springy baby irish chain

I've talked about my partner in baby quilt crime before - we live in a baby prolific area and have teamed up on many projects over the last couple of years. And most recently we have churned out about 4 baby quilt in almost as many weeks!! It's been a little crazy. Brynn is normally the piecer with myself doing the quilting and we've swapped around who does the binding.  But we've been able to work together to give a gift that both of our hands have made.  And I really love that.

Admittedly, Brynn has a pretty amazing hefty stash that we've worked from.  Plus she's great at quilt math and is a very precise piecer.  I've gotten comfortable in my role as the quilter and actually really enjoy free motion quilting these smaller quilts.

However, on this particular quilt I had all of these fun scraps leftover from my scrappy trip around the world quilt.  And I wanted to contribute materials too so I offered to piece the top. I really love an Irish Chain and after watching this awesome tutorial, from the Missouri Quilt Co, was super inspired to get it going!

So I started with my scraps and some trusty Kona Snow and made up some nine-patches.  Side note: I love chain piecing.  Side note 2: all photos here taken on my iPhone 5 and don't look as good blown up.  Please forgive me.

I started to get really excited as I started laying out the nine patches with the solid blocks.

And even more excited when I got it all put together and thought about backing it with the aqua chevron and binding it with the red dots!

I then packaged it up and sent it to Brynn for quilting and binding and a good washing.  Side note 3: the sun was really bright at the shower.

And here's a quick detail of the quilting and binding.  Brynn is also super proficient in her binding skills, they always look so nice and crisp.  Side note 4: in a house with poor night lighting and phone camera photos sometimes Kona white gets mixed in with the snow and you don't notice until you get it in some real daylight *smacks head*.

I do love the way this quilt turned out. The colors seemed really cheery to me and perfect for our friend who is having her 3rd baby and 3rd girl.  Aqua is the new pink.  Did you know?

I have several more baby quilts to share.  How about we have a baby quilt exclusive sew & tell soon?

scrappy trip around the world

I drank the kool aid folks.  There was this amazing surge of awesomeness happening on Instagram a couple of weeks ago.  Lots of little scrappy blocks turning into beautiful quilt tops in what seemed like seconds!

It is basically a trip around the world quilt made with 2.5" squares!  It's strip pieced with a twist to make it so easy!! Go see the tutorial at Quiltville, I'm not going to explain it all again, but I'll show you some pictures of what I've been up to!  You can also see many more by searching #scrappytripalong on Instagram or Twitter.

Remember when the lovely Fat Quarter Shop asked me to curate a fat quarter bundle for them?  I decided this bundle would be the perfect start for this quilt.  Although, to make a large lap quilt it's not quite enough fabric!  So I went to my LQS and picked up some red Riley Blake mini chevrons and dots!

I needed to keep all of these strips organized since I was not doing a true scrappy look. So I pulled out my clothes drying rack and hung them all right there next to my sewing machine! Perfect!

 

I chain pieced strips together in sets of two and then again into sets of four.  And they went together really quickly!

After sewing these sets into tubes (the tutorial explains this and it make more sense once you see it) I cut them across the seams into strips of little blocks! yippee!

Once you get the strips organized and sewn back together you get something like this:

And I have all of these small 2.5" strips left over that I am going to be able to use for a baby quilt.  I'm excited about that too.  I just love these fabrics so much.  And the colors!! They make me happy.

This may be the Chinese year of the rat snake - but for me? It's the year of the quilt. I've got plans to finish up some UFOs!!

everyone needs a little spring

My ears are burning because they're talking about me over at the Jolly Jabber with a chance to win this:

Again, I'm so flattered I was asked to put this together! It was a lot of fun and I can't wait to start making some half square triangles for a zig zag quilt!  Sound fun?

Click HERE to purchase!