birthday quilt

After mulling it over at Legoland Deutschland for the long Easter weekend and changing my mind at least half a dozen times, for the Naked Bed Challenge, I am sticking with the Bless You pattern, but in a Scandinavian color scheme, my inspiration being a beautifully delicate duvet cover made using vintage fabric featured in this book.

I don't have any vintage fabric to use for this, but I think some Essex linen/cotton with some Kona blues and one itty bitty half-yard of the City Weekend grid will do nicely.

Ideally, I would love for it to be reversible, and on the back I would love to do mostly white with one large square of blue scraps off center. If I have time, that's what I'll do.

For the challenge, the top must be done by June 2nd, and my birthday is a few days after, so I would love love love to have the whole thing done by then, and make it my birthday present to myself.

call me crazy

I signed up to do the Naked Bed Challenge.

I barely have enough time to get my work done for my actual job and now I have committed to making a full size quilt. Oh well. I am excited!

I am using Sarah Fielke's easy peasy Bless You pattern (but mostly solids) and will probably tie it rather than try to quilt something that big on my dinky little Singer.... although now that I've begun free motion quilting that wall hanging I can see how it can get to be addicting...

creative quilt top

I lost my sewing room this weekend to our new au pair. Although I am so glad to have reinforcement on the way, it was a little sad to put my fabric and notions away in boxes. Not having space to leave my machine and the iron out will mean a lot less sewing. I was able to get a lot done in twenty-minute increments of stolen time, here and there.

Luckily, I managed to finish this one last thing before packing it all up.

It is the top to what will hopefully soon be a quilted wall hanging. I followed this tutorial and it was the most fun I've had piecing since I made the improvisational blocks for my sons' quilt.

I didn't follow the guidance exactly. She recommends using four fabrics; I used three. She doesn't break up the strips as much as I did either. But I started out the way she suggested and relied heavily on her tips and the examples she provided for inspiration.

This concept of a non-pattern is incredibly appealing to me. It was the first time I felt like I was making art.

summer colors

Not a lot of time for sewing lately, there is so much going on, but every so often I shirk my responsibilities and sneak into my sewing room. Today my little helper and I managed to finish this little summer bag in canvas.

I lined it with some more of the canvas at the top and some plain old white cotton at the bottom. And added a little tag with my name.