Blogger's Quilt Festival: Fall 2015

Welcome everyone!  It's quilt festival time again.  I am sharing Fifty Kisses, the quilt I made my sister for her 50th birthday.

The quilt consists of 50 5.5" cross blocks using fifty different Cotton+Steel prints plus one oversize block (11" representing one to grow on).  The binding is the Melody Miller view master print.

Carolyn Friedlander crosshatch in blue was used for the background and the same print but in black was used for the backing.

Guild member Frank Palmer quilted this beautifully giving the quilt such a nice texture that came out nice and crinkly after washing and drying.

My original post can be found here if you want more details.  Thanks for taking the time to visit my Blogger's Quilt Festival post.  Please leave a comment so I can say hi back!  

Friday Finish: Dresden Blocks Top

I have a lot of friends to thank for this one!  Thank you MCM Bee friends for the blocks; thanks to several quilty friends who put up with my constant texts asking for background fabric and layout advice; our guild secretary took the only photo I have of the entire top; and a big thank you to Frank and his polling random salon customers to weigh in on the background color!  It takes a village....ha ha!

blocks patiently waiting....  

These gorgeous Dresdens have brightened up my design wall since last December while I contemplated their fate.  In the end, I decided to stitch them randomly on a widescreen print by Carolyn Friedlander in Pacific blue.  It's difficult to capture the color on "film".  You will notice it looks different in every picture here.

my block...still without the center ;-)

My friends may have selected the background color (between Pacific, Flame, Yarrow), but Max had major input on the block placement.  I wanted to complete the top before Wednesday's guild meeting for show and tell and completely forgot to get a picture with all the blocks stitched down.

see what I mean about the color?

Ede was kind enough the share the photo she took at the meeting.  I think we were holding it up sideways :-))  It's on the large side to fit the bed in my guest room.

There is so much negative space and my shoulder is still giving me trouble (that's my story and I am sticking to it!), so I have outsourced the quilting.  I'm excited to get this one finished!

I won't forget to take pictures once it is quilted!

Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts!  Have a wonderful weekend!

Friday Finish: Even More Pincushions

I may have become a tad obsessed with making pincushions.  Besides the three pincushions made during the Good Neighbors Pincushion Party, I made three others with Amanda Jean's pretty fabric!

Since I am also a big fan of spiderweb projects, I made a spiderweb pincushion following Amanda's mini spiderweb measurements.

Isn't the selvage tag so cute?!  I love those coffee cups, and of course they are blue which make them even cuter!

The carry-all pincushion is from Anna's Handmade Style book.  During the blog hop, Holly made a beautiful version with Amanda's fabric. 

For mine, I paper pieced tiny flying geese from my Good Neighbors scraps using an aqua linen for the background and side panels.  The sides are X's in teal and the ends are Dots in tomato. 

 There are so many pockets for storage in this pincushion!  I love that!

Have you noticed scraps beget scraps?!  

So with scraps from the spiderweb pincushion, which came from scraps after making the others, I made a different version of the spiderweb block and turned it into an oversize deluxe pincushion from Heidi's book Sew Organized for the Busy Girl.

Whew!  That's a lot of pincushions, and I doubt that's the end of my making them.  I think there may be some pincushion gift giving at Christmas time ;-))

Again, the wrap up of the Good Neighbors Pincushion Party can be found on the Connecting Threads blog.

Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts!  Have a great Friday and thanks for stopping by,

Giveaway Winner

A big thank you to all who took the time to leave a comment on my pincushions and giveaway post.  Veronica is the lucky winner drawn randomly (i.e. "Ally pick a number between....."!) who commented "I like the Leaves Array print in sea breeze." and will receive a charm pack of Good Neighbors Fabric from Connecting Threads.

This blog post from Connecting Threads has a recap of all the party participants with pictures and links to all the pincushions.  Also, they are giving away a fat quarter sampler of the Good Neighbors line.  The contest is open until October 4th, so head on over and enter!

Happy stitching,