Hello Pickles is DONE-- Yeehaw!!

Finally, a year and a half later, Hello Pickles is COMPLETED!!  Hip hip hooray!  The pattern is from sweet FeistyEily.  I am so beyond excited!  Piecing the top took a bit longer than I planned, and then I added the border at the end, so it took a bit longer then I had hoped.  Life happens- seriously!!  Does that happen to everyone else??  I am blown away by how many amazing quilts my quilty friends can make!  Either I am re.al.ly slow or I just don't put as much priority on my quilting- I hope it's the latter :).  hehe.  With my family and life obligations, quilting has to take a back seat most of the time.  I long to finish projects and make beautiful pieces, but some times, it just has to wait.  And I have had to come to a place in my mind where that's ok.  I may never be a hugely "popular" blogger, but I make things that bring joy to people, and create sunshine in their lives, and that is what quilting is all about, to me.  

 I love how the completed top looks, but the back (even though it's just one piece of fabric) really has my heart.  This quilt was made for a special boy in my family.  He surprised me by his choice of fabrics- I had expected dark, somber prints with maybe a few bright pops of color, but he blew me away with his choice of a modern, very brightly colored bundle from Sew Fresh Fabrics.  Peg and Becca had run out, but created one for me with just one substitution- it saved the day!!  One piece of fabric was this backing print- it was just a FQ though.  The boy just could not get over how awesome that print was- it had become one of my all time favorite prints, once I saw it too!!  I knew I wanted to back it in that print, but never dreamed how tricky that would prove.  Apparently the fabric had been sold out and after much crying and tons of searching, I found an amazing etsy seller that had the 6 years I needed!!  WOW!!  So there's the back, all awesome and colorful- it's called Wild Garden.  

 The background is Kona Ash- love that color!  Love how the colors around it POP!!  It's a favorite for backgrounds!

 For quilting, I chose to FMQ spirals on all the colored centered blocks and I zig zaged over the entire ash centered blocks.  I alternated the directions of the zig zags on each row.  It turned out fun!  How I wish I had a larger throat space on my machine- someday, someday.  I'm working with under 6" here, so it gets tricky.  

 The quilt is abut 100" long and over 6' wide.  I love how it looks with all the happy colors showing!

 All rolled up and ready to go to that awesome boy I know!!

Warm/Cool Quilt Along Top all laid out...

An update on the Warm / Cool Quilt Along quilt, or as I call it, the Orange and Aqua Value quilt...

Well, I was silly and thought I could lay this quilt out in a 30 minute time period. It is now a running joke- it took well over two hours- never woulda dreamed it! HA! It was just a matter of keeping the pattern right and the prints spread out enough that took so long. I was frantically trying to pick it up, in number rows, of course, before feet ran all over it! I have never stacked anything like this so I am nervous how the rows will go. I just CANNOT mess it up- I don't want to be that friendly with my seam ripper :) hehe! So I snapped a few photos to double check myself as I go.
I loved standing back and looking at the diamond pattern the orange and aqua makes! The giftee requested that the diamond be centered, so there you have it! Now to figure out a border, binding and backing :). This person loves SOFT but I can't find any minkee that is to the liking- ugh! I tried flannel, but that wasn't "soft enough". This will be interesting! I'm praying for some orange and blue minkee to pop up somewhere ! hehe!

Supernova quilt top Finished!!

Looking at this project in the beginning, I knew it would take me forever. A week and a half later, it's done!! It's an old quilt along I found over at http://freshlypieced.blogspot.com/, designed by the lovely Lee. The very first time I saw it, I knew it was destined to be my very own, sunset colored, quilt. You see, sunset is my favorite time of the day. It's special, calm, peaceful- no matter how crazy things are around me at the moment, and I just am overcome with an inner quiet and strength. I grew up in the South, and we had beautiful sunsets there. I worried when I moved to the West years ago that there would not be "my sunsets". I was thrilled to find that the West holds it share of gorgeous sunsets also. There may not be as much green, but at least there are sunsets. :) So this quilt is a special one to me. It will be my "go to" quilt- perfect for an evening hot cocoa and for lazy day naps (oh what would one of those be like?? :) hehe!)!

I found ShaShaLaRue (http://www.flickr.com/photos/46563412@N06/) on Flickr and loved her extra touch of the pieced border. Her colors were so close to what I wanted to do, and that was all the inspiration I needed! So a border it was- love how the border corresponds to the colors of the closest star!

I have stressed over the backing for months now- I'm not much for roses or big flowers, and most of the prints that had the colors I wanted in them were florals. I had almost settled on one of the new LouLouThi prints, but I didn't just want to "settle". So after more hours than I care to admit of searching the internet, I thought of Hawthorne Threads (http://www.hawthornethreads.com/) color grid (I had already searched their site, but not using that tool). It won the day and found my backing!! It wound up being the first Castle Peeps print called Castle Town in Cardinal Red. It has all the colors I wanted and looks like sunset has hit the town and is reflecting off all the buildings :). And I wanted something fun and cozy- castles are a little more grand than I was thinking, but every home can be our own "castle", and that sealed the deal! So I ordered it, and will have a back to the quilt soon! So exciting!

I am almost done hand sewing the binding on my Bottled Rainbows quilt. I have seen 2 tutorials in the last week about machine binding (thank you Kaelin http://theplaidscottie.blogspot.com/ and Jeni http://incolororder.blogspot.com/!!!) and will never hand sew another binding- wonder of all wonders!! I am beyond giddy! It takes me so long and I think of all the things I could be sewing instead :) hehe!

Now to fix my opps on Kermit's Path and see what I will have to do to make it work! I think I will wind up adding a border because I accidently cut all the pieces at 8.25" instead of 9.25 inches- gotta love that! HA! So off to get a section done! Have a great week!

Getting so close!

No, I have not fallen off the earth- we just got back from our "stay-ca-tion"! We had a blast going and doing all within about an hours drive! It's so fun finding things close that give you the perfect opportunity to have fun with your dear family! So now I'm back- posts will be regular again :)--

My Bottled Rainbows is peiced and ready to go! Here it is in the nice sunshine- finally! I was so excited that Rachel mentioned it over at http://stitchedincolor.com ! Oh the stories this quilt tells- each square has it's own narrative, and then there are a few things running through them all! I have been itching to get this one finished. Therefore, I have been not so patiently waiting on the remaining fabrics :)! They finally came, and I am going to be throwing myself into this today- yipee!
Here's the Kona ash for the border- I may throw some of the stripe in at the points where I have to stitch the border- still working through this in my head! Then the Remix argyle for the back, and the stripe for the binding. I looked at the remix stripe, but this one was more "Us"! It is an Alexander Henry print and I loved how the lines look like crayon on either side of the stripe- too perfect! So there is all, ready to be cut up and put back together! YAY!! Here goes...