I'm doing my best to keep my priorities intact.  I miss this space and thought a quilt finish was just the excuse to get back here.

I had to go back through my instagram feed to see how long this quilt top sat finished before I had it quilted.  It was almost a year.  I can't believe I let it sit for that long.

It was long arm quilted with swirls in a turquoise thread.  I love everything about this quilt.  The fabric is Jeni's Dreaming Vintage line.  I'm generally not one to go for warm colors but I love how all of these colors look together.  It's such a happy group of prints.  The pattern is Golden Afternoon, also by Jeni.  I bound the quilt with two shades of green and backed it with a sewing machine print that coordinates in the very best way.

I'm keeping this quilt for myself.  I'm greedy like that.

I miss this space.  I really do.  It's difficult to make it a priority but at the same time regret not capturing so many moments and projects over the past couple of years.

I finished a hat last week.  The pattern is the simple pleasures hat from purl soho knit with blue sky alpaca royal in antique black.  It is the softest yarn with which I have ever worked.  After I finished it, I thought it would be fun to look back on all of my knitting projects I have done over the years.  Only to realize I hadn't photographed most of them, let alone posted most of the recent ones.

In October, I made a pair of color block mittens for a friend's birthday.

I lost my favorite black and white striped mittens last spring so I made myself a new set of mittens in purples and greys.  I adapted a glove pattern to make these.

I made a couple of hats for myself and for lulu this past fall.  One of lulu's has already gone through the washer and dryer and on to the trash.  The other was a replacement yarnster since her first stretched to the point it didn't fit anymore.

let's talk soon

sunny days caravan tote zipper

I have added a few totes to my shop.  The weather is finally starting to cool down.  Thank goodness for cardigan weather!  It was too hot to ice dye for quite a stretch there.

Hopefully, I will be able to get some new fabric ready to go in the next few weeks.  If there is interest, I was thinking of adding some yardage and bundles of some of my dyed fabric to the shop.

School starts next week so that should free up some time for me to get to work on my project list.  As much as a dread the idea of using an alarm clock again, I'm looking forward to some uninterrupted stitching time.

go anywhere totes

I'm one of this month's featured artists over at Citizens of Textile this month.

I've made a small collection of totes, some zippered pouches, and a couple of special baby quilts.  Each piece uses some of the snow dyed cotton I made late this winter.

snow dye baby quilt

The range of shades and values created with the snow dye process are pretty inspiring.  It's made for a fun one a kind group of projects that I'm so excited to share.

detail of buckskin caravan tote

The Citizens of Textile shop is open through Sunday night 7pm CST.

Thanks!

Last year I set myself up with a long project list.  By mid-year I had started several quilts but hadn't finished most of them so by December I was determined to cross some off the list.   

The idea for sky blue geese came from a doodle in my notebook.  It has blue and ivory cross-hatch print flying geese blocks surrounded by text prints.  I sent it as a surprise to a friend I haven't seen in years.

The back is mix of prints.  The blue and white plumes were a favorite of mine.  They've been in my stash for years so it's great to see them in a project.

I made a couple of Christmas quilts in December.  I used a scaled down version of Jeni's Giant Vintage Star Tutorial. They were also given to friends.

One was a large silver star, the other gold.

Florette turned out to be one of my favorite quilts to date.  The pattern is by Jeni Baker.

Anna, Jeni, and I took a screen printing class ages ago and while they were here they helped me pull fabrics for future projects.  It was a blast to spend hours happily geeking out over fabric with friends.  I used one of the stacks we put together for this quilt.   Then I finished the top while we were on a sewing retreat together.

The back is one part, grey and white paisley and one part, floral.  Truth be told...the floral was our old shower curtain.  I made the curtain a few years ago and saved the fabric when I made a new one.  I had intended to sell this quilt, but in the end, I surprised lulu by putting it on her bed while she was in school.  She nearly fell down the steps to thank me because she was so happy.  (that would have been an awkward ER visit!)

Golden geese was another quilt I intended to sell.  It was also a stack that Anna and Jeni helped pull together.  The pattern is of my own design. I love the fabrics, so much print on print on print.  I just couldn't part with it.  I have greedily kept it for myself.  (that's how i roll)

It's backed with some fabric from my stash.  It felt great to check all of these of my project list.

I'm looking forward to sharing more about this year's list.

In January, Dana started a scrappy bear paw quilt-along on Instagram.  I love making bear paws blocks and had a stack of fabric that I had set aside for myself ages ago.  It was a mix of old fabrics that I had been saving just for me, along with new prints that caught my eye.  Once I saw Dana's quilt a-long, I knew I had to get started right away.

I gave one paw in each block an accent paw.  In the end, it turned out to be a sampler quilt hidden in a bear paw quilt and I absolutely love it.  As soon as it was finished I had it on the bed.

The border is the Paris map print by three sisters for Moda.  It's from years ago but I squirreled away yards of it because it is one of my most favorite prints.  It was my jumping off point for the prints for the rest of the quilt.  Basically, all my favorite colors, which are mostly sort of non-colors.

One of my favorite bits is the binding.  In with one of my favorite text prints, I added sections of a black print from the first fat quarter bundle I ever purchased back in 1997.  It is a Moda print and I still love it today as much as I did back then.

The back of the quilt is a lovely black print on double wide fabric with some grey around the edges.

A friend quilted it for me on her long arm.  The quilting pattern was called bayside.  I'm sure they were going for waves, but to me it looked like thick curly bear fur so I had to try it.

She did an amazing job and I'm thrilled with how it turned out.

This was one of the those quick projects that took me ages to finish.  The colors are not ones I usually work with so I had a difficult time deciding how the blocks should work together.  I shuffled them around so many times.  I kind of hated it and then I loved it.

The heart of each log cabin block was part of a panel that I cut up and then edged with wonky bands of tone on tone orange, green, blue, and gold.  The orange is a cross hatch print, while the others are silhouettes of leaves.

The extra spaces around the blocks and the binding are a coordinating brown print that I think looks like little bees buzzing around, but is actually tiny airplanes.  I quilted it with gold thread in vertical straight lines.

The back is big, wide bands of the coordinating colors that I used on the front. 

I think it makes for a great baby quilt.  I'm happy that in the end I powered through and kept working on this one.  It would have been a shame to let it sit on a shelf unfinished simply because it was bit frustrating in the middle of making it.

It will be listed soon.

Way back when in January 2011, lulu and I went shopping for fabric for a quilt for her bed.  She chose a fun mix of pinks with a bit of green mixed in.  We set them aside until we came up with a pattern.

That fall, while I was on the Sewing Summit shop hop I picked up the Swoon pattern and started cutting into the stacks.  By sometime in 2012, I had finished two of the blocks and she had decided she didn't love pink the way she used to.

She loved blue and green and I was so happy I had not made any more than two of those giant blocks at this point.

We sorted through my stash and came up with a new stack.  I spent some more time cutting, stitching, quilting and finally last fall (just before the Thanksgiving deadline she gave me) her quilt was finished.

At some point in this whole process, she asked me to hand quilt it.  Since she's on the short list of people I have a more difficult time saying no to, I agreed.  I machine quilted the sashing with some quick matchstick quilting not only because it looks cool, but also to hold the quilt together nicely while I spent the hours it took to hand quilt the blocks.

I took advantage of the left over blocks to fill some space in the back along with a mix of prints.

I also took a huge sigh of relief when I finally finished it and she loved it.

It's looking more like January at the cottage today.

Schools are closed and the spouse is working from home so it's a full house. In between knocking down icicles and sledding I caught a few shots of the quilt I finished last night.

It's been a year in the making. It's made from the Half Square Triangle Block of the Month that Jeni shared on her blog last year.

Most of the fabrics I used are from Moda's etchings line by 3 sisters.

There is also good selection from Bunny Hill's Putting on the Ritz along with some bits from my stash including some French General and some repro prints. It's bound with a cursive print from etchings.

The back is a mix of grey prints.

Thankfully the wind didn't blow the quilt away, but it tried.

I'm busy packing for Sewing Summit, but just wanted to share some of the garments I've made this year. This tunic (I call it my rice pudding shirt) is Simplicity 2447 and is made with Ironwood Aneta from Lotta Jansdotter.

Here is my etchings Tova.

I knit this tea leaves cardigan with Manos del Uruguay extra fine merino.

I love my liberty Tova.  I simply hemmed the cuffs instead of banding them and added two inches to the length.

This one is the long sleeved shirt with Chinese collar from Simple Modern Sewing.

This skirt is made from Jay McCarroll's new Center City line.  I used Simplicity 2215.

Now I'm off to pack and clean and check off all my lists so I'm all ready to head to Salt Lake tomorrow.

I didn't plan to make a postage stamp quilt, but it seems that's what I ended up doing. I knew I wanted to do a black and white quilt.  I already had a great mix of black & white and black & off white geometrics.

I knew I wanted to bind it in a bright color and this blue jumped out at me from the shelf.

I started out by cutting 4 1/2" squares, but they were too big for what I had in mind.  I ended up cutting each of them into quarters.  I loved the look until I started to stitch them up - all those little corners to match up.  I randomly stitched blue corners on some of the blocks just to add a little color.  I was afraid I was going to run out of blocks so I decided to add the blue cross to use up some space.  I'm so glad I did.  I think it makes the quilt top much more interesting.

I didn't have a plan for the back until I was wondering around the shop with the blue under my arm and spotted Kate Spain's Central Park line.

It's machine quilted with an old gold thread.

I didn't want it to be too  structured since the blocks were already arranged in a strong grid.  I decided to go with a wandering diagonal.  I didn't use guides so that the stitching lines would have a bit of flow to them.

It's listed for sale over at etsy and big cartel.