BluePip Designs

I am happy to report that I have made a lovely dent in my WIP stash, as per my goal for June . My Trinket quilt ( April goal ) has been fully finished since last month, and I finally got outside and took some beauty pictures of it and wrote a blog post .  We've been using this one quite heavily since the last stitch went into the binding, and I'm glad I got a few pictures before anything got spilled on it! My Tula Pop quilt ( May goal ) got quilted and faced, a new technique for me!  You can read more about that in this blog post . My husband always uses a hand towel under his coffee cup on his dresser in the morning, so for his birthday I made this simple mug rug to use instead.  There's no pattern - I was just playing around with my new drunkard's path ruler set . Because of its small size (7"x9") I just brown-bagged it and then quilted it after it was done.  Not a technique I'd use on a larger project, but it was perfect in this case. Finall...

This quilt took a year to piece (with a 6-month stint in the UFO corner), a week to quilt, and then another month or so to actually photograph, but after a little adventure with my kids it is finally ready to be shared! It took more discipline than I normally have to plan out all the colors so that the rainbow effect worked, but I am thrilled with how it turned out in the end.  All fabrics are Alison Glass - I love how the charcoal Insignia gives the empty squares just a little bit of movement.  After all that work, I didn't want to take away from the rainbow effect, so I just did diagonal line quilting - the diagonals through the corners match the colors of the blocks they are going through.  The "in between" lines match the color they are passing through as well. The back is all Alison Glass as well, and also features the bonus block that was part of the sew-along.  The busy pattern is Collection in Ink and the binding is Path in Storm - both from the ...

Tula Pop is done!  This was a fun, fast sew from Suzy Quilts called Sugar Pop .  I started with the half-jelly roll of Tula Pink Pinkerville fabric that was in my April Sew Sampler box and went from there.  Important note: this is not actually a jelly roll pattern.  You will need yardage to do the last two colors on the sides that don't have the bi-colored leg.  The background solid is a piece of Princess by Kona  that I just happened to have on hand and the solids in the X are from my unlabled solid scrap box. My guild challenged us to try new techniques this year, so I decided to experiment with this quilt.  After reading several tutorials on facings, I decided to follow this one by The Silly BooDilly .  My strips were only 1.5" wide and I ironed them under before attaching them, but otherwise I followed it faithfully.  It certainly wasn't any faster than making and attaching traditional binding but I really like the feeling it gives...

Today is the last day of school - the year went by in a flash.  I definitely didn't sew as much as I thought I would, though the fact that I started working part-time is mostly to blame for that (and no regrets on that front - I love the new machine that I was able to purchase with my earnings!). My youngest asked me to make a mini quilt for his excellent kindergarten teacher, who, according to him, loves cats, books, and the color orange.  After a little discussion, we decided to use the Tall Tales pattern and came up with this sweet little mini.  He chose all the fabrics himself and we outsourced the embroidery of the titles to my ever-patient mother-in-law. We packaged it up with a sweet little note for him to bring to school tomorrow - hopefully she likes it!  I'm not planning on any grand sewing adventures (a la Quilt Block Summer ) this year; in fact, I am inspired by South Bay Bella and I'm just going to work on WIPs during the month of June.  I...