What I've been up to lately....

gathered clutches from the Noodlehead pattern (1st & 2nd attempts)

finished batch of brownies quilt

table runner for my grandmother for Christmas

Christmas stockings

Batch of Brownies almost done!

I've had lots of free time to finish this quilt as I unexpectedly got a three-day weekend.  Alice seems to approve of the fabric choices!

On to making the quilt back!  I've decided I must baste and quilt this one and my Fenced In quilt before starting any new projects.  

Yellow blocks

I wasn't expecting to have these blocks completed today.  But recent events in Cairo and neighboring countries made me want to focus on something else for a while.  I had a late start and early dismissal to my work day and things still won't be back to normal tomorrow.

block A

block B

all together now!

Blue Blocks

Here are my blue blocks for my Batch of Brownies quilt.  There are just the yellow blocks left before I can lay them all out and start adding the sashing.  :)

Stash Building

I ordered some fabric a while back and it finally got here.  Happy day!

more Summersville!

stash supplements

too cute to resist!

Purple blocks

I'm making my way through the purple blocks for the Batch of Brownies quilt.  I'm really liking how they're coming together!

block A

block B

block C 

Other projects lying around include my Fenced In quilt which I still need to baste and quilt together.  

Batch of Brownies

I've started making the blocks for my next quilt selection out of the Practical Guide to Patchwork: Batch of Brownies.  I'm making my way through the red blocks and then I'll move on to purple, blue, and yellow.

block A construction

block A

block B

block C

all red blocks

The blocks are turning out pretty well so far!  Of course there are some points that don't match up exactly, but they aren't too noticeable.

Happy Labor Day to all those in the United States!  

Quilt Back

I didn't have that much fabric left over from making the blocks.  I decided to piece them together in a strip and border it with the grey sashing fabric.

sorry for the bad picture!

Then I added blocks from the remaining fabrics in the bundle on either side.  The more I look at it, the less I'm sure that I like it.  Is it too busy? Would it be better if the side blocks were coordinated on either side like in this colorblock design? What if the whole back had a border?  Do I just not like the way it looks in pictures?  I guess I'll be letting this rest until I can figure out what I want.

Fenced In Quilt Top!

All the blocks have been completed and rows joined together!  I tweaked the pattern a little bit, apart from making a smaller version (16 blocks instead of 36), I also changed the measurements slightly since I wanted to make sure I'd have enough fabric from my fat quarters.  As a result, my blocks are more squares than rectangles and I didn't think through the implications this would have for adding sashing.  It all worked out well with some minor adjustments.  I think it would have been better to follow the pattern faithfully since it would have been a little more forgiving in terms of hiding when the square blocks weren't exactly squares.  From a distance it isn't too obvious when the blocks didn't meet up at least.

Now I need to decide what to do about the quilt back!  I definitely can't follow the pattern for this one since I don't have enough leftover fabric, though I think I do want to incorporate whatever is left as well as use the remaining fat quarters from the bundle.

Linking up with WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pierced.  Thanks for stopping by!

Sewing Machine Cover

This probably won't come as a shock to anyone, but Cairo is dusty.  When I first moved here I was always wondering why I kept seeing people hose down streets in the morning.  I figured it had something to do with the heat and wanting to keep the concrete cooler, but then I found out that they were doing it to keep the dust down, which makes way more sense.  We're lucky that the building we live in is sealed pretty well, though the dust still manages to sneak in and coat the surfaces of everything  if we don't clean regularly.

All this is to say that I wanted to make a cover for my sewing machine.  I have one that came from the manufacturer, but it has an open top so that I can use the handle.  My machine never leaves its spot so having a hole in the cover isn't necessary.  Plus it lets the dust in!

I used this tutorial to make my cover.  It turned out pretty well, except I think I was too generous in the measurements.  I didn't want to make the fit too smug, but instead it's a little too loose.  I probably would have used interfacing if I had any available to me since the cover is a little floppy for my taste.  Oh well!  I used fabric from the Summersville line, which I love.

A relic from the 80s

My grandmother sent me one of her quilting books to peruse.  It's called Lap Quilting by Georgia Bonesteel.  It was written in 1982 and I have to say I'm not a huge fan of the quilts in the book.  This probably gets into the whole "tradition vs modern" quilting debate, but the quilts in the book just aren't my style.  I think it's the fabric choices more than anything, I don't have a problem with traditional quilt blocks and think it would be fun to make a sampler quilt someday.  Lap quilting is a technique I'm not going to delve into either - at least not in the near future.  For those of you that are as unenlightened as I was, in lap quilting you attach your pierced block to batting and the backing fabric and immediately quilt it.  After all your blocks have been pierced and quilting, then you join them all together. 

The reason my grandmother sent me the book was because it has a collection of 70 quilt blocks among its pages.  I think it'd be really fun to go through my grandmother's quilt book collection.  We've given her a lot of Kansas City Star quilt books over the past years and honestly she's kind of a hoarder when it comes to saving notions, patterns, books, magazines, and fabric.  Who knows what else I'd be able to find!

Do you have any favorite quilting books or magazines?  I think my next purchases will be Quilting Modern by Katie Pedersen and Jacquie Gering and Free Motion Quilting by Angela Walters. 

block by block

Well, I'm making progress on my Fenced In quilt.  The blocks are slowly coming together.  Pretty soon it'll be time to add the sashing and join them all together!

completed blocks!

I've decided on this gray tiny dot print from Bonnie & Camile's Ruby line for the sashing.  I had wanted to do a gray solid, but there isn't enough in my stash and I am too impatient to order it and wait for it to arrive in Egypt.  :)

Eid Mubarak!

We have a four day weekend here in Egypt to celebrate the Eid at the end of Ramadan.  I had wanted to travel, but instead got assigned to work so I've been making progress on my quilt instead.  

All cut up!

The fabric I'm using is from a fat quarter bundle that Jeni put together for the Fat Quarter Shop.  I'm not the best at deciding whether fabric goes together so I tend to buy from collections and ready-made bundles.  Plus I don't have a huge fabric stash which limits my ability to improvise!  Choosing fabric for projects is definitely one of my areas for improvement. 

Sorted into blocks

Fenced In

I've decided to start out by making one of the beginner quilts from The Practical Guide to Patchwork by Elizabeth Hartman.  Fenced In looks like exactly what I need to get back into the swing of quilting - the blocks are composed of 6 strips of fabric.  No worrying about matching points here!  I've also settled on making a total of 16 blocks instead of 36 like the pattern recommends. 

hello world

I've decided to join the ranks of the quilting/sewing blogging community after being a long-time lurker.  My grandmother taught me how to sew and the last time I visited her in the States, I found a huge binder filled with scraps of fabric and pictures of me and family wearing clothes she made us or holding other quilted gifts.  In this day and age, it seems like blogs are the new method of record keeping, as well as a way to connect with others and share new ideas. 

I'm still getting everything set up in our place, but hopefully I'll have some projects to share with you soon!