What to do When Traveling

As I noted a few days ago, I was traveling last week for work.  While on the plane to and from, I spent some time reading a book, watching a movie on my iPad, and working on another tile block. This is block three of the tile quilt blocks that I'm working on occasionally.

I'm almost half done with this block.  To me, this is a great block to take and work on while traveling because all you need is some thread, a needle and something to cut the thread with (dental floss cutter, nail clippers, etc.) and you can work on a block!  I prepared the block in advance and basted it at home before leaving, so I didn't even have to deal with pins.

I have another trip coming up, so I'll hopefully finish this at that point.

Next Tile Block Prepped

I finished prepping my next tile quilt block last night.  I tried to incorporate a few of the same fabrics from the previous block to tie it together while introducing some new fabrics as well.  If I complete the entire quilt there will be nine blocks total.  We'll see how many I do.  It might take me a little while to do all nine blocks if I do decide to go that route.

It's all basted, which you can see on some of the pieces, and ready to go in my carry on for my trip.  I don't know if I'll have time to prep another one since I need to focus on finishing up my DQS quilt. 

Tile Quilt - Block 1 Finished

This weekend I finished the first tile quilt block that I started at my class the weekend before. 

I really like how it turned out.  I think this is going to be a cute quilt.  I think I'm going to try and prep a few blocks to take with me on my upcoming trip to Paris.  I think this would be a good activity to do on a plane. 

Tile Quilt Class

On Saturday KK and I took a class at Emma's Quilt Cupboard in Franklin, MA to make a tile quilt using needle turn applique.  I've been learning more needle turn applique this year and I thought this would be a fun class to take. 

This is the class sample.  I thought the quilt was cute, although not quite my style.  After looking at it, I decided to make mine in Asian fabrics. 

Here is the beginning of my block, pre any applique.  It looks busy and not that wonderful, but once I started to needle turn, things really started to come to life and I really liked the block more and more.

Here's the block as of this morning, almost finished.  I just have to turn the three end pieces on the right and the one on the bottom left.  I really like it now that the grout has been formed. 

Here are blocks from other students.  (sorry for the blurryness, all of the photos were taken with my phone.)  I love the idea of using different background fabrics.  I think it would be cool to have multiple blocks with a rainbow of fabrics for the background, red for one, orange for another, etc. 

I might prep a few blocks to take with me on my upcoming trip to Paris.  I think this would make a good project to do on a plane. 

Blooming Nine Patch Quilted

So I got the blooming nine patch I made for my cousin's wedding back from the quilter recently.  Here are a few pics.

I absolutely LOVE it!  There's a little piece of me that wants to keep it for myself, but I won't.  It's totally my cousin and his soon-to-be-wife.

You can see the pantograph here in this last picture.  The flowers look a lot like one of the flowers in one of the fabrics, so it goes nice.  It was quilted using a light tan color.

Now to bind it...

Set 5 of the Blooming 9 Patch

Here's set 5 of the blooming nine patch blocks.  Just one more to go...

And here are all 5 of the sets of 9 patches.  

I have to cut the strips for the next 9 patch still.  I probably won't get to that until next week.  I have to add a sleeve to a quilt I made a while ago for a show that a friend asked me to submit a quilt to.  

I'm also taking a class on Saturday with Carol Doak at the Lowell Quilt Festival, so I need to do a bit of prep for that.  I'm so excited for the class. I haven't taken a class in over a year, maybe two, so it will be nice to learn some new tips.  Even though I've already taken a paper piecing class before, I always seem to learn something in classes I take because someone always seems to have tips and tricks to share.  It's one of my favorite aspects of taking classes.  

I hope to report back with pictures from the festival itself as well after.  I have a bunch of stuff that I'm looking to get from the vendors... thread for the machine quilting of several quilts, backings for 3 quilts, fabric from the Santorini and Kiwi lines, maybe a few charm packs, batiks, and neutral fabrics to add to my stash.  This is one time that I will probably add a bunch of fabrics to my stash at one time.  Yay!!!

Set 4 of the Blooming 9 Patches

I finished grouping 4 of the blooming nine patches.  I'm really liking how this is all coming together.  It's nice when you're working on a project and you continue to love the fabrics and color choices.  Sometimes the fabrics and colors look great when folded neatly next to each other, but once you start piecing them, they just don't have that same pizzaz.  

Here are the four sets next to each other.  I started to put them up on the design wall, but it was getting so full.  I need to finish a few other projects and get them off the wall so that I can begin to lay this one out.  

Sets 5 and 6 left to go and then I can start cutting the solid squares and laying the entire thing out.  I can't wait!  In my mind I'm 5 steps ahead of myself.  I'm already thinking, "hmm, what would this look like if I extended the last fabric as a border?" "How should I quilt this?"  (If you've seen any close ups of the quilting on blooming nine patch quilts, feel free to pass those along for ideas since I'm already mentally on step 1000 in my mind.)

More later... Happy Quilting!

Set 3 of the 9-Patches

I finished set three of the nine patches last night for the blooming nine patch quilt. Here are a few pics of them...
And here are all three sets. If you use your imagination, you might be able to picture the transition in your head.
I also got a little machine quilting done on the scrappy flower quilt that's in my profile picture. I was having some difficulties with my machine a few days ago when I first went to do some of the sewing for it, so I put it aside and worked on something else. I came back to it today, and the machine worked just fine. I think it was just telling me to do some piecing and not some quilting. At least I've been making progress on something, just not my stack of unquilted tops. ;)

July BOM and Beginnings of Blooming 9-Patch

I finished the July BOM today.  I'm officially all caught up now!!!  Here it is.  Isn't it cute?

I also started my asian blooming nine patch quilt for my cousin's wedding.  I made the nine patches for the first two inner sections.  The lighter one is the inner most set of nine patches, and the darker one is the second grouping of nine patches.  I placed them up on my design wall for now that's becoming pretty full right now.  I'm going to have to do something about that. ;)

Here are the two of them together so that you ca see how they go together.

I'm so excited, I'm taking my sister to the Billy Joel/Elton John Face 2 Face concert tomorrow night as her graduation present.