Lewis & Irene via SewCanShe

 

 

These are two quilts I finished recently, made with matching one yard cuts of Lewis & Irene fabric I purchased at the Lancaster Quilt Show in 2018 when I was there working as an assistant to quilt artist and teacher RaNae Merrill.  Such a crazy week! But I managed some time on the show floor to shop and ooh-and-ahh at the quilts.

 

The fabric sat in my stash for a long time until I came across SewCanShe's collection of 3-yard patterns and found two that I thought would be great for the yard cuts I bought at the show. Each quilt is throw sized.

Instead of using 1 yard each of the 3 different fabrics (focus, background and coordinate) I used fat quarters for the coordinates. I like how they came out. The quilts have been given away now so I can finally post about them. I almost kept the one on the bottom! 

The fabrics are so pretty and special and Lewis & Irene are a British manufacturer that is hard to find in the U.S. I had never heard of them before the show but I just love the aesthetic, kind of Liberty meets Tilda meets Laura Ashley. I've since seen the brand around now and then and have picked up a few other things for my stash. Maybe next time the quilt I make with Lewis & Irene will be for me!

One Quilt, Three Ways - Christmas Tree Edition

 

made with kit leftovers

I really like this Christmas tree pattern. As you can see. The pattern is called "Christmas Tree" and the pattern maker is Frivolous Necessity. You can buy it here on Etsy.

    made with Tula Pink leftovers

 It finishes to about 30x38 inches, not really throw size but for a baby quilt or a wallhanging it would work. The first two I gave as gifts; the third one hangs in my husband's office near our tree every holiday season.

 

made with kit leftovers plus stash

 

This last one  matches a tree skirt I made about ten years ago, and another, larger scrap Christmas quilt made with the same fabrics. I love how different all three trees look. 

Each quilt has a different star at the top. The bottom tree has the star that actually came with the pattern. This was the first one I made, and I didn't want to do that star again so for the other two I found a star pattern online the same size and did something different. 

All three are quilted with vertical lines. The third in this series (the first one I made) has wavy lines and the other two have straight lines. 

I love them all!

 

Another Modern Christmas Tree

 

This is the third one of these I've made, from the pattern Modern Patchwork Christmas Tree by Frivolous Necessity. The pattern is available on Etsy. I made this one exclusively with scraps from Tula Pink fabrics. It's definitely not a traditional Christmas color scheme but I think it works! I gave it to a relative who lives in Florida and likes bright, tropical things. I used a higher-loft batting than I should have and it came out really wavy!

I think it's fun how every time I make this pattern it looks different. I should do a post comparing all three quilts I've made, two with traditional Christmas palettes and then this one.  We almost kept this!

Christmas Music Quilt for My Piano Teacher

 

Another fat-quarter star quilt done, this one gifted to my piano teacher. It's music notes and Christmas fabric. It's prettier than it looks in the picture. The Christmas fabric was a set I got from the guild's scrap table; actually so was the music fabric! I used up some scrap binding and about a fat quarter of another fabric, plus a yard and some scraps for the backing. And even scrap batting! So it was a scrap victory even though it doesn't look like a scrap quilt.

The quilt finishes to around 40x40 which makes a good lap size for many people. I hope my teacher enjoys it! I've wanted to make him a quilt for a while now.

Little Bag for Baby Yoda

 

I made this little bag, about 8x5 or something, for Eugenie, based on the Tiny Bag Pattern from Sew Can She.  There are two exterior pockets and an easy pocket inside. You could add an interior zip pocket if you wanted and know how to do that. (The pattern doesn't include those directions.)

I have some issues with the pattern; in the official version there is only one outside pocket but I thought that would look dumb so I made two. 

The pattern also calls for fusible fleece interfacing, which for me broke my needle when I tried to box the corners, so in the future when I make this little bag (and I will be making more) I'm going to use Pellon Shapeflex only. And I might use a different method to box the corners than the one given in the pattern.

I might also make the handles a little longer or place them a little differently on the body of the bag. 

But overall this was a fun quick sew that came together nicely. I enjoyed going through my fat quarters for the fabric combo and I'm happy with how it came out. I would use a fat quarter for each element of the bag except the binding and straps just to make sure there is enough.

Retreat Project Quilt Top

 

 

I made this with a Victoria Findlay Wolfe fat quarter pack and the Repair quilt pattern by Eudaimonia Studio.

It was a lot of fun to piece and came together easily in a weekend. I left the retreat once it was done on Sunday morning. 

I'd had the fat quarter pack around for a long time and was excited to find the perfect pattern for it. I didn't need any other fabric and had plenty of scraps left over too!

New Finishes- Two New Quilts!

 

This is my Sea Swept quilt. The pattern came from Better Homes & Gardens American Patchwork and Quilting. It is entirely foundation paper-pieced. I love it! I quilted it with a cotton/poly batting and Aurifil monofilament thread. 

It's definitely better for summer but I love cuddling under it now.

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This is another version of the charm-pack-quilt I've made a few times. This fabric features unicorns and rainbows. I love it but I'm giving it away for charity at my next guild meeting.

I never really finished the Declutter Challenge; I watched Karen Brown's videos and realized that I did not have anything close to enough stuff to really declutter. I just need to clean up and organize a little better, so I've been working on that. I do find things to give away from time to time but not much honestly. My room is looking a lot better though! 

Declutter Challenge Roundup and a New Quilt Top

So the Declutter Challenge didn't do much for me because I have a small space and honestly I don't have excessive amounts of things, or much that I don't use or won't use. So I wasn't successful in tidying up my space. Then came a big project my husband and I did to reorganize our living room that took three weeks. So I'll have to get back to you on cleaning out the sewing room

But I do have a new quilt top to show you, a scrap quilt made with Christmas fabric. I saw something similar on one of my Facebook groups and decided to go for it with my Christmas scrap bag.

The pattern is adaptation of one from Cluck Cluck Sew with pumpkins. You can find it for sale here. I found a free pattern online for a Christmas gift block that was the correct size and inserted that into the pattern instead of pumpkins.

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out and it's next on the block for machine quilting.

Declutter Challenge Days 2-5 Squatters Through Patterns

Day 2- Squatters

Finding things that don't belong in the room a.k.a. Squatters was not a big deal. Most of them went out on Day 1. This is a busy space and it surprised me a little how much stuff actually does belong in here. I did find a couple of things though.

Day 3- Magazines

I don't really hold on to magazines so there wasn't much to do on that front.

Day 4- Books

I'm extremely picky these days about what books I buy and I seldom get rid of any. Almost any time I have, I regret it. Quilt books go out of print, and they don't have massive print runs to begin with, so if you let it go, be prepared to never see it again. You can luck out and find it on eBay or through a used source, or maybe through a friend, but they can be really expensive to buy used and honestly, I just keep them because "maybe someday."

Day 5- Patterns

Okay finally I made some progress. I have one small box where I keep printed patterns now. I try to buy them electronically as much as possible and I have a very complicated filing system on my computer that I maintain diligently. So I did manage to weed out enough of a stack from my box that I was able to put all of my printed patterns in there, even the garment patterns, including my tissue paper templates. So that actually made a huge difference!

I won't be able to work on the Challenge again until Monday so I will see you then.

2024 Declutter Challenge with Just Get It Done Quilts

So my favorite quilting YouTuber is Karen Brown of Just Get It Done Quilts and this month she is hosting a daily declutter challenge, which I'm taking part in.

Today's task was to throw out the trash and remove things that don't belong in your quilt room. I stay pretty on top of both day to day, so there wasn't much for me to do, but I did finally- finally- pull together the box of gift cards from my former employer, which has been sitting in my room since I stopped working for them last summer. Part of my job was issuing gift cards to customers so I had a box of supplies at home. Nobody asked for them back and I forgot about the box, but today I got it ready to go out.

I also went through my quilting bookshelf and found a lot of printouts to discard/recycle and some paper things to put into my three-ring binder. This simple activity opened up a lot of space on the shelf. I found some things to donate to the guild at my upcoming retreat later in the month.

We'll see what tomorrow brings!

I like that the challenges are short and specific. Who has all day for this? But it has to get done.