The Kate Spain Scrappy Quilt

Happy Saturday to you!  I don't know about you, but I just love a lazy Saturday with not much on the agenda.  And that's what I'm having today!  It's a welcome break.  

The past two weeks have been filled with planning, cleaning, and hosting Charlotte's 4th birthday party.  (That's right: she's FOUR years old!!!)  And then it took me a bit to recover.  Here's to life in my thirties.  Sigh.

Anyhow, here's a finished quilt!  Hooray!

Do you remember my Kate Spain HST Overload quilt?  Well, I had a few scraps remaining, and I just could not part with them.  So I sewed them together, then cut them up, sewed them together again, and came up with some scrappy half-square triangles.

If I remember correctly, I believe I cut the squares to 4-inches, before doing the HSTs.  So they are rather small.  Which means the scraps are even smaller!

Then I added the border, and then I didn't like it.  :(

So I sent it off to Anne, and wouldn't you know... she saved it!  She did this very tight meander only in the negative space, leaving the triangles and border with quilting.  The texture is fantastic.

I think I found the smallest scrap.  In the picture above, see the blue patch on the top?  That's made up of TWO fabrics.  The one on the bottom right is probably not even as big as half my pinky nail.  Teeny tiny!

And I love the texture on the back, too.  I did a strip of that gorgeous peacock fabric.

What I think really rescued this quilt in my mind is the binding.  Anne took it upon herself to do that for me.  Isn't she a dear?  I was going to do a scrappy binding, but boy does she ever have an eye for these things!  The gray stripe on the bias is just fantastic.  Now I simply cannot part with this quilt.  Perhaps it is time I start to keep more of my quilts, anyhow.  Thanks so much, Anne!  :)

What's so great about this "finish" is that I feel like my quilting has been in a slump lately.  When we moved early in the summer, I was able to set up a really lovely quilting space out in our sun room.  The problem with that is that the sun room is not at all insulated.  So it's about 30 degrees out there right now!  And that has put a damper on my productivity.  But I have been getting quilts that I worked on earlier in the year back from quilters, and so I still seem to have a "finish" or two each month.  

How about you?  Are you busier than ever this winter?  Or has quilting taken a backseat to other endeavors?

(Linking up Amanda Jean and with Cynthia for "Oh Scrap!")

Harrison's Gray + White Mod Quilt

My sister, Theresa, is having her first baby soon - hooray! I am so thrilled for her and for her husband.  Of course, I had to make the baby a quilt!  My only regret is that I did not have it done in time for the baby shower last month.  :(

Anyhow, Theresa decided that she would do Baby Harrison's nursery in gray and white.  (And by the way, isn't "Harrison" just the best name?)  Theresa has a very clean and modern aesthetic, so I thought that more modern quilt would appeal to her.  I came up with this:

I just did a "stack and whack" technique that my friend, Anne, taught me after she pulled off this gorgeous quilt for her brother.  I added the borders then quilted along the vertical seams and voila.

I also put together four, little burp cloths backed in gray minky.  Theresa's husband is a Virginia State Trooper, so I thought they might like this "civil servant" style fabric.

It's my first attempt at a modern-style quilt.  Theresa loves it, and her State Trooper husband loves the burp cloths, but what do you think?  Please be honest... Modern is not really my style, but maybe I'll give it another shot in the future.