Tuscan Rose

pink and orange improv

and it's ready to quilt

improv

Work in Progress -
an improvisational quilt with vintage orphan blocks and new and repurposed fabrics

I am liking my small but useful design wall.

pops of color

scrappy quilted pillow cover

quilted back
zipper enclosed in the bottom seam

vintage modern quilt

This quilt started with four vintage quilt blocks.
They were wonky and uneven, so instead of trying to square them up, I just went with the uneven-ness and made wonky log cabin style blocks with them.

One block has a tiny bit of pale blue, so I added some blue in the border and just a bit in the binding.

Love the texture the quilting adds.
 

The back.
I am a bright bold color kind of person, so the browns were a challenge for me.
 

Jacquie Gering has a great Craftsy class on Creative Quilting with your Walking Foot.

polka dots

Another vintage quilt block used to practice machine quilting and then turned into a pillow.

I like the random odd flower print on the lower left corner. If you look at the blue polka dot fabric, you can see where the fabric was pieced together. This was most certainly a scrap block.

A free motion feather wreath on the back. The vintage quilt block was a big one and this pillow finished out to 12" square.

vintage shirtings quilt block

Sometimes, it can take decades to finish a project.
The quilt block was made by someone a long time ago, never finished and I picked it up somewhere back in the 80's

I added reproduction fabric to the edges of the block and started hand quilting it back in the 90's but never finished it when I realized the stains on the quilt block would probably not come out. The pillow top was tossed aside since I didn't want to waste the hand quilting time on something that wouldn't turn out so great.


The other night, I was looking for some quick projects to practice free motion machine quilting and thought I would try again to finish this pillow cover.
I removed what little hand quilting I had stitched and used this project to practice pebble quilting and some feathers.

Not all the stains came out when I washed it and I will probably try a more aggressive stain removing attempt but for now I like it.

The back.

Next up repairing the every day quilts before I put them away for the season.

New York Beauty Pillow

Quilted pillow cover - my first attempt at free motion quilting on a domestic machine.

Not great but not bad either, I learned a lot about thread, tension and movement. But most of all, it was a fun project.

The back

A pop of color for a brown sofa.

over abundance of inspiration

trying to decide if I want to make my next quilt in brights or muted. 
I am a bright and lots of color person but I have enjoyed the muted, darks and neutrals in my last few projects.

I bought this program the other day. It is mind numbing for me to make the same quilt block over and over, so I thought I might enjoy a Dear Jane project.
This is not an easy or intuitive (dated 2003) software but it is affordable and there are 200 plus designs and many of the designs can be printed for foundation piecing. It is based on the Electric Quilt program which has a long learning curve but the Dear Jane is a stand alone format and you do not need EQ.

While cleaning out my sewing room, I looked through some clip art books and had one of those "moments". 

How had I never noticed the common bond that tile designs, mosaics and quilts have.

Just imagine how incredible this tile pattern would look when translated into a quilt.

 
Even more inspiration when I look at the one above and think about the possibilites for quilting in addition to quilt block layouts.

There is just an over abundance of inspiration.

and now the fun begins

The pieced New York Beauty Pillow top is now ready for my favorite part - the machine quilting.

(the stripe border is a couple inches larger on all side and will be trimmed after quilting.  Adding a couple of inches allows for shrinkage of the top with quilting and the extra fabric gives something to hold on to when quilting the border)

unintentionally coordinated

The tiny hexi bag is finished. 
The hexagons are all irregular shaped and paper pieced - front and back.

Hand pieced and machine quilted, the bag has nice texture.
It was a lot of hexing, vexing but quite enjoyable in a tedious kind of way.

Unintentionally coordinates with the boro inspired jacket

Playing with the stripes for the zipper application.
The black stripe is an Italian cotton shirting fabric and the hexagon fabric is Moda Civil War Jubilee jelly roll.