WIP Wednesday #3

I have a few things going on this week as far as projects.
I got all my fabric cut for the Dead Simple Quilt

My second project in the works is the Picket Fences crib quilt found at Moda Bakeshop by Angela at Cut To Pieces. This is a cute and quick quilt to make. My fabric might have a baby's eyes spinning!

I've also made my first blocks for the Test Your Skills Sampler from Sandi at Piecemeal Quilts. 

Lastly, not a quilt, but necessary for fabric organization! I picked up this case and put it together myself! Thank you very much! Putting on the doors almost killed me... what is it about hinges...yuk!

Now it's time to link up at Freshly Pieced!

"Poor Kitty" goes on an adventure

Hello Goodbye "Poor Kitty".
Passport-check
Luggage- check
Snacks-check & check
Yup! She will be adopted by a friend of Rebecca Lynne. She will be there in time for Halloween. Oh yeah! "Dracula Kitty"

Kissa says good riddance. The green eyes aren't anything like the original!

Poor Kitty!!

Oh dear! I almost didn't post this picture of my first paper piecing project , but it's the process pledge right? So many mistakes were made and all of them were mine! Apparently bias matters- who knew! This poor darling was so twisted and out of shape, I tugged and stretched and starched it to death. I was going to have a glass of wine, but really, who looks like they need it more? Sorry kitty, I'll try better next time. Please note how small the picture is- I didn't want anyone looking too closely!

Whole Lotta Frogging....rip-it, rip-it!

I don't know why I do this to myself! My first paper piecing attempt and I just had to choose one with a gazillion little pieces. But it was just too cute to resist!
I got the pattern from Kirie at Shape Moth.
I also appear to directionally challenged! Every time  I was sure that I cut the fabric large enough, I didn't. Or when I folded it back on the stitch line, there wasn't enough fabric for seam allowance. So darn frustrating! After multiple ripping sessions, I finally cut huge chunks of fabric that could have covered the whole block-well, at least that worked. I had to stop after 4 hours and only a few pieces sewn.The good news is that I haven't sewn the fabric on backwards-yet! Then again, I'm using mostly solids! I will conquer this! I will conquer this! Start again tomorrow with more determination.

More Dumplings!

This little dumpling pouch is just so easy and quick to make, I had to do more! This is the larger size. Now I'm planning to do some of the smaller ones using a 12" zipper. As luck would have it, I purchased a bunch of this size on sale when I got my huge stack of 14" zippers! Always be prepared. The tutorial for this dumpling pouch can be found here from Keyka Lou.Great tutorial!

Very unscientific survey!

Well here is a conundrum! In my earlier post today, I was trying to decide on the orientation of the maple leaves on my Come Fly With Me quilt. Then Cindy (bless your little heart!) asked if leaves fall with stems up or down? Such a good question, so naturally I went outside and shook my ash tree which is already losing it's leaves. I had to know! Unfortunately, the ash has really no stem to speak of, so they just kinda spiraled sideways! Question remains unanswered! So what do you think? Or do you know for sure which way they are supposed to fall. Maybe for clarification, I should add that there is no wind!

WIP Wednesday #2

 Time to link up to WIP Wednesday. How quickly a week goes by! My favourite project this week are these really cute dumpling pouches! So quick and easy to make. Thanks Amy for posting about these. Or should I say, it's all your fault I'm addicted to them now! Also thanks to Michele at Keyka Lou for providing this free tutorial! A local fabric shop had a 50% off sale so a bought....a couple of zippers ;-) How could I resist all these great colours at half price!

The pips pouch is for a friend who is going to Disneyland with her daughter, SIL, and 2 granddaughters. The girls don't know about the trip!! They also won't know their grandma is joining them until she arrives at the airport. Her daughter said "Mom, do you think you could have Mickey Mouse ears on when the girls see you?"  Oh ya, she'll do it. She is a Grandma after all. Back to the pouches, I added small tabs at each end for little fingers to hold while maneuvering the zipper. I still need to make a second one.
My second WIP is Come Fly With Me. I'm having design issues! Initially, I thought I'd have 3 sections, with the geese going in different directions. I changed my mind because its fall, the quilt is certainly fall colours, and if there is anything we know about here it's geese!! They have started their migration south already, and there will be probably thousands of them flying overhead over the next couple months. Honk! Honk!  So, where was I? Oh, right-design issues. Well, it was easy enough to have the geese all going south although the colours maybe don't look as great. But I can live with that. My next change in layout was to add maple leaf blocks. Love them! The only problem was I sewed them on the wrong way! Ugh! I wanted them drifting down instead of up. Maybe a sudden gust of wind is blowing them upward? Maybe draft from the geese? I haven't decided yet what I'll do. I don't actually mind ripping out the seam but I've done this seam once already as I put the geese in the wrong direction. More importantly, I'm using Aurifil!! How can I waste it!! In this picture, the maple leaf blocks on the top right are in the orientation I planned(they aren't attached yet). It's the leaf blocks on the left that I messed up. What would you do? I still have a third section to do and then decide on sashing.

WIP totally abandoned for the time being.
1- Can you See me Now
2- Ocean View From The Prairies

Yup! It's a new day!

After all my angst yesterday about choosing fabric in my palette, I received so many helpful comments. So, thanks to all!! I realized that I needed to have more fun with the process! I have been my own victim of fabric collections and haven't done much in the way of combining fabrics on my own!! This will be the perfect opportunity to correct that . This morning I took a better look at all my fabric choices. Surprisingly, I only made a few changes. Definitely dropped the green/black which made a huge difference right away. I also took away the Kaffe Fassett fabric. I love the fabric but when I opened it right up, it had a lot of blue which seemed to really clash. Then I switched up a couple others and came up with my FINAL group of fabrics. I've put them all away until it's time to start cutting and now I can hardly wait to get started. Maybe now I can look a fabric collections in a whole new light!

What have I done??

I joined Lynne's Dead Simple Quilt -a -long. It's my first ever . I'm not typically a joiner of things. So the concept was simple enough. Pick a colour palette in whatever manner works for you. I went to my favourite site which is Design Seeds and picked a palette. It was all good! BUT...now we have to pick more fabric to co-ordinate with our palette. Yikes! I know absolutely nothing about colour value, warm vs cool, scale, etc. In other words, I have no idea what I'm doing!! I buy a lot of fabric without any project in mind for it. I just buy what I like, or what's on sale :-), or if someone else mentions a great fabric. So I just jumped in and pulled out as many fabrics as I could and tossed them together, just wanting to get this part over with as quickly as possible! Here is my problem....I have no idea if these fabrics will look good together in a quilt or not. Are there too many? too few? too ugly? too busy?wrong scale? wrong value?need more solids? Seriously, HELP! I can take criticism.

WIP Wednesday #1

This is my first link-up to Lee's WIP Wednesday!! I hope it helps me stay on track with my projects. We'll see about that. So, the only finished quilt this week is Bunny Hop - a baby quilt using Lily & Will fabric and backed with brown flannel.

 I'm still slogging along making the hexy blocks using Lee's tutorial. Love this block, even with all that pressing!

I have completely abandoned the backing for this quilt. I took all the pieces down from my so called "design board" to make room for other stuff!
In progress is Come Fly With Me using hst's cut with my Go! baby. Love this cutter. The idea for this was found at Red Pepper Quilts!

Lastly, I picked my fabric for Lynne's Dead Simple Quilt at Lily's Quilts.

Okay, that's it finally.

Bunny Hop

Finally finished this little baby quilt I started a while ago. The colours are such a pretty brown, green and cream. It's Lily & Will by Bunny Hill Designs.

It measures 35"x42" and is backed with a brown flannel. I used a jellyroll  and the design is pretty basic.

For the binding I used a few leftover strips for a scrappy finish. Straight line quilted.

Dead Simple Quilt- I made my choice!

I finally made my final choice of fabric for my Dead Simple Quilt which is being held over at Lily's Quilts. Should be so much fun! I didn't want to have to purchase new fabric, so I picked a palate based on fabric already in my stash. Not perfect matches, but quite close I think. Fabrics are Kona solids and Bella solids- don't have a clue what colours they are!! The top colour is the most off the mark and the third colour is actually closer that the photo shows! Of course, right up until the moment we begin to cut, I just may revisit fabric choices! The palette will stay the same though!