Back with a Black & White Bang!

Alright gang, I know that it's been pretty darn quiet around here lately.  But rest assured that my sewing machine has truly been getting quite a workout.  I just didn't think that you'd want to see a long line of posts about my continued machine production of black and white Broken Herringbone blocks for my MSBHQAL project.

I really didn't think that I'd manage to submit anything for Molli's wrap up linky party that has some fabulous prizes on the line, but I busted out over 20 blocks in just over a month and was able to throw together this quilt top.

My color scheme was based off of this beautiful palette

Source: flickr.com via Stephanie on Pinterest

Even though my blues turned out a little more electric and bright, I think the colors still play really nicely together!

I don't know why I've kept black/white prints mostly for bindings before now.  I love how sharp and crisp they look next to those bright colors - each block that I created was so much fun to see as a completed square!  The scrappy black sashing gave each block a little chance to breathe without breaking up those geometric shapes.

I also had fun sparsely throwing in a few prints that showed a pop of color. The stripes of goldfish below were what sparked the idea.  They were just too cute to not make an appearance.

My original plan was to make it 6 blocks wide by 6 or 7 blocks tall - I'll probably end up going back to block making a ways down the road and add to it when I can put a fresh pair of eyes on it.  But for now, I think it looks exactly as I was hoping it would - scrappy but still fresh and bright!

Linking up with:

Crazy Mom Quilts Finish it Up Friday

Molli Sparkles Broken Herringbone QAL

Soft {Block} Rock'n...

Soft rock isn't usually something that I associate with anything truly pleasant, but let's see if I can't try to expand my own horizons.  We're into the third month of our ScrapBeeLicious year and so far, so good!  Each month has made me try something a bit out of my normal color/pattern/comfort zone and I'm really enjoying feeling stretched this way.

This month, Cath of the amazing Wombat Quilts is Queen Bee and she requested low-volume paper pieced blocks.  At first I thought - low volume?  Not really my thing, but I'm sure that I have oodles of fabric and scraps for it.  Apparently not.  In reality, I have a seriously screaming fabric stash.  Hard to imagine, I know.

But I did manage to gather up enough dominantly white fabrics with a very muted rainbow palate to create two different but cohesive blocks.  I love paper piecing and since I've been all wrapped up in Broken Herringbone's lately, it was really nice to step off into something different.  It's no secret that I'm in love with Julie's Block Rock'n Series and yet again I referenced her amazing catalog of paper pieced blocks.  Here is my Mercury block in some soothing hushed tones.

I also tried a variation of her Penny Lane block.

I truly love both blocks and their whispering ways.  It's making me toy with the idea of low volume projects for myself.  I guess there is something to be said for soft rock after all.

Linking up:

I Got 99 Posts But This Quilt Ain't One!

Disclaimer 1:  I really, really don't like hip hop.  I swear.  I think I maybe only know a handful of artists, a few less song titles and perhaps only a few lines of actual lyrics - I can't decide if that makes this post title a small miracle or a total abomination.  Probably an abomination.  Go ahead and call the Quilt Police to have them take away my card.

Disclaimer 2:  Yes, I actually have blogged about this quilt before, but never showed you all the actual quilted and finished product.  But when I realized that this would be my 99th post, the idea stuck in my head and I couldn't shake it loose.  I like puns and quilts and it made me laugh - what else can I say?

Disclaimer 3:  I am not actually endorsing this song in any way (really dislike it if you want to know the truth) and am cringing a bit at the possibility of my mom reading this post, clicking on the link and clutching her pearls.  Just don't click on it, Mom.  It's Jay-Z.  Let's leave it at that.

Disclaimer 4: Alright, my mom doesn't usually wear pearls.  But you get the gist.

When I got all of my quilts back after the Lowell Quilt Festival way back in August, I realized that I was in such a rush to get it quilted and finished before the show, I never took pictures or blogged about it once it was finished.  Here is my finished Glam Rock Girl - my mini quilt for our BMQG Challenge to base a quilt off of this inspiration:

It finished off at 24" square and the blocks are paper pieced using this block design called Icky Thump by Julie at 627 Handworks.   It turned out to be really hard to properly photograph the mix of colors used in the quilt - the light blue and gray mixed with a dark red on a black and white background just did not add up to great photos by this mega-amateur.  But I really love how it all turned out.  

I took some of your suggestions on quilting and ended up doing echoing only on the black and white text print.  It puffed out the colored stars nicely and gave it even more texture overall!

For the backside, I took a couple of my scraps and created a couple quickie hourglass blocks then surrounded them in a black background.  I actually made the backing large enough so that I could fold it over to the front and machine stitch down it for an easy peasy binding.

Just don't look too closely where I accidentally cut right through the fabric when I was trimming down my batting and top and then had to (very messily) darn it back together.  Oops.

By far the most fun part of the challenge was seeing all the entries put together at the Lowell Quilt Festival!  Here are a few pictures I took at the event of all the minis together.

 Here was my favorite of the bunch - all of those pieces are SO tiny!

So there you have it folks - my 99th post.  I can hardly believe that in another week I'll have been blogging for an entire year now.  I've had such a fabulous time sharing my projects, getting heaps of advice and making new crafty friends along the way.

And how do I honor all that amazing quilty goodness?  By quoting freaking Jay-Z.

Blerg.

Linking up:

Crazy Mom Quilts - Finish It Up Friday

Block Head...

I feel like I've gone from zero to sixty at the sewing machine in the past week!  First off, I’ve been making decent (if not super speedy) progress on my partial seam Rangoon blocks.  The pattern calls for 15 blocks and I’m up to 7 completed with a few more in various stages of construction.  I’m calling that halfway there and that’s not bad all things considered!  My goal is to have the top completed and at least partially quilted by the end of the month.  Very doable and if I can stay ahead of the game and finish it up, that will just be icing on the cake.

A sampling of my black & white fabrics...

But here’s where the real fun is happening – I’m breaking out the big guns for my Broken Herringbone QAL with Molli Sparkles.  My test block was so much fun to make and I thought it looked pretty amazing too!  It gave me that kick in the butt to keep on going and so far I’ve got two blocks in 3 more of the solids.  Here are the two Kona Pomegranate blocks:

Kona Honeydew:

And finally, Kona Surf:

My other solids are Kona Carnation, Kona Grass, and the unknown bright blue that I used for my test block.  Anyone have any good educated guesses?  And by the way, the only reason that I know the other solids is that the names were listed on my fabric store receipt.  I really, REALLY need to get one of those color cards one of these days…

With all of this productivity going on, I might even get motivated enough to catch up on my Sister’s Ten BOM.  Oh wait, it’s a new month already?  Which means that I will be 4 months behind now?  Ugh…let me just get back to my Broken Herringbones and deal with that another day.

Linking Up:

Selfish Sewing with Sparkle...

I've been feeling a bit meh about sewing lately.  First I chalked it up to a new school year and all the craziness that ensued.  But now that the dust has settled and I've got a little more time on my hands again, I've still been slow to get back on my machine and tackle my list of quilting to-do's.  Now that I'm starting to sort through a ton of blogger-friend posts, I've seen a phrase that has me thinking again.  Selfish Sewing.

Imagine Gnats and Made With Moxie are hosting a Selfish Sewing Week where we are encouraged to sew for ourselves a little bit everyday.  The more I thought about my rut, I wondered if all the nonstop sewing that I've done and gifted away over the summer has sapped a bit of my energy away.  If I at least thought about a possible project that I can work on in bits and pieces that's actually for me, would it zap me out of my funk?

Side Note:  When I just reread those last few lines, it sounded awfully Carrie Bradshaw.  Not an intentional ripoff and a little outdated, but I'm leaving it!

So I decided to take a mental break and do some selfish sewing with Sparkle.  Molli Sparkles, that is.  If you haven't seen the amazing rainbow Broken Herringbone quilt, you are missing out.  It pretty much exploded on the internet, doncha know?  Molli decided that it was just too fabulous not to share and is hosting a Broken Herringbone QAL.  It started a few weeks ago and I've been on the fence about plunging in. I love the block design, but I've done quite a few rainbow quilts already and I'm thinking that my Roy G. Biv obssession needs a little break.

As I turned the whole QAL over and over in my mind, I kept coming back to the same idea.  Why not flip it?  Instead of making each of the blocks a different color, why not make all of the herringbone stripes black and white?  Then you can add the color back in through the sashing!  I gave myself permission to do a little selfish sewing and popped out a test block.

Swoon.  Instead of the full rainbow spectrum, here is my color inspiration and the solids I've pulled to match it:

Source: flickr.com via Stephanie on Pinterest

What do you think?  I think I'm in love and inspired...and ready to get going all over again.  Thanks Molli - you sure do know how to give a girl her sparkle back.

Linking up:

ScrapBeeLicious Peeps...

Hey look!  I actually dragged myself away from Kindergarten drama to sew something!  All kidding aside, after a week and half at school, we have finally hit our school groove over here and I was actually relaxed enough to dust off the sewing machine and make something.

Gwendellyn at The Rainbow Revolts is September's ScrapBeeLicious queen and she requested Trip Around the World blocks with any color scheme but in some kind of "theme".  I don't have too many fabric collections to choose from for an easy theme (my stash is pretty much all bits and pieces), but I do have a TON of Lizzy House's Castle Peep fabric still left and they make any block look cute and fun.  Plus they make a pretty great rainbow of color.

Despite the fact that everyone and their mother has done a Trip Around the World quilt lately, this was the first time that I've tried that block design.  They were super easy and fast to throw together.  As an added bonus, I actually remembered to sew a scant quarter inch and they actually finished at the size that they were supposed to...which hardly EVER happens to me.

Hopefully the color isn't too loud for Gwendellyn's existing blocks.  I probably could have thrown in a white or light solid to punch up the contrast, but oh well.  I'm just happy to be sewing again.  Now I just have to catch up on a month's worth of other people's posts on Bloglovin.  One step at a time...

Off the Grid and Into Kindergarten...

It's been over a week since my last post and I haven't even been keeping current with all the latest quilty happenings via Bloglovin, which qualifies as me being off the grid around here.  I've definitely been avoiding my sewing machine since I wrapped up that marathon session of cuddle quilts.  Not that I don't have anything that I need to work on, mind you.  I've got the September bee block to get started for the ScrapBeeLicious circle, 3 months - ugh - of my Sister's Ten BOM to catch up on, and that Amis Rangoon commissioned quilt hanging over my head.  But I'm all sewed out at the moment and life has me a little focused on a new routine in our house this week.

Our oldest started full-day kindergarten this past Tuesday and I was alternately thrilled and terrified.  I was really excited to be down to one kiddo during the day (some precious one on one time with little sis is rare around here) and that older sis would be out on her own learning more independence and new skills in school.  But she's always been a bit shy and nervous in nature and anything new gives her a good amount of anxiety.  I've had visions for the past two years of a child clinging to my leg and unwilling to even set foot in the school without sobbing and throwing a fit.  We haven't had the best experiences with occasional daycare and she hates to even have me out of sight for long periods of time, so believe me, these weren't impossible scenarios for me to imagine.

As I expected, we did have a good evening of constant worry about school the night before as well as a half hour of crying and begging me not to send her to school the morning of the first day.  But we have a fantastic teacher who saw her panic when it was time to line up and file into class and asked her if she could hold hands and help her lead the line.  She agreed and with a few looks back at me as she walked away, marched right into school and out of my hands.  I snuggled little sis a little closer to me, went back out to the car and cried like I swore I never would.

We still have spells of nerves every morning so far, but every afternoon pick up is filled with smiles and excited talk about her "fabulous" day.  So long story short, I'm in a sewing slump while I get adjusted to lots more commuting time, a new work schedule, and the excited and nonstop chattering and play of little sis on her own.  But bear with me - I'm sure that I'll be back on the machine with more to share soon.  What do you guys do to get back into a gear after a sewing dry spell?