I finished it up by quilting the backgroud with dense straight lines. Then I went back and filled in the piecing with straight lines in the opposite direction that are set further apart.

I am so happy to have finished up this quilt. I often put my bee blocks to the side with every intention of putting them together into a top, and suddenly two years have passed and I still haven’t found the time… Thrilled to get to use this wonderful quilt!

The quilting on this is all straight line, echoing the piecing design. It took foreeeever, as this dense straight line quilting always does. Good thing there was a deadline to get it finished because it was hard to get it done!

I think that this quilt is a nice balance of clean, uncomplicated design, while also having interest. I’m really happy with it!

It’s a big queen sized quilt. And look, I’m taking a flat photo of it! Very exciting stuff. This is because for Christmas my husband got me a great photography set up for my big quilts.

Until the day comes that I have some fabulous enormous studio space where I can shoot my big quilts, this will be my set up! I need to figure out a better clip and hang system than the clothes hangers but I will… and then I’m hoping that I get the gumption to take it different places beyond my sister’s back yard.

Here’s a detail of the quilt after I’d washed it (these first photos are before I washed it) and it got that nice crinkle. I’d say that the colors are truest in this photo.

The orange is Kona flame and boy is it bright! But in this sea of blue it works. I was thinking about using negative space differently in this quilt… sorta like I pieced it with all of the blue. I know it doesn’t really read that way, but it’s an idea I hope that I find more time time to explore in the future!

I made this block…

…for my Modern Block of the Month awhile back and I wanted to make a whole quilt version. I foresee more exploration of this design in the future.

I had fun with the quilting on this one.

I echoed the piecing with straight lines in gray and then I filled in the piecing with vertical straight lines in pink.

I was happy with how it came out!

—–

And speaking of my Modern Block of the Month, I’m going to be teaching all 12 blocks over the course of a year at Sew Modern! Every second Saturday of the month, from 2pm to 5pm.

You can either sign up for the whole year, or just one month at a time!

I managed to finish up this little baby girl quilt that’s a gift. Very simple, very quick!

Happy Monday everyone – hope you’re finding more sewing machine time than I am!!

The orange is a shot cotton and in person really adds to the quilt – those shot cottons are so pretty with the depth of color they have.

Here’s a detail of the back… always easier to see the quilting on the back!

Lots of dense straight line quilting that fills in the piecing pattern and then continues across the rest of the quilt.

Here’s a detail of the quilting on the back… All that stopping and starting with the straight lines takes a lot of time, but it’s so worth the end results!

Happy weekend to all of you!

We Skyped with Jay McCarroll and it was a a ball…He is a total crack up.

Then he hung out with us as we all showed our projects. He was so great about giving individual feedback to everyone!

Here’s the quilt I made. It’s similar to the other one I recently made.

For the challenge we were allowed to add all the solids we wanted, but only use the Habitat line otherwise. I took these pictures after washing the quilt so it’s nice and crinkly!

I used more of the line on the back, along with my go to Kona Coal.

On to other things!  The winner of Quilting Arts’ Quilt Scene magazine is Janine – keep an eye out for an email from me!

And finally, Action Kivu gets 50% of the proceeds from sales of jewelry from Ember Arts through Dec. 7th. They have some really beautiful jewelry – maybe you wanna do some Christmas shopping AND do a good deed?

We coordinated an anniversary swap and I was sewing for Liz. Her adorable little baby girl is right at the age where they can always use one more quilt to put on the floor, so I quickly put together a little one for her.

I had to use scraps she gave me and I could only add one new fabric. Obviously I added the yellow. Oh and I cheated and added the binding too. Figured a stripy binding was worth a little cheating!

And thanks for all of your comments on the Quilt Retro blog tour post. I used the random number generator and the winner is Anita! Congrats and keep an eye out for an email from me.

I have been leaning more and more on non-block based quilt designs but I also love to improv. piece so I have been thinking of ways to combine the two. I feel like this quilt is a good example of that. Personally, I love it.

I quilted with dense straight lines (as usual – expect to see a whole lot more of this outta me – I’m loving it these days) and then less densely through the piecing. You can see the quilting really well on the back.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!