Leftover Quilts

Being cheap I mean, frugal, I love leftovers. Food, yes. Fabric, even better.  Ages ago I started a Swoon Quilt for my daughter. I finally had it quilted up this spring (thanks, Maria!)

If you've made the Swoon, you know that there are a lot of little leftover triangles. I saved all these little trimmings, and made mini blocks along side the larger blocks.

I started calling them mini swoons. I made about 6 of them, then abandoned the project. Recently, though, in a studio clean up, I found them and decided to make the reaming 3 blocks. Of course, by then, Camille had come out with a pattern for a real mini swoon. So now, I give you Leftover Swoon.

And, the astute blog observer will notice that the leftovers from the Leftover Swoon became my latest Mini Amish Quilt.

I still have a few more scraps. Don't be surprised if you see these fabrics yet again!

Perfect Summer Weekend

Did you have a good holiday? Mine was just about perfect. I relaxed. Sewed a bit by myself. Sewed a lot with friends (hello DC Modern guys and gals!) Shopped a bit. Even cooked a bit, too!

A little patriotic quilt for the South East Early Head Start program

Fabric deals!

Homemade pesto with basil from our garden

More Mini Sewing

I've been sewing much more than blogging lately, but hope to remedy that soon. I'm keeping up with my blistering pace of one Mini Amish quilt per month.  This month's quilt is creatively named: Four Patch.

It should be 4 patch with a few hst's thrown in for a little variety. But that's a bit wordy.

Here's Gwen's version:

And my version

Just the top so far!

This will finish at 15" x 18". If you don't feel like doing the math, each block finishes at 3". I can't wait to get a few of these finished up and hung in my studio!

Are you sewing along with me (Amy? Linda?) Jump in any time!

What are you doing this Sunday?

Why not join me at Bear's Paw in Towson? I'll be teaching the Modern Improv Workshop!

First Little (Modern) Amish Quilt Finish

I finished #1 (19 to go!)

It came together really fast, especially since I had all of the center squares cut and mainly pieced (remnants of a long abandoned project.)

These minis will be the perfect place to practice some free motion quilting. I fmq'd some feathers in the borders - not too bad for a first try!

I'm already planning July's quilt. But it will have to wait for a bit. A few things to finish up first.

Quilt Books

I love them! I love reading them, I love writing them (huh, what? writing them? Hee hee, more on that on another post!) I especially love older books. I hesitate to call them vintage, because the ones I've been picking up lately are only 20 years old. (What qualifies as vintage anyway? Okay, quick Google search tells me 30 years to be vintage, at least in the Etsy world.) Anyway, so much great inspiration. My latest find was this treasure, found recently at a local quilt guild's show.

Twenty Little Amish Quilts by none other than Gwen Martson!

After flipping through the book, I got to thinking how I might make one or two. Then I thought about making all of them. Say, oner per month. And then I got to thinking that maybe others might want to make some too. Do you?  If so, let me know. If you don't have a copy, the book can still be purchased from Amazon.

Here's the first one I'm making:

So, will you join me?

A funny thing happened when we were moving to New York...

We realized we didn't want to. No offense to Syracuse, but it wasn't what we wanted. Our kids are here. Our family is here. And we wanted to be here. And so now we are. And since making that decision, lots of great stuff has fallen into place. Opportunities we didn't know were possible are not only possible, but happening, right now.  I don't use the word blessed very often. But that's just what we are right now. Blessed.

With my babies on Mother's Day