Epic Sampler BOM ~ The End Is Near

This weekend was spent in paper piece heaven!  What started as a catch up on the Epic Sampler BOM, ended in a flurry of frustration!  The good news is there is only one month left!

I was two months behind, meaning I had six blocks to make.  One 6", four 12" and the mother of all mothers...one 18"!  I'll get to that story a little bit later!

6" - Star Quest

This was quick and painless!  I just had to figure out my colors, and decided to use four different colors for the star points.  Hopefully, they will jive with my rainbow and tie in the colors.  

12" - Love Wins

This was described as looking like a succulent on instagram.  I have to agree.  I'm not a green person, but I love this combination!  It has a fitting name for the way I feel about it.

12" - Cat Corners

Tying in pink, yellow and a tiny bit of orange with this block.  I feel like I'm a little shy on yellow. Not good with three blocks left to go!

12" - Faceted Star

Pretty?  I like the illusion that there are curves with this one.  



Here's the yellow!  I still don't know if it's enough yellow, but what are you gonna do this late in the game!!

Now Big Birtha and the back story!  Naturally I saved the 18" block for the very last one.  It's a good thing I did, because if I did this one first I'm sure I would still have five other incomplete blocks!

Saturday started with the coloring sheet of 'Kapow Star'.  The name is exactly what my brain nearly did by the end of this one!  I cut my fabric, numbered each stack, numbered each section on the coloring sheet, had to cut more fabric because I kept missing sections...mind blowing!!

18" - Kapow Star

It looks pretty harmless.  It isn't.  It's a death star if it's anything!  A grand total of 176 pieces in this square.  176!  The piecing of each section went pretty well.  I was clipping along, dinner in the oven, thinking I could easily get the piecing of each section done before we eat.  

And then the storm hit.  It got very dark, very windy, very fast.  Thunder, lightning, rain.  And then...a huge boom!!  And...the power went out...and everything stopped.  Dinner.  (which thankfully was done) Sewing.  Kapow, was sidelined.  The power went out at 4:30 pm and was out until after 1 am!  Awww, those summer storms!

I picked it back up Sunday thinking the rest is a breeze.  You know when you think you know how all the pieces should go together?  You think you do, turns out you don't.  The illustration was so confusing!  The seam ripper and I had the best time...not!  Eventually I finally figured out the puzzle and got it together.  But man, the odds were stacked against me!  

This is where it stands as of today!

Three more to go!  The one on the right, the long skinny one.....I'm looking forward to the simplicity of that one!

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Looky Looky ~ Sunday Stash

It wasn't that long ago when I would buy batting by the yard.  I always made sure I had that special 50% off coupon first!  Usually I would get 6, 7 or 8 yards as a time and you know what? Nearly every single time when I was ready to baste a quilt at the end of the 'wad', it was always too small.  Frustrating?  Yes!  I know many of you know what I'm talking about.  

The past couple years I have been buying rolls of Warm & Natural batting (40 yards x 90", queen size).  The frustration is gone!  I always have it on hand, it's never too small and it's less expensive in the long run.  



The last two times I have bought by the roll it was through Amazon.  Free shipping and I don't have to worry about coupons.  

Getting that big box is one of my cheap thrills...my kind of thrill, I must say!  I store the roll in the spare room.  My daughter had one of those dress forms that sits on a pole, she doesn't use it, so I took the stand and popped my roll on it.  It's like it was made for it!



Those cheap thrills I told you about...Giddy Up!  

Instagram is full of wonder, inspiration and yes, even giveaways!  I've been known to enter a few or six...it's hit or miss, but you never know it might be your lucky day!  And it was for me!!



This bundle is good enough to eat, don't you think?!  Mmmm...I do believe it is!  I see brussel sprouts, mushrooms and egg plant!

RJR Fabrics has been having a 'What Shade Are You' blog hop, featuring quilts made from curated bundles.  They also have a giveaway on Instagram seemingly every week.  I was lucky, lucky, lucky enough to win one of those beauties!  

  

I know I will stare at it for a while before I rip the perfect ribbon off.  Admire it.  Instead of opening it up, I thought I would just take pictures.  They are worth a thousand words, pictures that is!



Do you enter fabric giveaways?  Are you lucky?  Sometimes there is a dry spell, and then all of the sudden you win two or three.  Well, not me.  I've heard about it happening!



I'm very thankful to RJR Fabrics for their generosity with these giveaways!  They make a lot of people very happy!

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Sunday Stash

Round Peg ~ Square Hole

I was drawn in by the colors.  The muted tones, the subtle shades.  Shot cottons, Peppered Cottons and Moda Cross Weave ... the weft & warp, nothing can compare!  With little or no plan at the outset, I quickly became inspired by a simple stack of fabric.  

In a weird way, the combination of colors remind me of being in a dense fog.  Where visibility is obscured but you can just make out shapes.  This quilt is a little less hazardous than fog, thankfully!

Round Peg ~ Square Hole
30 1/2" x 39 1/2"

If the colors weren't enough, I wanted to work in a little Raw Edge Weaving.  I saved the scraps from my 'Inspire' quilt, knowing full well they would be perfect for another weaving project.  These were wider than my first weaving project (Raw I), yet perfect for the idea I had in mind.



The wider strips made it much easier to weave and naturally, the finished piece was bigger which gave me more to work with.  Endless possibilities as they say.  



All those squares...may as well go round!  Six Minute circle to the rescue!  The weave circle is 4" across, which allowed me go bigger with the outside.  



I like things perfect and precise.  I also like things organic and seemingly chaotic.  Raw edge weave and the six minute circle combine both in the most perfect way! 



The small circles took care of every last piece of fabric, which is good!  Good that there aren't scraps left over.  Good that there wasn't more fabric or I would have/could have gone overboard!  



The quilting was a pure joy!  With grid work in the raw edge weave circles and carrying the 'wonky' of the circles around each of the three center blocks.  The rest of the quilting was organic or natural.  I love that term, you've probably guessed that by now.  Lines from side to side with the occasional bump.



I'm not sure what the color of this backing is.  A cross between taupe and grey, I think.  It may even be a sateen, but I cannot be sure because I haven't a clue where it came from! All I know is the color was a perfect match to the colors on the front!



Little bundles are the best!  After washing, this quilt was so soft and supple!  The combination of the shot cotton and the mystery backing is seemingly the right combination.



Besides more raw edge weave, more six minute circles, I also have more matched binding work!  Enough already!!!  Just a little bit on the bottom.



Lately I have seen several posts from other bloggers about naming their quilts.  Do you name your quilts?  I try, and I try to be clever coming up with just the perfect name.  But it's hard!  Instead of being clever this time, I'm going with Round Peg ~ Square Hole.  How's that for literal?! 

This quote from Steve Jobs says it all:

"Here's to the crazy ones, 

the misfits, the rebels,

the trouble makers, 

the round pegs in the square holes..."

While this describes so many people, it seems quite appropriate in describing quilters too!

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Can I Get A Whoop Whoop!

After Inspire ~ We Create

Inspire.  Once that happens, it's time to create!  Right?!  I have to say, this past month has been all about gettin' it done.  Ideas!  I've had so many of those it makes my head spin!  My problem is once that idea takes root, I feel I need to act on it immediately.  And then there is the other side: idea, execute, improve upon said idea.

'CREATE'
11 1/2 x 31"

Remember the Inspire quilt?  Well, I felt there were plenty of areas I could improve and explore. Tweak a technique, that I like to call 'Faux Trapunto', to see if I could up the ante a bit!

This piece was not suppose to happen, at least not this soon.  Sunday was the day I would quilt a piece that was inspired (that word again!) by color.  The problem was I didn't have a clear idea how I wanted to quilt it.  So, I set it aside.  

I was so focused on making 'Create' that I didn't take a single picture of my progress!  I knew I wanted to use lower case letters and make them small.  They ended up being roughly 2 1/2" x 2 1/2" and it gave me a starting point.



I began piecing the grey and white scraps haphazardly together in sections until I was sure there were enough to finish the top.

The real test was piecing the improv to the colored pieces!  It's always interesting, but nearly always comes together eventually.

With the top finished, the next step is the letters.  I had my batting strips ready to go, my glue bottle handy and the iron heated up.  The tricky part was getting the letters and the top aligned. After some fiddling and repositioning, it came together.



It was so much easier to quilt lower case letter!  With the 'Inspire' quilt, I tried to quilt around the words as close to the batting as I could.  I was please with it, but totally.  This time, I used my zipper foot and adjusted the needle.  This time I was 100% satisfied!



I grabbed my variegated pastel thread and went crazy after that!  Visual interest, rainbow color and making those letters standout was the goal.

  

Next up, quilt the background!  Free motion quilting tiles worked with the design and I always have so much fun doing it!

  

The binding is random scraps, most of which were pieces left over from other bindings.  It's always a good idea to save the extra pieces for such occasions!  

Then another idea came up!  Again.  Does it ever end?!  Thankfully not!



Why not use the variegated thread and stitch on the binding?  So I did, and I like it. Looking at the overall piece, it isn't that noticeable.  


   
I had a hard time getting good pictures of this little bugger!  Auto color was not my friend with this!



Even so, I still played with a photo shot or two!  I'm loving the diamond shadow play from the deck rail!



Are there more ideas?  More words?  Of course.  I'm thinking a secret surprise mini is in order for some unsuspecting person!  But first I need to get caught up on my Epic BOM, design and write a tutorial for a block and make a couple pillows!



What word would you like to see using this method?  I see shapes and symbols and words, oh my!  There is never any limits when it comes to quilting!  

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