The Elephant Quilt

The elephant quilt has been completed!  The recipient has received it so I can finally share it.  The fabric is Alphabet Soup by Zoe Pearn for Riley Blake and I used the pattern Sparkling Gemstones from the book Jelly Roll Quilts.  The sashing is Kona Sky.

This was such a fun pattern to piece and went together fairly quickly.  The baby that I intended to have this ready for before he was born is now 6 months old.  I started piecing it back in October but I didn't finish it until March because it took me a while to realize it needed an elephant!  (I hope he forgives me)  :) 

I took the design from one of the elephants in the fabric pattern, enlarged it, traced it, attached it to the quilt with Steam-A-Seam 2, and zig zagged the edges around it.

Here's a closer shot of the quilting and my embroidered logo.  I free-motioned a boxy meandering stitch. (inspiration from Oh, Fransson!)

The back is a big piece of  Blue Alphabet Boy Main with a strip of Kona Sky.  The binding is Kona Everglade.

Happy Quilting!

Pantone Orange Strip Swap - Fabric Cut

I've got 4 yards cut for our 2.5" Orange Strip Swap at the upcoming LVMQG meeting.  I plan on adding 2 more yards to this to get an even six.  I'll have approx 2 jelly rolls to work with!

In picture, clockwise from the top left:

1. Weekends - Lollies
2. Picnic Parade - Blossom
3. Weekends - Dots and Loops
4. Oval Elements
5. Picnic Parade - Diamond Dots

LVMQG Sew-In Progress

Here's the progress I made at the sew-in that the Las Vegas Modern Quilt Guild hosted on Saturday, April 21st.

 My new name tag is finally done!  A little bit of Washi to carry around!

I wanted these cute little tapes on the front, but they were way too big, so on the back it went.

Big improvement from my free-motioned-zig-zag old one:

(it has character!)

I also managed to finish Swoon Block #4.  Almost.  I had to assemble a little bit of it at home because we ran out of time there.  I haven't worked on my swoon quilt since the LVMQG retreat... but it will be completed someday!  (View other completed swoon blocks)  I've been busy with other stuff: I managed to add a ruffle to a skirt to lengthen it and hemmed my husband's suit pants all while playing with my embroidery machine.  :)

Embroidery Weekend

I've been playing around with my embroidery machine all weekend.  I purchased a few patterns on sale and couldn't wait to make them. Here's what I have to show for it:

Crafty Clothesline

First up is "Crafty Clothesline".  The 'g' is actually a berry purple color but I couldn't get the color to show correctly.  I have a very limited number of thread colors on hand so I was surprised I had enough variety to pull this off!

I thought this yarn heart was super cute so I made it for my friend that likes knitting and hates embroidered stuff.  (*Ahem* - use some of your Echino hoard and make something with this!)

I heart Quilting.  I have no idea where this is going to end up either... I just felt like stitching it too.

So Much Fabric

This was a cute little applique that I also had to have. Once again the purple is showing up black so you're just going to have to imagine the petal and text to be purple.  That little flower took forever with all of the thread changes and tack downs for the applique.  I'm not sure if I like how symmetrical the FMF seedlings are showing up, but after aligning the first one, I was cutting out the second leaf and I though it'd look weird if only part of a seedling was showing.

This little project made me realize how few light blue, royal blue, purples and reds I have in my stash.  I had to resort to a solid kona blue and the purple/black was a solid clipping out of a large scale print fabric!

On a side note, I got so excited stitching these out that I bought a crapload of embroidery thread on ebay this morning.

Tissue Box Cover - In the Hoop

I bought a few embroidery patterns and wanted to try out some applique in the hoop.  I used a simple tissue box cover design and ended up with this:

It's not perfect... but it was a good learning experience!   I appliqued the sides and the top in the hoop as shown below. There's a layer of quilting cotton on the inside, then stabilizer, then flannel, and then the Flea Market Fancy Bouquet in Grey on the outside.  It stands up very well!

Fancy Folded Star

The Las Vegas Modern Quilt Guild's recent challenge was a Product Inspiration Piece.  We were to choose a product and use the colors from it to create a quilty item.  I chose a can of my new favorite Coke Cherry Zero:

This gives me the colors: black, red, dark gray, light gray, white, berry, and light green on the cherry stem.

 I followed the Fancy Folded Star Pot Holder Tutorial. I've been wanting to make one of these for a while now!  It wasn't very difficult, but the ironing is a bit time consuming!  This will be a mini wall hanging because I couldn't bear to get it dirty using it as a pot holder.  I added a little bit of ribbon to the binding to hang it:

Stalling

This cute little guy I made on a whim the other day to applique on an upcoming project.

Do you ever get stuck on just a tiny little detail during a project where all it would take is a small insignificant decision to move forward, but instead obsess over it and let it sit for days/weeks/months?

That is my elephant!

My current quilt project needed something.  Didn't know what... just something.  I could have just finished it and moved on, but instead I let it sit for a few months and then one day I woke up and was staring at the pattern on it and poof! - I made the elephant above.  I got back that motivation to move forward on it!

Now I'm moving into an uncharted territory... quilt applique!  I'm not scared of applique, just confused on the the small decision of whether to sew it on to the quilt before sandwiching it and then quilt around it OR sew it on top after the quilting.  I didn't want to lose the elephant by quilting on it or have a huge empty space in the quilting on the back around the elephant. So the project sat again while I internet searched my options for examples until I was sick and tired of thinking about it.  Repeat the same search for a few more days. I couldn't find examples of exactly what I was looking for.  I found many examples of applique on quilts, but nobody is sharing what the back looks like... so I can only assume it's not pretty.

I ended up sewing the elephant on before sandwiching.  I did a small zigzag around the elephant, ran out of bobbin thread just as I was rounding those tail curves, and now the tail looks like someone has been chewing on it.  Will it be noticeable to others?  Probably not as much as it is to me, but that's all I see when I look at it.  I was so upset that I had a mangled tail that I lost my motivation again.

I have pushed myself to move on this weekend.  I sandwiched it and am currently in the quilting process of free-motioning a boxy meandering stitch.  (inspiration from Oh, Fransson!)

(My Sunday night set up)

I'll share more pictures at a later date.  I don't want to chance the recipient seeing the entire quilt before she gets it!