Elizabeth's Dowry Quilt Progress

I've been having fun making the patchwork components of my Elizabeth's Dowry quilt kit, designed by Karen Styles of Somerset Patchwork.  Here's where I was at the beginning of the month.  I had a few extra squares leftover and now I realize I've missed putting them on two of the square strips!  No worries, an easy fix.  

I have been intentional about the placement of fabrics so that the same fabric doesn't appear too close to itself.  Sometimes a scrappy look needs to be quite planned and I think it's worth having to rip a few seams and re-sew in order to get it the way you want.  The fabrics also have different values, such as between the light pink stripe and the black stripe, so I tried to balance that a bit.  What's your experience on the scrappy quilting front?  

My January OMG with Elm Street Quits was to finish the flying geese, which I have successfully done.  I am really enjoying making this quilt and would love to be able to finish the top in the next month as the remainder of the sewing is mostly attaching border strips.  

Check out the goal finishes at Elm Street Quilts One Monthly Goal - January Finish Link-up.  

Sweet Dreams Patchwork Pillow

Times like this can remind us of what we are grateful for.  Just yesterday I sent the final version of my dissertation to the dean's office at my university.  It feels so good to have achieved my goal of becoming a Doctor of Education.  After a long road I can get back to focusing on my family, friends, and sewing!  It also feels like a good time to do some blogging.  While many of us are apart physically, we certainly are lucky to have virtual places to socialize.  

My sweet niece was the recipient of this Anna Maria Horner Rainbow Blur quilt.  I tend to keep leftover scraps of fabric lines together in piles.  I was able to make a quick improv pieced pillow to go with the quilt for her bedroom.  This Sweet Dreams fabric line really fits the bill for a teenage girl.  I used a simple envelope closure for the back.  I used straight line quilting in pink and aqua thread to match the fabrics.  

I hope you have something to feel good about today!

2018 Online Quilters Meet and Greet

Hello and welcome to Sew Some Sunshine!  I'm so glad you stopped by, especially visitors from the 2018 Quilters Meet and Greet hosted by Benita over at her Creative Space blog.  I'll be telling you a little bit more about myself and my quilting, along with other quilt bloggers who are participating.  Don't forget to visit the main page to find out more about all of the participating quilters.  There's also an incredible giveaway.

I began quilting in my early twenties to finish up some quilt projects that my grandmother had sewn.  Since I didn't have much money at the time, I thought it would be a good way to make some gifts for family members.  There wasn't much internet at that point, so I had to follow my instincts, read a few instruction books, and make a lot of mistakes.  I made quite a few small quilts from blocks my grandmother had sewn and was able to share her work with my cousins.  Fast forward twenty years and it is just amazing how the online quilt community has grown and flourished.  When my mother retired, she also began quilting, and now we have a shared passion for quilting.  It's definitely a family thing!

I really like the modern traditional asthetic in quilts, so you'll see that a lot of my quilts are made with modern fabrics in geometric shapes, with standard grid layouts and no borders.  The blocks themselves are usually traditional blocks though, so the quilt is familiar but modern at the same time.

Cobblestone Quilt

One block hexagon quilt

Disappearing Nine Patch

Other quilts styles include scrappy layouts, quilts with borders, or quilts with more traditional fabric.

One project (still unfinished) is my Delilah Quilt, designed by Jen Kingwell.  It is a block of the month using templates, which I machine pieced.  I have lots of advice and tutorials for this quilt on my Delilah page.  You can see how I worked through each block.  Templates and the pattern are now available outside of the BOM program.  I really learned so many new techniques working on the quilt.  I do have my top done, just figuring out how to quilt it now.

Not only do I love quilting, but I also love to make all sorts of other projects.  It's great to have faster finishes in between larger quilt projects.  It's also fun to use up favorite fabrics.

I hope you've enjoyed getting to know me a little more and seeing some of my work.  I'd love to hear what projects you liked, so please drop me a note below.  You can follow me on bloglovin, instagram, and pinterest using the links in the sidebar.  And don't forget to visit the other quilters here.

Thank you! 

Dreamweaver Quilt

Today I have a big finish to share...literally as it is a king size bed quilt!  When I saw this pattern online done in Anna Maria Horner's Fibs and Fables line, I knew I wanted to make it for my bedroom.  Although I love Fibs and Fables, it's more youthful than the look I wanted.  I decided on her Mod Corsage line as a more grown-up alternative.  It's such a gorgeous collection of floral prints in different styles.

This was a relatively easy quilt to put together, although I did construct it a bit differently than the pattern to avoid a few extra seams.  If you have this pattern, the cutting directions are not correct for some of the sizes.  I couldn't find any corrections online so I fixed it myself, not a problem, but required some extra work.

I used another Anna Maria Horner print, Halos, for the back.  This is a 108 inch wide sateen and the hand is just so luxurious, I wish you could feel it!

The quilting is an allover edge to edge design done by Allison at AB Quilting Studio.

 

I'm delighted to have this quilt completed for the first quarter of the 2018 Finish-A-Long.  Will be getting this on our bed soon, can't wait!  How'd you do with your first quarter?  Looking forward to seeing all the linkup finishes.

My Quarter 1 2018 Finish-A-Long list is here.
Linking up with 2018 Finish-A-Long, My Quilt Infatuation, and Crazy Mom Quilts.

Delilah Quilt - Block 12

This is the final block for the Delilah Quilt and it's called Black Cockatoo.  This block was so easy compared to all of the other months.  The cutting did not require any reverses, the pieces were a good size, no curves, no y-seams, no seams to line up... the hardest part was picking the fabrics!

Kept this kind of simple, but I did use a few different fabric placements.  Some have all the same background, some have two different backgrounds which creates a little bit of a pinwheel effect.  On some I made it look like four different triangles with two on top and two underneath.  For others, I used the same fabric for each template piece.  It's always fun to see how you can make each block look different depending on how you decide on your fabrics and placement.

My next step for this project is to decide what blocks should go where within the placement layout that was provided in the pattern.  I have a few main color groups in my blocks so I'm going to start with a layout that keeps them grouped together and see how that looks.  Even though the original Jen Kingwell design is super scrappy, I'm going to try to dial it down a bit.  Wish me luck!  

You can see all of my blocks along with a few helpful tutorials for machine piecing on my Delilah page.  Also check out more great Delilah inspiration here. 

Linking up with Busy Hands Quilts and Sew Fresh Quilts.  

2018 Finish-A-Long Quarter 1

The 2018 Finish-A-Long has started and I'm going to make a short list for the first quarter.  I try to limit my WIPs but I do have a few, so here goes.

There is a (very small) chance that I might have all of my Delilah quilt done since February is the last month of this template of the month program.  We'll see how it goes.  If you're working on this also, check this out for more inspiration. 

I actually have this quilt almost finished, it's a big king sized bed quilt.  I need to make binding and then finish it.

I'm adding this back on my list.  I have about three quarters of the triangles cut out, so I'll keep working on that.

Last is my AMH scrappy trip.  I still need to get this sewn together and I may try to embellish it a little, so I don't think I'll get back to it this quarter, but it's a good reminder to put it on this list.

Thank you to the 2018 FAL hosts.  Here's to a lot of finishes for everyone participating!

Link up here to participate for Quarter 1.