What I look at Every Day

About four years ago I made a quilt for my desk and it sits above my computer where I look at it every day.

The lighting is bad (well, isn't it always in an office building) and the photo was taken with my new iPhone, so it's not the best.  It gives me something bright and cheery to look at every day instead of the drab taupe walls and the cream colored walls.  I love color too much to go without some bright colors in my desk.

This was actually the second quilt I made with this pattern.  The first one I made in a class to learn about stained glass quilting. 

I did not do a very good job with alternating the value of colors in the first quilt and it looks very flat.  I used the same fabrics, except for the boarder, in the second quilt and it works much better in terms of value, but it still could use some variety, especially in the flower and leaves section of the quilt.  If I could re-make this quilt after more years of experience I would change things up even more. 

Accepted

I woke up this morning to the email that I had been waiting for, I learned that my Moonlit Sky quilt had been accepted into the Lowell Quilt Festival.  This was the first time I have every submitted a quilt into a juried show.  I'm not expecting to win anything, but will enjoy having my quilt displayed with some other amazing quilts.

I have the binding cut, I just need to sew it together and add it to the quilt.  I also need to attach a hanging sleeve and finish adding the crystals.

So, if you're going to be in the New England area in August, swing by the Lowell Quilt Festival to see my quilt!

Yes, I'm Still Here

Phew, it seems like it's been forever since I last sat down in front of my sewing machine.  Maybe that's because it's been since the end of March!  YIKES!!!  I just returned from Las Vegas last week from my company's major trade show which was consuming a bit of my time.  Now that it's behind me, I can really get back into the swing of things. 

First things first, I must clean up my quilting room.  It's an absolute mess!!!  I can't get motivated to do ANYTHING until I get this room cleaned up. 

After that, finish quilting the last row of blocks on my Eva quilt.I've got the first four rows done, I just need to finish the fifth. 

Once done with that I can get back to working on some of my other projects including the Storm at Sea quilt for my parents, the multiple BOMs that I need to finish, and more. 

I hope to have more fun posts to come with some action in my quilting.  It seems like forever.  I miss it.

Starting a New Project

I've begun working on a new project, a quilt for my parents.  They wanted a quilt for the stairway leading to the second floor of their beach house.  We picked out some colors together and I decided on a Storm at Sea pattern since it fits nicely with a beach house.

I found a blank template online and colored it in with the colors we were thinking of.  We had already decided on the Origins line by Basic Grey for the quilt, I just needed to figure out the pattern.

I also found some free paper piecing templates online, so I printed those out to use for this as well.  If you've read this blog at all you probably know that I really love paper piecing.  I love the perfect points that you get with paper piecing.

I've started to do some cutting but haven't finished.  I needed to order more fabric online since I couldn't find it near me anymore, so that delayed be a bit.

I haven't started a new larger quilt in a while, so it's been fun to get into another project, although I'm still working on trying to finish a bunch of other projects.  Oh well, the life of a quilter I guess - start three projects, finish one.  Right?

I likely won't have a ton of time to do much quilting over the next three weeks.  I've got a bunch of stuff going on for work including my company's customer user conference in Las Vegas in a few weeks, so I'll be leaving the DH behind to head out there.  I'll have to see if I can bring a hand sewing project with me.  We've got family in town from GA as well starting this weekend.  I hope to really pick up on my quilting again come mid-May.  

Adding Crystals

While at MQX last weekend I got some supplies to add crystals to quilts.  I decided to add some to my Moonlit Sky quilt.  (Yes, that's the name I have decided on.)

Sure, my crystals aren't in a perfectly straight line, but I really like how this is coming together.  Because there's just some straight line quilting on the stars, I feel like the lines of crystals really enhance the simple quilting and the stars themselves. 

In this light green section I decided that less is more here.  I want to showcase the amazing quilting first and foremost.  The crystals are really here to enhance the quilt.  

I still have a lot of crystals to add, and I have to order more since I completely underestimated the number of crystals I would need.  You would think a package of 144 crystals would go a long way but it really doesn't. 

I like that from far away you really can't tell that there are crystals.  You can tell they're there from the sparkle and the faint appearance of a line. In this picture there are crystals in the purple, the blue stars and the green.