Friday Finish - Fat Geese in all their glory!

YES! I finally finished binding this quilt and put it through the wash.
I. love. this. quilt.














I remember spending so much time with graph paper and colored pencils agonizing over the design when I started this quilt.. I wanted to use the warm HSTs and the cool ones to create a ziggy sense of movement across the quilt. I was really happy when I finished the top way back when, because I really felt like I'd gotten the effect I was looking for. I didn't come up with the pattern - I took it from a Fat Quarterly Zine - Issue 1 (see original below). It was designed by Katy at I'm a Ginger Monkey.  It's a fun way to arrange HSTs to make these large flying geese - and you can see there are a number of ways to design with different fabric and quilting choices.



I used a zigzag quilting pattern for my version - I'd like this think I decided on this to enhance the ziggy color movement, but I think it just seemed like a fun way to shadow quilt along each side of the HST seam lines.  The back is made simply with two pieces of flannel from the Wee Woodland fabric line - the majority of HSTs also use charms of the same line, but there are quite a large number of other things mixed in there from my stash of scraps and charms.

I think that upside down you get a more zigzag feeling, but maybe I'm just smitten with the quilt from any angle.

Gratuitous close up shots. I like the little bunny. There are lots of little "I spys" in this quilt like that, though I didn't do any real fussy cutting.

Happy Friday to everyone!  I'm linking up with the usual suspects, so visit these parties and check out some more eye candy on the web!

Whoop! Whoop! with Sarah

  TGIFF at Quokka Quilts

  

Sew and Tell with AmyLouWho

Happy Friday Finishes and WIPs

We needed a clock in the basement playroom/craft space, so when the Fat Quarterly Issue 8 came out recently with a paper pieced patchwork clock, I decided I'd try it...

But here's my confession - I had the templates printed out on my cutting table, and all the materials ready to go, but not the actual instructions. I still don't know what happened to them (I did print them out) - maybe they got left or dropped at the craft store.  So I used the template to paper piece an applique of the pattern rather than a true patchwork.  I'm pretty stoked with how it turned out! I used all scraps - even some of the teeny patchwork scraps left over from my "Circular Logic" pillow (also a Fat Quarterly project that I submitted for the reader's competition last year).  So if I remember, I should link up to one of the scrap attack linky's I've spotted too.  But for sure it's a Whoop Whoop!

At the bottom of this last photo you can spot one of my current WIPs - "Dot Couture".

This is a quilt pattern by Julie at Jaybird Quilts.  She sells the pattern called "Dot Party", but the original version came out in Quilts and More Summer of 2010.  Yes, that's how long I've had this project queued up!  I bought an Urban Couture (Basic Grey) Layer Cake for the quilt, and then this plan just hybernated for well over a year.  When I reorganized my crafty zone, this was one of the several planned projects I unearthed. I've been trying so hard not to buy more fabric until I use up some of the stash I have - especially the fabric stash that was meant for a specific project!  All the blocks are stitched for this top, so I need to lay them out and put them together. I don't have any backing or binding fabric picked out - that is one thing I'll need to buy if I don't have anything suitable already around.

The other WIP I have at the moment is a camera bag for my Pentax DSLR that I've had for several months and don't use nearly enough. I'm hoping a cool bag will encourage me to take it with me rather than leave it because I don't have a padded bag to carry it in.  But I'll have to show that project next time!

Link me up!!  Go check out some awesome projects at these linky parties - and Happy Friday!

Whoop Whoop Friday with Sara at Confessions of a Fabric Addict:

Sew and Tell Friday at amylouwho's

TGIFF is at Quilt Matters this week.

Fat Quarterly Issue 6 is here - check out my Churn dash Designer Challenge contribution!

Do you know about Fat Quarterly?  I'm guessing if you are reading this post that there is at least a 50-50 chance you do.  It is a fantastic online quilting magazine that I discovered in the past year here since I've been active in blogland and I bought all the back issues and a subscription.  I've enjoyed every issue and made a few of the projects (and have several more queued up)!

Quite a while back, I submitted a project to the Fat Quarterly Reader Challenge - the Circular Logic Pillow. And I won the small project category (!!) which still blows me away. I do love that pillow.  The pillow was shown in Issue 5 of FQ. I was honored and thrilled to say the least.

Anyway, shortly after that the editors asked if I'd be willing to participate in the Issue 6 Designer Challenge feature - this is a feature where a traditional block or other theme is assigned and then several quilters or sewists put together an interpretation of their own.  My submission was for the "Churndash" quilt block theme...and it's available now!

I know right? "Designer"?  Me? not exactly. But it was really fun and I actually do enjoy sketching out quilt blocks and quilts with my colored pencils (or in ink in the back of my notebooks at work during particularly long drawn out tele-conferences)

Here is a basic churn dash block diagram:

And here is my interpretation:

There is a pretty long explanation in the FQ Issue 6 explaining my thought process, but essentially I wanted to replace the HST corner units with quart circle units. Oriented like this, you can generate circles at the intersections of the blocks.  Below you can see how this looks with just 4 blocks. I haven't had a chance to build a whole quilt top yet, but I think I'll like it.  I already want to make a 2nd variation though that I'll call "Drunkards Churndash" because I think corner blocks that have more of the center portion print would look really interesting - but it would be a pretty different look.  When (if) I do, perhaps I can add a tutorial for the block and even possibly a whole quilt pattern (a first timer's version of one anyway).

The editors at FQ took the basic instructions I sent for these blocks and formatted them to be a pretty intelligible tutorial if you are really keen to see it in the meantime. Please go support Fat Quarterly and buy Issue 6 - there are so many great patterns using different fabrics than only quilting cottons (even a paper quilt that I love).   You can preview the issue first on the website if you aren't convinced.

cool.

Happy Happy - my prize package arrived!

But, I didn't get to taking any actual photos of the box, or the super cheerful yellow polka-dot tissue, or even the books...because it is that kind of week and I am getting ready for one more business trip (until end of June anyway)...and we had this fantastic weekend at our Parish Retreat, but that means no laundry or grocery shopping got done, and I have "can't miss" business meetings this week so I can't just take a day off right now...

(deep breath)

But, you can always link to URL photos, so I am going to do that and share the books that arrived yesterday!

Lark Crafts was one of the sponsors of the Fat Quarterly Reader's Competition or which I recently was honored to have been chosen as one of the winners (not sure about the grammar in that sentence, but see above for my lame excuse).

They sent me four (4!) lovely books:

Hand sewing scares me a little because I am not very good at it, and I have some hand issues...but there are some absolutely wonderful projects in here. I think I can hybrid many of them to machine sew much of it and then embellish or hand sew where machine is not feasible. I love the idea of portable projects (though that may cut into my knitting time!)  And I already had a request for a tote bag that is in this book from Teen Wonder!

Teen Wonder also requested a cactus. She doesn't sew, so the pincushion aspect is not so relevant for her, but nevermind!  I love using my scraps now that I've done enough projects to actually have a reasonable collection. So cool!

So many babies, so little time!  This book is absolutely charming to thumb through and will be living on the coffee table for quite awhile within arms reach!

Since I'm self-taught and still have so much to learn, a book for beginner's is perfect! But the Dresden plate quilt in this book doesn't look so beginner to me (maybe they are easier than they look?! I'm skeptical).

Thanks again to Lark Books and to Fat Quarterly!!

Life...in which you should always expect the totally unexpected

Okay. I've made 2 different posts about the Fat Quarterly Reader Competition and how it inspired me to pick 2 projects from the fantastic issues of FQ that I bought and downloaded sometime toward the end of last year.  If you are a quilter and you don't subscribe to Fat Quarterly, you must go forth and check them out!

Last night I had an email from Fat Quarterly with some utterly unexpected news! (stand by)

First here are some photos of the entry that I didn't finish in time to enter the competition.  This quilt top was done, but I just couldn't get it quilted and bound by March 31st. I finally took the top outside and snapped some photos early this (grey overcast) morning so I could do this quick post during my lunch break today.  This one is based on a Flying Geese pattern - but I don't have the FQ issue in hand right now to tell you which one or the exact name of the pattern.  My interpretation of it was to add the alternating diagonal sections of warm, cool, and dark neutrals across the quilt to add more motion to the quilt.  I like it!  The fabrics are mostly from Moda Wee Woodland by Keiki with some additional prints thrown in to round out my color needs.

Can you feel the movement?  I hope so.

This was my first time with half square triangles (HSTs) - I can see why some quilters get addicted to these. There are so many different ways they can be arranged - I think that doing the flying geese in this non-traditional way gave even more movement to the alternating colorways.  To be honest, when I was working close up I wasn't sure I'd like the combination of fabrics or the colors...and then I couldn't get a sense of whether my concept would work until it was all pieced together.  Now I wish I had more time to quilt it - I'd like to do a zigzag echo type quilting I think.

Piecing triangles like this was a challenge to keep all my points and line them up. Overall, I'd give myself an A- maybe, or maybe a B+. You can see several spots with misalignment, but overall I managed to stay "on point" (hehe)

Okay - now for the unexpected you've all been waiting patiently for. My Circular Logic pillow was the winner of the category 2 entries in the Fat Quarterly Reader Competition!!  Since I got the email last night I kept thinking "no, there's been a mistake...the most I even aspired to in the beginning was MAYBE a runner-up".  But today they posted the results - and there it is!!  I am so honored and flattered - there were 20 fantastic entries and I can't even imagine how the judges were able to pick a top 3.  Please go and take a look!!

Friday edit: go check out Sarah's Whoop Whoop linkys for the week!