February 2013 - Fresh Sewing Day

February was fun. However, I have not really told you all about it. And mostly the things I worked on were not finished so they are not in this mosaic. Oh well, I am still linking up to Fresh Sewing Day hosted by Lynne from Lily's Quilts - you can visit the bloggers and link up yourself too.

I did finish two quilts, and my scrappy trip along quilt deserves its own post so I will try to do that tomorrow. Both of those quilts are also on my Finish-a-Long list too.



The pillow was made for the X-Factor Pillow swap. I just love this one, and it was really hard to give it up. It is about 17.5" square and fits really nicely over a slightly larger pillow. I wanted to keep this pillow so much that I mailed it off immediately so I could not change my mind. But I still might make another similar one for me.



The front is a creamy white linen with with a selection of 1.5" squares of different cotton prints. I added batting and a white lining fabric and quilted a straight line cross hatch.



I put an invisible zipper into the edge of this pillow. I used the excellent tutorial by Katie from Sew Katie Did. This is the easiest zipper I have ever installed - you should try it sometime too.



The back is three prints from Bella by Lotta Jansdotter cut in squares as that was the challenge, to use squares. I quilted the back in a not at all perfect spiral. I expected to dislike the not perfectness of the spiral, but was surprised to find that it seemed just right for the fabrics.

My other big activity for February was a week in Texas, taking in Austin and also QuiltCon. I loved QuiltCon, it was an amazing feat for the barely established Modern Quilt Guild to undertake, and they did an excellent job. I can hardly wait till the next one, which will be in two years - 2015.

And I have to say, it was just so overwhelming to see my two quilts hanging in the show. People looked at them and took their pictures, they seemed to like them. I got ribbons for just having them in the show, which was an unexpected and lovely touch. Then when Shattered won the Honorable Mention in the Small Quilts Use of Negative Space category as well, that was just so much more than I ever hoped for, and so much fun.

Now I am going to get back to sewing, although I loved Texas, I missed the sewing. I hope you are enjoying your weekend.

Best,

Leanne

My Wonderful Holiday Swap Package

Look at that wonderful package that I received from Jill in the year end holiday swap in the Bee a {Modern} Swapper group. This group has had alternating months of optional swaps with months of bee blocks and it wraps up after January's bee blocks.



This is the wonderful wrapping for my package. Even a stocking - made I think for an old sweater, isn't that a great idea.



Jill made me everything I hinted at wanting. A perfect bright pink sunglasses case - this is already in use and is large enough to slip my reading glasses into too. The hot pink tape measure has a far better chance of being found than my usual 10,000 lost tape measures. And a really lovely journal. I think I will keep this journal on my cutting table and use it for quilting notes, sizes, ideas, and such. I have been meaning to do that forever but never got around to getting the journal.



I started quilting just too late to get some of my favourite Heather Ross fabrics and I don't have any of the four Jill featured in the quilt. The fish in bags are my all time favourite, and look she included one for me.



This mini is perfect and will hang in my sewing room. Thank you Jill for such a perfect package!

Tomorrow I have to fess up to my Q4 FAL results. Not stellar.

Best,

Leanne