Blue Pillows

I took a little break from quilting and made these two pillows for my son's couch. They will brighten up the dark grey fabric on the sofa, but still keep a masculine feel.

The pillow forms are 20", but the fabric is cut smaller to get "stuffy" pillows.

Set of Two Swoon Pillows Completed

The set of two 20" Swoon pillows are now completed. Simple, yet effective, straight line quilting performed as on all the other pillows I have done with this pattern.

For the first time I have made a zipper closure on the back of the pillows, from the tutorial from made by ChrissieD. 

The pillow set looks quite stylish now! Then it is off piecing the quilt back for the Optical Illusion quilt.

June ALYoF Goal Completed!

MyALYoF Goal for June was to piece two Swoon pillow fronts and to quilt the same.

I finished piecing the second Swoon block last Sunday, and on Monday and Tuesday after work I quilted them.

Here are the finished pillow fronts, quilted, but still untrimmed. I used the walking foot and quilted straight lines, which works perfectly for this block design. Double click on the photos to see more details. In my previous post I stated that I would use a Teal Aurifil quilting thread, but that is not correct; Aurifil #2815 is actually called Surf, and it gives a wonderful color addition to my fabrics.

These fronts will be made into two 20" pillows, nice and big to fit in the sofa of the happy couple!

This completes my ALYoF goal for June! I really enjoy working on these monthly deadlines, it really helps me to focus and get projects finished.

I have also started on the backing of my Blurred Vision quilt. The backing fabric is not wide enough, so I have decided to piece a border to make the back of the quilt more interesting. Since the quilt is a wedding gift, together with the Swoon pillows, I decided to personalize the backing and add some more color to the quilt.

This is the first part of the pieced border; the initials of the bride and groom (in navy color), with a cute two-colored pink  heart in between. The instructions for the letters are from Spell it With Fabrics by Moda, and the heart is from a tutorial by Cluck Cluck Sew,  

I will figure out how to piece the rest of the border, hopefully during the weekend. I think this will be an interesting quilt back!

July will be dedicated to finishing the quilt, since the wedding is in the beginning of August!

Linked up to June's Finishes Party over at Sew BitterSweet Designs, and Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation.

Both Swoon Blocks Pieced

After a long break of sewing I am back home from vacation and finally had some time piecing together my second Swoon pillow. Here they both are on my lawn in the evening sun. This is the longest day of the summer, and the sun sets at 11:30 PM, and rises at 3 AM(!)

On my porch in the shade...

Both pillow fronts are now basted, and the quilting will start tomorrow if all goes according to plan. This is my ALYoF goal for June, so I better get to it!

I am planning to quilt them both with Aurifil #2815 (teal), that will "bind" them together.

ALYoF 2015 Goal for June

My goal for ALYoF in June is to make two quilted pillow tops out of these fabrics. The design will be big Swoon blocks. I am attending a wedding in August, and the two gorgeous pillows will be a a part of the wedding gift for the happy couple.

Two years ago I also made a set of Swoon pillows, in different colorways, and you can see them here. 

Linked up to the June Goal Setting Party at Sew Bitter Sweet Designs.

Violet Days

This is my first attempt of curved piecing. Inspired by the Daffodil Days Pillow featured at the Forth Worth Fabric Studio blog, I decided to make my own, in soft violet tones.

This will be a nice addition to my sofa. One can never have enough pillows, right?!

Linked up to Fabric Frenzy Friday and Link-a-Finish-Friday .

Pillow coming along

Here is a little sneak peek of the pillow cover I am making as my ALYoF goal for April, blogged about here. I like the color combination, they work so well together. More progress coming soon...

Happy quilting!

PS! The snow in the yard is all gone now, spring is here!

April Goal for ALYoF

These fabrics will be the basis for my April Goal; a 20" pillow cover. The white will be the background. The pink one with flowers I bought years ago. As you might see, there are some blue/turquoise flowers on it, and by accident/chance the color is the same as the solid I bought from Connecting Threads last winter; Cornflower.

Here the fabrics are on display on my porch, showing off the snow in the yard that does not want to leave. I definitely need to make a summer pillow to chase away winter.

This will probably be an easy goal to achieve this month, and that is OK since Easter is coming up and I probably would like to do something else than just sew and quilt!

Linked up to ALYoF April goal setting party .

A New Pillow

I am into a wave of pillow making, lately. There are so many blogs out there in the blogosphere with great tutorials of how to make good looking pillows. Crazy Mom Quilts is a great source of inspiration. I decided to make a version of her Contact Print Pillow .

I chose to arrange my 35 different color squares in a rainbow setting, and I think that this gives a very nice effect. The quilting is straight line using my walking foot.

I found a fun print for the back, and I made an envelope closure for the pillow.

This is the second pillow cover I have completed this year, and if I continue this rate of one new pillow every month, I will get 12 by the end of the year (!) There is not enough room for that in my sofa!

Well, I think I will stop long before I reach 12, but it is nice to get new colors and designs on the couch!

Linked up to:

Freemotion by the River: Linky Tuesday
Richard and Tanya's blog
Fabric Frenzy Friday



Happy quilting!

Batiks in the wind

This is just a short post about what's going on here: I have been busy with several projects.

The first one is a secret projects involving batiks. I cut 2 1/2" strips and put them up for audition. The best light for pictures was outside, but a strong wind did its best to destroy my photo shoot.

I love these batiks. They were bought during Christmas from Connecting Threads, where they had a sale. I bought several more colors, but I will show them off another time.

I did a lot of quilting on my 2012 Aurifil BOM, and this UFO is just a couple of days work away from completion. You can read more about it here.

I was inspired to start making another pillow cover today, and I chose a design from Crazy Mom Quilts with 35(!) different colored 2 1/2" squares. Here is the pillow front after quilting, but before trimming. Hope to finish it tomorrow.

As you can see, my sofa is grey, so I need a lot of color. This will take care of that!

Happy quilting!

The secret project is revealed!

I could not reveal pictures of the quilt I finished in July before now. The reason is that it was given as a wedding present last Saturday.

Here it is on my floor. The light was a little bit bleak, so the colors do not show off as bright as they really are.

This was a Blogger's BOM from 2012, with contribution from 13 different designers. The quilt is a lap size, perfect for the newly weds to cuddle under. If you click on the picture, you will be able to see the quilting. It consists of a combination of FMQ and straight lines using the walking foot.

Here is a close up of the quilting. I used the Dogwood design from Oh Fransson! , by Elizabeth Hartman inside the individual blocks, swirls in the sashing, and pebbles in the corner stones. After that I got so tired that I could only do straight line quilting outside the blocks and on the border.

The backing is a duvet cover, and the binding is a red fabric with darker red, green and white dots. I also made a label with the name of the happy couple and the wedding date, in case they forget it...

The couple also got the two Swoon pillows I recently made, so now they really can cuddle!

The two love-birds were very pleased with the gift, and that makes me happy!

And, in addition, I finished another UFO , so that one is crossed off the list.

Linked to Richard and Tanya's blog.

Swoon Pillows completed

Here are the two finished pillows, they measure 20" x 20". Quilted with my walking foot. They look good in my new sofa!

The back is made of a fabric I bought at IKEA three years ago. Unfortunately they don't sell this fabric anymore...

The Swoons were fun to make, and I will probably make more of these. Or maybe I will try to make a Carpenter's Star, instead?

Linked up to Richard's and Tanya's blog.

Progress on Swoons

It has been a long time since my last blog post, but now I am back home, work has started. That's tough, I wish I had longer vacation!

I overcame the jet lag fast this time, and the last couple of days I have worked on my Swoons. One was already pieced and quilted when I went home. Yesterday I pieced the second one after work, and this evening it was quilted. Hope to finish the two pillows tomorrow.

My first Swoon

My first Swoon block is completed! I cut all the parts for two of these blocks and put each set individually in zip-lock bags for easy travel. Now one top is done, and another one in a different color scheme will also be made. The blocks are 20" x 20", and will be turned into big pillows, eventually.

I have also made some progress on the Tornado Disaster Relief Quilt mentioned in the previous post here . The quilt is now basted, and I hope to start the quilting as soon as possible.

Today I also received a big package of different quilting threads, so now I am fully equipped to start the quilting.

I am linking this post up to "Link a Finish Friday" over at Richard and Tanya Quilts, and to Pat Sloan's blog.

New pillow for my couch

I started a little clean-up in my orphan quilt blocks. It is always fun to try out a design, but very often it is enough to make just one block. That was the case with the Card Trick block. The single block is now made into a cute pillow; here on display in my vintage sofa.

There are more orphans that deserve to come out in the open, this story is to be continued...