Now available for sale - Finlay's Stars

Yes! I did finish the quilt in time! (I might have given myself carpal tunnel syndrome or something in the process though - my right hand is very sore. Ugh.) However, I love making baby quilts as gifts - they are super-distinctive, but piece up and quilt up a lot easier than a larger size. I even got to baste this on my dining table, vs. on the floor, and my back was thanking me!

With Finlay's Stars, the most work was trimming the half-square triangles to the right dimension, but apart from that, pretty smooth sailing. (Quilting was a lot of work though - I painstakingly outline-quilted every windmill-ish shape as well as every star - which makes the quilt look fantastic, but was a lot of work!)

Of course, I did have a lot of help with this quilt - my cat Biscuit was intimately involved in both the quilting and the binding process!

Lots of pictures to follow - this project pretty much took over my life for all of the last week, so I'm going to show several photos of it!

All pieced-up, before adding a border 

Basting on a dining table...

Biscuit *helps* with the quilting...

Quilting detail. With bonus bits of thread, which hopefully came out in the wash... 

|Biscuit *helps* with the binding... (don't worry, I washed the quilt prior to giving it to the mom-to-be!)

Another photo of the finished quilt. I'm pretty impressed with my quilting diligence. 

(I did just mostly steal this post from my regular sewing blog - weekendcrafting.blogspot.com. I rarely cross-post, but this actually is both personal sewing as well as a Global Nomad pattern.)

The pattern's available right now through my Craftsy store - Etsy to follow after the long weekend, I think. (I have to pack, but if I have time, I'll put it up on Etsy tomorrow morning.)

Sneak peek - Finlay's Stars

Dear readers, in my last post, I mentioned I had a baby shower to go to, and a quilt to make for that, inspired by a Moroccan tile.

This is it - Finlay's Stars! (Finlay's the name of the wee one.)

The colours are rather un-Moroccan, since I thought this would double as a rather fabulous Fourth of July quilt. There's one planned blue (the dark one) and several bits of scrap blues, which is a good way to use  your scraps, while still keeping the look of a planned quilt.

Finlay's Stars will go on sale next week. I've no time to write instructions right now, since the baby shower is on Sunday! Eek! I better get to attaching the borders and quilting it. (My least favourite bits of the process, I'm afraid.)

As an aside, I need to learn how to work the settings on my camera. I took photos outside, but it's a cloudy day - the brighter pictures are the manual setting, the darker ones are the automatic, and the true colours of the quilt are somewhere in between.

Etsy or Craftsy?

Dear readers I've a question.

If you buy PDF quilt patterns, which site are you more likely to use? Etsy or Craftsy? Or a third that I don't use?

I list in both places, but I'm curious. Please comment!

Dancing Stars Rangoli - prepare for a colour explosion!

Dear readers, I finally finished writing my Dancing Stars pattern instructions. It took a while! Let's just say it was worth the wait!

Buy this pattern at Craftsy!

Yes, there was snow on the ground when I took pictures. 

This quilt is too large for my clothesline - I need a different quilt hanging solution!

The full quilt outline. This would be really fun in blues and greens too, instead of the pinks and oranges.

I'm now at a bit of a standstill - my pattern testers are otherwise occupied - my cousin is hand-quilting Birds of Paradise, my mom is vacationing in India, and my aunt is making someone a table-runner.

However, I do have a baby-shower to go to, and I thought of an awesome pattern, inspired by a Moroccan tile. So maybe, I should work at that...

Well hello, new quilt pattern!

Buy this pattern at Craftsy!

Ok, you thought you were going to see Phoenix Flight, no? A bit of a wrinkle - a conversation with my aunt suggested a few problems with the pattern, which I need to resolve before it goes out. Hence, a bit of a detour.

Luckily for me, my uber-awesome cousin Priya stepped in (quite princess-like!), and sent me many photos of a quilt pattern she'd been testing for me. Birds of Paradise is made with a 13" block, very scrap-friendly and fat-quarter friendly, and makes up pretty quickly. She made a lap quilt size version. (My mom's working on her bed-size version even as we speak!)

And so, Birds of Paradise is up for sale, instead of Phoenix Flight. The best laid plans of mice and men...

 There's a couple of images of alternate colourways on the Craftsy listing, if you are having trouble imagining it in a different colourway. (Though, y'all are quilters, it's probably a bit unnecessary.)

As always, comments on the Craftsy listing would be most welcome, and I love comments here on the blog as well!

Now - to find a ruler, and to make a plan to sort out Phoenix Flight...

Coming soon (April 26) - Phoenix Flight

About a week back, I'd devoted some time to drafting and writing instructions for another kolam quilt, which I rather fancifully called Phoenix Flight. (There was something a bit bird-like about the pattern?)

I sent it off to my aunt to test out for me. And lo and behold, to my surprise, I got these pictures in my email box this morning.

My aunt rocks!

Now my aunt is a crazy-experienced quilter, who routinely takes on complicated projects that I would never even approach, and finishes them with aplomb. So, this was probably entirely too easy a project for her - she said it took her two days. (In the middle of other life things, of course.)

It won't take me two days, but it is a nice easy project, which finishes up to a lap quilt size.

I do need to have a little chat with her about pattern errors, etc. before the pattern becomes available for sale. (Also, a final pressing, and high resolution outdoor photos...) But I thought it was a fun little WIP...
 

Look for Phoenix Flight to go on sale - probably on April 26th. 

Now available for sale - Intertwined!

If you are finding me via CrazyMomQuilts - welcome!

(If you would like to buy this pattern - the links to the right will take you either to Craftsy or Etsy, where the pattern is available for sale for $4.)

The pipeline got reordered a bit - and this quilt got bumped up the list. It's a nice, easy quilt to make, and I love how it turned out! Each Intertwined block measures 22.5" square, making this a perfect pattern if you need to make a bed-size quilt in a hurry!

In my sample, I used three colours of fabric - a dark blue, a light blue and a green. I made 9 blocks, and added 2 borders apart from the sashing, making this ~80" square. Not bad at all for a few evenings' work!

It's pretty windy outside. I had a tough time trying to get good photos. In the end, I sort of gave up. Here are some outtakes!

If you like the pattern, would you do me a huge favour? Could you go leave a comment on Craftsy? Comments help bump the pattern up, and I'd love for people to see this and buy this!