Postcard From Sweden: A Finish

Hey y'all! This is a finish I have been so excited to share! I have admired the Postcard From Sweden pattern for ages, it is so beautiful and colorful. I bought a kit for this quilt in March or April from Stitch Stash Diva on Etsy (they have changed their name since then to Cali Quilt Co!). The kit made prep so much less stressful because all the Kona solids were labeled and the cuts were generous - I'll definitely hit up this seller again! :)

HST's were the name of the game with this quilt and it felt like they would never end at times. Printing off the layout chart and marking off the rows as I went kept me organized but also helped keep me motivated when things felt like they were dragging on!

Though my points aren't perfectly lined up all throughout, it was amazing to compare this quilt to the first quilt I ever made and kept for myself! Practice makes improvement, that's for sure! :) I quilted some orange peel-ish shapes in the square units. They ended up sort of looking like flowers, don't you think?

The backing is a watercolor looking blue solid with the words 'Not all those who wander are lost' printed on it. Something about it pulled me in and I couldn't leave the store without it. The binding is scraps of Kona solids from the front and after looking at the pictures, the happy accident happened of the binding following the colorway of the quilt. I couldn't have pulled that off if I had tried! Lol.

I had planned to keep this quilt, but if you follow me on Instagram, you know that wasn't the case. As soon as the binding was on and my back was turned, my Dad claimed it and burrowed into the couch with it! This is the first quilt I made to keep that was long enough to cover him completely, so he said he couldn't help it! :) Looks like if I want my own Postcard From Sweden, I'll have to make another one. I don't normally make multiples of quilts (unless it's commissioned), but I may break that because I love this one so much!

I Have Something to Say: An Ongoing Project

Hey y'all! It seems I blinked and nearly 2 months flew by. I've been busy sewing, but I can't share anything quite yet. Today though, I'm sharing a really personal project. To explain it, however, I feel like I need to go back a bit.

The past 8 months have been...surreal. There's been so much growth and learning and faith and all-around living. I left an unhealthy marriage and essentially started back at square one. I sorted through a lot of guilt and confusion. I struggled through loneliness and disappointment. I've learned to smile and laugh for real again. And I'm learning to speak. Really speak.


I know I can't be alone when I often put my thoughts under wraps. True to Southern hospitality, I'm asked, "How are you?" a lot. And for years and years, I've simply replied, "I'm fine." Even when my world was in shambles and the strongest thing on me was my shoelaces, I bit the inside of my cheek and managed the lie. Because who would want my burdens?

I learned though, when I was put to the fire, I would speak. During the hardest time of my life, the first thing I did was call my mother. I had something to say and dang it, I was going to finally say it. And months later, that idea stuck with me and inspired me. I've finally decided that I have something to say. What better way to say it than with quilts?


If you follow Jess @ Quilty Habit, you know she is really passionate about words on quilts and saying things that matter to you. Though my quilt is far less political, it was her that got the idea rolling that I could say what I wanted in the way I was most comfortable speaking.

I'm (Not) Fine is a piece inspired by my valley, my dark patch, my low point. Though it is in my rearview mirror, I was still coping when I planned this quilt. The entire process has taken nearly 6 months. I often worked on this when the house was empty because, frankly, it was heavy. Heavy on my heart, heavy on my mind. And working with that heaviness has lifted a weight off my shoulders.


The words are paper pieced, using patterns from a book called Quilt Talk. I can't remember the Kona colors except the pale blue/green, which is Ice Frappe I believe.
I listed many of the things I should have said rather than 'I'm fine' and free motion quilted them in the background with matching thread, causing them to nearly disappear. Only when you look, really look, can you read what's written.

This mini quilt is the most intentionally designed piece I've ever made. Never once did I leave anything to chance or just wing it --- I had every detail picked out from the beginning. Though that normally isn't my style, I couldn't imagine approaching this quilt any other way. I plan to make more quilts following the theme ' I Have Something to Say' and I encourage y'all to join me! It's both terrifying and liberating to bare yourself in fabric and thread and, I'm sure, you have something to say just as much as I do.

Kite Flight: A Finished Quilt

Howdy y'all! I had hoped to have this one finished before the weekend, but basting with 3 crazy dogs in the house made for a difficult job. I eventually barricaded myself in my parents' bedroom and got it done in record time! Lol.

I did some simple straight line quilting and it was an absolute breeze on my new machine. There was plenty of space so things never got cramped and she stitched like a dream. I just need to get some FMQ under our belts and we'll feel like family, I'm sure of it. :)

I was going to take this one outside for a photoshoot, but it is a soggy, muddy mess outside in my neck of the woods. I just envisioned all that white being ruined and I couldn't muster the guts to take it outside. Lol. So of course, that meant no full length pictures (the closest I have are these from my last post) and not much natural light despite my best efforts. I can't wait for the longer, dryer days of summer!

I tossed this quilt in the washer shortly after pictures and did a gentle tumble dry and, guys, the texture is so soft and cuddly. It crinkled just right and I wanted to snuggle in it, it was so inviting! I'm sewing on the label tonight and hope to get it in the mail within the next couple of days.


Next up is wrapping up the quilting on my Alison Glass quilt! Yvonne over at Quilting Jetgirl is hosting a linky party for Alison Glass projects until the end of January, you should check it out!

Kite Flight: A Finished Quilt Top

Howdy y'all! I have excitement to share! I have my first finished quilt top of the new year! I wasn't able to get a picture of the entire thing since my camera wasn't agreeing with the lower light of the kitchen, but at least you get a sneak peek before it gets basted. :)

If you peruse Craftsy's sale section, you may recognize this quilt. A little after Thanksgiving, I was scrolling through admiring all the kits and fabric. I kept coming back to this one though! I'm not normally an all-solids kind of person, but this Kite Flight kit was calling my name! A stunning quilt and a killer price, a win-win in my book. And you know what? I bought it. With barely a second of hesitation even! :)

My very first jelly roll! Such scrumptious bits of Kona! :)

One of my New Year's goals was to treat myself and that's exactly what this was. I've worked on it for the sheer joy of working on it. No deadlines, no pressure. Just getting to play with Kona solids at my leisure. And I'll tell y'all, it has been...absolutely wonderful.

There were triangles everywhere! My Dad was quite amused that I was sewing fabric together, cutting it apart, then resewing it back together. :)

Despite this being a 'treat yo'self' purchase, I won't be keeping this quilt. You ever have those times when a quilt just whispers in your ear where it needs to go? This one did about halfway through piecing the top and, honestly, it really surprised me. It's going to go to somebody I hadn't talked to in a while - she was an RA for a summer nerd camp I went to during high school. I bumped into her at college on occasion and she was always a lovely, nice person. She's going through a tough time right now and I wanted to let her know, even though we aren't that close, I care and wish the best for her. I'm not very good with words, especially during times of distress, but I'm hoping this quilt will convey that sentiment to her. So after this one is finished up, it will be jetting across the country to Colorado! How exciting!

With 3 dogs in the house, this was what most of my outtakes looked like. I can't complain when they're just so darn cute! :)

In other news, I caved and joined Instagram! You can find me here or look up littleblackcatquilting!

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! :)

Learning Something New!

Howdy y'all! I'm so excited to share what I've learned this past week!

You guessed it!

PAPER PIECING!!

That's right, I learned paper piecing and, even more shocking, I didn't hate it! I was actually a bit scared to try it out. I've read so many horror stories of how confusing and stressful it is and how people spend more time with their seam ripper than anything else. The funny thing is, none of those things happened. I barely had to use my seam ripper! I thought ahead and used solids so there wasn't a 'wrong side' of the fabric to fool with as I learned my basics.

Such pretty little points, makes my heart sing...

I used a free pattern from a blogger I follow, SLOstudio. She has some paper piecing patterns for free on her Craftsy page, you should check them out! I chose this one because it didn't seem too scary but was still interesting. I looked up a couple of videos on Youtube and decided to just dig in and give it a whirl.

Hello world!

And before I knew it, I had a finished block! I celebrated and continued on each evening until I had 4 blocks ready to be sewn together. They aren't perfect by any means, but I couldn't be happier with my first attempt at paper piecing.

I plan to get this one quilted soon, but I have no idea what to do with the quilting. Any suggestions?

I told LBC he needed a picture for the blog so he showed me his good side! :)

Thanks for reading, Happy Hump Day, y'all!

Finish It Up Friday: Embroidery Success!

Howdy y'all, it's Friday once again and this time, I've got a finish to share! You may recall that my goal for the OMG March party was to learn some embroidery. I rented a book from the library with a lovely little kitty cat in it that was perfect for a starter project! I found an old embroidery hoop and embroidery floss in my craft supplies and snagged some Kona from my stash and got to work.

I absolutely loved doing this! I actually finished the cat on the chair in one sitting one afternoon. Then, a couple nights ago, I decided to add some lettering to it. I looked up fonts for ideas, but ended up winging it in the end. I love the rainbow words, it makes me smile every time I see it! :)

RAINBOW LOVE!

I'm linking up with Finish It Up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts, TGIFF at A Quarter Inch From the Edge, and (when the linky is available) OMG March Linkup!

4x7 Challenge Complete!

Can y'all believe that February has come and gone?! What a blur! I started out strong with the 4x7 Challenge hosted by Berry Barn Designs, but I'll admit I fizzled out towards the end. I was still getting some sewing done, but none of it was selfish sewing. I got work on those baby quilt commissions I mentioned last week. I'm having fun getting back to FMQ loop-dee-doo's!

A few hearts thrown in for fun too! 

I did make some selfish sewing purchases lately though! Some lovely Kona Coal and this interesting white on white text print are hopefully going to help me finish two different projects. I can't wait to get started on them!

Remember those scrap vortex blocks?!

That white is going to be a great background for those hexies!

I'm sad to see the end of the 4x7 Challenge, but it was so fun to have some motivation to sew for myself this month!

Snow Covered City Blocks: A Finish

Happy Friday, y'all! It's been a while, but I actually have a finish to share on a Friday! Like most of the east coast, I've been getting pulverized with snow today.

The view from my living room window earlier in the day. I wish I had stuck a ruler in the snow!

I've shoveled the patio and walk 3 or 4 times already today and it's still coming down out there. Thankfully, I didn't have to go into work today so I had time to put the finishing touches on City Blocks!

I even managed to hop outside and get a few pictures outside before it got dark! I didn't have much room to work (I shoveled and got the quilt outside, only to find that it was nearly covered again!) I tried to hang City Blocks on the fence, but ended up just putting it on the massive pile of snow I made. Elvis enjoyed running through it a little before I took these pictures. :)

 Dat quilting though! I wish I had a way to photograph it better, but this is as good as I could do!

And of course, I had to add a label! I thought about making something special, but in the end, I decided to just go simple.

So glad to have this one finished! This one is surprisingly liked around the house; it's already been cuddled with! Linking up with Finish It Up Friday over at Crazy Mom Quilts!

This is one of my goals for the 2016 Finish Along - First Quarter!

WIP Wednesday: It's The Quilting That Never Ends

Howdy y'all, happy Wednesday! I hope everybody is staying warm; if it's anything like my town, it has been absolutely freezing lately. We finally got our first 'real' snow of the season that stuck, with a crazy forecast for the weekend (18 inches of snow in KY? What is that madness?!). I've been splitting my evenings between huddling on the couch for warmth, mature adult leisure activities playing Lego Marvel Heroes with Mr. LBC, and quilting City Blocks. I have quilted. And quilted. And quilted. Oh, and quilted some more.

NEVER AGAIN.

If I ever start talking about pebbling large scale again, virtually smack the fire out of me and remind me of this. Remind me of how I've quilted for nearly a month and this SOB still isn't done. (If you haven't noticed, I might have been muttering bad words at this quilt for a while. Lol). And with such dense quilting, this most likely won't be a cuddler, but a hanger. So in that future sewing room that doesn't exist yet, I'll have to reserve some wall space for this because with all the time I've put in, it's going to be appreciated, dangit! :)

LBC just couldn't resist. :)

I've nearly finished quilting though! I've got one more teal section left to go, which is a walk in the park compared to the pebble sections. I wanted to finish it tonight, but I tweaked my back at work yesterday and it's been giving me fits. So it will have to sit for another night before the quilting is finally done!

Linking up with WIP Wednesday and NTT!

WIP Wednesday: If All Else Fails, Quilt the Crap Out of It

Happy Hump Day, y'all! Wednesday is upon us and I have a sneak peek at my current work in progress. If you have been around here much, you know that City Blocks has been nagging at my mind for a while. I had been throwing around quilting ideas for months with no success. Nothing seemed right. Then I ran across a pattern that has several names, though the two I like are 'boxy stipple' and (my personal favorite) 'the robot'. It works so well in those big sections of solid teal!

But how to quilt those improv areas? I sat at my machine for quite a while, swapping out thread colors repeatedly, lining things up, then balking because it just didn't feel right. I was so afraid of messing things up! Finally, I just had to give up the notion that I would find a perfect quilting pattern. Instead, I went on the flip side and decided to quilt the crap out of this thing. The only areas that won't be quilted are those little sections of color in the improv areas! I've been learning pebbles as I fill in the white areas with loooooooottttssssss of pebbles! It's fun and the texture is out of this world so far!

It's taking a while to get such dense quilting done, but I'm enjoying it. :) Hope y'all have an awesome day!

Linking up with WIP Wednesday!

Finish it Up...Sunday? - Link Pixel Quilt

You read that right, y'all! I have a finish to share! I bought supplies one week ago and I managed to cut, piece, baste, quilt, bind, and label within that week, combined with a 41.5 hour work week, an evening of Christmas candy making, and a half day of Christmas shopping. I feel like Super Woman...kidding, I'm exhausted. Lol.

If you missed out on my first post, this baby quilt was a commission for my boss who wanted it before Christmas. This wouldn't have been difficult except she ordered it after the beginning of December. But no matter, a pixelated Link character was decided on and off I went! My boss also wanted the triforce (the 3 triangle symbol) in the quilt somehow, but I couldn't find room on the top for it. A little brainstorming led to the triforce taking over the back instead thanks to Heat N' Bond!

My Heat N' Bond gave me fits for this quilt, I'm not sure what was up with it. :P

I actually really liked getting to do a pixel quilt. I have big plans for a pixel quilt in the future and this was a great way to practice. I'm happy with my improvement in matching seams; I used to be terrible at it and I'm beginning to match more often than not now! Besides matching seams, the biggest challenge was how to quilt it. I feel like pixel quilts are all about the piecing and the picture it makes, so I didn't want the quilting to distract from that. I ended up opting for straight line quilting on the diagonal and I'm pleased with it.

I would have preferred a light gray thread, but beggars can't be choosers (especially on a deadline!)

I also added a label, which is a habit I'm glad I'm picking up. My boss only requested the baby's name and birthdate, opting out of a special message. I also included my blog name. I almost put my actual name, but I figured if the quilt isn't for family, it's made by LBCQ. What about you? Do you label quilts? And if so, do you use your real name or a brand/blog name?

As I said in the beginning, I'm wiped after making this quilt. I was up late more than one night (my latest was 1:30 am!) but I'm proud of what I've created. This is getting taken to work with me tomorrow for delivery! You'd think I'd be ready for a break now, but the sewing chaos has just begun! Be expecting more updates this week!

Thanks for stopping by y'all!