Think Spring

I guess I must be in the mood to sew with pretty pastel colors because I can't seem to get enough of them right now. I found this fabric basket on the Moda Bake Shop blog and had to make one up. I've never made a basket like this before so I was surprised at how easy it was. I made the whole thing from start to finish in one day.  You need 6 yards of cording 12/32" and 39" of cording 6/32 for the handle which only comes in 10 yard packages so I have enough of that to make another one or something else. I bought a jelly roll from JoAnns, which are only 22 strips I think vs. a normal jelly roll which is 42 2-1/2" strips. I did not have to use the entire jelly roll, so you need less than 22 strips to cover your cording. Check out their pattern on the Moda Bake Shop site for all of the detailed instructions.

What do you think?

Big Stitch quilting

I'm obsessed with this BIg Stitch Quilting. I'll be honest I never thought this would be something for me, but I've been wanting to try my hand at it for over a year. I turned my sister-in-law onto it when she came over to ask me to help her layer a king sized quilt she had made for her daughter and husband for their 10 year anniversary and told me she wanted to hand quilt it but wasn't sure how she was going to go about it because she had never hand quilted before. I turned her onto big stitch quilting from Wendy Gratz's blog Shiny Happy World and at the same time told her she was crazy for trying hand quilting for the first time on such a HUGE project. But she did it and it turned out gorgeous. So after that I knew I had to give it a shot but wanted to try it out on a much smaller project. I found this adorable spring bunny pillow pattern on a blog  called "Flamingo Toes." OMG it was so fun to hand quilt this little pillow top using the big stitch quilting. I did not mark my lines at first but soon realized I couldn't see in a straight line, but now that I've done a whole pillow top I think I could do it without marking my straight lines,  it it takes some practice. I am actually on my second pillow top now. My sister saw it and asked if I would make her one. If you think you might like to try hand quilting, this is the way to go. Check out Wendy's video. She explaines it very well and is a great teacher. She has a lot of other really cute things on her blog as well. It is definitely worth checking her out.

This is the hand quilted gift I gave to my sister Chris for Christmas 2017. I made one for myself last year and love it so much that I thought she would like one too. She usually likes smaller items. I believe this is a Crazy Mom Quilts pattern.