Round And Round

My soccerball is shaping up nicely! (Don't be deceived by the wobbly look of the quilt top on my knees)


In true quilting fashion, I took the quilt top with me to do some hand stitching in the hotel last night (part of that worktrip I mentioned in the last blog entry).


I have 4 patches done (i.e. white-black-white-black), and though I was debating whether it would have been better to pin it for now, then quilt it and THEN stitch on the edges to shape it (to avoid any bunching from quilting-related tugging), I think it will be okay, as I pinned it pretty well


and am planning to hand quilt around the hexagons and pentagons anyway.

I'm In Moda Love

So for months, I've been awed by quilters blogging about the beautiful fabrics they bought with Kaffe Fassett or Moda designs. An out-of-province work trip let me discover a new quilt shop, this one specializing in quilts as opposed to general fabrics, and though I had promised not to spend a fortune, I couldn't help myself when I saw 9 bolts of the Bistro line of Moda fabrics and went for it. Ah, I'm dreaming of a quilt, and this one is definitely for myself... so far everything else was made with the intention to give them to someone else or ended up going that way anyway...

Here are my treasures:

I'm afraid I might get sick of panels if I ever go through with all my panel quilt plans, but I'd like to use this fabric for a quilt like this hopscotch one by Amanda Jean at Crazy Mom Quilts. I bought the red fabric to be the stand-out fabric similar to Amanda-Jean's orange block amongst all the pinks.

If anyone has better suggestions for a quilt, please send them my way. I have 1/4 m of each fabric.

I also found these cute flanelettes for future baby quilts:


The sheep for the backing, and the flowery fat quarter might be combined with the bugs and critters flanelette at some point, for a summer baby :)

Ahhh, fabric shopping makes me happy!!!

So Many Good Blogs!

Oh dear, I just checked out one of the updated blogs on my links (to the right of this), and looked at a comment, and followed that link, and found a new quilting blog, which recommended two good quilting blogs, which had comments and links to more quilting blogs, and now my list of blogs I check out has doubled, oh dear. Soon my quilt blog-reading and -blogging will compete with my quilting :) I'm so impressed by AmandaJean's Crazy Mom Quilts blog - I've seen so many recommendations for her blog on my browsing sprees, and I honestly don't know how she manages those 100+ comments she gets on her entries. The last time she had a question about a quilt pattern idea, there were 183 comments (last time I checked, anyway). That's just so impressive!

Anyway, in terms of quilting, I'm in the process of making the soccerball into a round shape and sewing it to the (very very simple top). I've put a back together also, just from some leftover flanelette pieces - love the colours, and almost like it more than the top ;) Photos to follow.

One Soccerball Coming Up!

I spent last night busily sewing away. My first time piecing, hmm. I think I overdid sewing the corners together for the mitering, but I guess there's no harm in that. I like the result, I think it'll be pretty flat once I iron it, as well.


The plan now is to attach it onto the green soccer-field flanelette I have,


and I've changed my mind on the blue soccer ball fabric, that'll be a border or worked into the back (I had planned to use as the light patches on the soccerball, but I like this realistic version much better).

Some Progress On Owls, Soccer Balls and Vampires

Two of the three small quilts I was planning/working on are nearing completion!

I pinned the Owl Quilt...
The overlap of the backing flanelette will be folded around for a border on the top and bottom, and binding.
I also finished the backing for the Vampire Quilt, as well as the borders around the top, and pinned that all together.
I checked, and the eyes do glow in the dark, it looks pretty cool!


For both of these quilt, I ended up piecing batting together, and I tried CrazyMom's method of stitching the edges together instead of simply overlapping them. It's working okay so far.

A big thanks to turning*turning (Mal?), who responded to my query about hexagon-quilting by listing a bunch of useful sites/tutorials on her blog. I used the paper method to piece a soccer ball. When I was halfway through it, it struck me that I could probably have googled it instead of drawing everything out by hand, each piece individually because for some reason, hexagons and pentagons fit better on a curved object than a flat surface, so none of the pieces ended up being quite the same (so no cutting of multiple pieces at once...). I think it worked though, either way, and hopefully I'll manage to sew them all together properly. My first time piecing...

(If only my former supervisor new what good use I've put my MSc thesis draft to...)

Weird Fabric Warning

So, while ironing the blue-ish fabric in the center, I noticed a warning on the selvage:

"Do not use for children's sleepwear"

Why in the world not? Does anyone know the reason for this strange warning? Is the fabric poisonous or something?

Some Pink Strategy-Rethinking? Help please!

After a productive Sunday, I have finished sewing 9-patches (or so I thought... either I lost 3 along the way or miscounted...)


Ironed them into a much smaller pile...


And assembled the existing blocks on the floor...


Now, looking at this pre-quilt, I'm thinking that maybe I made the squares too small for a disappearing 9-patch? They're only cut to 4" square so by the time I've cut the 9-patches and sewn them back together, I'm looking at 3.5" squares with 1.5" squares and 1.5"x3.5" strips in between. Hmm. I wonder if it will be too busy?

I've come up with a few options:

1. leave as is, as classical patchwork quilt
2. continue disappearing 9-patch and hope it'll turn out somehow
   
3. leave every second patch a normal 9-patch
   
4. leave just a few blocks as normal 9-patches throughout the quilt

Any comments on those suggestions, or entirely different ideas to make all this work worth it in the end?