Wins, Waters and Wisdom (Math)

Let's start with the good news. Shall we?  Here are the winners of the American Hustle? Orphan Adoption Event.

American Hustle Top - Cindy
Pigma Micron Pens - PK_Sews
Mini Wacky Web Template - Shelley

I will send you emails asking for your postal address, so that I can ship your items to you.
Karen, even though you did not win the quilt top, I will send you another quilt top to finish.  The cause of Marine mothers giving up their babies for adoption touched my heart.

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The theme of the 2016 Quilt Show challenge is "Virginia's Beautiful Waters".  
Here is my entry.

Skipped a Stone

The challenge - Create a quilt that best expresses your idea of the theme - Virginia's Beautiful Waters.  It can be an art, pictorial quilt or a quilt in "theme related" colors such as blues for ocean, white & green for waterfalls in the woods, green & brown for "Dismal Swamp", etc. 

Texture in the Sun (Wood Grain quilting near the bottom right)

The quilt uses 2.5" strips of blues/teals/aqua with white strips.  The blocks were created using the 
Missouri Star Quilt Company's tutorial - Summer in the Park.  

Walking Foot Quilting

I loved the blocks and the various possibilities of arranging them.  I started with placing four blocks making a colored square (at 45 degrees) in the middle.  That became the focal point. After that, I placed blocks all around as if they were rippling out from the center.

Gentle Curves

It did take a few iterations to get it right here.  In the end, everyone who saw it said nice things about it.  Either they really liked it, or they are being incredibly kind :-)

Sunny & Rippled (May favorite picture)

I believe that the slightly off-center design creates more interest.  The layout of the blocks creates concentric waves, but more angular than circular.  When it came to naming the quilt, I did not want to go with the obvious - Ripples or Waves.

Radiating outwards

Fortunately, that night Paul was watching the French movie "Amelie". When I saw Amelie skipping stones, I found the name - Skipped a Stone.

Blue, Aqua, Teal & Navy = YAY!!!

The choice of the border was definitely tricky.  Wanted to make sure that it was neither blue nor white, so as to keep the focus in the main quilt.  Any color from the warm side of the color wheel would be too distracting. A medium gray (thin) and a wide batik (navy+aqua) worked just perfectly.  Did you notice that the batik print looks like aqua droplets on navy background.

Off Center Focus

I love the navy and aqua grouping. I am sure you will be seeing it a lot more :-D right here.
The quilt top finished at about 57" by 70".  A wide backing acquired from Connecting Threads (on the 40% off sale day YIPPEE), was my choice. Yes it is very Christmassy.

Winter/Christmas Backing

This way it is Summer in the front and Winter in the back.
The batting is Warm & Natural.  Quilted in gently waving lines, with a few wood grain like curves.  Someday, I will learn FMQ. For now, thanks to Jacquie Gering, I do not have to send my quilts to a longarmer.  I can do this.

Finished!!!

The binding is aqua solid which works beautifully with the front and does fine with the backing.

You make me happy!

One more picture.  When I was piecing and squaring, while trimming the pinked edges, I noticed a tiny heart shaped bit of fabric.  Had to capture that picture :-)

Yes, I love this one.

I heart YOU!!!

The Quilt Show is June 3 - 5, 2016 in Chantilly, VA.  I will be volunteering a couple of the days, just so that I can stand near my quilt and watch folks react to it.  Is that too self-absorbed?  Please let me know.

I will be linking with all my favorite linky parties!!!
 
Here is a peek into my loot.  Acquired these Good Neighbors (Amanda Jean Nyberg) fat quarters and the supercute cows fabric yardage from Connecting Threads when it was a whopping 40% off.

This blogpost contains affiliate links.

Hansel & Gretel

These are quilts 7 and 8 from the Festival quilts.

Shopping online on Craftsy.com, I came across a beautiful bundle of 1 yard cuts, at an unbelievable price.  Eleven 1-yard cuts for under $50.  Yes, please.  Eight were monochromes and then there were three that had multicolored hexies.

1 yard cuts = Yumminess

I do not see myself making paper pieced hexies. Therefore, as soon as I saw the fabrics, I had this "brilliant" idea.  Why do anything?

Do nothing?
Ok, well a little something - like add a matching/contrasting border.
The result?

Hansel and Gretel were born.

Hansel

Hansel is characterized by navy blue.
Navy blue border for Hansel brought out the boyish charm of the pattern.

Gretel

Of course Gretel has pink and orange.  An orange border seemed just right for Gretel - feminine enough without being too girly pink.

The best part of these twins is the quilting.  I used the hexies to guide my curved quilting lines.

Gentle Curves

Walking Foot Quilting

For Hansel I chose a navy blue owls backing fabric.

Navy & Lime Owls

For Gretel, it had to be this bright floral.  This is the brightest fabric in my stash.

Super Bright Floral

Magically, a lime green binding worked well for both sides of both quilts.  That is pretty amazing!!!

Lime Green Binding

Perfectly Matched!!!

Kay fell in love with Gretel and bought it for her granddaughter.  Hansel went to Sean, the grandson of a friend.

Labelled!

How can something that is so easy and so simple look so pretty and adorable?
I am positive that the quilting gods were smiling upon me :-)

Will I make these quilts again?  Absolutely.  I so loved this idea that I went and bought 1.5 yards of each of these two fabrics from fabric.com.  Who knows, I might need to make one tomorrow.

Cheating never felt better!!!

Yes, I made a Hexie Quilt ;-)

If this post has brightened your day or given you any ideas, please do let me know.  Because, when I hear from you, it brightens my day!!!

Bluegrass & Candyland

As promised, here are the first two (of the total 14) quilts that I made for the Sugarland Fall Festival.

This was the Charm Box free tutorial from the Fat Quarter Shop and it is a great pattern for using charm squares.
I watched the tutorial and said - Huh, that is wasteful!!!

So, I made my own sketch - yes, it is very sketchy.  The finished quilt would measure 36" by 41".

Sketchy Sketch

I needed 24 charms for the main quilt and 30 charms for the borders. So I grabbed a few blue-green charms, a few 2.5" white strips and went to town.

For the sake of simplicity and speed (mostly speed), I followed these steps.

Step1. Choose two charm squares that go together well. Cut one charm in half and place the second in between and stitch along the two sides. Do this 12 times, using 24 charms.

Keeping the rows numbered

Step 2. Add the vertical strips in between the charm blocks.

Step 3. Add the horizontal strips.

Horizontal Strips Added

The vertical strips in between the blocks were 2" finished, so the use of jelly roll strips was perfect. But the horizontal strips and the outer vertical strips had to finish at 1.5". So, after I sewed the jelly roll strips, I carefully trimmed them down to size.

Step 4. Add the outer strips

Step 5. Add the borders - 6 charms on top and bottom, 9 each on the sides.

Completed!!!

I chose my usual Warm & Natural batting and this cute alphabet/animal print for the backing.

Baby Friendly Backing

Quilting had to be super simple too. I quilted using gentle curves, in one direction only.
The binding is a turquoise blue/green near solid that matches the front and the back perfectly.

Super Simple Speedy Quilting

Labelled, yeah!!!

Matched Binding!!!

You make me happy

Bluegrass

Since this was a successful completion, I was pumped.  Therefore, I decided to use my energies to make another quilt but this time in more girly colors.  

Meet Candyland.

Bright & Happy

It is extremely rare that I will like all the fabrics in a charm pack or a layer cake. Lili-Fied is an exception.  I bought Lili-fied layer cake on Craftsy when it was on super sale and I fell in love with it.

For Candyland, I cut up the layer cake into charms and followed the same procedure as Bluegrass.

In love with Lili-fied

Backing - Yummy!

Not only the backing colors matched the Lili-fied line, they also decided the name of the quilt - Candyland.

Pink and Orange

Labelled

The quilting is simple curvy lines, one direction only. No turning and super speedy.  Here are few more pictures, because there is no such thing as too much eye candy.

Hot Pink Binding

Binding matches both sides!!!

My sunshine...

Candyland

As I write this blogpost, Bluegrass is sold. But Candyland is yet to find a loving home.  One day, I am sure, it will make a little girl drool, just like I am doing right now.

If you are reading, please write to me. I love to hear from you.

Whispering Window

It is tax season. Gathering the documents, filling out the forms, checking and rechecking, and finally filing the return killed two precious weekends. No sewing, no quilting, and absolutely no blogging happened.

Original Scraps

Taxes are now done and that is a relief. I am back to quilting and blogging while I wait for the refund!!!It is a tiny amount but it is that unexpected aspect of it that makes it so yummy.
Yes, that is why I do the taxes - so that I can claim the refund. Paul agrees. If I do the taxes, I get to keep the refund!!!

Thinking of the refund as the scraps left over after you've made the quilt, takes out some of the sting associated with taxes. Scraps, like the refund, are a little bit like that unexpected bonus.

Yumminess!!!

A few months ago, I received some scrappy goodness from a quilter friend. I picked out a few of those scraps, added white yardage and arranged the rectangles into a window-pane shape. I wanted all four panes to be different to create some visual interest!

Layout

Top Left

Top Right

Bottom Left

Bottom Right

The batting is Warm & Natural. For Backing, I used a pretty purple striped fabric with pops of yellow, red and green that just matched perfectly.

Quilted with my walking foot - straight lines in the white part and slightly curvy in the window portion. I think it conveys the effect of rain falling on the windowpane - rainwater running into rivulets on the glass. The variegated blue thread came from Connecting Threads and I love it.

Quilted!!!

Rain on the Pane...

Variegated Blue Thread :-)

Quilting Detail

The binding is a lighter/brighter shade of purple. Stitched to the quilt back, brought to the front and stitched in place using my favorite squiggly stitch.

Matched!!!

The finished quilt measures 40" by 42". And here is the label...

Label

Few more pictures

Back with Label

Sunny & Rippled

Slanted Angle - just because...

Whispering Window

This quilt was not on my to-do list. I saw the scraps, I asked for them and just played with them. See the result? Well, I am very happy with this little gem of a quilt.  I guess amazing and magical things can happen when we dare to go off the script and live spontaneously.

Do you agree?