In a sewing mood...

Lately I have been in a sewing mood, so I started rearranging my sewing space in the kitchen, bringing in some bins to live closer to the machine and adding a new Costco table for a cutting area. This is all makeshift until I can do more living room decluttering and rearranging to have my sewing area take over, I mean... be in there.

I had out my Day of the Dead quilt blocks for the Circle of Nine quilt in that photo. HERE is where I described that quilt.  I finished those and now have 5 out of the 9 blocks. The bigger one with the black border is the center one. The other 2 have 2 of the same block and are for around the sides.

And then I made some curtains for the window above the sink...

and yesterday starting gathering fabrics for the next Modern Block of the Month club class on Wednesday over at Country Sewing Center:

These are for the larger block. Each month we make 2 blocks. The smaller one fabrics are cut and bagged for class. I still need to cut the fabrics to size for this block. I had to see them together for a while to be sure they went how I wanted together. I think they will work, so now to just cut them and I will be ready for class!

Coming back to quilting...

Maybe it is the colder months but I find myself drawn to working with fabric more in the winter. And now that I have more time, I happened to look at the class schedule at Country Sew and found a couple of quilting classes I wanted to take. I am not a very proficient quilter, having only made a few quilted things before.

This is the first quilt I made for one of my teacher friend's new baby about 2 years ago:



Now I am working on some separate blocks mostly to learn various techniques, such as this one from this month's Modern Quilting Block Party:

Each month we learn a different block (with a slightly more modern quilting edge, not your grandmother's quilt blocks) and I guess eventually put them all together in one quilt. Except this one is going to become a table mat once I quilt it and put a binding on it. It is about 12 inches square. Turns out I happened to have some dinner candles in these colors and I thought it would make a nice addition to the table for those rare occasions I put my sewing stuff away and we eat at the table!

And the one I am having fun with now that will make up a whole quilt is called Circle of Nine and is from a 3 week class at Country Sew.  This is the original pattern of the quilt (from the book):

Last week we learned how to make the wonky squares for the middle.  This week I think we are learning how to do the background and next week, who knows? Probably how to put it all together and finish it. But... it is the "homework" that is killing me! It is taking a lot more time than I thought to cut the strips and sew 8 more of these funky blocks! I like the modern "wonkiness" of the blocks -- you don't have to worry about measuring or making perfect seams!  The nice thing is that the blocks are huge -- nearly 13" square, so it only takes the 9 to make up most of the quilt.

My theme is for a Day of the Dead quilt. I have had this fabric for a long while and thought it would be fun to use it in a quilt. The centers are fussy cut from the fabric, then the large border (grey print in the book pattern) will all be the Day of the Dead fabric. The colorful squares in the pattern are going to all be black for my quilt, so it will be a lot of black and white. I am hoping the reality looks as good as the one in my imagination!


Linked to: Can I Get a Whoop Whoop!