Really Random Thursday: Thomas Pillow

This post could also be titled "How to make your husband love you forever."

I don't typically participate in Really Random Thursday at Live A Colorful Life but always enjoy reading it. Today I have a really random sewing project to share and show.

My dear husband uses a lot of pillows and not too long ago he bought himself a travel sized pillow to use between his knees. Since then he's had it in a regular sized pillow case which is two times too big.

Fast forward to me working on FMQ-ing my 2013 Stash Bee Quilt (that I don't think is going to get done this month, boo!). I always test my tension on scrap fabric and batting sandwiches and the fabric I was using was from a piece of Thomas the Tank Engine fabric and when my husband saw this he went on and on about how much he loved Thomas when he was a kid.

So using the travel pillow as a guide, I cut two rectangles of fabric and made him a pillowcase that actually fits the small pillow in less than 15 minutes.

The stripe on the back is actually a coordinate in the line that the Thomas and friends print is from so it matches perfectly! My husband was very excited and wants me to make him a second one for when this one is in the wash.

Sharing my silly story at Really Random Thursday!

Loop-de-loops in process

I finally got the extra yard of backing that I needed for my 2013 Stash Bee Quilt! I forgot to take a picture of the backing before I layered and pinned the quilt, so I'll add one in the finished post.

I have made an effort to quilt this one larger than I quilted the Churn Dash Baby Quilt but it still seems like my FMQing is very small in scale. It's bigger than the near-microstippling that I did prior, but it is still pretty dang dense. 

It's hard to see the quilting in some of the fabrics that have a lot of white in them or have white backgrounds themselves! Thus far I've only had one little edge section that I had to redo because the backing had folded over on itself but that took no time at all to fix! I'm just glad I caught it before it got worse.

At this point I am about half way done! The center-most 4 blocks are all done and about half of the next ring of blocks is more than half done. It seemed to me that the blocks on the edge went a little faster the first time around because of not having to shift around the entire quilt all the time.

I might just be able to finish this in the next three days and meet my February ALYoF Goal!

Sharing at Linky Tuesday, Fabric Tuesday, and WIP Wednesday!

PS. Don't forget to vote for the first block in the QCQAL and link up your fabric pulls for your blocks!

QCQAL: Our fabric choices

Today we're going to talk about what fabrics we're using in our QCQAL blocks.

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I was a lucky duck and won an amazing fat eighth bundle of Clover Sunshine from Llama Fabrics on Etsy.

Image from Llama Fabrics on Etsy

It's so gorgeous I could just giggle for days. For my background I am going to use Kona Champagne. I'm planning to use all of the fabrics at some point and mix them up as I go. Any leftovers will be utilized in some sort of a pieced back. A few fabrics will be better suited for some larger piecing blocks than for small piecing (looking at you, Kite Tail  prints!).

Amanda has some of the fabrics from the Chiffon line from Free Spirit that she plans to use and then add in some fabrics from her scrap stash.

Still shopping? BobbieLou Fabric has a build your own bundle option. With flat rate shipping to boot!

Want to show off your fabric pulls? Add your link below!

Long lost WIP

Since I'm at an impasse with my Stash Bee Quilt (waiting for more backing fabric to arrive) and my Double Hourglass quilt (need to go shopping to find border fabric), I decided to pull out a WIP that I hadn't touched since JULY. Needless to say, I didn't get my ALYoF goal completed that month!

I now have 15 more blocks to go now!

When I had originally made the pairs of all of the jelly roll strips for the first half of the blocks (you get 2 blocks per strip) I intended to repair all of the blocks with another fabric to make all different blocks for the second set. Since I'm making a tiny effort to simplify my life, I decided to just make the blocks in pairs. 

Of course, now I realize that I will have two quilts that are plaid like in nature -- this one and my Stash Bee quilt -- but since this one is a Christmas quilt, I can be okay with it.

Linking up to Linky Tuesday, Fabric Tuesday, and WIP Wednesday!

Don't forget to go vote for the first block in our Quilter's Choice Quilt Along! Voting is open until March 3rd, and right now the Sister's Choice block is winning!

Quilter's Choice Quilt Along

Little Bunny Quilts and Honey, Bunny, and Doll Designs are hosting a new kind of quilt along where all of the blocks will be chosen by YOU, the participants!

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Each one of you will have a hand in choosing each one of the 12 blocks in a HBD Design's first sampler quilt!

Every two weeks a new block pattern and tutorial will be posted here on the blog. At the same time, a new poll will be posted for you to vote on the next block!

Since even we don't know where these blocks will go, we've built in a good cushion for you to make sure you have enough background and piecing fabrics!

Fabric Requirements:

Blocks only:
2 yards background fabric(high estimate!)
10 fat quarters (2.5 yards total) for piecing (high estimate!)

Suggested sashing, borders, and binding:
1 yard sashing/inner border
1 1/4 yards outer border
2/3 yard binding

Not interested in making a throw quilt? Make the blocks along with us and add them into another sampler project! We'll be making 12 inch finished blocks so you can mix them in with other 12 inch blocks that you might have from other bees, swaps, and QALs if you want to make something other than our 12 block sampler! It won't hurt our feelings, we promise.

Have an another block you'd like to see as a candidate for the QAL? Leave suggested blocks in the comments section and it might end up on the next round's voting list!

Our schedule is on the QCQAL page. Check there for the latest posts and polls.

There will be a block link up every two weeks to share progress!
Add your blocks to our Flickr group too!

Now it's your chance to vote and be a part of QAL history! #QCQAL

We would love to involve other businesses in this project! If you're interested in sponsoring a give away let us know! We'd love for a few fabric shops to join in and share what fabrics they'd be using in this project!