Sophia's Quilt

It felt great to have Sophia's quilt finished several days before Christmas.  Good, and strange, I almost never finish anything until the very last minute.  Unfortunately I didn't have time to try to get a good photograph, and needed help to get a full view of it, so these are the best photos I have.   I suppose I could always borrow it back if I decide I need better ones.  It's not a work of art, anyway.  I really urged Sophia's mom to just use it, it's meant to be used and loved, not treasured and locked away.

Sophia's Quilt

Here's an update on Sophia's quilt - getting very close to the top being completely pieced!
Someone asked me about the pattern, and I wanted to give credit to the designer.   I saw it here, in a Quilting Daily newsletter, and really loved both the great movement of the pinwheel pieces, and the simplicity of the piecing -  I want Sophia to have it before her next birthday and I knew this would be doable.  I discovered that the block design is by Elizabeth Dackson, of "Don't Call Me Betsy" fame.

In one of those synchronicity moments, It just so happens that this morning I caved on my "no new projects" resolution already and signed up for her BOM for paper pieced stars.  I've been loving paper piecing, and especially the stars I've been seeing around Pinterest, so I thought this BOM structure would give me the discipline to actually do it... How hard can one block a month be?  Plus I get to interact with all the other crafty people and see their designs and color choices.   It should be fun!

What I've Been Doing

As I mentioned in a previous post, I've been resting my brain a little since my classes were completed and it's been the holiday season.  That doesn't mean I have not been sewing, however!

On 12/23 we discovered that the granddaughter's stockings were woefully inadequate to the task of holding all the goodies we had for them.  Quick trip to JoAnn's and a big fuzzy cleanup later...  Voila!  I used some really fuzzy soft fabric, the likes of which I have never seen, not to mention sewed on before.  They are very messy, because the fabric was extremely slippery.  But thankfully a lot of mess can be hidden on the inside of a stocking.  The fuzz produced was mind boggling.  I had to keep the shop vac next to me while cutting.  And had to cut over on the empty floor, or my entire work space would have been overcome.

The other thing taking up my attention is a quilt for my youngest granddaughter.  I gave her sister one on her fourth birthday, and wanted to to the same for her.  I saw this picture on the cover of "International Quilt Festival News" and liked the simplicity of it...  (Can't link to it).  So I decided to buy some of those luscious Kaffe Fassett fabrics I'm always lusting after, and go for it.  The Interweave site provided block dimensions which I used, but it could be done at a lot of different scales.  

I have assembled five of six  24" x 24" block units like this.

After looking at this on the wall, I changed the orientation of the lavender/aqua blocks.. I'll show the difference in my next post. It was interesting how a simple change made a big difference in the overall look of the quilt. In this photo the dark red adjacent to the aqua is too similar in value.  Same for the pale print next to the lavender.  My change, rotating one block, brought the lavender next to the red, and vice versa.  

I have only one more 24" block to assemble, then sew the six big blocks together add borders, and quilt.  That's all.  :)