Sew Much Going On

 First of all last weekend was my guild's retreat and it was awesome.

Of course Eugenie came with me and helped me with my projects. She's the best!

It was sew amazing to catch up with my friends. I have not seen most of these folks in person for over two years and I think none of us missed a beat. I love when you haven't seen someone in ages and you catch up like no time has passed. Of course it would be better to just see everyone on the regular but who does that anymore?

Anyway it was great. 

These are the two quilt tops I completed during the weekend; both of them are made with precuts and have been "maybe someday" projects for me for a while. Sometimes the easy projects take the longest to get to because you just think, "oh that will only take a minute, so I'll procrastinate!"

The peachy pink quilt on top was made with a charm pack I got in a subscription box from Fat Quarter Shop and some scrap yardage. The pattern can be found at this link.

The purple and orange quilt was made with a Halloween layer cake called Spooky Hollow and a pattern from Moda, which you can find here. This is my favorite go-to pattern to show off a cute layer cake. I've used it at least twice already.

Both patterns work up fast. I completed the peachy quilt on Friday afternoon into the evening and easily completed the second quilt top by lunchtime on Sunday. The peachy quilt will be donated to a guild charity drive and the Halloween quilt is destined for a friend.

Monday Making

Right now I'm almost done quilting my beachy quilt (no official name yet) and working on piecing my new Christmas quilt which will (finally) use up the last (or most of the last) of the Christmas Figs fabric that came with the Epic Christmas Kit of either 2018 or 2019. This is one of the blocks:

 

The pattern is Scrap Jar Stars and I've made it before, for my friend Michael with vintage 1930s fabric that he gave me. This time the fabric is Christmas Figs by Joanna Figueroa. It's a simple, versatile pattern that works well with scraps or with a theme like this one. I will be able to machine quilt this myself and the finished quilt will likely be a gift.

 

I have 1-2 days worth of hand quilting to finish on the beach quilt and I have binding ready to go so I can just slap it on and be done.

This picture shows the entire length still to be quilted- that's nothing!

This week I have to work on the three string blocks I have to do for the outgoing members of the NYC Metro Mod Quilt Guild's board and get something together for the retreat coming up this weekend. The two projects I have under the machine- the Christmas quilt and the remaining work to be done on the crumb stars- aren't going to be enough for the weekend.

This is my retreat bag more or less ready to go. I have to find a power strip and make sure I have patterns for the projects I'm bringing. I'm bringing one quick project to use up a charm pack and some scraps, and a jelly roll I'm planning to sew into a herringbone throw for a friend.

Today is going to be a busy day between working and my piano lesson later tonight. Better get to it!

A New Finish!

 

I just got this back from the longarmer and could not be more pleased. 

Well, I could be a little more pleased (it does have a toecatcher on the back)- but overall I think it came out great. I took it to Sew Jersey, my local quilt shop in Hanover, about an hour from me, and the owner helped me pick out a nice quilting pattern, appropriate batting and fun backing fabric that also worked well for the binding.

The quilt itself came from a kit and somehow I lost or misplaced the fabric that was intended for the binding, but I'm really happy with what I found at Sew Jersey.

You can see a little of the quilting pattern in this photo of the back. The yellowish green was a great match for the greens on the quilt top.

 If I ever find the original binding fabric I can always use it in another project.

The quilt is a little smaller than queen size but it works! My cats tried it out even before I finished the binding and they seem to have approved.

A New-to-Me Book on Hawaiian Quilting

I was out shopping yesterday and found this cool book at the Princeton, N.J., public library book sale.

It's called The Hawaiian Quilt, and it's a guide to the collection of Hawaiian quilts at the Honolulu Academy of Arts. It features 120-odd pages of photos and history behind 62 or so quilts (there is a two-page spread for every quilt) and history of Hawaiian quilting and some of the various cultural institutions in Hawaii that preserve and display Hawaiian quilts. Curated by Reiko Mochinaga Brandon of the Honolulu Academy of Arts, the text is in both English and Japanese.

It's not a how-to on making Hawaiian quilts but it will teach those interested in the subject a bit about the different styles and trends in traditional Hawaiian quiltmaking. 

I love Hawaii and Hawaiian quilts; I've made a couple of small pillow-sized Hawaiian-style quilts and have a lap-sized traditional-style Hawaiian quilt that I purchased on Maui hanging in my sewing room. This book features primarily the traditional appliqued style of Hawaiian quilting although there is one log-cabin quilt. The subjects of the quilts come from politics and nature and the book offers a brief history lesson of the islands alongside an appreciation for this beautiful and important art form.