Blogger's Quilt Festival

This is such a strange feeling!  I have enjoyed seeing the quilts in the Blogger's Quilt Festival since the very first one, but this is the first time I have one to share myself! 

I'm choosing to share a wall hanging I made last year (but before I had a blog, so it has not been featured on here before).  As is becoming typical for me, I was inspired by a photo I saw on Pinterest (http://www.pinterest.com/pin/207024914092055770/) but decided to switch it up a little and make a wall hanging vs. a pillow.  I also wanted to change how the bow was made.  Since I was winging it on that I figured it was the perfect opportunity to make a design wall and really allow myself to play- I'm so glad that I did!  It made things much easier to be able to lay the piece up on the wall and really see the finished project (with the added bonus that my two fuzzy "helpers" couldn't get to those small squares and make a mess of them!  Kitties like fabric just as much as they like quilts :)

 

For the quilting I tried out a few designs from my very favorite quilting book (and the one that makes me want a longarm so bad!) Free Motion Quilting with Angela Walters.  Hopefully the quilting can be seen in these photos- one day we will live in a house with good picture taking lighting, until then I make do with photo editing sites.  In the border I quilted some scrolls and then echoed them when they did not fit enough of the space.  In the remaining white areas I stippled and in the red bow I quilted small swirls in each square.

 

My favorite quilting on this is the leaves that are in the wreath.  Oh how I wish you could see them better!  I love the texture the quilting created and that it fit with the theme of the quilt made it all that much better.

 

This quilt was one of my favorites as I was making it and a year later it is still at the top of the list of favorites.  Could have something to do with my love of Christmas too that helps this quilt top that list :)  I couldn't even bare to put it away last year and instead it hung in my sewing room all year long.  I'm excited to pull it out again in the coming days (yes, I am one of those people that will put up Christmas decorations right after Halloween). 

 

I'm entering this in the Favorite Wall Hanging category of the Blogger's Quilt Festival. 

Spots and Stripes Forever

Oops I did it again... I made more bloooocks, got lost in the quilt... (to the tune of Brittany Spears Oops I Did It Again- yes I am a child of the Brittany Spears, NSYNC, Backstreet Boys generation :) 



Some stripe blocks to add to the blue/green quilt.  I also found a new use (kinda) for my little, diy, traytable turned pressing table.  Turns out I can move it around the house and press blocks in front of the tv with hubby.  It doesn't actually have to stay in my sewing room!  Yes, It took me a solid year to realize my portable pressing table was portable :)

And a little sneaky-peek at the quilt (this is only a sampling of the blocks tossed up on the design wall).  There are the square-in-square, stripe, and solid/print blocks.  There are also three patchwork blocks in the works that will be scattered about.  I'm getting excited to see it all together! 

And for those of you who don't follow along with me on Instagram (@flipflopsandquiltblocks, if you want to) - hubby and I announced some big news!

This was Baby's First Trip to Disney!  Baby M is due April 21st (and for those of you doing the math, I am 3 months pregnant and 5 months married- everything is on the up and up :)

Linking up to Fabric Tuesday over at QuiltStory.





Finish It Up Friday

A few weeks back I had the funniest craving... fabric!  Can anyone else relate :)  Suddenly (at 10pm) I just HAD to go online and look at fabric, of course that led to buying fabric.  I realized I had been pinning lots of navy and green things on Pinterest, so I used that as my inspiration and just started looking for fun prints in that color scheme.  My bundle of goodies arrived last week, but this past Wednesday was the first chance I got to dig into them.

 

I did things a little differently this time and decided to cut all my pieces before sewing.  At the time I hated it (#tedious), but now I'm really glad I did it.  It is so nice to be able to pop into the sewing room for a few minutes and have something ready to work on. 

 

I found a quilt tutorial on CluckCluckSew and fell in love with it- no surprise there, I pretty much love all her quilts.  Nothing hard or fancy, just some square-in-square blocks, some stripe blocks, some patchwork blocks, and some "regular" blocks with just the one fabric.  It is probably one of those patterns that I could do without a pattern, but I love that someone has already done the math for me and showed me a cutting diagram. 

 

One of my favorite blocks.  I usually hate cutting into printed fabric and making blocks like this, I always expect the fact that the print no longer lines up to annoy me but then I see other quilts where it has been done and I don't even notice.  I guess looking at quilt as a whole make it less noticeable than looking at just one block.  Either way I'm glad I did it, love these little zebras.

 

And a second favorite block.  Those letters are so cute!  And I'm glad to finally have cut into that polka dot (as well as the matching stripe that can be seen above), a fabric that I hoarded from Joanns a while back.  Colors I aways go after, so I figured it was a safe bet for me to stock up on. 

Linking up to Finish It Up Friday at CrazyMomQuilts.