thursday finish - homestead!

The Fig Tree "Homestead" quilt top is finished! I'm so happy to be able to share it with you today. This is one of those quilt tops that turned out far better than I had expected!

Homestead measures 63" x 75" finished. The pattern is available here, and there is also a kit with alternate fabrics. The houses were really fun to sew once I figured out a trick. There are a few points that need to match on the window/door/roof unit. I had difficulty matching them exactly, and then Pam suggested basting the pieces together, checking for accuracy and then re-sewing them. That worked perfectly, and from then on it was all blue skies and green grass. 

Speaking of green grass, the original pattern used just one green print. I wanted more variety, so I pulled several greens. Fabrics used in this quilt are from two of my favorite Fig Tree collections - Strawberry Fields and Avalon. I loved mixing in the navy and aqua prints.

I'm sure you know all about my dislike of sewing borders onto my quilt tops. But I did it! To make it easier, I buy extra border fabric and cut it on the lengthwise grain. Yes, it means that I buy more fabric than I really need. But it means that I don't need to worry about matching the print when joining shorter strips of fabric. (The leftover border fabric is now in transit to another Fig Tree fabric collector!) What makes this quilt interesting is that the borders on the top and bottom are slightly wider than the side borders. It sounds odd, but it does enhance the horizontal houses. 

Now I need to piece the backing and binding and have it sent out to be quilted. I cannot wait to get this one back! And now I'm free to work on Christmas quilts!

sashing the homestead

Yes, finally! All 20 Fig Tree Homestead blocks are finished!

Isn't this the quirkiest house block? I've never seen anything else quite like it. It's almost an optical illusion. I really love those Fig Tree blues - the sky and navy prints.

I started the sashing last night. But I just wasn't paying attention to what I was doing! Often the simple sewing is where I make the most mistakes. There was quite a lot of unpinning and unsewing going on. My biggest hurdle was getting the horizontal seams of the grass to line up from row to row. It was easy to fix with a little concentration and pins. 

It's amazing how much abuse those poor 1 1/2" strips of sashing fabric had to endure!

And after all that effort, I love how it's coming together. This quilt is going to become a favorite! I just need to add two outer borders and it will be ready for quilting.

Thanks so much for visiting me today. I'm always happy to have house guests (heehee get it?!).

christmas in july

Do you celebrate Christmas in July? I do!

Here's just a sneak peek of a Christmas Dresden quilt that I'm finishing up this week. It's big! It's heavy! It's all Fig Tree fabrics! And I'm just about finished with all 392" of the hand-stitched tomato red binding. Yikes. 

Normally I only like to work on quilts in season. This means that in September and October I'll eat candy corn and burn pumpkin candles while working on Halloween quilts. In November and December I'll play Christmas music (nonstop) while sewing Christmas quilts. But there's something kind of fascinating about Christmas in July. This Friday is the 25th - exactly 5 months from Christmas. It will be my third Friday finish this month! I'll have the full details for you about the design inspiration, construction, size, etc - and I even found my original draft sketch.

There's even more Fig Tree goodness this week. I've added another two Homestead houses to the collection. First, a little pink house in Strawberry Fields. All lawns should look like this, right?

And an aqua house in Avalon. I want to live here.

Eight houses have been built, with another 12 still to be constructed. Maybe I'll try to squeeze in a few red and green houses before the end of the month. It's that Christmas in July thing, you know?

Thanks so much for visiting today. See you in a few days with the finished Christmas quilt!

the homestead grows

Happy Monday, everybody! I hope that you had a great weekend. I did have that sushi on Friday night. Actually, it turned into a whole weekend of eating! Let's see... there was a homemade strawberry marshmallow and a homemade "Ring Ding." And then there was the artisanal pizza at Dellarocco's in Brooklyn and chocolate cake. And finally a cupcake at Georgetown Cupcake in Soho. EEK! I never did get around to that vacuuming. Now what was I supposed to tell you about? Oh, yeah. I built more houses!

I had fun pulling fabrics for the remaining 19 houses in the new Fig Tree pattern called Homestead. I'm aiming for a clean, summery beach look. I'm using mainly the larger and brighter prints from Fig Tree's Avalon collection (I edited out the smaller prints, the creams and the stripes). I also finally broke down and mixed in some of my prized Fig Tree Strawberry Fields fat quarters. I've always felt that they're too special to use, but I can't see them when they're on the back shelf in the closet!  

Joanna Figueroa's pattern uses just one green for the grass. But I don't have enough of one green, and I prefer controlled scrappy anyway.

This little red house happened on Sunday night. Maybe it was the sugar rush that caused me to make a few mistakes...

I KNEW that something was wrong with the right part of the roof, but I couldn't see it until after sewing this section together. And because I had already trimmed out the underlayers of fabric, the only solution was to redo it.

Ah, that looks better.

I wasn't sure if the big red Avalon floral would work here but I'm thrilled with how it looks. I actively planned the fabric cuts to make sure that I had plenty of full roses showing. 

And tonight I built the house that just had to be made. Pink and green and strawberries. Had to do it!

If you happen to be in NYC within the next few months, there are two excellent fashion exhibits that you might want to check out. Exposed: The History of Women's Lingerie is at the Museum of the Fashion Institute of Technology until November. The exhibit focuses on the evolution of undergarments from the late 1700's through the present. It explores the technological developments that made their construction possible, as well as the changes to meet designer and consumer demands. I visited the show over the weekend thinking that it would be something to do (I studied design at FIT, and I enjoy visiting all of their museum and gallery shows) but I actually learned something, too. Included are undergarments which gave shape to Christian Dior's New Look dresses of 1947, bustle cages and a pair of Twiggy stockings. (Alas, no quilts here!) Also definitely worthy of a visit is the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Charles James: Beyond Fashion exhibit which puts a dazzling spotlight on America's greatest (and until now, forgotten) couturier. Visual animations and x-rays trace and recreate the dressmaker's patterns on digital screens alongside the actual gowns. It's on exhibit until August, and I'll definitely return for a second visit. 

a schnibbles finish

X-Rated is finished!

I was SO happy that the extra charm pack of Fig Tree's Mirabelle arrived just before the long holiday weekend. I was able to squeeze in a little slicing here, a little sewing there, and it was finished in no time at all.

Seriously, this is one EASY pattern. Cut a bunch of squares, rectangles and a few setting triangles and start sewing. 

See the pinked edges of the charm pack on the perimeter of the quilt? I think that they'll work to my benefit here and will reduce fraying. I'll just pretend that I don't see all the messy crumbs that those edges seem to drop all over my studio. 

X-Rated is a Schnibbles pattern by Carrie Nelson. Fabric is mostly Mirabelle by Fig Tree Quilts. I also added in a few random dotty and floral pieces of Joanna's older Strawberry Fields collection, because I need to have some dots everywhere! Background is Kona Snow, and the finished quilt measures 31" square. 

I'm finished just in time to make it into the Another Year of Schnibbles parade for May!

Now what can I work on next?

PS - I've added something new to my blog! I've signed up with Bloglovin to make it even easier to follow my blog. I know that lots of you like Bloglovin! Just click the link near the top of the left column. Or you can have my blog delivered by email via the Feedburner link. Or visit me however you wish! 

Linking up with Finish It Fridays at Crazy Mom Quilts! Check out what other quilters have completed this week here. 

it's another schnibbles, and it's called...

It's called X-Rated. Can you believe it?! Carrie Nelson has a twisted sense of humor!

X-Rated is the "Another Year of Schnibbles" project for May. I bought the pattern pdf from my work computer, and was a little horrified when I downloaded a file called "x-rated." Yikes. Well, my employer will be amused if they actually check out this file! Haha it's just a harmless quilt pattern!

For my fabric, I decided to revisit a softer side of Grey Dogwood Studio. I sewed almost exclusively with Fig Tree fabrics for several years. A quilt friend had to gently nudge me to please, please try something different. But I haven't used any Fig Tree fabrics since last October! It's kinda nice to use Joanna's softer, vintagey fabrics again. I'm using charm packs of Mirabelle and Strawberry Fields. (Strawberry Fields is one of my favoritest fabric collections ever, and I still have a stack of fat quarters, jelly rolls, charm packs and yardage.) Those Mirabelle precuts sold out fast! I needed an additional charm pack, and now I'm waiting for one to arrive from here. 

I love, love, love that Mirabelle apricot print. I bought yardage that can be used as either a border or as backing. I'm a bit of an apricot fanatic. I buy the large jars of Sarabeth's peach apricot preserves. And it reminds me of the cookies that my grandmother used to make. She called them apricots cookie. Not apricot cookies. I always used to make fun of her pronunciation, but it's stuck with me.  So this is my apricots fabric.

Ok, so this needs to be finished by the end of May so that it can be a part of the Schnibbles parade on Sherri's and Sinta's blogs. (Ohmigosh Sinta is also using Fig Tree fabric!) Well, in just four days, here's where I am...

X-Rated is very easy to sew. As Carrie notes, "cut it out, lay it out." It's that easy. It's constructed by sewing strips of squares and rectangles together instead of creating traditional blocks. Finding a space to lay it out was tricky in a small studio with two floppy cat tails, but the coffee table worked just fine. 

Now as soon as that extra charm pack arrives I can start the pieced outer border! Or maybe I'll get lazy and use the apricots fabric... deadline is next Friday!