I'm nominated!

I've been nominated in THREE categories for the Bloggers' Quilt Festival. How cool is that?! Thanks to everyone who nominated White Wedding.

I'm certainly in some fine company. Head on over to Amy's Creative Side and vote for your favorites in 15 different categories.

Because I don't just want to plug for the Bloggers' Quilt Festival, here's a look at what I've been working on, lately.

I finished sewing in the pretty prints on my cathedral windows.

We had a granny square cookie exchange at our last Minneapolis Modern Quilt Guild meeting. Here are all my blocks on my design wall. (We used the strip piecing tutorial by Katy of I'm a Ginger Monkey.)

Hours were spent chain piecing for the Retro Flowers Quilt Along this weekend.

And I never did show you the guitar strap that I made for my sweetie for his birthday. I used this tutorial by Amber of One Shabby Chick, a couple prints from Curious Nature (an absolutely dreamy hand, btw), and a cheap guitar strap I cannibalized for the hardware.

Blogger's Quilt Festival

Welcome to my first Bloggers' Quilt Festival entry! Isn't it nice of Amy to get us all together, even when we can't attend market, to look at lots of pretty quilts?

If you're a regular reader, you may have seen something about this quilt before - it has certainly received the most hits on my blog.

Back in September, Generation Q called for entries to the Scrap Splat Challenge. Of all the people who signed up, 30 were chosen at random to participate. I barely squeaked in there at number 30, but squeak in, I did! The amazing and talented Thomas Knauer sent out an envelope of scraps to each of us with 40 2.5" squares. We were tasked with using all the squares and adding only solids to create our entries.

I'll be honest. When I first opened my envelope, my heart sank a little. These were not bright, modern prints for the most part, but ran toward traditional with ivory-based colors. They were decidedly unlike the fabrics in my stash. I didn't know what to do for a while.

Finally, I was inspired by the upcoming wedding of my sister-out-law and, believe it or not, the traditional fabrics themselves. I would make a very modern version of a very traditional pattern - a Double Wedding Ring!

With the help of freezer paper, a pencil and some yarn, I drew my pattern and set to work.

Once the quilt was complete, I took pictures to send off to GenQ.

I then carefully sewed the quilt to a mat and placed it in a frame for my sister and her husband.

Now, it will be travelling with them as they relocate to North Carolina, where she will do her Post Doctorate work.

Congratulations on your wedding, Dr. Okagaki!

Please pop over to the Festival to see all the other entries. There are some really wonderful quilts out there!

Brave, brave Sir Robin!

I'm getting ready to bravely run away retreat. I'm so excited!

You'll remember I mentioned the retreat before. Amanda Jean of Crazy Mom Quilts (and co-author of Sunday Morning Quilts) is going to teach us all weekend at a lovely camp with hiking trails, should we decide to leave the sewing room and take in some nature. Our assignment is to bring 12 to 20 17" quilt sandwiches, one side print, one side solid, that will then be trimmed to 16" and joined in a QAYG style. Being absolutely incapable of doing anything the easy way, I decided my print side should be pieced.

I pulled out the solids I had chosen and decided they gave a disappointing IRL 1/2 yard bundle just the pop it needed to bring it to life.

Knowing I had precious little time, I chose a quick and easy 64 patch. Strip piecing is my friend! Two days later, I have 20 blocks (2 each of 10 combinations). Flip through to my flickr page, if you'd like to see them more clearly.

I think this one is my favorite.

Or maybe this one...

This one??? Why are you making me choose?!

Okay, if you don't know me in the real world, you may not know how my mind works. Allow me to enlighten you and possibly give you a giggle.

As I was piecing, pressing, and documenting for the blog, I realized a chess board has 64 squares, just like my blocks! Duh. I used to play chess, so that should have occurred to me sooner. Into my head popped, "How about a nice game of chess?" If you're a child of the eighties, you know what I'm talking about. That lead me to Joshua, which is the working title of this quilt. (We reserve the right to change the name of our quilt as the binding is being attached. Yes, we just used the royal we.)

Now, I just need to cut all the batting to size and baste my sandwiches. Of course, I also should swing by the fabric store to get more of the solid I'll be using for sashing and maybe get an extra spool or two of thread. A girl can't just run to JoAnn's when she's in the country on a retreat, you know. Better safe than sorry (especially since I emptied my second spool of the year of 1000m Gutterman while finishing up these beauties last night)!

Lists to be made, so I don't forget anything...and a pesky little thing called a J O B. Hope to share a quick finish with you in the next couple of weeks!

Yesterday was my blogiversary!

On yesterday's date last year, I began my foray into the world of the quilt blog. At least 37 lovely people have decided I'm entertaining enough to check out on a regular basis. I've created 45 posts of varying length and you've viewed them an amazing 5208 times! I would like to thank each and every one of you for joining me.

For all you statisticians out there, this year of blogging has seen me complete:
30 VQB blocks
10 Quilts
3 Tops
3.5 Other Projects and
1 Tutorial

 

I can't tell you how many yards of fabric I bought... Maybe I ought to keep track of that sort of thing, too. I can tell you that I just received a beautiful bolt of Kona Medium Gray.

Isn't it lovely?!

On completely unrelated note, I am lucky enough to know an incredibly amazing and inspiring woman who brought back a huge chocolate bar for me from Norway.

I'll tell you more about her later, I'm sure.

This weekend is my sweetie's birthday and I'm headed out to a quilting retreat the following weekend, so my posts will be light (not really a change, I suppose), but I hope to get back in the swing of creating quickly so I can show you some really fun stuff soon.