February - the Month of Small Projects

Last month was a quilting/piecing frenzy! This month, with the move from Minnesota to Wisconsin, I changed my focus to smaller projects. It just so happened that a number of them caught my eye, so it all worked out!

My sewing space is mostly set up now. The only issue is that we are moving to New Mexico some time this spring (fingers crossed!) and I don't really have a place to set everything out (and I don't want to unpack everything). So smaller projects were right up my alley this February.

Then I made two and a quarter cushions. (I grabbed two packs of piping but it turned out that one of them had been mis-filed, so I had to get back to get the right color.)

The is my super-embarrassing attempt at putting a zipper in the smaller cushion. It's an invisible zipper - it was on sale! It got the total Type B treatment.

Here's my jelly roll rug, ready for the binding to be sewn to the back.

The only problem was that I couldn't figure out how to stitch with the non-skid backing. Since it was non-skid - it didn't want to skid along under my sewing machine foot and it kept getting caught.

So, the binding won't really be consistent but I like how it turned out and I'm happy I found a place for my Blushing jelly roll. I used gold thread to do the zig zag stitch, which goes nicely with the accents in the line.

I made this Giant Pincushion from, also from Moda Bake Shop.

I had a little measuring issue. It's supposed to be a diamond, so all the sides have to be equal. I realize this is completely self evident. But when I was doing it and following the directions, I cut it to 4.5" because that was the width of two jelly roll strips sewn together. So, then my diamonds were off and I had to trim. But I think it still worked out ok. I used fiber fill, but I read somewhere that crunched up walnut shells are the best filling... Maybe next time.

Also, Missouri Star Quilt Company's Deal of the Day a couple weeks ago was an Origins jelly roll for $14.95! So I couldn't pass it up.  I'm thinking about making the Avignon Picnic quilt with it and some Kona white.

I'm going to Minnesota for Sunday-Wednesday for Quilt-o-Rama 2011. Basically, it is my mom, my aunt, and my cousin getting together to sew for a weekend each February. If I am in the state, I usually stop by and say 'howdy' but this is the first time I will be "participating" which basically just means I'll be there the whole time :)  So, I'm going to work on the Avignon Picnic quilt and then I am considering starting my grey and yellow quilt. I was going to do kind of an improv sort of thing. But I may do the Lattice Quilt from Me? A Mom? instead. I'm not sure. I'm going back and forth on it...

News from Quilt-o-Rama coming soon...