W.i.P. Wednesday: Hit the Beach

We've had fabulous weather this summer and I have to admit I've spent a lot more time relaxing on the water than I have behind my sewing machine.  With vacations in full swing we didn't have a get together at Quilter's Way this month but I didn't want to fall behind on my Toes in the Sand BOM.

This is the first month I've really deviated from Julie's original design.  I swapped the solid blue for what I refer to as the "I"s that I had left over from block 2.  The cutting directions are always generous.  I was able to get all 8 of my triangles from a single 3 1/2" strip.  I also didn't reverse the striped triangles so I only made one strip set of those.

From there it goes together much like the other blocks.  This one is a bit more difficult because you need to match the middle points where the center triangle meets the outside triangles.  I started pinning at the intersection and then pinned the sides and then again between each of those pins.  With so much bias you really want to keep things in place!

Check out what everyone else is up to at this week's W.i.P. Wednesday:-)

W.i.P Wednesday: Ready for the Weekender

Me and my big mouth;-)  I'm guessing anybody reading this knows how this story goes...  A group of us from the BMQG registered to go to the MQG Sew Down in September.  Once we got our tickets and finalized our travel arrangements the next big question was what bag are we going to make??? We've all been meaning to make the Amy Butler Weekender Travel Bag.  Of course to get it done in time we were going to have to hold each other accountable and every time I mentioned our plan to someone else they wanted to do it also until the idea for a sew-along was born.

We spent a long weekend in Maine which seemed like the perfect stress free environment to get started.  I decided to start with the "traditional" Weekender before advancing to Oh, Fransson!'s fabulous patchwork version which meant there was lots of cutting to do.

Once I setup shop on my porch it went together pretty easily.  So far I'd say it's more time consuming than challenging but I haven't faced the zipper yet:-)  It helps that so many people have done this already and shared their lessons learned.  I've got a board on Pinterest to keep track of them all.

You can read more of my tips for getting to this point (Step 7) over on the BMQG blog.

Check out what everyone else is up to at this week's W.i.P. Wednesday:-)

Show-Off

This week I've been busy getting ready for the BMQG exhibit at the Lowell Quilt Festival.  My quilts were all done, but I had lots of sleeves to attach... not only for my own quilts but also for some of our Quilts for Boston quilts which will be on display.

I'm on the setup committee and was a drop-off location so today I packed my car full of quilts and headed up to Lowell.

It was a long day getting everything ready but we've got all the quilts hung and we're ready for the show to open tomorrow.  The show runs Thursday 10-6, Friday 10-8 and Sunday 10-4.  If you're in the area be sure to stop by Appleton Mills.  It's absolutely fabulous!!!

Check out what everyone else is up to at this week's W.i.P. Wednesday:-)

Shades of Grey

I don't know why I'm always so surprised that I find challenges such a challenge.  In this case, the color scheme was definitely out of my comfort zone.

For the BMQG 2013 LQF Mini-Quilt Challenge we were given this color scheme.  When I started picking fabrics from my stash I realized I didn't even have a grey category.  

Not that I didn't have any greys...just that they weren't all stored together.  With some digging I was able to pull together a nice assortment, all from stash! 

When I was brainstorming the first thing that popped in my head was Grey Goose, which lead to flying geese but I also wanted something modern with some negative space.  Inspired by the amazing Victoria Findlay Wolfe I used this awesome curved geese tutorial to make a flying geese template on freezer paper.  It's nice because you can see how it's going to look and adjust your lines.  Just remember the image will be reversed when you are done.  For the curved piecing I referred back to my favorite tute by the incredible Sarah Fielke.  She makes it sooo easy!!!

I debated doing some fancy FMQ but decided to keep the quilting minimal so I just used masking tape to echo the angle of the geese.

When I was designing this I played around with the perspective so that the geese got bigger as they approached the bottom of the quilt.  I wanted to create the illusion of them flying off the quilt so I planned to match the binding on the final goose.  It came out almost perfectly:-)

Quilt Stats:

Finished quilt is 22" x 26"
Pattern: Based on this awesome curved geese tutorial by the amazing Victoria Findlay Wolfe
Fabrics: Assorted greys from stash.  Binding is Woodcut from Innocent Crush by Anna Maria Horner.
Background: Kona Azure
Batting: Quilter's Dream Orient
Thread: Aurifil 5006

Linking up to the fabulous Finish it Up Friday by Crazy Mom Quilts.