A Second Entry

After thinking long and hard about which quilt to enter into the Blogger's Quilt Festival at Amy's Creative Side, I just couldn't make up my mind.  The two quilts I had in mind are completely different, and I love both of them!  So, since I can enter two, I decided, what the heck!  This is my first time to enter and I'm jumping in with both feet!

I've decided to enter Feeling Groovy in the Throw/Lap Quilt category.  It measures right at 6ox60 inches.

I fell in love with Pat Bravo's Carnaby Street fabrics as soon as I saw them and I knew that I needed a special pattern to show them off.  I opted for a X-Plus pattern, and it's a choice I'm still glad I made.  Instead of making a scrappy quilt with this pattern as I have usually seen, I decided on two shades of gray, Kona Coal, and Kona Iron for the background, to really let the Carnaby Street shine.

I love how the grays recede into the background and allow the Carnaby Street to jump out, creating an almost 3D effect.

This is also my most favorite quilt backing I've ever made.  I didn't want any of my precious scraps to go to waste, so I improv pieced them into a panel, which I think makes the backing as fun as the front!

This quilt was so much fun to make, from the fabrics right down to the chevron binding in the perfect shade of teal. 

Quilt Stats:

Name- Feeling Groovy

Size- 60 x 60 inches

Quilting- Free motion meandering by me

Entry Category- Throw Quilts

Be sure to hop over to Amy's Creative Side and check out the Blogger's Quilt Festival.  There are so many fantastic quilts linked up, and you won't want to miss it!

Quilt Story is Feeling Groovy!

I am over the moon excited that my Carnaby Street x+ quilt, Feeling Groovy is being featured on Quilt Story!  What an honor!

I hope you'll click on the button to hop over and check it out, y'all!

Feeling Groovy!

Well, my groovy Carnaby Street X Plus quilt is finished!!  I actually dreamed about it last night and woke up at 7:00am so I could work on it and get it finished today.  We're heading to visit family on Wednesday, so I have a million things I should be doing, but quilting is way more fun than laundry and packing, right?

I chose my good old standby for quilting in a light gray thread, and I'm happy that it helps to disguise my unfortunate mismatched plus seams a little bit.  I used the same teal tonal chevron for the binding that I used as a border in the back, and I like how the chevrons point toward the quilt.  That is totally a happy accident!

I placed my label a little too close to the edge on this one...whoops!

I can't decide which side of this quilt I like better!  The back is so much fun with all of the improv piecing, but I think that the front has almost a 3D effect with the Carnaby Street jumping out against the gray background.

This is my second Carnaby Street quilt and I am not sick of the fabric at all.  You can see my first one HERE.  The colors in this quilt just make me happy (and kind of makes me want to watch Austin Powers)!  I love the fun, groovy vibe.  Which side do you like best?

X Plussing on Carnaby Street

In keeping with my whole stash busting mission, and because I've been just itching to cut into some bright, modern fabrics after the soft shabby chic tones of Polkadots and Posies, I decided to pull out all of my fabric leftovers from my Carnaby Street Chic quilt and start mulling over a design that would do justice to their awesomeness.

After seeing THIS quilt at Bijou Lovely and THESE awesome blocks by Laura at Little and Lots, I decided on an X Plus quilt.  The block kind of reminds me of a Union Jack, which is fitting because the Carnaby Street fabrics are all about the groovy fashion of 1960's London.

Instead of a scrappy look, I decided on two shades of gray as the background (Kona Coal and Kona Iron) to really show the fabric line.  Although I'm happy with the choices of gray, I have to say that the un-scrappy look certainly doesn't do any favors for hiding mistakes.  The dark gray plusses were tough to match up, and I wasn't completely successful.  Imperfect?  Yes.  But I still love it.

For the backing, I took all of the little bits and pieces of leftover fabric and just started piecing.  It was so much fun, and I'm getting a lot better at sewing without a plan.  I totally feel like I'm expanding my modern quilting street cred with all this improv.  

I had to add a couple of borders because the pieces weren't quite enough to make a full backing, but the bright pink and teal are the perfect shades!  

Can't wait to get it quilted and bound because this one's all for me!  :)

Carnaby Street...Complete!

I have what some (most vocally, my husband) might call a "one-track mind."  Seriously- I am not kidding.  I have a real problem.  When I get engrossed in a quilt, I simply cannot think of anything else.  As luck would have it, I had to take my son to the doctor today- he's not sick, or else I would never consider that lucky.  Even more lucky, was that his appointment was smack in the middle of the day, so I had to take the whole day off.  Darn!  I'm sure you can guess what I decided to do with that extra time before and after his appointment.  Yep, you guessed it!  I finished the Carnaby Street quilt.  Yay!

After finding the most perfect backing fabric ever yesterday afternoon (check out the picture below), there was no stopping me.  Usually I'm an old-fashioned safety pin basting kinda girl, but I took advantage of the dry weather and decided to recruit my husband to help me try spray basting for the very first time (more on that little misadventure another time).  Suffice it to say that although it was dry, it was a little breezy, and that made things very interesting.  We did however, manage somehow to get the quilt basted successfully without the unwelcome additions of leaf bits and dirt- though not very efficiently.  Ha!

I decided to quilt it with a simple meandering, since the recipient of this quilt has told me before that it's her favorite kind of quilting.  Truthfully, it's really my favorite too.  I love how it makes the quilt all crinkly, and how it doesn't compete with the fabrics.  By the way- I don't think I can call my quilting "stippling" just yet, since my stitching pattern is very random and not always evenly spaced.  FMQ is still new for me;  I've only been doing it since January.  Other examples of stippling that I've seen have very regular curved lines.  I'm in awe of people who can do that on their regular home machines, and I'm continuously trying to reach that standard.  I don't know if you can see what I mean in the picture below-

The most perfect backing- tone on tone chevrons in the most perfect shade of aqua
(picture taken in the most imperfect lighting)-

So anyway, here's the finished quilt (fyi- the dark color in the quilt looks black, but it's navy blue)-

Again, my complete lack of patience will simply not allow me to wait until it is daylight to take a better picture.  Hope you like it!

I'm linking up to Fabric Tuesday at QuiltStory, Too Cute Tuesday, Link a Finish Friday, and Finish it Up Friday at CrazyMom Quilts

Swinging 60's Chic

The second I saw the Carnaby Street fabrics (Pat Bravo, Art Gallery Fabrics) I knew that I wanted them.  The prints are 1960's Mod with a psychedelic vibe- London in the Swinging 60's!  (Is that the Austin Powers music I hear in my head...yeah baby!).  Although the whole daisies and peace signs hippie thing can be fun, I think this is a much more chic and sophisticated version of the 60's.  Check out the fabrics-

It took me awhile to decide what kind of quilt I wanted to make with such large scale, busy prints.  I eventually went with one of my favorite go-to patterns- Square in Square.  I felt like this would showcase the fabrics without cutting them too much, and without adding busy-ness (that's a word, right?) to an already busy quilt.  I also knew that the pattern I chose would have to fit the mod feel of the prints.

To cut the fabric, I used the Stack and Whack method found at Cluck Cluck Sew, but I modified so that my blocks finished at 9 inches.  If you haven't used this cutting method, I highly recommend it.  It's so simple!  Here are the blocks, all pressed and ready to go!

After that, the quilt top went together in a snap!  

I finally got a picture of the fabric in the sunshine and I think it really makes a difference in how the colors show up!

Now here comes a tricky part- finding the backing.  I'm off to the fabric store to search for a backing that is just right.  I have no idea what color family I'm looking for, I'll just have to see what grabs me.  Any suggestions?

I'm linking to the new blog linky party at Marcia's Crafty Sewing! and to 

Made By You Monday at Skip to My Lou!