Not One but Two!

One positive side of sheltering at home is the time I get to spend in my sewing room. This week I tackled some baby quilts! They will all be donated to charity!

The first one was the result of the improv play I did to get ready to participate in the improv triangle sew along. In Nicholas Ball's book, he suggests practicing improv techniques such as curves, inserts, stacks, rings, etc. I took each technique and practiced using older fabrics from my stash. 

After completing the stacks technique, I had a pretty good size piece. 

Instead of having this piece hang around as an orphan, I dug through my stash to find more coordinating fabrics and made a baby quilt. I added borders to make the finished size 28" x 37"

I quilted fairly densely in straight lines about every 1/2" and a geometric meander in the borders. 

The backing and binding are also pieces from my stash. 

Even though these are the colors Pantene chose for their colors of the year in 2016, I assure you these fabrics are from the late 80's or early 90's. 

It is nice to use up older fabrics! 

My second finish is from a picture I pinned to my Pinterest board way back in 2012 from Flickr. The pattern is called Easy Going Modern by Felicity Quilts. 

I'm calling this In the Neighborhood because of the cute print. Just look at that orange bear with blue glasses riding his bike through the neighborhood! 

This quilt finishes at 31" x 36". 

I quilted it with straight lines cutting each of the blocks in half. I added a 1" border. The backing is pieced with left over pieces from the front and some bright red/orange I had in my stash. 

These quilts will go to Hands2Help2020. 

I'm linking up to Can I Get a Whoop, Whoop?, Brag about Your Beauties, Peacock Party, Finished or Not Friday, and Friday Foto Fun.

Next up will be this baby quilt resulting from more improv play. 

Stay tuned to see how this evolves. 

Another project I actually finished after many years is this lamp shade. I inherited this dresser lamp from my grandma, but the shade was in bad shape. I lived with it for a long while, then with no shade for some more time.

 I finally took the plunge. 

I made the pattern based on the old shade (in picture below) after deconstructing the shade. The fabric is the cutoff from shortening the curtains in our room. I pressed under 1/4" on the curved edges and another 1/4". I glued the larger circular wire along the bottom then glued the top wire. Once the wires were in place, I folded under the raw edges and glued the seam. 

To stiffen the fabric to retain its shape, I used Aleene's Stiffen Quik. 

It worked great! 

What are you doing during Coronacation?

It is definitely a crazy time for everyone, everywhere! I hope you are staying safe and taking the mandated precautions! If everyone does their part, we will overcome this pandemic faster! 

I must admit that it already feels like a very long time to be 'in isolation'. When I am crazy busy at work, I long to have time at home in my sewing room but now that I am forced to be home with schools closed, I long for school, my teacher friends and the kiddos! 

So what am I doing to keep myself busy, safe and sane?

First, I finished the quilt top that I showed a peek of in my last post. 

The pattern is called Braque by Melinda Lin. I purchased this pattern a couple of years ago. It is based on the Cubist artist George Barque.

 One of George Barque works

Because of the nature of Cubism, this pattern is loosely written to give you some creative leeway into how to put your quilt together. At first, I had a bit of difficulty allowing myself this freedom. I wanted the pattern to give me directions but as I went along, I enjoyed the process. 

Secondly, I finished my improv triangle quilt that I made following the #improvtrianglesewalong by Nicholas Ball. 

I'm calling this quilt Breaking the Rules! Isn't that what improv is...breaking the rules of traditional piecing? It was fun and challenging!

This is my first attempt at matchstick quilting. It is very densely quilted and I love how it looks!

The backing and binding fabrics have pieces in the front of the quilt. 

I also put a sleeve on this quilt so it could be hung up. It finishes at 27" x 30". 

Linking up to Can I Get A Whoop, Whoop?, Friday Foto Fun, Finished or Not Friday, Beauties Pageant 73, and Peacock Party.

Outside of quilting, I am following along with a #drawtogether activity on Instagram by @wendymac. She is an illustrator that is posting simple drawing lessons (designed for children) everyday at 10PST. My daughter alerted me about this and I am having fun dabbling with a new skill. 

I missed the first day when they learned how to draw a dog. 

Day 2 taught how to draw a tree.

Day 3 taught how to draw a cat all curled up with a bird on its head. 

There are also Lunch doodles with Mo Willems (author and illustrator of children books). Find them at the link or on Youtube. Again these are geared to children but if you are just dabbling in drawing or want to practice a new skill, these are great lessons. They break up the day and give another creative outlet. 

Of coarse, I am still knitting for my charity knitting group even though we can't be together. 

Just days before the isolation mandate, my hubby and I and a few friends were invited to an event at Ignite Glass Studios. The event included each of us making our own glass. Yesterday, these came in the mail! 

These are not perfect by any means but they were fun to make and fun to receive in the mail!

Hope you find ways to learn something new and be creative. We are all in this together! Let's support one another!

What's happening and monthly blocks

I participated in the #improvtrianglesewalong on Instagram hosted by Nicholas Ball, the author of Inspiring Improv. I got the book out of my local library and prepared for the sew-along to start the first week of February. 

The first week we were to start cutting our fabric pulls into random sized squares, rectangles, and triangles.  In week 2, we started sewing the triangles together using his improv triangle method... without measuring or use of rulers.

In week 3, we learned a bit about joining all these triangles together. It was a puzzle to fit all these random blocks together into what he calls a slab. 

Keep making slabs that will eventually fit all together!

This was a fun and challenging sew-along!  

I enjoyed it so much that I was sad when I had to return the book 

to the library. That meant that I needed my own copy!

A great mail day! My very own Inspiring Improv book! 

This still needs to be quilted but I'm debating on whether to add more to make it bigger or leave it as a wall hanging. 

I'm linking to Can I Get a Whoop Whoop.

If you are interested in seeing more amazing quilts, go to Instagram and search the #improvtrianglesewalong.

March snuck up fast and the monthly charity blocks and colors were announced! 

For the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, Angela announced the color of teal. 

The first three months!

Linking up to Scrap Happy Saturday.

For the Covered in Love charity, Kat of Kat & Cat Quilts chose a variation of the fence rail block in blue and yellow. Here is the tutorial.

And I started a new project...currently on my design wall! Here is a sneak peek!

I have 2 more sections to piece before I can put this together! Stay tuned!