Who Would Have Thought?

Totally swooning over this fat quarter stack of batiks I put together last week. Who would have thought that I would be buying batiks? I know, right? Ha ha, in all of my swaps under "dislikes" I have ALWAYS listed batiks. Not my usual style, but these are soooo lovely!

A friend of mine has been working up a quilt using batiks and swears that they are fabulous to work with. She took me on a little trip to her LQS and I was amazed by all of the color/print varieties. I prefer the more subtle tone on tone prints rather than the loud and bright ones.

I just love LOVE love the pale shades of cream, blue, yellow, and gray ~ my favorite new color story. In fact, I am going to redecorate my house this summer and these are the colors I plan on designing around. This little stack will be a throw quilt for my living room. Oh and just a little side note -- my Husband is a fan of batiks so this one will be made especially for him :D

Happy quilting,
Colette

Caribbean Dreamin'

For Mary's month (March) of the Not Your Grandma's Quilting Bee, she chose to have us make her beach themed blocks and was inspired by this quilt below made by oh-cherry-sew. I love LOVE love this quilt!



Drawing is not my greatest strength, so I went on flickr to find some inspiration photos with simple lines that I could manage to draw. Being that it is still freezing (yes, literally) here in New England, I thought I'd do a little Caribbean dreamin' and this is what I found:



Aren't the colors and lines of this house just FANTASTIC? Here is my very simple interpretation:

And I just adore this boat:




And here is what I created:

Mary sent us two 4.5" white center blocks and a few scraps of brightly colored batiks with Wonderunder fusible web attached. She simply asked us to make a raw edge fused beach cottage or any other beach themed design and then finish the block (using our own white fabric) to 12.5" using log cabin or any other style block we would like.

I used Kona PFD White and kept it very simple by adding white to the sides and then top and bottom. What a fantastic idea Mary! Sending out fabric for bees can be very costly and I didn't mind one bit adding some white from my stash to her blocks. I actually made the white blocks up before I added my fused fabrics.

There was no need to applique the fabrics to the block because she plans on quilting over the entire top, but I did do a little free motion drawing on my boat block in a light gray.

I have to say it is a little bitter sweet, as these are the last blocks I had to make for the Not Your Grandma's Quilting Bee! I am officially bee free ~ woohoo! Hmmm...I know I said I was done with bees, but I just might have to join one more to make one of these beach quilts! Ha ha, it is probably just a matter of time before I join another bee ;D

Happy quilting,
Colette

Mosaic

I HEART this mosaic bee block I made for Heather for the Not Your Grandma's Quilting Bee! This 13" improvised block was made using this Oh Fransson tutorial.

My little girl, R., totally flipped for the bright Riley Blake fabrics with the black sashing and really wants me to make her a pillow like it. We'll just have to see about that...it took me hours to make this one little block. Sheesh! And let me just add that this block is a fabric hog, oink oink! I did have fun making it though :D

This April block if technically the last block for this bee, but I still have yet to make my March blocks...

Happy quilting,
Colette

Single Girl Mini Quilt Top

Sorry for the prolonged absence from this blog! We took a short trip to the West Coast to visit family and friends and we've had a rough time getting back on East Coast time and back to our regular routine. I did manage to get some quilting in this week though and I finally got around to piecing my "Single Girl" mini quilt top (pattern by Denyse Schmidt)!

Ha ha, this was the first picture I snapped yesterday when the sun popped us a very short visit as we were on our way out the door. I love how R. is holding the quilt top upside down and the Q1 sticky note is still on it ;D

I made this single block for the flickr "Single Girl Support Group" quilt along. Its not too late to join if you are interested.

The Japanese fabrics used (including the SCRUMPTIOUS lilac linen background with the most gorgeous iridescent sheen) are all from Superbuzzy.

This will be just a one block mini quilt to hang in my bedroom to coordinate with my Echino bed quilt. I had so much fun making this that I plan on making a 4 block baby quilt soon :D

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Colette