Hello Quilty Friends! It's only mid month and I'm excited to be presenting my June mini quilt for #12minisin12months by Kait over at Knot and Thread Design and it's accompanying tutorial! Yes, the pattern is a repeat of May's mini, but as I have received several requests for a pattern I thought I'd make it up again and write up a tutorial as I went.


Ah! Nest is just as nice to work with as I anticipated. Love the blues! and greens! and grays! and cheerful pops of pink. Probably going to be sharing other projects with this lovely fabric line by Vanessa over at Lella Boutique.


This is an excellent start, but, yes, most definitely need to make more with Nest.  Here are a few of my favorite prints...

Oh! and more stripe binding!! Loving it, even more so when I get the stripes to match up, which is not as difficult as I thought it was going to be.  A bit fiddly, but very doable.



Per request, I am excited to share my first ever tutorial in this little quilt tutorial. You can find it here.

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and the first one I have ever made.  I present my version of Speck (pattern purchased here).  I picked this Schnibbles pattern because I have been wanting to try the X and O block for a while now. It's not finished finished but I am waiting for the perfect blue fabric to arrive for the binding.

This little project was a roller coaster ride of emotions. By the time I was halfway through cutting I was wondering what I had gotten myself into. The pieces are soo small compared to everything else I have worked on.  Was really wondering if I wanted to continue. But, I do my best to finish what I start so I got through step one and started piecing. OMG! Not much better. It seemed tedious and I wasn't getting very far very fast at all and the pieces didn't want to stay lined up. Ugh!!!

After I got the first block together, I got excited!! It was so cute and pretty. I must continue! The piecing is not the greatest but it did get better as I went along. Loved the second block even more.

Came back the next evening to finish and blah!!! Pieces just didn't want to go together well at all. And the layout of the remaining blocks just didn't seem right. Rearrange and rearrange and rearrange some more. Was ready to put it in a bag and call it quits.  Why oh why didn't I just sew some squares together and call it good?!? ("Because that's boring," says my dear husband who came and checked in on me.)

 I really wanted to participate in this Schnibbles parade though (and I do like to impress my husband : ) so I gritted my teeth and kept going. Got to the sashing and things improved.  I am really surprised it came out somewhat square. I thought for sure with all my barely passable piecing that it would be way off. It's wasn't (whew!)

Here is my first entry for the Festival of Half Square Triangles hosted by Megan of Canoe Ridge Creations.  The linky party runs from April 16 - 22.



About a week or so ago my dear husband asked me if I could make something quilty "with triangles like you did before" for the employees' club auction on April 25. "I think I can, honey, but I need to get the baby's quilt done first." What was I thinking?? I could have, maybe should have, just put the baby's quilt aside for a couple days and done this topper for the auction, but, oh no, for once I decided to stick to my resolution, good or bad. So, I proceeded to work on baby's quilt while putzing at different designs layouts for a patriotic table topper. (Went with patriotic because I thought it would have the widest appeal and because I had a charm pack of Prairie Paisley II) Friday (April 13) he informs me that the auction has been moved up to April 18 (which also happened to be my birthday. OH Gads!! Planning and designing phase - over!  Pick a layout and go with it. No time to dilly dally now.

But first, determined to finish baby's quilt first I basted, quilted and bound it by Monday a.m. (will share later) then proceeded to the table topper.  (Sorry, no work-in-progress photos this time, folks.) Pieced triangles Monday afternoon. Cut and ironed triangles Monday evening and lay them out for a final look see. Pieced rows Tuesday before supper. Stopped for supper and evening going ons.  Then discover (Oh crud!) that I don't have a suitable binding. It NEEDS something navy. Not a snitch of anything navy in the house. (how can that be? Navy is one of my favorite colors??? Note to self: rectify the lack of navy and navy-like fabric in stash) So, ran out for something that I hoped would work.

Finally back at it from 9:30 p.m. until 12:30 p.m. - finished piecing top, ironed, made binding, quilted, and attached binding to front. Up at 5:30 with baby and to see dear husband off to work. "Honey, you will have to stop over and pick up that table topper you need this afternoon at 1 p.m. I need to finish the binding." He is so cool. "No, big deal, sweetheart. You have plenty of time."  Finished sewing down the binding by 8:30 a.m. Took some photos. Husband picked up at 9:30 a.m.


Impressed my children, which is always kinda cool.  "Wow, Mommy! You did that last night?!"  It got finished on time and nobody went underloved or undernourished.  Teamwork, folks, teamwork : )

PS:  I think I more than earned that free motion quilting foot I got for my birthday : ) Yay!!!
PPS:  The French Silk birthday pie he brought home for me was delish!!!

Linking up with the Festival of Half Square Triangles linky party.  A lot of great handiwork has been linked. I wonder how I'll do?

With some very helpful tweaking from my husband, this is the final layout of my Essence half square triangle table topper. I really enjoy when my husband comes and sees me when I'm in my crafting space. But then he decides to swap a couple blocks. "Wait a minute. Who said you could touch?" Oh...wait another minute. I really like that better! I never thought we would be sharing time of quilting. It's so very, very cool.


My rows all labeled and ready to be pieced. I work from top to bottom, left to right, always. I decided with my very first quilting project that I needed to establish a system and stick with it so that hopefully my blocks and rows stay in the proper order without too much extra thought.

Pieced and ready to be quilted

which was not without it's mishaps

But all turned out well.  See, I told ya not to worry (kind reminder to myself : ) Here it is in all its fresh quiltedness (is that a word?).

This was a gift for my parents. I wanted to do something special for them this year as they spent a lot of time over the summer doing up extra veggies from their garden for us.  We were in the process of moving to northeast Minnesota and weren't able to put a garden in this year. It's nice to be able to go to the freeze for green beans or corn. I'm so grateful for the extra work everyone put in.

Working with a charm pack of Essence from Moda.  Getting set to make my first ever half square triangles (HST).

Am a little bit nervous. Not so much about the sewing part but about the cutting. Cutting is so, so final. Have them all marked. Am ready to stitch and cut. Hope I like how I have them all paired up. This is the beginning of a square fall table topper.