WiP Wednesday and Winners

This week, I have been focused on my next Sew Mama Sew project.

Fabric selection was made…
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The cutting (my least favorite activity)…
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Then a lot of chain piecing took place…
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The final trimming of all those triangle blocks…I love the Bloc-Loc Ruler, which was one of my new toys, I purchased from Pile of Fabric over Thanks giving.IMG_3221

Project Dates Current Status
 Sew Mama Sew (Project 5)  16 January  TOP, BACK, BASTE, QUILT, BIND
 Schnitzel & Boo Mini Quilt  16 January TOP, BACK, BASTE, QUILT, BIND (COMPLETE)
 Spoonflower Sampler Quilt  31 January TOP, BACK, BASTE, QUILT (UNDERWAY), BIND
 Bjorn the Bear  31 January TOP, BACK, BASTE, QUILT, BIND
 Jungle Ave Tapa  31 January TOP, BACK, BASTE, QUILT, BIND

Finally, there were some great entries for the finished quilt top/ quilt for the Gypsy Wife QAL. The winner for the Gypsy Wife Final Link up is Kim Lapacek @ Persimon Dreams. Congratulations Kim.

The winner for helping me celebrate my 1000 followers milestone is Rochelle who said “67. Sewing the stash is my goal….and learning some new thread art skills..thread painting and better machine quilting.” You receive the $30 Hawthorne Threads Gift Certificate.

Kim, Rochelle you will be receiving an email shortly.

Linking up with Lee over @ Freshly Pieced for WiP Wednesday.

 

QDAD: Quilt Design a Day

I took a break over Christmas from designing, and it seemed to give me a new perspective of things. I have loved this first week of coming back. It is so hard to try to decide on a favorite this week!!

The palettes for the following designs are on the groups Facebook page.

01 January: Defenses
This design was created based on the inspiration of the color palette photo, which was of the Great Wall of China. It represents the offense and defense of battle (with arrows as the symbol) meeting at the Great Wall. This was revision 2 and my favorite color way.
QDAD_Defenses_01January

Revision 1 had the white and blue colors in opposite areas. Doesn’t it make such a difference to the design.
QDAD_Defenses_01January(2)

02 January: Temple Totems
Again, using the inspiration from the color palette photo of statues at an Indonesian temple, I created my own totem/statues. I loved the grey and white palette, adds simplicity and clarity to the design.
QDAD_Temple_02JAN2015(2)

On a second revision I also really liked only using 2 of the 3 segments in the totem above, rotating the design and using a lighter shade of grey. I love both of these!!
QDAD_Temple_02JAN2015(4)

03 January: Architecture
This design was very interesting for me on how my thought process works. This is version 2, below is version 1. I found with version 1 that I liked it, but when I came back for a second view it was a little disjointed and more two halves. I decided to extend the black lines, and the white horizontal lines into the other halves to make it more cohesive….I love this version 2.
QDAD_03JAN2015(1) QDAD_03JAN2015

04 January: Utopia
This is a very different design to the other ones this week. The color palette perfectly matched with Utopia fabric line.  I started this design with the crosses and stars but needed to some how have a filler space. The square-in-square block below the star works out really well.

QDAD_04JAN2015(1)

05 January: Sewing Buttons

I started playing around with the circles that represented the buttons and button holes. I landed up making this more futuristic/spacey feeling design.
“Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.”
QDAD_Buttons_05JAN2015

06 January: Wharf
The color palette photo was below a pier with the ocean – I loved this color palette. The symmetry of the pier and the ocean movement reminded me of fractals….hence this design.
QDAD_Wharf_06Jan2015

07 January: Ribbons in a jar
This design was a little more of a struggle. This was in fact my second design and the second version of the design. The previous designs and colors are below. I really liked the stripes and then the restriction of the lines to a given area (like the ribbons in a glass jar). In my house there is always some scrap that escaped my jar :-).
QDAD_Jars2_07Jan2015(1) QDAD_Jars2_07Jan2015 QDAD_Jars_07Jan2015

Please Note: If you would like to make or use one of my designs, please email me (ml_wilkie(at)hotmail(dot)com) or leave a comment below. I am happy to talk with you on options and provide the relevant measurements etc. or have you test out a pattern. Also, if you use one of my designs, please use the following text to credit me the design: “Designed by Michelle Wilkie @ Factotum of Arts”.

Swaps: Santa’s Elf and the Sleepy Hippo

I decided to participate in two swaps before Christmas, the Festive Mug Rug Swap and then the Schnitzel and Boo Mini Quilt. It is my first time participating in a handmade project swap, but I was super excited and eagerly waited for my partner assignment.

Festive Mug Rug Swap

I immediately knew I would use my paper-piecing gift tag pattern (see on the right, free to download) for mug rug. These are the final goodies that was sent to my partner. I love this perfect fabric line for some fuzzy cutting of the Santa’s Elves (Robert Kaufman).

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Schnitzel and Boo Mini Quilt Swap

This one took me a while to work out, what I was going to do, but I wanted to try a new skill – sketch stitching to applique shapes. I had also been talking with my friend Daisy, about making an improv. hippo quilt with a low volume background. So, those two ideas resulted in this….

SleepyHippo_final

I added some straight line quilting to the background, then appliqued the hippo. I think the sketch stitch went pretty well and happy with the final outcome.  I love how the black and white binding to finishes off the quilt.

For the back, I used this much loved hippo fabrics (Puti de Pome, So Happy, Hippos) from my stash and added some hanging corners.SleepyHippo_back

Let me know if you are interested in the hippo template and I can provide it. Linking up with Amanda Jean over @ Crazy Mom Quilts for Finish it up Friday.