Trollish Delight

Remember troll dolls? You know, those multicolored dolls that were so impossibly ugly that they were almost cute? Well, I'm proud (and a little bit horrified!) to say that I've made something with that very quality. Three cheers for the kitschy thread catcher!

I am kitschy, hear me roar!

I made this little box to practice Oh Fransson's quilt-as-you-go-technique. Sort of a trial run *before* cutting into my beloved Japanese fabrics. It was a lot of fun, though a little work intensive for an experiment.  If you haven't try this technique I highly recommend it. I plan to finish it off with a dark grey lining, and maybe even some (lime green?) piping up top. These things require a trip to the fabric store, so it's shelved for now.

Oh, and did I mention this thing is 6 inches square? That's a lot of thread. I'm setting the bar high, but I think I can fill it!

Throw Pillow Completion!

Realization of the day: I am an adult who spends a lot of her free time playing with rainbows. Not sure what that says about me, but I sure am happy about this throw pillow!

Other than a fat quarter for the backing and a few dollars worth of cording for the trim I had almost all the materials on hand. I pieced the top using only scraps, some of them impossibly small castoffs from squaring up my Good Fortune Quilt. The patchwork is a combination of 3 inch squares and 1.25 inch strips, for a final 20x20 pillow. I had a lot of fun auditioning scraps to achieve a gradual color change from purple to green. And to make the little windows of color pop I decided to keep the quilting very simple -- just a little straight line quilting around each "window pane".

This was my first pillow, and my first time using piping. I can see how these could become dangerously addictive, especially since I still have two unused pillow forms hanging around! 

Good Fortune Throw Pillow

This throw pillow is my latest work in progress,  inspired by Fabric Mutt.  What can I say, I'm sort of a sucker for rainbows.

Even though it's pretty simple, this is the first thing I've ever made without a pattern. It's coming together quickly and even used up some of my Good Fortune Quilt scraps.  Now to find the time to finish it up!

First Big Finish!

Admittedly it took a little longer than I hoped, but my Good Fortune Quilt is officially complete! This is my first large-sized quilt, measuring 63 x 72 or a generous throw size. I finished it late last night, and pulled it out of the dryer early this morning. My mini-me hasn't stopped cuddling it; I think she's almost as happy as I am! And a huge thank you  Fresh Lemon Quilts for the great pattern!

I'm going to put together a coordinating throw pillow or two to match (I still have an embarrassing amount of scraps from this project!), and then I'll begin plotting my next big quilt. I splurged on a fat quarter bundle of Tula Pink's Salt Water which should arrive in a few days. If I can overcome my fabric hoarding instincts I'll be cutting into it very soon.

Lessons Learned

I hit a snafu with the binding...I realized *way* too late that I hadn't squared up the quilt very well and there were a few places where the binding "missed" the quilt top. It took me four days to rip out some 6,000 stitches (!!), but now that it's done I'm glad that I took the time to re-do it. Also, instead of doing the back by hand I followed Red Pepper Quilt's machine binding tutorial. It's a little tricky, but I finally got the technique down in the end. The result is super sturdy -- with two cats, a dog and a toddler this quilt will be no stranger to the washing machine :)

Machine Binding - Red Pepper Quilt's Style