Thanksgiving the California way

Yes, I realize Thanksgiving was several weeks ago, but since last year, I didn't manage to finish my Thanksgiving post until January, I feel like I'm doing pretty good here. As has become our routine, we spent Thanksgiving in California with Matt's parents. We flew into San Francisco early in the day, so we insisted on playing in the city for a bit before heading on to their house.

B enjoyed his first San Francisco trolley ride, as well as a stroll through Union Square, up and down several blocks of hills, and a brief stop at Fishermans' Wharf.

After our city adventure, we spent a calm week at the house, with lots of reading, trips to the park and nature museum, and of course, cooking.

Matt and I always do the holiday cooking, and we took on a lot this year. We started the day with homemade cinnamon rolls (because obviously the day needed more carbs), and dinner consisted of turkey, dinner rolls, green beans, my favorite sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and stuffing.

After taking a break to visit and let our stomachs make room, we finished off the night with pecan and pumpkin mousse pies.

Unfortunately, we left the next day, so we didn't get to partake in the leftovers (boo), but it was probably better for our waistlines. It was so sweet to see how much fun B had with his Grammy and Grandpa, and we're looking forward to seeing the other grandparents for Christmas very soon!

WIP Wednesday: From big to small

Hi! If you haven't checked in since last week's WIP post, you've missed out on a lot of finishes:

Convergence quilt 

Fading Star quilt
November Emerge Circle blocks

December Emerge Circle blocks 

Click on over to the posts to find all the details. Aside from all of that, I've been working on some smaller projects this week, which is a nice change of pace, but I'm definitely still keeping busy. I've been turning these gorgeous Mammoth Flannels into some infinity scarves:

adding to my stack of hexies:

auditioning some fabrics for a few new buckets:

working on a tutorial for some gift card holders:

and playing with felt hexies:

Oh, and I managed to get the last row of arches for my Catenary mini quilt basted and ready for sewing.

Wow! That was even more than I realized. It's been nice to have some variety this week and change things up a bit. Now, back to work!
 
The neverending to do list:

Convergence quilt
Fading Star quilt
September Emerge Circle quilt
November Emerge Circle blocks
December Emerge Circle blocks
Catenary mini quilt
Hexie mini quilt
Jewelry travel pouch
Patchwork City sampler quilt 
Allie Owl quilt
Menagerie quilt
Hazel Hedgehog quilt
The Kittens quilt
Aviatrix Medallion quilt
Swoon quilt
Spiced Chai quilt (from Vintage Quilt Revival)
Sunset Tiles quilt (from Scraps Inc.)

T-shirt quilt
Sewing circle tote 
Clothing for me! (Washi Dress, Sailor Top Shirt, Sorbetto Top)

I'm linking up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.

Fading Star quilt: A finish!

We've got back-to-back quilt finishes this week. If you've been following for a while, you saw this one progress over the past few months in little snippets each week. I'm happy to finally reveal the Fading Star quilt!

The idea for this quilt rattled around in my head for months, going through a number of versions before I finally settled on this one. I loved the idea of starting with a traditional block and then breaking it down into its elements, making them fade away until the block eventually "dissolved" into the background.

After auditioning several blocks, I decided to start with the traditional poinsettia block (which read as a star to me, hence the quilt's name) and then began to chip away at it, with each rendition of the block including new sections that faded to a lighter shade of teal, and then to an even lighter shade, and eventually to the night sky print (Cotton + Steel's Sprinkle in Counting Stars, appropriately) I used as the background, until only the center point remained.

The teals are Kona Breakers, Cyan, and Aqua. For the backing, I used more of the Sprinkle print and Konas combined with a big piece of the towers print from Lizzy House's 1001 Peeps line that I got for a steal at a LQS a while back. I love these colors so much.

As usual, I debated for forever on how to quilt it. The asymmetry of the quilt design threw me a bit, and I wanted there to be movement in the quilting. I eventually settled on a squared spiral emanating from that last center point. I used a medium teal thread and spaced the lines 2" apart. I brought in the three Konas again for the binding, creating an ombre effect (which is my MO lately, it seems). The quilt finished at 62" square.

I absolutely adore this quilt. It's so nice when an idea really works out the way you see it in your head.

Convergence quilt: A finish!

This post has been a long time coming, but I'm happy to finally reveal one of my latest finishes, the Convergence quilt!

I started working on this quilt months ago, making a lot of progress at the STLMQG retreat in October and finishing it up shortly thereafter. I made the quilt for the MQG's QuiltCon 2016 Triangle Quilt Challenge, which was sponsored by EZ Quilting. Everyone who signed up received a small triangle template, and you could make a quilt of any size and any design, as long as you incorporated the triangle template somewhere. I decided to go all in with my template and focused on just that shape.

I wanted to create a real sense of movement with all of the tiny little triangles, so I used three of the ombre fabrics from V & Co. to their full effect, using the template to cut the pieces from every part of the fabric to capture the smallest changes in color. The colors race back and forth across the rows until they converge in the middle. I added an uneven border to give the sense of the quilt being matted in a frame, but I extended the quilting onto the border to highlight the continued ombre effect used in the thread. I used pink, orange, and yellow Aurifil thread, quilted in diagonal lines about 1/2" apart.

For the backing, I incorporated more of the ombre fabrics, as well as the red dot from V & Co.'s Simply Colorful line. I used the red ombre for the binding, which I love.

There are so many seams in these pieces, and it was a real bear to assemble and quilt, but all in all, I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. The final quilt measures 28" x 21" and will likely be added to my growing wall of minis.

December do.Good Stitches blocks

I was a bit tardy on my November bee blocks for the EMERGE circle of the do.Good Stitches charity bee, so I wanted to get ahead of the game for December.

Amanda asked us to make two of these blocks, which were a block of the month from Alissa Haight Carlton on Sew Mama Sew a while back. She asked for white, gray, aqua, and bright red.

These blocks were a cinch to put together, and I think the final quilt is going to be so cute. The tutorial shows several cool layouts, so I'll be curious to see how Amanda puts them together.

 

They look a little funny as is, but Amanda said she'd trim them herself, so I left them big. Here's a cropped picture to give you an idea. Cute, huh?

November do.Good Stitches blocks

I was running a bit behind last month, but as soon as we returned from our Thanksgiving travels, I managed to finish up my November bee blocks for the EMERGE circle of the do.Good Stitches charity bee.

Kelly asked us to make wonky stars using indigo-y blues for the backgrounds and neutrals/low volume for the stars. It's hard to tell in the pictures, but I actually used several white-on-white low volumes for the stars, not solids. I used this simple tutorial from Owen's Olivia, and they came together in no time. It was a really fun block, and I could definitely see knocking out some more of these in the future. And to make up for my tardiness last month, I've already finished my December blocks, too. More on those tomorrow.