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!

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!

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!

WIP Wednesday: The 'What Was I Thinking' Commission

Happy Wednesday y'all, though it's nearly gone by now! I've been working away all day, most of it at the clinic, then running errands with Mr. LBC, then upstairs to my sewing machine and this project when we got home. I started this on Sunday and basically every spare minute has been devoted to working on this. "Why?" you may be asking, when I've never been one to rush like this (except with the Supernova!). That's because I'm crazy! Hahaha

Who doesn't love an LBC glamour shot? LOL

My boss asked if I could make a baby quilt for somebody in her family before Christmas. It was already after Thanksgiving but I foolishly said YES! The parents of baby are big Legend of Zelda fans, so my boss requested something along those lines. She liked the pixel quilts she saw on Pinterest, so I found a design we both liked and started crunching numbers. I'm not a fan of math, but at least quilty math leads to sewing!

I bought a delicious stack of solids at Jo Ann's. Sadly, I couldn't get all Kona like I wanted, but time was of the essence and I needed fabric NOW! I started cutting 2.5 inch squares when I got home and laid them out on the floor since my design wall is occupied at the moment. What a battle it's been keeping Elvis and LBC out of the craft room and off the squares! Lol. I just finished sewing all the individual rows tonight, so next is ironing all those seams open and then sewing all the rows together into a top.

Being supervised. Lol. I was being as quiet as I could so I could lay out squares in peace. ;)

I'm sure plenty of people have thought of this, but I felt so smart when I came up with this idea for transporting squares from my 'design floor' to my sewing machine. I used an old cookie sheet, ruined by an old roommate but I couldn't bare to toss it out. I found it among my craft stuff not long before starting this project! I just put a row at a time on the cookie sheet and worked my way through them like words on a page, top left to right, moving down the pan. They helped me keep my chain pieced bits straight as I worked.

One row at a time fit perfectly on this little pan!

And the pan fit quite nicely beside my sewing machine!

Though I'm enjoying making this quilt, I can tell I've been burning the candle at both ends trying to meet such a tight deadline. I need to smack my optimistic side next time! Lol.

For those of you thinking LBC is an angel, this is the face he made when I told him to get off the squares. Lol. I came in to find piles of squares strung across the room the next morning and LBC sitting in his chair looking smug. Hahaha

Linking up with WIP Wednesday and NTT!

Finish It Up Friday: Kona Nerd Level Rising!

Happy Friday y'all! I hope this week has treated you well. A small finish for me this week, but still a fulfilling one! I sent my Kona Project blocks to Val (all the way in Canada!) this week, so I figured it was time to share what I've been stitching at behind the scenes. :)

The original plan was to make 3 blocks for Val @ Purple Boots and Pigtails: Bluegrass, Canary, and Flame. But life happened. So I made the most of my time and came away with 2 blocks that I'm pretty proud of! First up is Canary!

I made Canary with a pretty simple process. After settling for a design, I freehanded the writing on some notebook paper, then I traced the mirror image of it on my Heat n' Bond. I learned the hard way the first time I used it that you HAVE to do the mirror image of what you want. Otherwise you're words will be backwards! Anyway, I ironed it onto the background and stitched around the edges. I would have preferred to do it in yellow thread but I didn't have any and time was short, my friends. Still, I'm proud of the cursive font!

Second is Bluegrass! I love this block and the Kentucky-ness of it! It didn't dawn on me until I finished up that most Canadians probably don't know that Kentucky is the Bluegrass state; heck, most Americans probably don't know that! But I wanted to share myself with these 'virtual friends' that I follow online and, ladies and gentlemen, this block is very much me. I used the same process as the canary block. When I designed it, however, I made the letters too small for me to machine stitch around! I had to hand sew around all the letters to secure them. I had a love-hate relationship with this block until it was finished! Lol.

Hopefully these fit the bill for Val's Kona project, I tried to follow the rules and be myself, which is sometimes hard to do. Have a good weekend y'all!

Linking up with NTT and Finish It Up Friday!