This is the first time I've participated in a swap on Instagram! I enjoyed scoping out my partner's feed and planning out this little quilt. I winged it a bit with this quilt, making a section of flying geese at a time and then moving around the layout as I went until I got something I liked.

Rearranging as I went was fun and freeing - and while my points aren't all perfect, my flying geese definitely improved! I quilted it with quarter inch straight lines using the walking foot as a guide.

I also included these two cute little kitties in amongst the flying geese. I think I hit a good balance of scrappiness through a variety of fabrics while still limiting the color palette and keeping it from becoming too busy. I'm very fond of the backing lightning bolt fabric as well.

I can't wait to do more swaps!

There are also progress photos on my Instagram.

Do you do swaps? If so, how do you find the swaps that interest you?

I'm linking up to Can I Get a Whoop Whoop, Link a Finish Friday, TGIFF, and Finish It Up Friday.

I thought I'd share some of the quilts I've been making progress on. These blocks are for a Good Night Irene quilt out of Denyse Schmidt fabrics. I'm thinking this will be a Christmas present for my cousin and his wife; they were married a little over a year ago and are just settling into their first home together. I want to piece the back so that it can be two quilts in one - probably a star out of fabrics that show their interests (science, music, dance, language).

 These green stars are for a Dallas Stars hockey themed quilt for a friend. I've made all but 11 blocks for the quilt now, saving the paper pieced ones for last.

I haven't been posting much this month because I've been busy planning a trip - I'm going to be in Ireland all of August and I'm setting everything up for it now! I'm enjoying doing a lot of sewing now while I can.

I've just finished a quick new quilt top today; I suddenly wanted to cut into the fat quarters of Anna Maria Horner's Pretty Potent that I had in my stash, and there wasn't really much total yardage so I added the borders from a grey I had on hand and flying geese from the last scraps left. I really enjoyed working on this as the limited amount of the fabric on hand forced me to get creative. I actually love how the grey makes everything pop more, and the partial border is more interesting to me than if I'd had enough fabric to do full rows of flying geese.

Now if only I had any idea how to quilt this! I can't decide on a design.

Linking up to Can I Get a Whoop Whoop, Link a Finish Friday, TGIFF, and Finish It Up Friday!

 It's finally finished - the first quilt I ever started!

The herringbone quilt for my friend Wendy is complete - at about four months after her birthday that it was intended for and just in time for warm weather, whoops, but she absolutely loved it and that's really all that matters.

I hand sewed the final edge on the binding for this quilt, which was a first for me. I do like the effect better than machine sewing even if it is time consuming. Many episodes of Poirot were watched in the final stretch of binding.

I ended up only using the green thread and quilting a simple quarter inch grid to keep the fabric center stage, and used a cute mint and white polka dot sheet I found at Target for the backing.

I surprised Wendy with the quilt during a picnic with friends at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden. If you are ever in NYC I recommend visiting; the gardens are breathtaking, particularly the Japanese koi pond and shrine. They have a cherry blossom festival every year as well.

Unfortunately I've been playing violin so many hours that I've caused myself some wrist and arm strain, so I'm taking it easy for a few days! I've had some therapeutic taping done to help reduce muscle strain and pain that is making it feel a lot better and they were nice enough to color coordinate it with my outfit:

Linking up with Finish It Up Friday, TGIFF, Link A Finish Friday and Can I Get a Whoop Whoop.

I'm a bit late to the party, but I'm joining in A Lovely Year of Finishes to try and get some of my WIP quilts finished. This chevron quilt was intended for a friend's birthday in January and it's now very late, so my April goal is to finish this quilt.

I'm also going to extend ALYoF since I started late - I still want to get 12 projects completed between now and the end of 2015. To that end, I'm going to get the simpler blocks finished for a Dallas Stars hockey quilt I'm making for a friend. All of the single patch and four patch blocks should be finished by the end of April, leaving me with just the stars and the paper pieced blocks to do in May.

Linking up with ALYoF.

Towards the end of 2014, I decided that I was going to do something very ambitious and get back into sewing by making a quilt from scratch for the first time. I hadn't sewn at all since I was twelve or thirteen and begging my grandmother to help me make a cosplay costume for a convention, and back then I hadn't been responsible for anything beyond stitching the edge of the skirt so I could feel like I was 'helping.' 

I devoured quilting blogs, wasted away many an hour browsing online fabric shops, and finally ordered a bunch of charm packs and got to cutting and laying them out for weeks.

This is not that quilt.

Mainly because when I said 'ambitious,' I meant 'I started out queen sized and now I can't figure out how to baste the thing in a tiny NYC apartment.'

(sad trombone noises)

I'm planning to test out the tabletop basting I've read about, but in the mean time, I decided to make a small throw quilt for a friend to practice maneuvering something smaller through the sewing machine.

The cat is very fond of the birds and had to be locked in the bedroom so I could baste it.

This quilt uses Amy Smart's Fast Four-Patch Quilt Tutorial and makes a quick baby quilt or throw. It was easy even for me with my complete lack of experience to put together, and I would definitely recommend it to another beginning quilter or someone who wants to let the fabrics take center stage - the large blocks finish at 8in, so it's a good way to show off larger scale prints. 

I used a variety of different bird prints in the large squares and a fat quarter bundle of Cotton + Steel basics in Splash that coordinated nicely for the four-patches. I also pieced a bird and hand-embroidered a label out of scraps for the back. It was quilted with simple straight line quilting, and while I need more practice to avoid puckering, I'm very proud of this as a first effort!

This quilt is now being packed up and shipped off as a surprise to a friend who's had a rough year - hopefully it will cheer him up a bit!

I'm looking forward to continuing to make more quilts, including finishing up my queen-sized monstrosity and making a surprise quilt for my grandparents who are moving into assisted living this spring.

Linking up with Finish It Up Friday, Link A Finish Friday and Can I Get a Whoop Whoop.