First Finish of the New Year: Orange Peel Quilt Top!

Happy Friday Saturday, y'all! I've got my first finish of the New Year to share! The Orange Peels are now a top/flimsy and off the design wall! Yipee! I wanted it to be bigger but I'm happy with the cozy lap size that I've ended up with.

 I've learned a lot after piecing this, but the biggest thing I want to remember is to make my background squares bigger next time and trim them down once the applique is done. You can see on quite a few blocks that points were chopped off (or dangerously close to it!) and as I was piecing, I realized my error. Despite that, I'm still loving it. :)

I still need to iron this one before I do anything else. It was just too late to bother with that by the time I finished! Lol

I'm just proud of myself for hand sewing all those orange peels, I never thought I would hand sew much of anything when I first started sewing! I machine pieced the squares together though because my sanity could not take that much hand sewing. Lol. I have plans to machine quilt it, it's just a matter of getting some backing material, which may take some time. In the mean time, I'm most likely going to be working on City Blocks! I've been mulling over quilting ideas and while I baste,
I'm sure the right one will snuggle with my brain. :)

Low Volume + Scrappy makes my heart smile

Also, I know I link up to her a lot, but the ever-fabulous Jenn @ A Quarter Inch from the Edge has deemed her year, The Year of the Stash. Many have followed up with her (here for example), making their own rules and guidelines for the coming year to keep our fabric stashes from expanding further. Although I feel my stash is pretty small, I'm joining in for the practical aspect that Jenn highlights in her manifesto. New fabric can be purchased, but it needs to be purchased with purpose, not just on a whim. I don't typically buy fabric willy-nilly anymore due to the money aspect, but I want to join along to put it in writing that my fabric purchases this year must have a plan/job in mind before they come into my home.

I hope everybody had a safe New Year! Have a wonderful weekend and thanks for stopping by! :)

Work in Progress Wednesday

HUMP DAAAYYYY! (Yes, I'm one of those people!) Hope your Wednesday finds you well! On my design wall this week is a project you will probably see on more than one WIP Wednesday. After seeing so many beautiful orange peel quilts, with the kicker being the bold colors on low volume version at Crazy Mom Quilts, I decided to give it a whirl. I started this a while back (think January), but it's a nice project to have on hand when I have an appointment to go to or I just want to snuggle into the couch and not venture upstairs into my sewing space.

I'm not much for hand sewing. I just don't have the patience for it, but I love the look of hand sewn orange peels. So I looked up the freezer paper method and pulled different techniques from several sources before embarking on what is sure to be a looooooooong project. As you can see, these peels are far from perfect, but I am proud of the progress I can see as I make more of them. Most of these fabrics are fat quarters I picked up at Jo Ann's (I got into the habit of picking up one or two fat quarters nearly every time I visited, so I accumulated enough to start this project without much fuss.)

I'm not sure how big I will make this. At times, I want it to be enormous! And other times, I'm fed up with it and debate on making it a pillow. Hahaha. We'll just see where the fabric leads me. :)
Linking up with Freshly Pieced!

-Jennifer