chic, Figures, Daisy in Ocean

Micheal Miller, Dumb Dot in Lilac

Karen Lewis, Blueberry Park, Allotments in Coral

Me and My Sister Designs, Ticklish, Joking Around in Yellow

Bari J, Petals and Plume, Rumpled Sour

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.

Here’s the photo I chose for next week:

 Gummy Bears pic

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

Color Play Friday: Christmas Ornaments

 Wow- all I’ve been posting lately is Color Play Friday! I’ve been busy sewing Halloween costumes, but that’s done now. I do have some quilting projects in the works, and should be starting to show them soon. To really keep up-to-date on what I’m doing, your best bet is to follow me on Twitter, Periscope and Instagram. 

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 weeks photo was taken by me a couple of years ago after Christmas. I was taking all the ornaments off the Christmas trees and sticking them in a box so I could pack them nicely later. Suddenly, I looked down and saw all this Christmasy wonderfulness piled on top of each other and had to snap a photo.

Christmas Ornaments Palette and Bundle 1

Christmas Ornaments Palette and Bundle 2

WAIT A MINUTE?! Two palettes?! Two bundles?!

That’s right, I’m a big old cheater pants this week. As I was selecting fabrics, I found myself torn between a literal interpretation of what I was seeing in the picture, and how the picture made me FEEL.

So I figured two is better than one and went for it!

Here are the fabrics I chose:

Bundle 1

Makower UK, Christmas 2015 Scandi, Snowflakes in Beige

Makower UK, Christmas 2015 Scandi, Linen Texture

Kaffe Fasset, Shot Cottons, Woven in Mulberry

Kate Spain, Solstice, Hemisphere in Berry

Robert Kaufman, Metro Living, Ogee in Scarlet

Whistler Studios, Glisten Metallic Gold

Joel Dewberry, True Colors, Scrollwork in Green 

Basic Grey, Blitzen,Creatures in Evergreen

Bundle 2

Makower UK, Christmas 2015 Scandi, Hearts and Stars in Red

Bunnyhill Designs, Winter Wonderland, Candy Cane Stripe,Tonal Redwork

Bunnyhill Designs, Winter Wonderland, Redwork

Doodlebug Design Inc, Santa Express, Santa Stripe in Red

Jo Clark, Organic, Festive, Gingerbread People

Micheal Miller, Glitz Metallic Quarter Dot, Pearlized Glitz

Makower UK, Wonderland, Houses

Victoria Hutto, Holly Jollies, Dots in Black

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.

Next week’s photo is Pike Place Market from Trina

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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

Color Play Friday: Jetty Island Driftwood

Welcome back to Color Play Friday!

Today we have an image that I took on a family boat trip at the very end of last summer. We had spent the afternoon in the Puget Sound and stopped at Jetty Island for a little bit before the sun went down. Jetty Island is a fun little place that can only be reached by boat. In the summer months, the parks department provides a 60-person, pay-by-donation ferry to shuttle people back and forth to the island. Sometimes you can wait an hour or more to get on, but the ride takes all of two minutes and is a total hit with the kids.

I loved the look of these tree roots in the ‘almost-sunset’ light and the way the orange moss just lit up. The main thing in this image that I knew I had to feature was the complimentary orange and blue. I also chose to add in the green from the grass to give it more color, since the palette was looking really brown.

I’m not usually a huge fan of brown or orange, but am in love with all of these fabrics! I especially love the Tiger Lily print, as I think it ties everything else in the palette together nicely.

Jetty Island Driftwood Palette and Bundle

Don’t forget to go check out Trina’s palette at In an Otter Life!

Here are the links to the fabrics in my bundle:

Heather Ross, Tiger Lily, Floral Medallion in Brown

Amy Ellis, Modern Neutrals, Patchways in Cocoa

Zen Chic, Reel Time, Lenses in Ochre

Cotton and Steel Basics, Dottie in Gnome Hut

Art Gallery Fabrics, Prisma Elements in Albite Latte

Heather Rosas, Sea Life, Ripples in Cream

Fig Tree & Co., Aloha Girl, Lania Shirt in Lagoon

  • While I think scale is a very important part of fabric selection, the fabrics shown in my Color Play images are not always to scale. With the editing I do to get them all in the image, it just takes too much time to make sure they’re all perfectly sized. Do your research before making any purchases!

Color Play Friday: Stilliguamish River at the Big Four Mountain

 Happy Friday, everyone!

I’m so excited because today is the relaunch of our Color Play posts!

A couple of months ago, I had a chat with my real-life quilting buddy, Trina from In an Otter Life. She thought it’d be fun to play along, and together we thought of some ways to make Color Play better and even more fun. Here are our 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 in 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.

Our first photo comes courtesy of Trina and was taken at a very popular hiking spot here in Washington. This river eventually makes it’s way down through our little town.

Big Four Ice Caves River Palette and Bundle

Stilliguamish River at Big Four Moutain Palette and Bundle

The thing about this picture that jumped out at me was the broad range of greens in the water and trees and the blue grey of the light reflecting on the water’s surface…. how gorgeous is that river?! Makes me want to hike up there just to wade in.

Here are links for all the fabrics in my bundle:

Cotton + Steel Basics, Sprinkle in Summercamp

Joel Dewberry, Pristine Pop in Basil

Joel Dewberry, Mosaic Bloom in Asparagus

Kristen Berger, Sharrows in Blue

Cotton + Steel Basics, Dottie in Cloud

Don’t forget to head over to In an Otter Life to see what Trina came up with.

Happy Sewing!

My Embroidery Project

Hello, friends! How are all my fellow northern-hemisphere dwellers settling into fall? Here in the Pacific Northwest, we’ve had some much-needed rain this last week.

Laurel and Pine PNW Ferry

I love where I live!

In my house, we’re coming to terms with the end of summer.  Today my eldest had his first day of high school, which he was excited about. My younger kids start school tomorrow. I think everyone is looking forward to being on a normal schedule, but we will all miss sleeping in!

I’m hoping that them being in school will give me a little more time to devote to the blog and to doing some design work.

Last week, I talked about the foot pedal on my sewing machine going kaput. My new pedal arrived, but there was an issue: the light was going off whenever I put the pedal down. But after a little ‘don’t try this at home’ jury-rigging from my husband, it worked just fine. I’m so glad he’s smart!

In the meantime, I worked more on my embroidery project.

Laurel and Pine Embroidery Progress

I’m always on the go, so I need to have something I can throw in my purse and work on at any time. After completing the hand sewing portion of the Quilt of Champions, I settled on this project.

I improvised the design as I went along, since this project is all about freedom in creativity and the joy of the making process.

Laurel and Pine_ Embroidery from above

I’ll be sharing progress of this project as I go along, but since I don’t want my recipient to know about it quite yet, the over all plan is going to stay secret for now. But I can say that the embroidery you’ll be seeing in the weeks to come are all for the same thing, and it is quilting-related! 🙂
Laurel and Pine_ Embroidery detail

Happy Sewing, ~L

This week, I’m linking up to:

Fabric TuesdaySew-Cute-Tuesday-e1384841858599LinkyBeeswip wednesdayNTT Button 1

What I’m up to This Week

Hello, friends! I’ve had quite an eventful week in my personal life!

On Friday morning, I fulfilled a lifelong dream of riding in a hot air balloon. My sister and I took my mom as a mother’s day gift. It really was spectacular and pretty unbelievable. Here’s a couple of pictures from our ride.

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Friday evening was my sweet daughter’s thirteenth birthday party. Unfortunately, she broke her toe RIGHT before the party when she was running to greet a friend at the door. My friend and I ended up bringing six girls into the Walk-in clinic for x-rays and to reset the bone.

Over the weekend, we had an out-of-town guest, a 40th birthday party to attend, and ridiculously hot weather so not much sewing was happening around here!

But I did manage to get a few things done.

First, I washed the Elephant Baby Quilt that I talked about a couple of weeks ago.

Laurel and Pine Elephant Baby Quilt

The color on one of my fabrics was running terribly, so used three color catchers. And I certainly was surprised when it came out of the wash like this!

  Laurel and Pine Finished Baby Elephant Quilt

Here’s a before and after close-up of the fabric that ran. The pink is almost totally gone. It really did change the look of the entire quilt, but I like it just fine and the white fabric didn’t turn pink, so I consider it a win!

 Laurel and Pine Elephant Close Up      Baby Elephant Quilt close up 2

The second thing I worked on was cutting fabric for my son’s quilt. I will be using the Sparkler Pattern from Freshly Pieced, with a slight adaptation on the color placement. I’ve used the pattern before and really love it. I’m excited to finally get going on something new!

Laurel and Pine Isaacs Quilt Cutting

This week, I’m linking up to:

Fabric TuesdaySew-Cute-Tuesday-e1384841858599LinkyBeeswip wednesdayNTT Button 1

What I’m working on this week

I’ve had a busy week getting this page organized and looking the way I want it to, buying the domain name, and setting up an email address. There’s still lots to be done, but I’m happy with where it’s starting!

I couple of weeks ago, I pulled out all my WIPs to get a really clear picture of what needs done.

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That’s a lot of projects that need finished!

My main priority right now is to get my husband’s quilt finished. Originally, we were planning on it being a queen-sized quilt with 56 compass stars.  Well, one year later, I’m finding out just how very ambitious that was.  My attention span is just too short for that!  After talking it over with him, we came up with a new design idea. A 4X4 square of 16 stars framed out in a simple, modern medallion quilt.  He said he actually likes this design better because there’s a clear focal point.  Whether or not that’s true, I love him for saying so!  Nine stars down, seven to go. And, of course, the whole rest of the thing!

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I found the pattern for this block here.

Last month, I joined my first quilt guild… very exciting!  Our next meeting is tomorrow, so I had to finish my name tag.  Now I need to stitch up a lanyard to coordinate.

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Lastly, this week I’m going to plan and start the quilting on this baby quilt. (After a good starching and pressing! Yikes!)  I love the colors because they’re not overly girly. This one will be donated to the hospital through my guild.

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I’m linking up to:

Freshly Pieced WIP Wednesday

Needle and Thread Thursday