Finished Top Photo - Vacation Time Quilt

Another finish for me! And another sunny day without snow!
This is the Vacation Time Mystery Block of the Month designed by Pat Sloan and hosted on FreeQuiltPatterns.Info this year.

It was almost a finish last night (for a Friday night finish!) but I hadn't cut the striped border fabric ahead of time and it was giving me a headache trying to lineup the repeat pattern. After making a mistake I decided to wait until morning to finish the last side.

This is the top laid out in my quilting space. I had to move my desks out of the way to make enough room for it. I guess it didn't register that 68 x 68 inches is a big quilt!

I think this guy might be more relieved than I am that the top  is together! Apparently I get a little agitated focused when I'm finishing a quilt top. At least he was a good sport and held it up for me today. Thanks, hon!

I'm adding my photo to Pat Sloan's link up post for the Vacation Time Quilt.



Now that this top is finished I need to buy some batting and backing to get it quilted in time for Christmas!

What are you finishing up this week?


Sarah V.

Read more...

A few Minutes of Stitching Tonight

Another beautiful day here! Only a few minutes of stitching time tonight as I supplied at school today and I'm a little tired.

I finished sewing the last few sea shell blocks together and even got the bottom row of the Vacation Time quilt together. I'm loving how the solid looking fabric is doing it's job of reigning in the wild prints.

Here's the muddled bathing beauties blocks.

No regrets because up close they make me smile :)



Hope you fit some quilting into your day too!

With Joy,

Sarah V.

Read more...

Vacation Time Progress

Today the focus of my  Me Quilting and my Vacation Time Quilt - Pat Sloan and Free Quilt Patterns' Block of the Month. 

It was also an absolutely gorgeous late fall day - sunny and no snow in sight! 

After the first cup of coffee it was down to my quilting space to put up the blocks and the few sashing blocks I had done.
You can see on the bottom row the mess of colour - that's my bathing beauty blocks. They don't have much contrast but they do have some creatures in the centers. I'll show you later;)

It became obvious pretty quickly that I needed more fabric to make my seashell blocks. I started finding extra fabric by cutting the inner border fabric. 

The inner border fabric provided a strip of squares for the outer part of the blocks and a 2 inch strip for the inner part. 

I decided to get all of my sea shell block parts ready and then start sewing them together. These piles make their own neat quilt, eh?

By lunch time I had a few more sea shells in place. 

After lunch as I sat sewing in front of the blocks it started to feel busy.
Too busy.
And too busy for me means it's definitely too busy!!

You can see more Vacation Time Quilts here - notice the less busyness of them :)

I started to place the blocks with the same background fabric into groups. I find it gives the eye a place to rest - even if it's just a little space!
Now with the borders reading (more or less) as one color, the quilt blocks get the attention they deserve again.

Of course my plan had been to mix up the sea shell blocks and I don't have 3 the same of some of the blocks. These are the ones I left have to sew. 

My afternoon sewing was a bit less because I went for a walk in the beautiful sunshine! I was actually hot by the time I got home. Then I enjoyed some coffee on the front porch!
{You can see what it looked like here this time last year if you are wondering why I'm going on - and on - about the nice weather!}

I had to fiddle with the placement one more time tonight. I moved the fuschia blocks down beside the blurry bathing beauties hoping to make them pop a bit more - or at least distract away from their muddledness. (Spell check is not appreciating my talents tonight ;) )


Tomorrow is another day and my Vacation Time quilt will still be the focus for me. 

I'm linking up with The Needle and Thread Network WIP Wednesday.
What's your Work in Progress this week?


With Joy,

Sarah V

Read more...

Getting Ready to Sew for Me

I've been doing some MORE secret sewing - something I can share with you later this month. It's fun to create and finish so many new things that I can give as gifts. With this project complete, I'm getting ready for some sew for me time!

What's Tempting Me

Bonnie Hunter's new mystery quilt is starting at the end of November. She released the fabric requirements and the inspiration - Italy! 

Quiltville Winter Mystery 2015 - Allietare

Needless to say I am almost completely decided that I'm going to make the mystery this year. {does that sound convincing!} The color palette is not in my stash - or at least that's what I thought! I used these fabrics above in a recent project and realized they will work in the mystery! Getting some more fabrics just for the mystery is an incentive to keep working on my deadline quilts!

What's Inspiring Me

When I folded my stash there was a lot of scraps left in my Harvest Joy pile of fabrics. I've been playing with them and created another block. I'm considering using it for the birthday block exchange that I'm doing with a group of Sloanies (Pat Sloan quilting friends.) I'm going to play with it a bit and share it here whether I use it for my birthday quilt or not :)

*Me-Quilting* Projects of the Moment

I'm hoping to get some me-quilting tonight and tomorrow (if I'm not teaching!). I have three Pat Sloan projects on the go: Vacation Time, Little Wishes, and Friends on Chelsea Lane!


What's at the top of your sew-for-me list?


With Joy,

Sarah V

Read more...

Quilting Closeups on My Quilty Barn and Mini Spools Quilt

We had a couple of hours of Autumn sunshine today. Long enough for me to grab my camera and take a few photos of the quilting on my latest finish, my Quilty Barns and Mini Spools Quilt.

You might be able to see that I quilted through the middle of the spools to make two rows of quilting. For the border I wanted to add some curves but not have to mark them! What can I say, I love the look but if I have to work too hard to get it, I avoid trying.

I am always thinking back to all of the Mennonite quilts I saw when I first started quilting. While I am no where near the level of quilter, I do resort to using simple motifs made from everyday things when I think about quilt designs. I know they would have used curves - probably leaves or wreaths - to fill in the space of the border. My choices are not so ornate (or as brilliantly executed - but I did it!)

The half orange peel like curves are done in white thread, the second round of curves (might I even call them swag-like?) are done in variegated thread.

This photo shows the decorative stitch I used to machine sew the binding on. This stitch is so much easier for me than blanket stitch on my machine because I can leave the bulk of the quilt outside of the harp (that gap in the middle of the machine). I used the funky variegated thread that came with the box of Pat Sloan Aurifil thread that I won awhile ago :) It has orange and purple, white and a little bit of lime green in it. I also used it for the lines I quilted inside the spools!


This should be the last closeup look at my Quilty Barns and Mini Spools quilt for this year! It's hanging happily in my dining room until next month when it will be replaced with my Advent calendar quilt :)


What inspires your quilting designs?


With Joy,

Sarah V

Read more...

The First and a Finish

Halloween is over for another year, but not before we had some fun decorating!

And NO SNOW! 

It did end up raining quite a bit, but since the trick or treaters started really early (like 5 o'clock!) we turned the lights out by 8 anyway.


Before Halloween night was over I did have a quilt finish making it my second one for the month!

My Quilty Barns and Mini Spools quilt! I machine quilted it this month and did the binding by machine too. Halloween night I sat on the couch and handstitched the hanging sleeve down while waiting to hand out candy.

Between my two quilting finishes I folded my stash!
The top row has piles of Tula Pink (jelly roll and fat quarters), Christmas, Bari. J. with Tim Holtz and some Mary Engelbreit, and the final pile is Cotton and Steel.
The bottom row has two piles of fat quarters, Harvest Joy picks, and pieces that are a yard/meter or more.

I do have a bit more fabric, but not much. The rest is set aside with specific projects or backings that were bought for specific projects.

Folding my fabric became a *thing* that preoccupied me while I was finishing my first quilt this month (one you'll get to see next year!) 

I promised myself that when the quilt was finished I would take the time to fold my fabric.
I extra procrastinated by perusing Pinterest for pretty directions too.


I used the folding method from Rachel at In Color Order that she shows in this video:
In Color Order Fabric Folding Tutorial

I'm so glad I did. It is calming to look at these fabrics all folded, neat and ready. I have even run my hand along the folded fronts as I walked by once. Or twice.


How do you organize your stash?


With Joy,

Sarah V

Read more...