Nothing like a deadline to make me finish a quilt!

I finally got the last of the buttons sewed on my little doll quilt this morning. Of course, today is the deadline to ship internationally, and I am going to make it, whew. (So there is a little hint...this quilt is not going to Canada).

I meant to get it finished yesterday but after pricking three tiny little holes in three of my fingers while sewing buttons, I thought I should take a bit of a break before finishing. Perhaps I should use a thimble???

This little quilt gave me lots of troubles. I designed it with borders because I thought Cathedral Windows were tricky, but it turns out that actually, it was the math for the borders that gave me the most trouble. And then a terrible ironing incident (imagine brown yucky water spewing out all over my beautiful pristine white fabric) caused some of the reds to bleed. Thankfully the kind folks on flickr helped to solve the problem...I just picked out the offending piece and sewed in a new one. Why couldn't I think of that???

Overall, I am pretty happy with this quilt. Again, I am hoping the Flea Market Fancy Effect will prevent my partner from looking at the flaws. Like the fact that the borders are not square (at all) and there is still a bit of bleeding in one of the yellow bouquet windows.

Here is the back of the quilt. As you can see the middle square isn't quilted...I had planned to bring the thread through from the buttons to have a tied effect, but it just looked funny. I'm assuming my partner won't want to wash it so I hope it is okay. You understand, right partner???

I also made my partner a little bag from a tutorial over at Pink Penguin. Isn't it cute? I love free tutorials....

I am so thankful that I finished this quilt (and in time for the mailing deadline no less). Now I can just sit back and wait for my own package. I love this swap!

Doll Quilt Update

One of the reasons that I shouldn't start new projects right now (other than of course that I never actually finish my projects) is that I have a few obligations to complete first.

One of the most pressing is my quilt for Doll Quilt Swap 10.  I've had my plan in place for quite a while, but I needed the courage to actually get going on it. Of course, the deadline didn't hurt either.

(Sorry for this awful photo...I really need to work on my lighting!)

I'm going for the FMF effect here. Blind my partner with Flea Market Fancy, and hopefully she/he won't notice the flaws in the construction of the quilt. I think my partner will love both the FMF and the cathedral window design. I used this tutorial. (Here is part two). I also read this great post/tutorial that has tons of great suggestions on how to make a cathedral windows block. 

I'm counting on using buttons like in this pillow to hide where my points don't match up.

I think the trickiest part was actually folding the fabric but now that I'm at the sewing stage it seems to be going pretty fast. I love how the white gives some separation to all those bright prints. It also makes a difference what kind of fabric you use for the background. I bought some very soft Japanese cotton from my LQS because I loved the feel of it, but I think it is just too soft for this pattern to get a nice, crisp fold. Perhaps good old Kona Cotton would have been a better choice. I know for next time (if there is a next time!) Wouldn't this pattern be beautiful to showcase some of my favourite Heather Ross prints?!?

Thanks for all your great comments on the price of fabric from the last post. It seems folks in NZ have it much worse than us Canadians. But I'm impressed with how many of you work to support local shops.

Happy Sewing!

Happy Mail Day!

I received my fabric from Holly last week for our Colour Wheel Quilt Swap.Oh Happy Day! We decided to swap 10 fabrics, 9 of which we chose and the 10th one was dedicated as a surprise. Holly sent the best surprise, Pink FMF Seeds! Isn't she the sweetest? These fabrics are going to be perfect for my quilt. (I am also in love with the elephants!)

I think I only have about 20 more fabrics to collect. Interestingly, I'm finding it difficult to find pure blues from my stash. I love blue, but I seem to have lots of aquas and multi-colour print blues, but very few tone on tone. I may have to fix that with some fabric shopping.

I also was very inspired by this post. I wanted to do my part so I made these two blocks last night. These cross blocks are quick and simple to make and they are fun and modern too. Check out the flickr group for all of the blocks being made around the world.

Lucia has inspired me to get working on some more charity quilts. Once I get this Colour Wheel Quilt wrapped up, I'm making a few quilts to give away.

Oh, and I almost forgot. I also got these gorgeous squares in the mail yesterday. I won them from Katy. Thank you! I love this fabric, it reminds me so much of the sheets we had growing up. Maybe I could make a quilt like this as my first charity quilt....

What about you? Do you make quilts to give-away? What do you make? Who do you make them for? How do you find time to fit them all in?

FMF Freaks Giveaway!

Run, don't walk, run! Over to FMF Freaks for a fabulous giveaway. And don't forget to sign the petition while you are there. Wouldn't it be wonderful to be able to buy FMF at reasonable prices?Here's my FMF stash that I bought recently on etsy. LOVE those colours....now I just have to be brave enough to cut into it...