2015 Pantone Quilt Challenge: Marsala

Over at On The Windy Side and Play Crafts they are co-hosting a quilt-making challenge based around Pantone's current colour of the year, Marsala.
The colour has intrigued me since Pantone announced it, as it is not what you'd look at and straight away think of as a "star" colour. But quilting has taught me that every colour is a star so I took up the challenge, and decided to make a quilt that would get me to love Marsala.

Spectacular Swapping

It used to be that when it was quiet around here I was either too busy or not busy enough for blog posts. But then I started immersing myself in the world of Instagram, and Instagram swaps. And it is far easier to spam Instagram with what I'm working on than it is to write a blog post. :P

I want to try and post here fairly regularly again, and I have lots of exciting upcoming projects to share but first I wanted to share the amazing work done by my swap partners in the swaps I've participated in. I love them all equally, so I'll do them in swap date order so it doesn't seem like I'm playing favourites. :D

Using What You Have

Let's be honest here, while quilting at its roots is a craft of using up what you have lying around, these days it can be an extremely expensive hobby and sometimes you just can't afford to buy new stuff for a project so you return to the original idea of making do, and use up what you have.
This baby change mat was one such project.

'Black, Blue, Shark!'

 Last week I sent 'Black, Blue,Shark!' off to its home and it arrived safely so now I can show more details. Prepare for an avalanche of pictures!

Mashaa Monday: Y's, Bees, and Quiltspam

Mashaa Monday time! I should probably just rename it Mashaa Tuesday at this point, though. I'm finding it more and difficult to get around to doing it on Mondays. It might just be because I'm stubborn and don't like to do what I'm told, even if I'm just telling myself. :P

This week I conquered the 'Y' seam!

Project Snap And Quilt: Down The Drain

This morning was the first time I've walked my son to school since I began #projectsnapandquilt. The walk home was also the first real alone time I've had for two and a half weeks. It felt awesome to wander along, listening to some Opera Magna and looking out for interesting shapes to snap. I'm already finding my eyes being drawn to things they've never noticed before, finding beauty in mundane things. Like this drain cover.

Mashaa Monday: Tuesday

I mentioned before that yesterday was a public holiday here, so today feels like a Monday. Good enough, right? :P

So it was a pretty busy week. Even though I started #projectsnapandquilt I still managed to finalise my colours and layout of my partner's mini for the Little Quilts Swap. 

Project Snap And Quilt: Vampire Batman

I decided that #projectsnapandquilt would be a weekday only thing so I could basically leave my weekends free for family stuff. And then yesterday was a public holiday, so I took that off as well. I guess I'm making up the rules as I go along. :P
Like today. My son is home from what was to be the first day back at school after the holidays. He spent all morning yesterday throwing up (and then describing it to us! D:) and still isn't up to the school walk yet. So to help entertain him, I asked him to draw me my quilting design for today.

I love that he pokes out his tongue when he's concentrating! 

Project Snap And Quilt: Overgrown

Today is a busy day so I made sure I did #projectsnapandquilt first so I didn't do it later when I was tired, and grump and quilt like the other day. :D
The snap I took was of a bunch of overgrown things in our yard. I'm looking forward to school going back next week so I can have more interesting things to snap, while I'm walking my son to school.

Project Snap And Quilt: Aztec Disasters and Rainbow Grass

Yesterday was really busy for me so by the time I had a chance to do my #projectsnapandquilt I was exhausted and grumpy. Which obviously reflected in my work.
I mentioned before that this was a "warts and all" kind of project so I guess that was a "warts" day. :P

Project Snap And Quilt: Clover Petal

Yesterday my kids brought me breakfast in bed, and while I was contentedly munching away, reading a book I had an interesting idea. What if I took a photo every day and then turned it into a free motion quilting design?

I liked the idea because it would make the daily chore of walking the kids to school more fun, as I looked out for something to snap a picture of. I also liked that doing the #scrappypostagestampQAL on Monday morning made me feel like my week was off to a productive good start so I was looking for a way to turn that feeling into a daily thing, and after the #dailyFMQ experiment I thought that practicing my free motion quilting every day would be a handy habit to get into.

So here it is: my first ever #projectsnapandquilt post. I'll run this here and on Instagram (I'm @strange_stitches over there) and would love it if people joined in. 

Today I snapped a picture of a clover flower.

Mashaa Monday: "She will Be Mine"

It's been a very busy first week of the September school holidays here, but I somehow managed to get even more sewing done than usual!

My Little Quilts book arrived and I immediately was drawn to the little bee quilt so I grabbed some of my fabrics (did I mention I love having a little "stash" now? :D) and began planning.

Pretty Practice Pieces

I've been making up a lot of smallish quilt sandwiches lately for free-motion quilting practice, and just general play. I'm even using the "dailyfmq" hashtag over on Instagram, further stepping out of my comfort zone and confronting my fear of joining in. Scary!
So today I thought I'd make good on my promise and show how I baste those cute little quilt sandwiches so they can become pretty practice pieces.

'Star Of Sedona' Test

A few weeks ago I saw my very first double nine patch quilt and instantly wanted to make one. Then of course I forgot I even wanted to do that and started a hundred and one other different things. :P
Until I was looking through the Block Tool app I'd purchased last week and noticed they were sorted by grid. I looked at all the three, six, and nine grid blocks and when I saw their 'Star Of Sedona' block it kind of leapt out at me as one that would work amazingly in a double nine patch setting.

Reveal ALL the half-done things!

Incoming picspam of what I've been doing lately, kind of like a Mega-Mashaa-Monday. :P

Starting with handpieced 60° triangles cut from Organic Cotton Jersey with my new Sidekick Ruler from Jaybird Quilts. (This will eventually be the front of a t-shirt when I decide what style to make it.)

Mashaa Monday: Feathers and Beasts

Mashaa Monday!
Well, this last week didn't exactly go according to plan. (When does it ever, though? :P) My son very generously shared his germs with me so I was mostly too sick to do anything much, and just sat around getting very bored and occasionally pretending to be a pirate in Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag.
But at the end of the week I was tired of being bored and decided to just make up some practice quilt sandwiches and have a play.

(Mashaa Mondays are where I mash all the little bits and pieces too small to warrant their own posts into one post. You can find out more about the name here.)

Mashaa Monday: Stash, Strips, and Sith Lords

Mashaa Monday already?! (Wait, I feel like I say that every time. :P)
(Mashaa Mondays are where I mash all the little bits and pieces too small to warrant their own posts into one post. You can find out more about the name here.)

I finally have a stash! Around the time of my birthday last month I made an order at Pink Castle Fabrics as a birthday present to myself. I really wanted to get something special like the Indelible bundle, but decided I should go with what I need, rather than what I want. So I now have fabrics in every colour of the rainbow and I'm so excited!

Shark Week: The Totally Awesome Shark

My original plan was to just raw edge applique a regular shark or two onto the quilt-top, possibly inserting a fin between one of the seams, but then I remembered Bob Shea's book 'I'm A Shark!'. So I set out to make the Totally Awesome Shark. And then I started thinking that if my son had this little guy on a quilt, he might think it would be really fun to be able to take him off the quilt and play with him, and I imagine the little boy I'm making it for would think similarly. I just had to figure out how I was going to do that!

Shark Week: Applique

Late one night while working on 'Black, Blue, Shark!' I decided I'd like to finish the top piece with needle-turned applique. Which I'd never done before. I've seen a few videos of how to do it but in order to refresh my memory I'd have had to go out into the loungeroom where my laptop lives and that would have led to lounging around instead of getting stuff done. So I just went for it.

Shark Week: Curvy Seams

Shark Week continues! (Shark Week is all about the 'Black, Blue, Shark!' quilt I'm currently making.)

My initial (super-technical! :P) design.

When I planned out this quilt I wanted to use entirely curvy (wavy) seams to put it together. I wanted it to look a little like ocean waves or currents. I also wanted to use a whole bunch of blues gradating from dark at the bottom of the quilt, to very pale at the top. This didn't end up happening, due to my lack of fabric choices, but the wavy seams did.