Happiness is...

a twelve pound box of fabric!

Does anyone have the number to Fabricaholics Anonymous?  Things might be getting out of hand around here.

Productive weekend

After finishing up the Katie Jump Rope pillow on Saturday morning, I picked up a couple of my craft books to look for ideas for the rest of my day. The Color Wheel Quilt in Last Minute Patchwork + Quilted Gifts caught my eye.

By noon, I had 52 fabrics pulled from my stash.

On the way to and from lunch, I worked on my crochet ripple. I wasn't driving.

And by evening, I had my quilt top.

And that's when I went crazy. I decided I want to hand quilt it. I've never hand quilted a quilt before, but this one seems like a good place to start. Straight lines radiating from the center and then a row of stitching on the inside and outside of the wheel. 

I took a hand quilting class last week at my LQS. A very sweet woman who has been hand quilting longer than I've been alive gave me more information that I could have ever obtained in a book. My stitches were a little long, but she said they would get smaller with practice and to concentrate on keeping them consistent rather than being concerned about the stitch length. She even customized my quilting thimble for me.

So, I've been thread basting today.

My fingertips are so sore!

Finished KJR Pillow

The pattern is very simple, but I just adore the the Katie Jump Rope fabrics with linen. It has been a long time since I've sewn with linen; I'd forgotten how much I hove working with it. I love the drape and hand.

I'm going to look into the Essex linen/cotton blend as an option for the quilt top, but Kona Stone also looks like a good option.

Have a lovely weekend!

Katie Jump Rope + Linen = Love

Yesterday's snowfall was a record for the DFW area. The official total was 12.5"! School is out again today, so all the neighborhood the kids are having a blast playing outside.

Here's my most recent fabric purchase.

Well, this is some of it. I decided that since I missed out on Flea Market Fancy, I'm not going to miss out Katie Jump Rope. The stash above is from three different places with two more orders on the way. I was able to find everything with the exception of two of the dot prints (the yellow and the light blue/green).

I want to make a quilt for my bed and it's king size. My dream pattern is the Single Girl quilt, but I've read that it can be a little on the challenging side. So, I've had this quilt at Wise Craft bookmarked for a while which has the same feel as the Single Girl pattern, but looks much easier. The pattern is called the Marquee Quilt and it's in the Modern Quilt Workshop book from FunQuilts.  I ordered the book but decided I wanted to play with the fabrics right away.

Using 100% linen on the front of a kind sized quilt may end up being much too expensive, but wouldn't it be gorgeous! I decided to try some of the fabrics with linen while I wait for the book to arrive.

After some quick pattern drafting, I had a design that worked and feels a little like the Marquee quilt.

I love the way the front turned out. Love it! I was tempted not to wash it, but I went ahead. It's in the washer now, so I'm anxious to see how it looks washed. Hopefully I'll have the pillow assembled tomorrow to show you.