scrap challenge results and round 2

I finished Tammy's mini quilt yesterday. In the end, I used layout A, which got the most votes. I love how this little quilt came out. I sure hope Tammy likes it, too. Isn't it so fun to see what you can make from scraps? I NEVER tire of seeing the results. Never, ever!

To quilt it, I stitched next to the zig zags with my walking foot. It looked a little plain, so I added the swirly quilting to the white spaces. I like the swirls a lot!

I used more scraps for the back and some flea market fancy for the binding. I love the back as much as the front! Instead of adding a label, I just wrote right on the back. A little risky, but it turned out ok. It measures 14" x 19".

I also got my mini quilt from Shelly last week, the other half of the batik challenge. I challenged her to use white in a quilt. She didn't even have any in her stash! Yikes! (Sorry, Shelly. I couldn't resist one last jab. ;) )

She did some fancy pants quilting on it, which is so much fun!

And of course she made a pieced back, as she always does.

Thanks so much Shelly! I love this mini! It's going to go great in my craft room.

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I had so much fun with these scrap challenges that I'm going to open it up for round two. If there is anyone out there who would like me to make a mini for you from your scraps, leave me a comment letting me know what kind of scraps you would send me if you are chosen or how you would like to challenge me. Instead of using a random number generator, I'll pick based on the comments this time.

miscellany

Remember me? I'm the girl that used to blog (regularly) in this space. I'm feeling funky today and I always find it hard to blog when I'm in a mood like this.

However...I've been making things...

a hexagon needle book (eeek! i love this!)
tutorial here. thank you Angela!
hexagon templates printed from here.

I also made a crochet roll for my sister, for her birthday last week.

I love this one, too. It came together super quick. The dimensions are my own, made up on the fly.

It was inspired by Kathy's colored pencil roll that is in this book, but I didn't bother piecing the background pieces. The quilting design is genius!


I've been reading this book over the weekend. Wow. It's rocking my world a little bit. In a good way. It came recommended by Shelly and Andrea.

I'm getting ready for teaching my machine quilting class in November. (Still a few spots left if you are interested. More info here.) Making samples is fun! 4 down and many to go. I thought about doing a quilting stitches quilt along, however I see that Heather beat me to the punch. So I guess that's one thing I can cross off my to do list. :)

Also, I wanted to answer a few questions that came up repeatedly.

Several people wanted to know if I had a pattern for my lunch bag. (see previous post.) I made that up as I went, too. Generally, if I use a tutorial or a pattern for something that I show on my blog, I'll post the link or the source. If there is no info, chances are, I made it up. I'm thinking of making a few more lunch bags and if I do, I'll try to do a quick run down of the steps and share the how to. I did get a chance to test drive my lunch bag last Friday when I went to eat lunch with my boys. I found the dimensions to meet my needs perfectly. No tweaking required. LOVE that.

Several people asked about how I did the quilting on my spiderweb quilt.

I added lines to this photo to blatantly show where I quilted. I echoed the lines from the piecing, leaving about a quarter inch from the edge of my walking foot to the seam, so the quilting lines are 1/2" from the seam lines. Plenty of room to avoid those bulky centers. I used warm and white batting, which doesn't require close stitching (10" or less), so it worked perfectly.

And I dreamed about quilting my blue quilt last night. I'm stumped on thread choice, though. That, and I have 101 other projects vying for my attention. I'm sure you know how it goes. :)

Happy Monday to you!