Peels of Patience: A Finish!

That's right folks, I finished my Orange Peels! Y'all have been seeing these blocks since I started blogging and they are finally completed! :) All the orange peels are appliqued onto the background squares by hand using the freezer paper method. I used this tutorial that Amanda Jean shared over on Crazy Mom Quilts when she made her orange peel quilt. After that, I machine pieced the blocks together into a top.

THE TEXTURE!

I almost did the quilting with with my free motion foot, but decided at the last minute to use my walking foot/zigzag foot. I figured I could get straighter lines and be more consistent, but would have to pivot that quilt at every single corner. It was a pain in the booty, but I'm glad I stuck with my decision! The light gray thread I used just blends into those low volume squares, you almost can't see the quilting unless the light catches it! For the binding, I decided to take a note out of Scrapmaster and The Running Thimble's book and go low volume. I'm loving those little dots! :)

This isn't a very big quilt, but it's the perfect size for a car ride or to cover my lap while blogging or sewing on the couch.

And of course, a simple label. I decided to call it 'Peels of Patience' because the majority of the time I was sewing orange peels was in waiting rooms or waiting on other people. These peels saw many doctor offices, at least one emergency room, and several other places.

The backing really shows off the quilting, I love it!

I'm so glad to get this one finished and ready for some cuddles, though it will be weird to not have it to work on anymore. I'll just have to find another project for waiting rooms I guess!
Linking up with Finish It Up Friday and TGIFF! Also, this was my goal for OMG February! :) Also also, this was one of my goals for the 2016 Finish Along - First Quarter!

This quilt makes me so happy! :)

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! :)

Finish It Up Friday: Getting on the Ball

Hey y'all, hope your Friday is going well! As you probably guessed from my absence, things have been pretty busy on my end. I've piddled around with some little things, but no huge amount of progress to share sadly. I do that this little ditty to share though!

Though I've been playing with hexies, I saw a little pentagon ball in All Points Patchwork and I immediately wanted one of my own! I figured I could use it as a pin cushion...or a ball to pelt my husband with if he misbehaved! Lol. I love the scrappiness of it, it makes me smile whenever I look at it. :)

What am I going to do when I run out of these adorable foxes in my scrap bin?!

I also finished this little cross stitch logo for Mr. LBC for our anniversary. He asked if I could make a case for his newest toy, so it will probably get worked into it somehow. Just another project to add to the list, right? :)

Linking up with Finish It Up Friday and NTT!

WIP Wednesday: Starting Something New!

Happy Hump Day y'all! I am back to good health after a crummy weekend, thank the good Lord! I managed to get most of my materials cut for my new quilt even while sick, though it seemed to take forever. I only cut one or two bits at a time though, so that might be why. Lol.

I started out stoked to make some progress on this quilt and learn a new technique. And all that excitement led me here:

I was so embarrassed by this, I almost didn't share it!

Yeah. Rather than the gorgeous block demonstrated in the guidelines, I had a skewed tic-tac-toe board. I just sort of stared at it for a minute and thought, "What on earth am I doing?" After a quick breath, I looked back at the instructions and just studied the blocks on the quilt. I'm not one to pick up on patterns easy, but somehow I was able to visualize things a little better after just looking with intent.

So I started again, being more deliberate and focusing a bit harder on different aspects before. I managed to get one done and trimmed before heading to bed. I will say, I'm more proud of this one than my demented practice block! Hahahaha

Still not quite what I want, but soooooooo much better than the first try. Lol.

I'm hoping to save my practice block and match some seams a bit better as I move forward. Like usual, I'm on the fence about whether or not I can pull this off. I always have this self doubt with each quilt I make, it's hard to be confident with these things for some reason!

Also, I made a little more progress with my scrap vortex. I'm hoping to get some more blocks done this coming week so I can see some 'real' progress up on my design wall!

Linking up with WIP Wednesday! Have a good week y'all!

Finish It Up Friday: Scrappy Pouch!

TGIF y'all! For the first time in forever (any Frozen fans out there?), I get the ENTIRE weekend off! I plan to use that lovely time off for sewing and reading since the weather is supposed to be less than superb in my neck of the woods. Despite that, I stayed up late Thursday night to finish this pouch for today! I used this tutorial to use the slab I showed you guys from Wednesday.
 I ended up adding some more to it to make it taller because I was a bit of a dum-dum and bought too big of a zipper. Derp!

I found another little bird in my scrap bin!

I was also a bit lazy and didn't pin or baste my zipper in place before sewing because my pins were downstairs and I was tired of tromping up and down the stairs getting this-n-that. And, surprisingly, I don't think it looks too bad. I could have gotten a bit closer to the zipper teeth, but I was worried about hitting the teeth and destroying my only zipper. I also trimmed a little off the ends of my zipper thinking it would reduce bulk, but it actually made it sit kind of funny afterwards. Lesson for the books when I make another one!

Aren't those polka dots darling?!

I knew exactly what I wanted to use for the lining of this colorful bag! I wanted it to look like a rainbow puked on it, inside and out, so these cute dots were the perfect choice for me. It was a fat quarter I picked up at...well...Walmart. Do quilt bloggers buy fabric from Walmart? Most of the bloggers I follow seem to be online shoppers or buy from their LQS. My budget isn't quite up to that standard yet. When I saw this little fat quarter, I couldn't pass it up, it was just too darn happy!

One last shot with a little pitcher I made in a college ceramics class. It helped the pouch catch the kitchen light juuuuuuust right I feel like. It made that blue zipper pop too! So what about you, any fun plans for this weekend?

Linking up with Needle and Thread Thursday , TGIFF, and Finish it Up Friday

Finish It Up Friday: Follow Your Arrow Wherever It Points

Happy Friday y'all! Hope your week has gone well, mine hasn't been too shabby. I got to work a little bit on that lonely arrow block on Wednesday and Thursday night. I'm sad I didn't get better pictures, but by the time I was finished, daylight was long gone. This pillow is inspired by a song by Kacey Musgraves called Follow Your Arrow. The video and song are kind of silly, but I love the line I quilted onto the pillow.

This started out as a gift from my Mom. I use the word gift loosely because she was actually going to toss out this old throw pillow from her and Dad's bedroom. It got a mysterious, ugly orange stain on it and wasn't useful to her anymore. She knows I like refashioning and reusing stuff when I can, so she offered it to me before throwing it away. I gladly accepted and it sat in the closet forever until the lonely arrow block was made. I feel like the size and shape of the pillow fit the block perfectly!

I wanted to try some new quilting on this, but wasn't sure what. I looked online and found a darling little bird that I decided to try. I had to pick out the little head once because it was lopsided, but after fixing it, I think he turned out pretty well. :)

As you can see, I'm about a 1/4 inch too small on the back. :( It doesn't bother me enough to rip everything out and fix it since it is just going to be sitting on my couch with me and Little Black Cat. I'm just learning my lesson for next time so I can improve!

Linking up with Needle and Thread Thursday and Finish It Up Friday!