Fabric Therapy When We Really Need It!

It's been a crazy week, for sure! 

I've been relying on sewing, reading, and binge-watching shows from streaming services to keep down the stress levels.  

One of my goals this year is to make lots of quilt-oriented Christmas gifts.  To that end, I pulled out a well-aged jelly roll (Flurry by Kate Spain) and looked for some inspiration.

I'm not a fan of jelly roll pre-cuts - I think they're too limiting - but I really liked this fabric line, and the jelly roll was ON SALE!  Once I settled on a pattern recipe (this type of pattern is all over the internet), it didn't take long to sub-cut the fabric strips and assemble all the parts.  The border fabric also came from the stash - a Moda Grunge called Sugar Cookie.

I love the crisp, colorful look of the fabrics.  They're festive, but don't scream "Christmas".  Not sure who the lucky recipient will be, but I've made a start on my goal.

I've been making Carolina Chain blocks as a leader-ender project this year.  The Flurry quilt needed lots of leader-enders, so...

I chopped up lots of teal and aqua fabrics, as that's the theme for this month's Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  This is just a few of the RSC blocks; I think I'm actually going to end up with enough blocks for two quilts by the end of the year.

I've been working on hand-stitching the binding on this quilt (English Garden by Kaye England).  I decided to get 'er finished this week and dialed up Season 3 of The Crown (Netflix) to keep me entertained while I stitched.  I finished the binding and hanger, just need to appliqué the label and the quilt will be finished.  Pictures soon.

One of my favorite forms of escapist reading is mystery/detective stories.  I think it comes from my childhood love for Nancy Drew.  I've read many different authors over the years and I love finding a new-to-me author with a series of mysteries that capture my imagination.  My latest find is the Tess Monaghan series by Laura Lippman.  Tess is a private investigator in Baltimore, Maryland and I think I enjoy the descriptions of Baltimore (a city much like New Orleans) as much as the detective adventures!

Stay safe out there, everyone! 

UFOs Just Wanna Get Done

I took a quilt class with Kaye England several years ago.  OK, it was 10 years ago.  Class participants were to choose a quilt from Kaye's latest book at the time:  Vintage Gathering. 

The class was a lot of fun (Kaye is a hoot!) and I learned how to use the Easy Angle and Companion Angle rulers. 

I made a decent start on the blocks for my quilt, but I quickly stalled out due to limited fabrics for the scrappy Sawtooth Stars in the quilt.

Hurricane Katrina happened a few months after the class.  My options for fabric purchasing became limited and my quilt project got put away.  I knew I eventually wanted to finish the quilt, but I had to wait for some additional fabrics to come my way.

A few weeks ago, I went digging through all my drawers and boxes, looking for examples of Lancaster Blue fabrics for a Stars in a Time Warp block.  I laid my hands on the Kaye England project and it emphatically told me it was time to "get me finished!"

From that point on, I worked obsessively to finish the quilt.  I found plenty of fabrics - now in my stash - to finish the Sawtooth Star blocks needed for the quilt.  I needed some additional fabric for setting the blocks, and my LQS, the Quilted Owl, had a perfect fabric from one of the Downton Abbey lines.

 

I used the rest of the focus fabric, the pink chintz, for the strippy part of the setting.

 

I added an additional dark green border.  It looks a bit dark in the photo, but in person it makes a nice frame for the quilt.  It hasn't told me how it wants to be quilted yet, so I guess I can wait just a little longer to completely finish.  I'm just happy it's out of the UFO drawer and all the fabrics are back in the stash or scrap boxes!