The Quilt With No Name - A Finished Quilt

<3 I can't even make words to describe how much I love this. :)

Hey y'all! I have a special finish to share today. Do you ever have one of those quilts that you are almost afraid to finish? You want to, but it is sort of bittersweet as you near the finish. I was so excited to wrap things up with this quilt, but as I sewed the binding on, it literally took me hours because I kept dawdling, not sure I was ready to be done with such a long running project.

Simple rainbow piecing and quilting. Makes my heart sing. :)

This quilt was all kinds of new for me. In previous posts, I mentioned that this was the first pattern I 'designed', drawing it on paper and doing quilty math after being inspired by the loading screen of a video game! I used my precious Alison Glass fabric from Christmas 2015 and metallic Essex Linen from my birthday last year. I even went crazy and hand quilted this one! Even crazier, it was rainbow hand quilting! I don't foresee myself doing such large scale hand quilting again anytime soon, but I know I'm not finished with it. :)

I couldn't resist adding a few little pops of color on the binding!

I layered up and ventured out into the cold, knowing this quilt needed natural light to really shine! Depending on the angle, this quilt can look soft or it can be bold and shiny. You can see how the colorful strips are a bit puffy, courtesy of me learning how to keep things straight while hand quilting. Lol. I like it, so I'm not too worried about it!

No snow stuck in the last flurry, so this quilt gets a green backdrop.

Part of the driving force behind me pushing through and finishing this quilt is the Alison Glass linky party over at Quilting Jetgirl! I'm cutting it close, but I couldn't miss putting my quilt in with all the other lovely finishes. Head over and check out the scrumptious Alison Glass creations! :) Also linking up with Finish it Up Friday with Crazy Mom Quilts!


A slip of the camera and the finger resulted in a lovely little shot of the backing. I couldn't help but share. :)

The Quilt With No Name: A Finished Quilt Top

Howdy y'all, and happy Friday! I'm excited to unveil my latest finished quilt top! You saw a sneak peek of it on Wednesday, but here it is in all its glory! :)

The lovely Belle, back and ready to continue her quilt modeling. :)

As I said on Wednesday, this is a pattern of my own design, though only because I couldn't find one that suited my idea. I couldn't find an on-point square that fit the image in my head, so to the drawing board I went! It was easy enough and I'm thrilled with the result. Funnily enough, the design idea came to me back in the winter while playing video games with my husband. We were waiting for a game to load and the loading screen really struck me. I doodled the basic image in my notebook and hung onto it for inspiration to strike.

Those little intersection squares finish at 1 inch square! :)

That inspiration struck with my Alison Glass fabric! But what to pair it with? If you've followed for a while, you know I admire Kitty Wilkin over at Night Quilter. She really has a way with color, especially rainbows! And she really made me want to use Essex Linen in a quilt. For my birthday, I splurged and got, not regular Essex Linen, but a METALLIC Essex Linen. Oh. My. Goodness. I was giddy when I opened it and saw the shiny!

Depending on how the light hits the linen, it can appear metallic or flat. Makes for interesting pictures! Lol.

To my surprise, I plan on hand quilting this one. I know, weird for me, right?! But the buzz from hand quilting Technicolor Galaxy: Pocket Edition seems to have hung around because all I can see is rainbow hand quilting when I look at this quilt top. I figure I'll wait until the quilting is done to trim off the excess fabric around the edges, even if it looks funny right now! Lol.

This one really shows off the shimmer!

I had hoped for a better photoshoot for this top, but alas, not all wishes come true! So I took it with me when I went to my parents' house to do some work. I tried hanging it on the clothes line, but eventually just spread it out in the yard. The girls, Belle and Jasmine, couldn't help but get involved! Belle, of course, thinks she's a quilt model after I told her how much everybody liked her last time! ;) Now it's just time to dig through my batting pieces and hope I find one big enough for this!

Linking up with Finish It Up Friday, TGIFF, and Finish or Not Friday!

WIP Wednesday: Be Still, My Heart

Y'all, y'all, Y'ALL! I'm so beyond excited to show you what I've been working on! The thing is, I'm so close to finishing the top, I'm just showing a sneak peek today and saving the full reveal for Friday. You may remember that I got a bundle of Alison Glass for Christmas and I was beyond excited about it. I've been slowly but surely getting a quilt top together, savoring each stitch like a fine wine. But I'm so close to getting the top together, I might be speeding up a little out of excitement! This is a pattern of my own design, but it's so simple that I'm sure quite a few people have already written it up, I just couldn't find one when I looked. More details on Friday when I unveil the finished quilt top!

Technicolor Galaxy: Pocket Edition

Howdy y'all!  When quilty friend Jenn @ A Quarter Inch From the Edge asked if I wanted to swap a mini mini, I jumped at the chance! Of course I do! Swaps always make me nervous but excited - a great combination for fun ideas!

Technicolor Galaxy: Pocket Edition!

So I contemplated ideas for a while, but I kept coming back to Jenn's WIP, Technicolor Galaxy (that's her latest update, it is coming together so well!). It's a phenomenal skill builder, go ahead and check it out, I'll wait. :) I kept wondering how to make such a big, complicated looking quilt into a mini mini. My answer, of course, was "Eh, I'll wing it and figure it out!" Some things just don't change, do they? LOL

Precious bits of Alison Glass found its way into this, as well as some Kona and other random bits!

I wish I had taken progress pictures of this little bit of sweetness, but it was actually pretty simple! I improv pieced the low volume background and starched it for good measure, something I had never done before. I appreciated the stiffness while working though!  Each colored pieced was placed onto the background individually with Heat n' Bond, then stitched on with a tiny zigzag stitch! That was the hardest part of the whole bit, especially with the tiniest pieces! I pondered over quilting for a while before settling on simple hand quilting. I kept with the rainbow theme and switched thread colors with each little quadrant. And because it looked unfinished, I added the same treatment to the binding. :)

Teeny weeny zigzags!

I had to head out to my parents the day I had planned to mail this out, so I snapped some pics on their porch and with my ol' girl, Belle. She's blind now, so she doesn't mind sitting in the grass to model a mini mini. Back in her prime, she would have grabbed it and ran off! :)

Belle is practically Vanna White. ;)

And just for fun, I snapped a pic of a momma and baby deer wandering by behind my parents' garden. Little baby still has some spots even! And of course, my parents' puppy wanted to be in the spotlight too, so a quick picture of Jasmine to tide her over. ;)

Pretty momma deer and her baby

This is as still as I could get Jasmine. Her tail was, of course, a blur! LOL

I had so much fun with this swap and I'm really proud of what I made! Jenn made me a lovely kitty cat mini to look just like LBC, which you can see here! I love it to pieces and have it hanging on my mini wall front and center. LBC has even been snoozing underneath it, so he must love it as much as I do! :)

Finish-A-Long: Quarter 2 Goals!

Shew, the second quarter of the year has begun! Which means it is time to start brainstorming and goal setting for the next 3 months! My fabric buying skidded to an impromptu stop earlier last quarter, but I still have fabric from my stash to work with so I'm going to keep sewing as much as the stash will let me! :) So here's my list, y'all. I'm placing my 'have to finish this quarter' goals first and the further down the list a goal is, the less pressing it is for it to be completed.

1.) Commission Baby Quilt

(Sorry, no picture yet!)

After finishing the Isabella Quilt, my Mom either took a picture or took the actual quilt to work and showed it off to her friends before popping it in the mail. Suddenly, everybody wants LBCQ to make them something! This order is for a quilt like the Isabella quilt with a different color palette. My client picked out the fabrics and after cutting them and laying them out, I didn't have a good feeling about it. My Mom came over and looked and agreed: it just wasn't working. So the fabric was sent back to my client to let her see and have the final say. If she likes it, I'll press forward. If not, some things will be swapped out before progress is made.

2.) Baby Tag Toy

So soft and fuzzy!

This is actually for the same person that wants the quilt I believe. They saw a cute little tag toy on Etsy and asked if I could make something similar. "Sure" was barely out of my mouth before most of the supplies showed up at my doorstep. I'm actually really looking forward to making this one, I think drafting a little pattern and trying something new will be fun!

3.) Charity Baby Quilt

You've seen a few peeks of this one lately. The top is all done and I'm hoping to possibly get started on piecing the backing today!

4.) Scrap Vortex Quilt

These blocks just keep coming back all the time, time to get them finished up!

I started these scrap vortex blocks a while back, back when Crazy Mom Quilts did a Quilt Along last year! I knew I wasn't going to make a whole quilt of these blocks, but I have a plan for how I want to do these. I think the Kona Coal is really going to make those scrappy blocks pop!

5.) Hexie Quilt

It's hard to tell that this fabric is white on white, but I think those hexies will look great against it. :)

These hexies are the product of a hurt back in February. I may have to make quite a few more before I can fiddle with the design in my head, but I have all the supplies (background and plenty of scraps for hexies!) to make this top come into existence. :)


6.) Alison Glass

I just want to hug this fabric all the time. The rainbow goodness is just fantastic!

You may remember that I got a fat quarter bundle of Alison Glass fabric for Christmas from my parents and I was absolutely over the moon about it! It sits proudly on my fabric shelf just waiting to be turned into a beauty. I actually have two pattern ideas in mind (and may be able to squeeze both of them out of this bundle!) but I haven't been able to get the Essex Linen I want for the first pattern. I'm still deciding on a background fabric for the second pattern, but until those fabrics magically find their way to my sewing room, this goal is a long loooooong shot. 

7.) Notched Baby Quilt

Seriously, check out that Notched tutoiral, the block is awesome!

I was a lucky blogger last year. I think I won 3 or 4 giveaways in all! One win was this bundle of solids that you may remember from a huge free block blog hop last summer. I have planned to make Yvonne of Quilting Jetgirl's Notched Block using her free tutorial. I'm thinking I'll need more white fabric, but again, unless the fabric fairy pays me a visit, I may just get this one partially started.

Man, that seems like an overwhelming amount of goals, but I love having a game plan in place. And since there's no penalty for not meeting all the goals I set by the end of the quarter, there's no reason I can't shoot for the stars! :) I'm linking up with SloStudio for this quarter. Head on over and join the goal setting fun, there's plenty of chances to win some cool prizes and see some awesome projects! 

Sunday Stash: HOLY MOLEY!

Howdy y'all! I hope you guys had a fabulous Christmas, I know I did. :) Fate smiled upon me and let my patients be healthy enough to not need me over the holiday, so I had Christmas Eve evening and all of Christmas Day off to spend with family. I was extra blessed this year, thanks to my parents and in-laws. One particular present had me squealing and dancing when I opened it, much to the confusion of just about everybody in the room. My parents got me a fat quarter bundle of Alison Glass fabric!! :D

Rainbow yumminess

When they asked me what I wanted for Christmas this year, I sent them a few links to some fabric I had been drooling over, one of them being this bundle of Alison Glass. I figured it would get passed over due to the price, but I put it in the list anyway with a note that fat quarters would be awesome, but fat eighths would be more practical due to price. My parents weren't feeling too practical it seems. LOL

I love the cool colors in this print.

I feel like I took this picture 10 different ways and all of them sucked. Apologies for the continued troubles with camera/pictures. :P

I see so many pretty projects in this fabric. I plan to use every last scrap! :) Thanks for stopping by y'all!