Sisters' Stay At Home Retreat {Bits and Bobs}

This past weekend, my husband was out of town for work so I invited my sister Amanda (the Doll third of Honey, Bunny, and Doll!) to abandon our domestic responsibilities for a day to sew and eat frozen pizza (two of our favorite things!).

The first thing that I worked on was the top of my Summer Patio quilt for our August Island Batik Amabassador hop. I posted some preview pictures of the start of this quilt, but I'm not showing off anything else until my hop day on August 28th!

Next, I quilted a mini quilt for Amanda that will be part of a soon-to-be-released set (yes, set!) of Honey, Bunny, and Doll patterns that are Aztec inspired. Her mini is made in various pastel batiks and white solid and I quilted it with a leafy meander.

The backing is a beautiful light yellow batik and she had picked out a multi-colored speckled batik for the binding!

The next project that I worked on was to start putting together two years' worth of pineapple blocks that I had requested as my Stash Bee block in both 2016 and 2017. I had collected 28 blocks and the layout that I liked best used 27 blocks so the last block will become a label on the back.

I had enough white on white fabric left over from my latest C2C quilt additions for Stephanie that I was able to put all of the blocks into columns with spacers. I used 2.5" strips between the blocks and 4.5" strips at the top and bottom of the rows so that the blocks will be offset. I'll need to get about a yard more of white on white fabric to do the sashing strips and a final border around the quilt.

Amanda spent a good deal of her stay nagging me about how many WIPs I have and rightly so! But multiple projects are at an impasse because I need to go shopping (oh darn!) for various borders, backings, and yardage to finish projects.

The amazing thing for this brief moment in time is that I am all caught up on all of my sewing that has deadlines until the end of August -- which means I will have plenty of time to work on those "almost there" projects.

This post also made me realize how much I miss WIP Wednesday posts. Can we bring that back?

Sharing at Let's Bee Social and Needle and Thread Thursday!

Coast to Coast Bee 2.0 {Stephanie's Quilt}

This post marks the end of another year of the Coast to Coast Traveling Bee (C2C Bee, for short!)

The last quilt I worked on was for Stephanie of Quilt 'n Party! Stephanie and I had been in the same hive in the Stash Bee at least once and she was also an Island Batik Ambassador last year.

Her quilt is a nature and outdoor themed quilt. In consulting with her, we decided to balance out the already added blocks featuring flowers, butterflies, and trees with some classic quilt blocks.

Here's her quilt with all of the additions from our other friends:

I pulled fabrics in the colors that are already featured in this quilt to make bear paw blocks and pinwheel blocks in various sizes.

My row of bear paw blocks was added to the bottom and was 9.5" tall and my row of pinwheel blocks was added to the top and was 6.5" tall.

Her quilt is now on its way back to Colorado for Stephanie to finish as she desires!

I also received my quilt, or rather, rows of quilt blocks, back from its trip across the country! Here's what the collection of rows currently look like:

From top to bottom the rows are from, respectively, Chelsea, Audrey, Karen, Karen, Stephanie and my original row at the bottom. I am still planning to stick to my original plan which was to sash these individual rows together with solid black fabric and then use the large scale floral print as the borders.

I may or may not add a 4" block row or two, but it might actually be totally fine with just the rows that my bee mates have sent to me. I was hoping for a throw size with this one, and I think that has been accomplished!

Sharing at Main Crush Monday and Linky Tuesday!

The Border Quilt QAL {Join me!}

I'm excited to share that I am joining in on The Border Quilt QAL hosted by Patterns by Jen!

Jen is a fellow Island Batik Ambassador and designs beautiful patterns, including this one! She was lovely enough to sponsor a giveaway as part of our Blocked Rainbow QAL this spring and I jumped at the chance to play along with her Border Quilt QAL, which starts in September!

Click this link to see a full schedule for this QAL!

The fun part about this quilt pattern is that it is written so that you can make your quilt as small or as large as you'd like!

For me, I'm going to be making a scrappy version of the quilt. I pulled an older fat quarter (the paisley print) from my stash and pulled other fabric from my scrap bins to coordinate. My background fabric is Kona Champagne.

My plan is to make the quilt as big as my scraps allow, which I am estimating will carry me through the sawtooth stars. I'm also planning to do the pieced center.

Looking at my current fabric pull, I might need to add in a few more dark pieces, but I'm sure if I dig deeper in my stash I'll find options.

Additionally, Jen will be having interviews with some of us bloggers that are participating in the QAL throughout the month of August. Keep your eyes peeled for those!

Come join me!

Stars at Play Baby Quilt {Island Batik Finish}

This little baby quilt was such a fun and fast finish! The pieced borders were added in a cinch!

This quilt is 36.5" square prior to quilting, so I was able to use a single width of flannel for backing. I also pieced the batting together with a large zig-zag stitch. Waste not!

Pressed, pinned, and ready to quilt!

I quilted this with a leafy meander just like my Antietam baby quilt with white thread. I love quilting baby quilts -- I don't need a chair to support the rest of the quilt! 

I love the way that the leaves pop with this quilting motif! I used the purple binding that I had originally thought that I would use to bind my 30 Pearls quilt. It was the perfect length for this quilt -- I only had to trim the tails an inch and a half to join them at the end! I bound this completely by machine and used purple Aurifil which blended beautifully with the purple batik binding fabric!

I learned with this quilt that yellow is hard to photograph. This quilt is a whole lotta yellow.

I like the way that the white background fabric connects the stars.

The star close up shows a great view of the quilting.

The flannel that I used is a white and pink diagonal plaid.

Now to get this quilt all ready to send off for baby snuggles!

Quilt Stats:
Name: Stars at Play
Design: based on a mini quilt pattern by Amanda Morrison (@honeybunnyanddoll)
Fabrics: Various Island Batik fabric basics, pink and white flannel backing
Size: 36 inches square
Quilting: leafy meander in white Aurifil
Future: Baby quilt for a friend
Started: June 2018
Finished: July 2018

Sharing at Needle and Thread Thursday!

Jungle Cruise {Blog Hop Preview}

As you might have see on Instagram, I am working on my own version of our Summer Patio pattern using the Jungle Cruise line from Island Batik for our August blog hop! Check back on August 28th for my finish!

The Jungle Cruise line is shipping to stores soon, and I've had a lot of fun thus far working with this line. Summer Patio is a great beginner pattern and perfect for yardage or 2.5" strips.

The pile of fabric above became these strips:

...and the strips became these blocks:

Then came more cutting for the background and the sashings:

...and then I had some finished blocks!

Check back on August 28th for my stop on the blog hop featuring my finished quilt and some giveaways!

Don't forget to take advantage of the free shipping special in our Etsy shop! Kits, Kona, and extra wide backing all ship for free with a $30 purchase!

Sharing at Main Crush Monday, Linky Tuesday, and Let's Bee Social!