A Sneak Peak

A sneak peak at what I have been working on lately.

<3 Kelsey

Amazing Indie Designer

Things are still settling in around here after the big interstate move. I finally plugged in my sewing machine the other night after it being away for a whole month (yikes!). I haven't had any time to make anything to show you yet, but I wanted to take some time today to let you know about an amazing indie designer I stumbled on in Spoonflower: Holli Zollinger.

She designs these amazing modern prints.

Many of them are such statement fabrics, yet work together so well, you can easily see how they could be used all together in a quilt, or on their own.

Some are great blenders.

And some make a statement.

Some are minimalist.

And others are whimsical.

This is clearly a woman who loves her craft. You really should go and check her out:

• Spoonflower: http://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/holli_zollinger
• Etsy: http://www.etsy.com/shop/hollizollinger
• Website: http://www.hollizollinger.com/

Hope that gives you some inspiration for today!

<3 Kelsey

P.S. This post is not sponsored in any way. I simply saw her fabric, loved it, and reached out to her to ask if it was ok to showcase her work.

Do. Good Stitches Quilt Finish

I have another quilt to share with you today that was finished and gifted a while ago. This time it is the December quilt from the Faith circle of do. Good Stitches.

The quilt I've "designed" is a fusion of the Prism quilt by Fresh Lemons and Elizabeth Hartman's New Wave quilt. (Be sure to check both these quilts out - they are great!) I created this quick mock for myself in EQ7 to test out my idea, and created paper piecing templates for our group in the hope that this would increase accuracy.

I learned an important lesson with this quilt - if you are going to do paper pieced blocks for a quilt that need to line up with each other in a bee - mail the bee members the templates! Even if they all print with no scaling, there are slight variations among printers. It's worth the 44 cents each to ensure they're all from the same templates. :)

For some reason, the whole quilt shot of this quilt just doesn't quite do it justice. I blame the cloudy skies and the fact I was in a hurry taking these photos. :) This up close shot shows it a bit better I think.

I quilted along the vertical lines to try to emphasize the new-wave aspect of it a bit. This recreated the design on the front on the backing in a kind of neat way.

The final quilt measures about 60" x 67.5", and was given to a single mom of four in our church who lost her husband. I can't even imagine being responsible for providing for and caring for four children all by myself - she must have the will of a superhero.

This is another scrappy quilt finished up this year, so I'm also linking this one up to Rachel's Festival of Scrappiness at Stitched in Color.


<3 Kelsey

P.S. Linking up to sew & tell, too cute tuesday, fabric tuesday, made by me, nap time crafters, and {sew} modern monday.

San Bruno Quilt Wrap-Up

Hello all,

This finish I'm sharing with you today was actually finished quite a while ago and has been living in its new home, but with the craziness of the inter-state move, I am just now getting around to posting it.

Some of you may remember this post where I asked help for making a quilt for one of my husband's coworkers who had a lot of terrible stuff happen in the previous year. Many lovely ladies donated their time and scraps to making blocks for this quilt. It took a bit longer than hoped to get all the necessary blocks, but I did get the quilt together in the beginning of this year.

This quilt was made using the Mod Mosaic pattern from Elizabeth Hartman, available for free on her blog, Oh Fransson!. This pattern is simple enough, but very time consuming. I had to make 9 blocks myself, and each block took over an hour easily.

I had to get a bit creative with the block arrangement to accommodate all of the different interpretations of orange. I tried to just go with the different colors and use that in the layout to create "windows" of the different hues rather than just having a few randomly stand out.

I quilted it using a sort of boxy stippling, also inspired from Mz. Hartman.

The final dimensions ended up around 64" x 80", which is pretty huge for me. My mom had to stand on a stool just so we could get a picture without it dangling on the ground. :)

This quilt was made pretty much entirely from scraps from ladies all around the world, and as such I think it appropriate to link up to Rachel's Festival of Scrappiness at Stitched In Color. Whether or not a group quilt qualifies for the competition, I think it is a scrappy quilt to be celebrated for all the work the amazing volunteers put into it.

<3 Kelsey

P.S. Linking up at sew & tell.

Pillow Talk Swap 7

Sorry for the long absence, but I've been sewing furiously to finish all of my sewing commitments before we move next week. This means I have lots of lovely finishes to show you over the coming days.

First up (because it is due today!) is my pillow for round 7 of the Pillow Talk Swap. For those who don't already know, this is a blind swap - meaning that you know who you are making a pillow for, but you don't know who will be making a pillow for yourself.

For my partner, I used this block pattern pattern and color scheme from Red Pepper Quilts, and changed it up a bit by changing the color of the background fabric behind the connecting squares, and added a few borders around the whole.

Here is the back of the pillow. For some reason these chevrons kind of hurt my eyes in an optical illusion sort of way in my photographs, but I promise they aren't so eye bending in person.

This pillow is winging its way off to it's new owner later today. I sure hope he/she likes it, because I sure do!

<3 Kelsey

Linking up to Sew & Tell and Fabric Tuesday

do. Good Stitches, February 2012

Another month, another pair of blocks for do. Good Stitches. This month Rachel from Stitched In Color had us creating granny square blocks, which are all the craze in the modern quilting community recently it seems.

For my part, I made two blocks with Kona Aqua as the background. Our color palette was blue, green, teal, turquoise, orange, and gray.

Sorry for the lighting in the photo - the weather here has been just awful lately, so I was forced to take a picture standing in our doorway.

<3 Kelsey

Just Because

Just because some moments are too precious not to share.

<3 Kelsey