All Work and No Play...

Well lately it has been all work around here, so last night I took some time off to Play a little!  Today, I finished up this little quilt top for my Riley Blake challenge for the Baltimore Modern Guild meeting tomorrow (I know...nothing like waiting until the very last minute).

We were given fat eighths from each of the six prints that you see in the squares above (Thank you Riley Blake!), and we could add a solid, so I added this aqua color and started making squares...

I didn't get mine quilted up yet, and don't plan on entering it in the Riley Blake challenge contest, I just wanted to play for fun :)

I added the "UnRuly style word "Play" kind of Tonya Ricucci-ish and added it to the bottom border...And this is what I came up with ~  It was fun to just play today :)

Enjoy the day!
~ Dawn

A Day of Smiles :)

I'm smiling while chain piecing today on my new acquisition...

This little lady joined my growing sewing machine family a couple weeks ago.  (My house is actually starting to look like an old sewing machine rescue center).

I bought her from a friend ~ it was her mother's machine.  I got it mainly for the really nice wooden cabinet that it's sitting in, but found that once I cleaned and oiled up the machine, she really sews very nicely :)

So today her and I stitched up my row for this month's Row Robin for the Baltimore Modern Quilt Guild.

...And I'm smiling as I'm ironing on this new ironing station that my hubby made from an old bookcase that I had in the basement to go in my new sewing space down there. 

...And while sewing I'm drinking my tea from this little mug that came in the mail yesterday ~ that's making me smile too :)

Don't forget to check out the Quiltmaker's Blog for Day 2 of the 100 Blocks Blog Hop, and come back here tomorrow for my day on the Hop and my Give Aways :)

Enjoy the day!
~ Dawn 

A Day of Charity Sewing for the Babies

This morning I packed up my car and headed into downtown Baltimore to the South East Early Head Start Center to spend the day doing some sewing with my friends from the Baltimore Modern Quilt Guild.  We've donated items to the center in the past, so it was a treat to have our little Sew-In in their facility and see where our donations are put to good use :)  

I started my sewing day with making these easy fleece hats.  Heather of quilt.cook.keep showed me how to whip them up, and boy do they go together quickly. Click Here for a tutorial that Heather has on exactly how to sew them. 

Here are a few that I made. (Aren't they just adorable!)  One yard of fleece will yield six baby/toddler sized hats.

We had quite a little "sweat shop" going (See the pile of baby hats that Heather made!).  Amy started with making the baby sleep sacks that were so soft and cuddly.

Other members stopped by during the day to pitch in a bit, or drop things off.  Deb, Nancy, and Kimberly helped out with cutting and fringing, and Daniella came and dropped off a bag full of hats that she had made at home.  

We even had Gayne, the center's director, working away sewing up little sleep sacks too.

Here's the pile that Gayne and Amy whipped up today. 

Then after I worked on hats, I moved on to a few cloth books.  These were made from cloth book panels that my friend Sheri Thompson donated to us (Thanks again Sheri!)

 Once I made one, the second one went together even quicker, and they are so cute!

We had quite the assembly line going there for a while...

 Heather made up a Color/Counting book...

By the afternoon, along with the cozy fleece sleep sacks, we had a few of the cloth books made up...

And this big pile of hats ~ our goal is to make enough hats for each child to be gifted one, and for the center to have some extras for when the kiddies' hats are forgotten and left at home. 

...and did I tell you that cupcakes were involved ~ Thanks Daniella for bringing the cuppies! It was a great way to spend the day and celebrate the Baltimore Modern Quilt Guild's Second birthday :)

Click: The Kennedy Krieger Institute SE Early Head Start Program for information on the center and to contact Gayne, the director on how to make donations. 

Enjoy the day!
~ Dawn

WIP Wednesday

Among other things these are on my work table right now.  I'm making these Bento Box blocks in between some of my other projects.

I'm planning on making twenty of these blocks... 

Then I'm slicing them into quarters.  I'll keep one piece, and three from each block will go to the swap that I'm participating in with the Baltimore Modern Quilt Guild.  Our Guild is swapping with the Minneapolis Modern Quilt Guild.  You can go Here to see a fantastic example of a finished Bento Box quilt that my friend Heather has made from a previous swap, and get the link to the tutorial that we're using for guidelines for the block :)

Enjoy the day!
~ Dawn

My Great Jelly Roll Race Experiment

Last Thursday the Baltimore Modern Quilt Guild hosted a Sewing Day at Seminole Sampler Quilt Shop (Thanks Linda for letting us use your shop to sew, and thank you to the Seminole Staff who were so nice to us while we were there!)  I decided to make a Jelly Roll Quilt ~ Have you heard of the Jelly Roll Race Quilt Craze?  Well the Baltimore Modern Quilt Guild and the DC Modern Guild are getting together on July 7th to have a Jelly Roll Quilt Race, but alas I will be out of town that day, so I used our Sewing Day to try one out for myself.  You can check out the BMQG Blog for more info on the Great Jelly Roll Quilt Race and see pictures of other examples of Jelly Roll Race Quilts too! 

Basically the quilt is made using one Jelly Roll (If you aren't familiar with fabric Jelly Rolls, they are rolls of approx. forty 2 1/2" strips of coordinating fabrics.)  I started with a package of Timeless Treasures "Green Tea" colorway Tonga Treats batiks that I purchased at Seminole Sampler.  First I randomly sewed them together end to end along the short ends of the strips to create one very long strip.  This can be done easily and pretty quickly by chain piecing them.  Just make sure that you are always stitching them right sides of the strips together so all the seams come out on the back side (and if your jelly roll strips have selvages on the ends you might want to cut them off before you begin).

The one long strip is quite long (about 1600"), so it forms quite a pile.  Cut off approx. 18 - 20" from one end of the long strip (this is what makes the seams stagger ~ thanks for that little tip Heather!).  Then fold the whole long strip in half, matching up the two short ends of the strip right sides together, and sew using a 1/4" seam allowance all along one long side.  As you approach the end of the long side seam, cut the fold with scissors and continue to stitch to the end (back stitch to lock your stitches in place at the ends).  Open them up and at this point you'll have two long strips side by side (roughly  800" long). 

Fold the strip set in half again (right sides together) and repeat the process of sewing down one long seam.  Each time you do this your long seam will get shorter, so it sews up pretty fast.  Again, when you approach the end, flatten and finger press the fold then cut it with scissors, and continue stitching to the end. 

To make this top, you just continue the same process.  The 2-strip set becomes a 4-strip set, then an 8-strip set, then 16-strip set, and finally finishes at 32-strips tall.  I'm told that in Jelly Roll Quilt Races, this quilt top can be pieced in 30 - 40 minutes.  I wasn't racing (and I'm not a particularly fast stitcher), but I got mine finished in about 2 hours, and was pretty happy with that.  These make nice size throw quilts and will make great gift quilts so I'll definitely make another one...or four...or five... ;)

Enjoy the day!
~ Dawn

Round Robin Reveal

We had our monthly Baltimore Modern Quilt Guild meeting on Sunday and had our big reveal for the Round Robins.  I've never participated in a Round Robin and I thoroughly enjoyed it!  This is the little quilt that came home with me. 

It started with this center block that I made.  I wanted the soft green and yellow colors because it's going to hang in my sewing room.  I included some of the left over fabrics from my center block, but I didn't really give any instructions or requests and told the other gals to add any fabrics that they wanted...I wanted to be surprised.   

Each round had different perimeters,  ie: the second one after our center block was to be a border with squares and rectangles, then the third one was to have curves or circles, then the next was to add the setting corners which turned everything on point.  I love how mine turned out, and I'm going to practice on my HQ Sweet 16 quilting something (maybe I'll go for broke and try some feathers) in those large setting triangles :)

Then we had the exchange of our next round of Bee Blocks.  These are mine still in my green/yellow/purple colors.  I have to lay these out with the other rounds that I have and see if I have enough for a quilt yet.  The one on the bottom right is the block I made this time, you can see the ones I made to exchange in This Post.

Then like a cherry on top, I won the door prize and came home with this coveted BMQG tote bag ~ we always have such a fun time at these guild meetings :)

Enjoy the day!
~ Dawn

I went on a day long Thrifting adventure about two weeks ago with my friend Heather, and one of the little treasures that came home with me was this little linen table topper with hand embroidery.  It has some damage and a bit of staining, but the color was just too sweet to leave at the store ~ and the price was right :)

...Plus there are a lot of little embroidered motifs...with lots of possibilities...

...And it came with four little bonus napkins!

Most of the hand embroidery is in wonderful condition, so I knew I would want to re-use the ones that I can in some way.  After all, someone went to a lot of trouble to stitch all of these cute little flowers, they need to be enjoyed, even if the linen they're on is in not such great condition any more.

The Baltimore Modern Quilt Guild was having a pincushion swap at this month's meeting, so I added a few fabric scraps, and a piece of twill tape from a Moda fat quarter bundle, and I made a nice long pincushion to sit by the sewing machine.  It was quick and easy, and I have plenty more little blooms left to make some more :)

This is the stunning little pincushion made by someone else in the guild that I came home with from the meeting!  I love miniatures and the colors are so vibrant in this little beauty.

Doesn't it just brighten up this shelf in my sewing room :)

And it was the exchange day for our Bee Blocks.  Here are the ones that came home with me in my colors of yellow, green and purple.  You can see the blocks that I made in This Post from last month (because yea, I made mine early by accident).  I now have 13 blocks, and hope to participate in another round with the same color combination to have a nice collection to put together in a really cool scrappy looking quilt some day :)

Enjoy the day!
~ Dawn

Bee Blocks Finished Early

So my Baltimore Modern Quilt Guild meeting was on Sunday, and for some reason I had it in my head that our Bee blocks were due at the February meeting...you got it, they're not due until March! Then when at the last minute Hubby and I decided to head over to Delaware for an unexpected needed visit with my mother-in-law, I dutifully contacted a friend and dropped off my blocks (along with Round Robin, BOM block, and other stuff) ~ Thanks Maria :)  But of course, I confused everyone, because not only did I include in my bag Bee blocks that weren't due, my Heart block for the BOM (which was due) was rolled up inside the Bee blocks so they didn't see it.  (...I'll see that you get my heart block too Heather, Congrats on the drawing win!)


So anyway, the above block is the one I made in my colors.  I figured since I'm finished with them, I'll go ahead and show my Bee Blocks ~ But Warning: if you're in my Bee group and want to be surprised in March, don't read past this paragraph :)

Our Round Robin for the month had dealt with squares and rectangles, so I was still playing with that theme when I picked this block to make, I wanted to make them look woven together.  I made one first in Maria's colors of blue, yellow and white, but I didn't like how I had all of the blues and yellows all parallel.  So I made another one, changed out a yellow for another shade of blue and made sure the darker blues were perpendicular to each other, it's just a personal choice but I liked that one better...so Maria gets two blocks this month to do with what she will :)

So here are all of the blocks for the gals in their different color choices.   Now I can't wait for the March meeting to get all my blocks, and put them together with the ones from the last round :) 

Enjoy the day!

~ Dawn

A Bit of Heart Nostalgia

It's the month of the heart, so the Block of the Month challenge at the Baltimore Modern Quilt Guild is to make a 10" block with a heart of any color on a white background.  So I got out some fabric scraps (including this funky 70's looking print), my Accuquilt Go! cutter, and my Heart Die (#55029) and I started to play.

          ...Here's what I came up with:
 

I started with four 5" squares of white background, 1" wide yellow and red strips, and two of the largest 4" hearts on the die and five of the smallest 2" hearts (I had applied fusible web to the back of the heart fabrics before I ran them through the cutter).  I sewed yellow or red strip borders to two sides of each background square, sewed them all together, fused and blanket stitched all, and she's done!

It's a simple little thing but it makes me smile ~ it kind of makes me nostalgic for my Brady Bunch days :) 

Enjoy the day!
~ Dawn