Off and running...

Over the weekend I committed to triangles for Fern's baby quilt -- lots and lots of triangles!

I haven't made a triangle quilt since this one, which I absolutely loved. I also pulled several more prints after laying out just solids -- I liked the look, but it wasn't reading "baby" to me. The prints liven things up quite a bit.

These triangles are a tiny bit bigger (4.5" vs. 4" in "Isoceles"), and I haven't decided yet if white is going to play a part. I know it's not practical, but I love Kona Snow in a baby quilt.

A surprise 3-4" of actual (not Kona) snow this morning means it's a good day to play with layouts. And so does the rain they're predicting for tomorrow, which will wash all the snow away and save me the trouble of shoveling today.

Last Monday it was 70 degrees, I was driving around with the sunroof open and my daffodils were starting to peek through the garden mulch. But that's Spring in Chicago -- always an adventure!

The pull so far...

It's been a crazy week for work so I didn't get a chance to go through the stash until late last night, which is when I took this picture. This morning in daylight, things look a little better, those yellows a little less harsh.

It's a very happy, springy palette, matching today's weather, and the daffodils and grape hyacinths in my garden, which I hope to see once all those mounds of snow are gone.

I'll look for some prints this weekend, but I have a feeling solids are where I'm going with this...though that Quilter's Linen on top does play well with the other grays.

So many possibilities are swirling around in my head -- it's going to be a challenge to pick one!

Fern-y goodness...

I've been waiting a while for this package from fabric.com -- the day after I placed my order, a winter storm hit the south and ground everything to a halt, delaying shipping for over a week. But it's finally here, and I'm more excited about this than I am about the 55 degrees and sun outside. I haven't bought fabric in close to a year, and I have plans for these!

I know, I know, the goal for 2015 was to rid my house of fabric, and when my very good friend announced her first grandbaby was on the way I had a great design in mind for a quilt made entirely from my stash, honest -- but when she arrived last month, they named her Fern (after the little girl in Charlotte's Web), and let's face it, a quilt for Baby Fern deserves, well, ferny-fabric. I couldn't NOT look for some.

Kaffe Fassett's "Collective Ferns" (grey) popped up at the top of my search results. Fern's parents' college colors are purple and gold. It was kismet.

I got Kona solids (Coal, Medium Gray, Orchid and Lemon) to coordinate, and they couldn't be more on the money. I'll pull some more purples and yellows from the stash tonight and pile them together so I can look at them (and pet them, and restack them, and add and subtract things) for the next couple days. I had a design in my head, but when I get everything together, the fabric might have other ideas.

Another weekend project...

Seems I've jumped aboard the Gift-Giving Train this spring. Which is fine with me, because it means finishing things, destashing and getting things out of my house.

This weekend's project was brought to you by my friend up the street whose husband retired recently. He emptied his closet of most things work-related, including a great many silk ties he'd been given by clients over the years. She showed up for coffee and cranberry pie one morning last month with a bagful.

People give me textiles. It's really not my fault I'm a fabric magnet.

I didn't have any great plan for them, other than to hope they didn't stay in my house for too long. I decided to make a pillow out of them and give it back.

(Not as good lighting. Color in the first picture is closer to actual.)

The ties are intact -- the layers of fabric, lining and interfacing gave them much-needed stability and a good surface to quilt through. They're Misty-fused to a 17" square piece of cotton and stitched in place. I should have kept the lining with the piping instead of taking that particular tie apart and using a single layer of silk, but it came out OK; I just don't think it's going to take a lot of wear and tear.

The pillow is surprisingly heavy. Some of those ties are mighty unattractive and I can understand why they weren't keepers -- I hope my friends will appreciate the humor with which the ties return to them.

Success!

Thanks for all the input on my matching dilemma. After thinking it through, I came up with an approach that was probably more complicated than it needed to be, but worked beautifully.

First I folded over the selvedge on the left piece and matched it to the repeat on the right, pinning along the entire length. Then I basted it down, stitching as close to the fold as possible, and pressed it to create a crisp crease at the fold.

Then I turned the two pieces to the wrong sides, and pinned in the seam allowance close to the stitching line.

Working in two-foot long sections to avoid shifting the fabrics too much, I went back to the front side and removed the basting. Then back to the wrong side, I sewed a seam just a hair to the right of the crease I made with the iron. It also helped to use the holes left by the basting thread as a guide -- all I had to do was sew right between them.

It's pretty hard to tell in this picture, but the seam is flush with the right-hand side of the piece of paper at the bottom. There are a couple places where I'm a few threads off, but for the most part, the join is imperceptible. Pretty cool!

 

S.O.S.!!!

I am piecing two lengths of the same fabric together for a queen quilt back, and would like the print to match. Not just kinda-sorta, but perfectly. Partly because I'm a little OCD, partly because the person I'm giving it to shares some of my DNA and is just as OCD as I am, and partly because I just think it would be cool to not be able to see it.

Any recommendations on how to match it successfully? All input would be appreciated.

Thanks!

A Sunday afternoon project...

I woke up Friday morning with a stuffy nose that by 10am had evolved into a sore throat, fever, sinus aches, and coughing until my abs couldn't take it any more. Not one to attempt battle with such a monster, I retreated to bed for the next 48 hours with a pile of books, the iPad, Nyquil, a box of Kleenex and the cat.

By Sunday morning I was still fuzzy, but at least the fever was gone. I felt good enough to rid the kitchen table of the scraps from my dad's quilt and start something that could be checked off my to-do list before the next wave of babies strikes. A couple little girls (and little girl quilts) are due in April.

The first thing on the small projects list:  a needle roll for my friend who keeps her knitting supplies in a Rubbermaid bin. Seeing all her needles jumbled together triggered my OCD and I know better than to fight it for very long.

I sandwiched some coordinating linen blends with some Timtex Lite to give it some body.

I used the needle roll I have -- the first present my father gave my mother, two years before they were married -- as a model. This one is slightly taller, and the straps and point pockets are wide enough to accommodate jumbo needles. I learned a few things along the way, which I'm sure I'll forget by the next time I feel like making another one. I should have taken notes, because those cold meds do a number on short-term memory!

When it was all pressed and rolled up, I packed up the remnants, dusted off the kitchen table, grabbed the Nyquil, Kleenex and the cat, and went back to bed.