DQS 11 - DONE!

I finished my DQS 11 Quilt this weekend and sent it off to its soon-to-be new owner.  I love the way it turned out.

The orange totally isn't me, but it works.  My partner loved oranges, greens and blues.  She also liked a lot of simple, straight line quilts.

I really hope my partner likes it.  She didn't comment on a single photo that I posted, so I'm nervous now.  Quite honestly, I was a bit frustrated that my partner didn't comment at all.  To add to it, I was then questioned by the organizers of the swap about the quality of my work.  I was quite taken back and felt insulted.  Why would I participate in a swap and send sub-par work?  Its left a sour taste in my mouth for this swap and I'm not sure I want to participate in the next round. 

DQS Top Completed

Last night I finished the top for the Doll Quilt Swap.

Now to quilt and bind it.  I had the leftover binding from my Moonlit Sky quilt still out, so I put it up to this quilt and I really liked how it looks.  What do you think?

My other option would be to go with the orange or one of the light fabrics. 

Doll Quilt Swap 11

I signed up for the Doll Quilt Swap 11 lottery on Flickr about a month ago.  I was hoping I would get selected, but wasn't sure if I would since it was my first time signing up.  I've been following the group for a little while, admiring the work of so many of the women and their talent.

I was selected to participate and was given a partner that seemed to like a lot of oranges, blues and greens.  The problem for me? Orange is my least favorite color and I only had one orange fabric in my stash.

After digging through my stash, I decided on the above fabrics.  My partner also seemed to like a lot of straight, clean lines, so I decided to do a mini bento box quilt.

Here's what I've come up with so far.  The bottom left three blocks are out of place, but I'll fix that before I sew it together.  I still need to make a few more before I piece the top.  Right now it will measure at 10" x 10".  I'll probably make it 10" x 15" or 15" x 15".  The requirement is that the quilt must be at least 9" x 9" to 18" x 18" or anywhere in between.

I really hope my partner likes it.  She didn't comment on my first post showing the fabric choices.  I'm just going to move forward hoping that she just missed it and really does like it.  

Bento Box - 100% Complete!

I finished putting the binding on the bento box last week.  It's now 100% complete!  My first official finish of 2010.

Here's a close-up of the quilting.  It's a variegated lime, blue, and purple thread from Superior Thread King Tut's collection.

:)

Finished Bento Box Top

I finally finished putting the borders on my Bento Box quilt.  Life's been crazy the past two weeks trying to get everything in motion with the house.  We signed the P&S this week, so things are finally moving along.  

Here are some pics of the final top.  I love how everything came together. The border has the exact same lime green as in the body of the quilt.  

I'm off to KK's tomorrow to play with her new toy... a quilting frame.  I'm hoping to quilt either my jelly roll braid quilt or my happy hour quilt.  We'll see how much time we have.  I'm also bringing a few projects with me in case KK has a quilt on the frame, that way I can do some quilting at the same time. 

Bento Box Top - Finally

Life's been crazy the past week and a half with buying this house.  I'm sure anyone who has ever bought a house before knows exactly what I'm talking about... So I finally had some time to quilt this afternoon during lunch.  It's Patriots Day here in Massachusetts, and the Boston Marathon.  I didn't have work off, but my work is along the marathon route, so it's very difficult to get into the office unless you're there before 7.  As a result, I worked from home today and took a little time during lunch to piece most of the bento box quilt together.

I'm going to add a middle border, probably about 1.5-2" wide before I add the border, which is a lime and navy batik.  Not the same batik as in the main part of the quilt.  It's the one on the top right of the photo below.

We sign the Purchase & Sales agreement on Wednesday or Thursday this week.  I probably won't be blogging as much as in the beginning of the year since we'll be packing and doing everything else associated with the move.  I'm going to try and pack a lot of my quilting stuff at the last minute, but we'll see how long that plan lasts.  It will all be worth it though.

Lynn's Bento Box

Here are a few pictures of Lynn's Bento Box quilt that she started during our gathering on Saturday.  I think it came out great.  I just love the colors.

This was layout 1.   It looks good, but not as nice as layout 2.  

And here's layout 2, the layout she ended up going with.  I love this layout.  I like how it has the traditional Bento Box feel with the alternating dark and light values next to each other in each quilt square.

Quilting Gathering

Yesterday was our quilting gathering.  We got together around 10am and went until about 4:30pm with a small break for lunch.  We debated for a little while on what we wanted to do. All do the same pattern? Mystery Quilt? A quilt based on a color or theme?  Hmm...  After a little debating, we decided to all do a Bento Box quilt.  

Prior to getting together, I did some pre-work and cut a bunch of strips so that I could spend more time sewing and less time cutting.

Here's a picture of my first block and KK's first block. We both decided to use just two fabrics for an interesting, dynamic quilt.

Lynn was doing a scrappy look with some blues, greens, and yellows paired with black and white fabrics.  Things were coming along nicely, but when she started to arrange the blocks together, things just didn't pop.  We realized that she needed more contrast, so we went and explored her stash.  We picked out some darker blues and brighter yellows that really helped.  

THEN... I pulled out a few orange fabrics and WHAM, that's what the quilt needed.  Here we are auditioning different oranges with the blues, greens, and yellows.  You can see one of the quarter squares in the bottom right of this picture that just didn't go.  Ok, it went, but it just didn't make things pop.  Look at how those colors work together now!

Here's a close up of us auditioning all the fabrics.  I can't wait to see how it all comes together.  
And finally, here's a picture of the four blocks I was able to finish.  I finished another 3 last night when I got home.  I have a lot of pieces sewn together, so while it doesn't look like I got a lot done, I really did.  I'm loving how just the two fabrics work together.  

Fabric Choices for New Quilt

This coming Saturday, KK, Lynn (a co-worker), and I are getting together for a quilting gathering.  We all decided to do the same pattern, a Bento Box.  I've been wanting to make one of these for a while and I thought this would be an easy quilt to make and wouldn't require a lot of concentration since we'll probably be gabbing the whole time.  

Here are my fabric choices.  What do you think?  I'm SOOOO excited about them.  It will be made with the navy batik and the bottom lime green batik with the top lime green as the border.  This will help meet one of my 2009 goals, to make a quilt using batiks.  I've always loved batiks, but have never really used them to make a big quilt.  I've only made a few small wall hanging with batiks.  

I'm thinking of doing some cutting prior to our gathering so that I can spend more time sewing.  I think KK was planning on doing the same thing.  Now I need to figure out what kind of baked good I want to make and bring since I promised I'd bring something.  It can't be chocolate, even though I'm a chocolate addict, because KK doesn't like chocolate (gasp).   

I've been working on my autumn quilt.  I just have two more sides of the border to add and I'll be done with the top.  Here's a little peek.  I hope to have the top done by the end of the week.