Another finished quilt and a tip!

Wow look at me, two blog posts in a week! Maybe I am finally getting back on track!

Today I want to share another of my recent finished quilts. Now, this is soooo not my normal color palette, but when I ran across a Martinique honey bun on sale at my LQS, I couldn't resist! It was just so PRETTY! Not me at all, but so feminine and pretty!

I went with super simple and just sewed all the strips together. I have wanted to do this with a honey bun for AGES, and that was the plan when I purchased this particular honey bun, but it had been sitting in my stash for 6 months before I finally got to it.

Since the top piecing was fairly basic and straight, I knew I wanted quilting that was more elaborate than my normal free motion or straight line abilities. I had tried to free motion quilt flowers before, but I was REALLY bad at it, mostly because I couldn't figure out where to stitch next fast enough and messiness ensued...Then I had a BRILLIANT idea that I will now share with you! Before I basted the quilt, I ironed freezer paper onto the ENTIRE quilt top and drew my quilting lines on first! Then I pin basted straight through the paper.

It worked AMAZINGLY well! I knew exactly where to go to stitch, so I have stitching that actually looks like flowers on my quilt! Now, quilting was a pain, cuz the paper made the whole quilt a little stiff, and I had to tear off chunks of paper as I quilted so I could stuff the quilt under my machine, and at the last bit most of the paper wasn't ironed on anymore, but it was still held on with the pins, so I will definitely NOT do this on any quilt bigger than this, but for this size and smaller, it was SO worth it!

I love this flowery print I used for the back! I am still debating going back for more (in any of the colorways!) to make myself a skirt!

This one finished at 43"x43". That seems to be my average quilt size lately...it's so nice to not have something ginormous to work on!

I used a pretty polka dot from the line for binding. There were so many good choices to choose from for binding fabric, but I finally decided to stick with dots :)
This one is listed in my shop, and will also be available at a local boutique this Friday and Saturday. Actually, I guess this is a good time to inform you about said boutique!


I would like to invite you all to {Handmade} Boutique, happening this weekend here in Gilbert, AZ!

We have some super talented women contributing to this boutique, and I would love to see you there!

Walk in the Park

Alright, I promise I'm not dead or anything, I am here!
I have mentioned that I am a terrible blogger, right? I have? Oh good :)

So I did finally get to photographing that stack of quilts that was sitting around, and I think I will share one today! (Finally!!) And instead of starting with the one that has been sitting neglected the longest, I'm starting with the newest, because it is just so dang pretty!

Spencer has named this one "Walk in the Park", since it's kinda nature-y and flowery and leafy and whatnot. I once again used my square in square block method to piece this one. But, once again, as much as I love these blocks, I got bored and antsy after making 20. Since I wanted to have a larger finished size, I added a pieced border, something I don't do very often. Yeah, I will be doing that more now, because I like it!

It ended up finishing at 48"x58", and is a great lap quilt size.

And have I mentioned I love a pieced backing? Well, let me mention it now! The main blue in the backing here is a print from the Verna line by Kate Spain (I love her fabric!!). I also had a good size chuck of this awesome large scale floral that I used a bit in the front, but couldn't bear to cut up any more. Ta da! Awesome backing fabric!

I straight line quilted this one because I really didn't want to wrestle it around in free motioning, and because well, it just looks good :)

 

I used a fun wavy line print from Amy Butler's Midwest Modern for the binding, which looks great(at least I think so!). This pretty pretty quilt is now listed in the shop, and will also be available this weekend at the Handmade Boutique in Gilbert (at a discounted price!) for any of you who are local. Come on out and support some local "crafty ladies"!