Neptune Pillows

I started making the blocks for these pillows sometime last year, and then they got set aside and eventually added to the list of UFOs I hoped to finish. I was glad that Sew, Mama, Sew hosted a pillow contest this month because it gave me the little push I needed to get them done!

Here's the aqua pillow:

and the midnight one:

I got the idea for this type of quilt block from this Moda Bake Shop recipe.

The backs of the pillows are made from ivory (I know that's not the official color name though) quilter's only cotton from JoAnn's and have pieced strips using the same fabric (and a few leftover blocks) as the pillow fronts (Moda's Neptune, isn't it pretty?) I lined the pillow backs with muslin but they aren't quilted.

It's been a while since Amy's hosted a Sew and Tell Friday and I'm excited to link up with her! Go see what everyone else has been making!

trapped under sleeping toddler

Waiting for my little one to feel better. I'm afraid I'm going to have to skip dinner-making again. I think I'm past frustration now, just resigned to wait this stupid virus out. (We are on day 5 of her feeling crummy.)

I got these jeans (in the picture) at the thrift store and they are a little too flared and a little too long. I think I'll look for some cute brocade-type ribbon and make them into capris with ribbon at the hem.

I quilted my pillow fronts this morning (also in the picture, see them?) while L worked on a pedialyte popsicle in the high chair. I did a squared off meander and question my use of navy thread on the darker one. But I'm not changing it. I'm excited to finish them, soon.

making pillows

I started these a long time ago...

this is not weird in the top right corner even though it looks like it in the pic.

it's really straight in the top right corner, just not pressed super flat or something

And decided to work on them some more today. It wasn't what I was "supposed" to be working on, but I had fun and I like what I ended up with.

A couple weeks ago I found and bought pillow inserts at Target, 2-packs for $3.48. They are 18" pillows and I had to change my plan from what it was however many months ago.

I realized one of the reasons I had put this on hold was that someone suggested I put solid color strips between the rows. I hadn't planned on that and for some reason I never bought the fabric to do that. I found that there were enough solid-ish fabrics in the honey bun to separate the rows and give the eye a calm place to rest.

All the blocks were done (and partly sewn into rows) for the light pillow; I put it together and then also made the dark one today too. I need batting before I can proceed :) so I will probably put these aside for a few days or maybe I'll go get batting tomorrow. Anybody have any suggestions for the quilting?


Also. It was over 70 degrees here today. My girl wanted to go out on the deck and see the neighbor's dogs and it was warm. Where 16 days ago it was under more than a foot of snow. Spring makes me happy. (It's going to snow again next week.) The snow pile that was nearly 8 feet tall in front of our house will probably be all the way gone tomorrow, yay!

I mopped the kitchen floor today, too. And dealt with my girl feeling crummy off and on throughout the day. What is up with a fever that comes and goes, and comes back again? I think she'll probably feel a lot better tomorrow.

More Monkey Blocks

I sewed up this set of 4 monkey blocks yesterday and cut out the group of 6.

And today I was able to get all 6 sewn together.

I now have 22 of these finished and need to make 13 more. I am starting to be a little short on some of the fabrics--I only had 1/2 yard of each of the solids and a couple of the monkey prints. I might need more fabric to finish this baby up. :)

If you want to make similar 13.5" quilt blocks with these measurements, the diagrams and cutting measurements are here.

p.s.Check out the We Love Jenny Auction, you can bid until 10 p.m. EST tonight (February 15).

the one I made

Finally I can show off the little quilt I made for Julie, for PQS5!

For this quilt, I started out just by making some selvage rainbows. Then I trimmed them all down to the same width (4", 4 1/2", I can't remember for sure) and made half-square triangles with the selvages and some Kona crush.

I wanted to do something interesting with the quilting... I think I achieved that. The swirls weren't too difficult, it was the straight-ish line spiral in the colored triangles that was challenging to get right.

Here's a view of the back, another look at the quilting:

These swap quilts are a good chance to try out new patterns, or piecing ideas, or quilting ideas, without committing to something huge and super time consuming. :)

Hope you had a great Valentine's Day! The We Love Jenny auction will be open until 10 pm EST, Tuesday February 15. Please check it out, and help out if you can.

Placemat Quilt Swap Arrived!

I decided to sign up for Placemat Quilt Swap 5 a few weeks ago, and got the mini quilt I made for my partner sent off this week. I'll show a picture of it here as soon as I hear that it's arrived safely...but meanwhile, the one she made for me arrived today!

It was made by Julie aka jgmehlin on flickr. I like it a lot! My main request (I think my only request) was that she use some white in it. I love how bright and cheerful it is. I love those different-sized triangles and the rainbow strips too. Thank you Julie! (I can't wait to show the one I sent to her...)

I also finished up my quilt for the We Love Jenny Auction, which is taking place on February 14-15. The auction will be raising funds to help Jenny Reeder with her medical and housing expenses while she is fighting leukemia. Check out the donated items at the auction blog and see if there's anything you're interested.

Here's the heart quilt front:

and the back:

I had fun with the quilting inside the heart--I got some good ideas from Leah's Free Motion Quilting Project blog. If you are a quilter and are at all interested in improving your free motion quilting skills, you should subscribe to this blog.

I hope you're having a good weekend! I have 4 quilt blocks for my boy's monkey quilt cut out and ready to sew so I might do that tonight. I also helped my 6-year-old set up a blog. He hasn't written his first post yet but I think it might be really cool (and fun and funny) when he does.

have a heart

Last night I read Amy S.'s latest blog post and was reminded of the We Love Jenny Auction which will be held on Valentine's Day. The auction is to raise money for medical and housing expenses for Jenny Reeder, who was diagnosed with leukemia in November and is working hard to beat it! I met Jenny when we were teenagers and have a lot of great memories of our neighborhood, camp, and church activities during our high school years. I was so sad when I found out she was sick... and I hope and pray she will make it safely through this ordeal. So anyway, I decided to go ahead and make something relatively quick for her auction. I found this Valentine Flag tutorial at Nanette's blog--I saw it a couple years ago and finally decided to make one.

I made one heart instead of two... The fabrics are mostly from a Love is in the Air layer cake I've been slowly using up. :) I will be finishing this mini-quilt up in the next few days so it will be ready for the auction on Monday!

9-patches week 12

How's everybody doing? Just how snowed-in did you get this week? We were homebound for a couple days--Tuesday, the day of the blizzard when we got 13.5" of snow, and then the next day, which was beautiful and freezing cold and the snowplow didn't get to our street until about 10:30 p.m. The kids had 3 snow days this week, and today's a professional day at school, so they only went to school on Monday. We have had fun playing video games and reading books (including Dr. DeSoto, Cannibal Animals, and finishing up The Wonderful Wizard of Oz). The boys have played out in the snow a lot too--I haven't ventured out in it much yet this time. Anyway, we have another storm coming over the weekend, but I hope we don't have another week like this for a long time!

Here are this week's 9-patches! This is the last installment of weekly 9-patches for a while as I have all the blocks made for my second 9-patch quilt. :)

And here's a shot of the rainbow of blocks I made this time. Plus one lonely black and white one.

Guess which colors are difficult to find in quilt shops these days?

I have a lot of time to think about it, but I wonder what color scheme I should do for my 3rd 9-patch quilt. (Yes, I'm pretty sure I'm going to make a third one. And then I'll probably move on to something else.) I could do a 2-color quilt, or even go monochromatic, or do something with a lot of black and white... what do you think?

If you're interested in making your own 9-patch quilt, I used the instructions from the crazy mom quilts one-a-day quiltalong. Here's the blog post about my first finished 9-patch quilt using this tutorial (I made another 9-patch about 10 years ago as well....) This time however, I'm making a smaller, throw-sized quilt with 48 blocks instead of 70.