Workshop in Progress - January 19

Last August was my month in one of my online quilting bees (Sew Bee It) and I chose to do Mondrian blocks.  It was fun to create my own block, and I love the blocks I've gotten back from the other members!  When I first had the idea, I thought I knew how I wanted the finished quilt to look.  Now I'm no so sure.  Every week or so I put all the blocks up, arrange them, rearrange them.... and then take them down.  I can't decide!   

My original idea was to just join the blocks with the same 1 inch black sashing.  Now that the blocks are on the design wall I think they might need more breathing space between them.  What do you think?  Or do you have another idea??

Jack’s Blocks

*Edited to add:  Jack's Blocks is now available as a pattern here in my shop!**



My little nephew Jack gets this one.  The top is done, the back will be done tomorrow afternoon.  At first I wasn’t sure how this one was going to turn out, but I love, love, love it.  I might not be able to part with it.



*Edited to add:  Jack's Blocks is now available as a pattern here in my shop!**

I didn’t have a pattern for this quilt – I just played in Illustrator for a bit and came up with a sketch to follow as I pieced.  If you turn the sketch 90 degrees clockwise, you can see how the sketch matches up with the finished top.  I didn’t follow my plan exactly – there were a few adjustments made – but for the most part it’s the same.

Catching Up

Just catching up on my December bee blocks (and one for January!)

[Sew Bee It for December]

[Bee Pieceful for December]

[Bee Pieceful for January]

Christmas Stockings

We've had a sad hodge podge of store-bought stockings for too many years now.  I searched a few stores last year, hoping to find some that met our very few requirements:

• not too fussy

• well made - would hold up for at least 5 years

• matched our existing decor (no magenta and gold please)

Aparently that was too much to ask.  Mostly any stockings I found were lacking in the "well-made" category.  So this year I decided to just make our stockings.  I figured I could just make up my own pattern, but when I sat down to make the stockings (at 11:30 at night) my brain was in no shape to do any thinking.  A quick search online brought me to a great tutorial.  Why re-invent the wheel, right?

I loved that the stockings were lined and had a cuff - exactly what I was imagining our stockings would end up like. 

Thanks, Fabricworm for the well-written tutorial!

Ignoring My To-Do List

Naptime.  There's 4 or 5 other things I really SHOULD be doing.

  But I'm ignoring them all and basting a quilt instead.  Not just any quilt.  This quilt is just for me.

 

And I can't wait to see it finished and upstairs where it belongs.  

Nerdy Inspiration

A few months ago I found this cute dinosaur print and thought that it would make a great set of baby bibs. Once the bibs were made, I paired what was left of the dino fabric with some fabrics from my closet and decided to write a new pattern.

I arranged and rearranged the fabrics, made sketches on some graph paper and never really liked the result. Then one night I was watching an episode of Nova (about fractals) and saw the solution!  It looked something like this:

I loved the look of the larger squares surrounded by the smaller squares.  I quickly grabbed a paper and drew up the idea.  Then I finished watching the show (not sure I understood a whole lot of it).  The next day I worked with the idea a little in illustrator and then started on the actual quilt.

 The finished quilt is a large crib size / lap size:  51" x 51"

I love the large dot fabric I found for the backing.  It's from the All Star 2 line by Riley Blake.  The dinosaur fabric is Dino Dudes from Michael Miller, the cute orange ABC fabric is AlphaBuddies from Andover Fabrics, and the brown dotty binding is Riley Blake (I think from the original All Star line.)

The quilt is for sale in the shop [sold]  
The pattern for this quilt is now available!

I'm linking up: