A Whole Lotta Preppin' Goin' On!!!

I haven't posted in the past few days because I don't have that much to show.  Nothing really flashy, anyway.  Basically, I'm in the process of finishing up a few projects and preparing to start a few others.  For instance....

I finally decided how I want to do the borders for Amish Beauties....

I saw this border treatment on a quilt in a Kim Diehl book and loved it!  I don't remember which book, but I came home and sketched it out because I thought it might work for this quilt - and I think it does!  What do you think?  I like the soft edge it gives the quilt after all the spiky points in the center.

To make the petals, I got out my newest tool, the Leaves Galore ruler by Sue Pelland .....

and laid out several layers of my solids to cut some petals....

I wanted to get a nice variety of colored petals to test the look...

The only problem is that I forgot to put the fusible on the back of the fabric before I cut the petals!!!  I ended up having to use some leftover pieces of fusible from another project (which I'll share in a minute) and using my teflon applique sheet, try to get the fusible on the pieces without making a huge, sticky mess on my ironing board!

See all those little fabric "hairs" around the edges?  Those wouldn't be there if I had done the fusible first.  But it wasn't really a problem - I just trimmed them off as I cut the fusible away.

Since I liked the design and have decided to go with it, I now need to cut a bunch more petals out of the remaining solids - backing them with fusible first LOL!!!  And I also need to get some more of that black solid.  The border is going to be much wider than I expected and I've run short of fabric!  I'm pretty sure this is a piece I got at Joann's so I'm holding my breath, hoping I can find it again.  You know how it is to try to match blacks!!!  Yikes!!!!

The other project I am busy working on is Miss Genevieve's baby quilt!  Remember this photo?

This is Denise's (Count it all Joy!) photo of the cute little baby quilt she made for her little granddaughter - isn't it adorable???  I shared in an earlier post that my DIL has chosen this pattern for Miss G's baby quilt, so I'm in the process of working on that now.  As a reminder - here are my fabrics....

I traced the banners on fusible and cut them out with my ruler and rotary cutter .... easy peasy!!!  I also "windowed" out the middle 1/4" away from edge to remove excess fusible so they would be really soft on the quilt....

Leaving these fun little shapes to fuse to the fabrics....

This "leftover" fusible from the middle of the banner shapes is what I used to get fusible on my Amish Beauty petals!

So those are the "In Process" quilts that I'm working on - - - - -

For the fun "New" projects, I have a couple in the works ....

I decided to take part in Joanne's Christmas QAL, and I have two projects that I want to work on.  The first should be fairly easy.  It is Jovial, a free pattern by Moda....

A group of us got together last year and exchanged Christmas fabrics so we could get a nice variety in this scrappy quilt without having to break the bank buying it - great idea right?  Here are the fabrics I contributed...

And here is the lovely bounty after we put them all together!

I may add in a few more blues and limey greens since these are really predominantly red and green, but overall I really like these and I think it is going to make a great quilt!

The other Christmas quilt project is going to be much harder to do and will probably take me forever and a day....

This is Holiday Sampler, a Block of the Month pattern.  I took this picture of a quilt I saw on the wall at one of the shops we visited last year and fell in love with all the fun, bright colors, not to mention the cute blocks :*)  But the shop was totally out of the pattern and only had one fabric kit left.  The kit was discounted, so I grabbed it!  But now I'm finding that the pattern seems to be only available as a part of a BOM program - bummer!!!  So I have begun the process of drafting it out and drawing these little babies myself - UGH!!!  This may take a while so bear with me :*)  I also realized that the gorgeous Bracelets fabric in the border was not included, so I'm tracking that fabric down to see if it is still available.  I really love it - it's has just the perfect playfulness for the border!

As if that were not enough ..... really !?!  .... I plan to join in on Sew Kind of Wonderful's Medallion QAL ..

Click HERE to see more about this fun QAL and how to get the Quick Curve Ruler!

...... although I am only planning to make a few blocks for a wall hanging, not a full quilt.  I love playing with my Quick Curve Ruler and all the wonderful shapes it makes!  This is the ruler I use to make those soft curves in my Fantasia blocks...

TODAY they have a sale going for 20% off the rulers and any of their patterns, so if you've ever thought you might like a QCR, now's the time!

Now it's time for me to get off this computer and get busy on at least one of these projects!  What are you working on?  I hope you're finding time to get into some quilty fun!!!

Hugs & Blessings!

Teresa

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Finally Digging in the Pink!

I made myself sit down and play in my pink scraps today for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge .... what fun!!!

Introducing Fantasia!  

This block is inspired by a quilt I saw on Pinterest made by Leanne at She Can Quilt.  She calls her quilt Butterflies, but she says the original block found in Barbara Brackman's Encyclopedia of Quilt Patterns, is called Fan Quadrille, designed by Mountain Mist.  What a quaint, old-fashioned name!  Makes me envision a fancy ballroom filled with colorful ladies and gentlemen, all dressed up in their finest and dancing very properly to some very dainty music, 18th century-ish.  But this quilt will not be at all old-fashioned, and I'm not thinking it will be very proper or dainty either.  I'm thinking it will be more along the lines of fun and sassy!  And so I've renamed this quilt Fantasia.

Don't you love all the different pinks in this block?  My pink scraps are very limited and I have to admit I was really tempted to bring out the fat quarters and cut some pieces from them.  But I am determined to make all my RSC13 projects strictly from scraps, with the exception of unifying backgrounds, sashing, etc.  After all, this is a SCRAP challenge, right?

This was not a particularly easy block to make, so I'm glad I only have to make one a month.  I had planned to simply cut some squares and some drunkard's path blocks.  But as you can see from the initial layout below, that didn't quite work out....

The circles are too circular, and there is no smooth transition to the square blocks.  See the difference in the reconstructed block below?  The upper right corner is now a smooth curve, much better than the too round section in the bottom left corner....

In order to cut those smooth curves, I got out my handy-dandy Quick Curve Ruler designed by Jenny over at Sew Kind of Wonderful.   I really love this ruler!  It made very quick work of cutting these curves, and I was able to cut all the pieces at one time!

Of course, I had to recut new pink pieces, and I cut them a quarter inch larger to give me some wiggle room on sewing the curves.

I was able to salvage the white corners thankfully...

After sewing them together, I trimmed the section down to 3-1/2" square to fit the block.  You may notice that the white section is just a smidge (that's a word isn't it?) short of the 3-1/2", but I kept that in mind as I put them all together and it worked out fine.  For future blocks, I'll cut the white squares a little larger too before I make the cut for the curves.

Here's the first "fan" with nice soft curves, laid out and ready for sewing!  :*D

I think I will enjoy making this block now that I have worked out the kinks LOL!!!  I'm hoping it will make a fun, bright, happy quilt.

Next, I started on my Crossroads blocks.  This is also a pattern I found on Pinterest, created by Amanda at Threadbias blog.  She has a tutorial for this if you like the block and would like to make one, or two or a dozen.... they are like candy - too good to stop at one!

I dug into my 2-1/2" strips bin to see what I might have in pink for this block....  hmmm, not much!  But look at that wonderful Supergirl fabric!

It's a shame that iconic "S" wouldn't show up in this block, so I'm saving one strip of it for another project.  I plan to make four of these little blocks in each color so that there will be a lot of variety of color in the finished quilt at the end of the year.  They go together very easily.  Don't these look fun?

Next week is the last Saturday for pinks, and I'm planning to work on my Lone Starburst blocks then.  I talked about them on a previous blogpost HERE.  Then, if I have any pink scraps left over, I'll cut them into squares to go in my precuts - unless I decide to get crazy and make more blocks ;*D

Be sure to go over to SoScrappy to see all the other lovely PINK projects in process for the 

Rainbow Scrap Challenge this year!

Hugs & Blessings,

Teresa

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