OMG: November Complete

I finished my November One Monthly Goal early! My goal was to sew a drawstring bag for my niece for Christmas. I used charm squares from Allison Harris' Hello Jane collection (though I chose a different palette than in my original photo!) and a coordinating solid. 

Here's the bag gathered: 

And flat: 

And, a little public service announcement...the drawstring bag was to hold 26 Alpha-Bots, which my youngest also received during our Thanksgiving/Christmas weekend. If you have a 3, 4, 5 year old who you need to buy a present for, buy these! They're a plastic alphabet collection, and they "transform" into robots. All three of my kids (8, 6, and 3) love playing with them. And it looks like I'll be making another drawstring bag to hold our Alpha-Bots. 

November OMG: Patchwork Drawstring Bag

Christmas is coming soon--we all know that--but it's coming even sooner for me! We are celebrating Christmas with my husband's family over the long Thanksgiving weekend this year. Which means that more than half my Christmas shopping needs to be done in less than two weeks! 

My sister-in-law asked me to make a drawstring bag for my niece. I'm going to use these fun 5" squares from Allison Harris' Hello Jane collection. My November One Monthly Goal is to finish the bag. I think the rest of my gifts will be purchased this year...at least the ones for early Christmas! :) 

OMG quilt finished!

My October OMG was to machine quilt and bind my Angled Stripes quilt, made using Painter's Palette Solids. 

I actually finished this quilt on October 10th--I just didn't blog about it until now! I used three separate quilting designs--one in the gray/white columns, one in the aqua/green columns, and one in the orange/purple columns. The widest columns were the most challenging--I had picked my quilting motif and considered doing multiple vertical rows of it to fill the space, but ultimately decided to just increase the motif size. It was hard to quilt big! 

Here's a close-up of the different quilting motifs I used:

Happy to have this one done! 

OMG: Quilt it!

This quilt, which I'm so far calling "Angled Stripes," has been in my head for a while, and I finally turned it into fabric. My OMG for October is to machine quilt it. I'm excited to see how it turns out!

OMG: Quilted Wonky Spirals Quilt

Not only did I achieve my One Monthly Goal of making eight more wonky spiral blocks, using Painter's Palette Solids, but I also assembled them and quilted the quilt! I got on a roll and didn't want to stop. (Thanks, Elm Street Quilts, for hosting OMG and keeping us accountable!)

Here are the twelve blocks: 

These blocks are fun to make--no measuring, no points to match, just pure improv. And I sew on two different colored pieces at a time, which minimizes the possibility for error in the color placement. 

And the quilted top. I quilted each block individually, using a wonky square spiral design. I used my walking foot. Lots of stopping and turning, but I'm really happy with how it turned out! I timed it and quilting each block took about 15 minutes. 

A close-up of the quilting: 

I'm hoping to ultimately teach this pattern as a class at a local quilt shop.  

September OMG

A few months ago, inspired by this image I found online, I started making some wonky blocks. 

My palette is gray paired with brights--all solids--trying to use up many of my Painter's Palette Solids scraps! I have four done so far. They're actually just wonky Log Cabin blocks with careful color placement. I love this kind of piecing! 

My OMG goal for September at Elm Street Quilts is to make eight more of these blocks so that I'm ready to assemble the quilt top with a total of twelve blocks. I'm not sure if I'll try to assemble them like the image I found, or if I'll just stick with straight rows. Maybe that'll be November's goal! :) 

Twisted Squares in Modern Patchwork

I'm excited to share that I have a quilt featured in the September/October issue of Modern Patchwork magazine! The quilt is called Twisted Squares, and I used the Zentastic fabric collection from Contempo Studio to make it. 

I'd been playing around with this block for a while--12" blocks in four rows of three blocks, just one large block, and then ultimately this four-block version. I really like the design created in the center where the four blocks come together. The blocks measure 24" square. 

I had fun picking the fabrics for this quilt--the Zentastic line has a lot of single-color prints with simple designs--circles, asterisks, wavy lines--so I had plenty of colors to choose from! 

This issue's cover; my quilt mostly coordinates, colorwise! 

Here's the spread with the photo inside. 

I love the texture Diane created with the quilting. She had previously quilted a quilt of mine with the illusion of overlapping pieces, like this one, and I asked her to use the same treatment--to give each color/position its own stitch pattern to help along that overlapping feeling. She did a great job! I especially love the lines in the block centers. 

Find the September/October issue of Modern Patchwork here.
See more of what's in the issue here.
See the Zentastic fabric collection here.