Happy New Year!

Happy New Year 2017! Can you believe it's almost 2017??? This has been such a weird year. I'm hoping 2017 is a better year for everyone!

Raise your glasses and welcome the new year! I feel a new year holds so much promise and hope. Wishing all your dreams come true! (For me too!!)

Juniper Shawl

I finished this shawl right before Christmas. I actually wore it Christmas Eve! Juniper Shawl was designed bye Jen Lucas. She's written a few books using sock yarn to make shawls. I really love her patterns. 

I made this shawl with the hope of gifting it to someone for Christmas. I liked it so much that I kept it for myself! I bought this yarn at a quilt show. It's hand dyed. The color is Jewel Box. I would love to buy more of this colorway but can't seem to find it. It's just so pretty. This picture doesn't show how rich the color really is. 

Merry Christmas!

Just a quick post before the madness begins! We've had our Christmas Eve dinner at my parent's house. Since my family is from Italy, we followed tradition and had fish for dinner. My mom also made a spinach pie and we also brought a pizza! 

We were planning to visit a friend of mine but the roads were terrible. It had rained earlier in the day and it all froze tonight. We decided to just come home instead. 

I made cookies and pumpkin pie for Christmas dinner tomorrow. I'll have lots of cooking to do in the morning. We'll be having turkey breast and a beef roast. 

Enjoy the holiday! Merry Christmas! Enjoy your families and friends!

Baby Quilt

I finished this quilt top today. I should be wrapping gifts but decided to get this done instead. I have to work the next 3 days and then it will be Christmas weekend. I just wanted to finish this and know it was done!

This quilt only needed 12 blocks and some narrow sashing. Nice and quick! I just tried to distribute the darker colors throughout the quilt. I think the colors are spread out nicely.

I don't usually shop at Joann's but I love using Hello Kitty fabric for the backing. I think it will be a nice addition to the fabrics from the quilt top.

Time to go back to getting ready for Christmas! Hope to start quilting this one soon!

Scrappy Quilt Top Finished!

My Scrappy Quilt top is all done! The border tripped me up for a little while. I just wasn't sure what to do. I had originally planned to put a black strip around the whole quilt and then some striped fabric for a wider border. I just didn't like that idea once I had the quilt top done. 

I didn't use black in the border at all. As you can see in this close up, I used a dark grey. I kept this one strip on for about a week. I just wasn't sure where I wanted to go with this. 

I felt the dark color was too dull of an ending for this quilt. That's what made me decide to add the pink. I thought a thin strip would add some color and really frame this quilt very nicely. I'm glad I took my time with this border. It looks so much better with that shot of color in the border.

Arcadia Avenue Quilted Diamonds

I finally decided how to quilt those big diamonds in Arcadia Avenue. They're fairly large. Each side measures 10 inches. I subdivided them into 4 diamonds where each side measures 5 inches.

I marked 4 one inch increments in the middle of each new diamond. I made a line that went from the top of the diamond, through the 1 inch mark, and then down to the very bottom of the diamond. That creates 5 areas to be quilted.

I quilted loops going back and forth in some of those areas. I quilted in 3 areas for 2 of the diamonds and 2 areas in the other 2 diamonds. I got the idea from Angela Walters book, Shape by Shape, Collection 2. She has the best designs. There are so many and it's very easy to mix and match them. 

I hope you can see my quilting in these pictures. It gets dark so early! I keep running out of daylight! You can open the images in a new tab and the detail is much better.

Baby Quilt

Aren't these the sweetest fabrics?? The fabric line is Old New 30's Origami Squares by Lecien Fabrics. I'm making a baby quilt and I thought these fabrics would just be perfect. I bought a layer cake and made 9 patches. I found the middle of my 9-patch in both directions and cut away! I'm using a pattern from Quilt in A Day called Piece of Cake.

This is the pattern I'm using. I made 12 blocks for the youth sized quilt. It will actually be large for a baby quilt but hopefully it will be used as the baby gets older.

I bought a solid baby pink for the sashing. I forgot how fun it is to make a baby quilt. It's so nice to be working on an easy project for a change.

Christmas Fun

I should be Christmas shopping or decorating the house but I'm working on this panel instead! I free motion quilted it on my new machine. I want to sew down the binding quickly so I can actually use it soon! It will be a nice addition to my family room. I suppose you can say I'm working on my Christmas decorations! (Sort of!!)

My husband and I went out to eat last night. I got the Christmas Cookie Martini! It was delicious. I had my usual limit of one drink. That's all I can handle. This tasted so good that I would have loved to have another. It tasted like dessert!

Hope you had a wonderful weekend!