Back to Sewing

This is my first WIP back from Christmas. Well, I guess that's not technically true…I still have my girls' quilts that I'm in the middle of…but this is my first start after Christmas. My friend is getting married, and with a deadline, I wanted to get going. My girls' quilts need to be done, but can wait.

When my friend, who was a roommate in college when I was dating my husband, emailed me to tell me she was engaged, I was so excited for her! And one of the first questions I asked her was what her favorite color/color combination was. She didn't ask why, thankfully, and said navy and yellow.

I rummaged through my stash and found a great stack, and then went to work finding a pattern. I looked through my new books I got for Christmas (A Quilter's Mixology, Scraps, Inc., and Vintage Quilt Revival. Love all of them!), and settled on "Petal Pushers" from A Quilter's Mixology.

She lives in a different state, and I wasn't positive of her tastes, so I didn't dare get too modern or too patchwork. Petal Pushers looked clean and contemporary, without being overbearingly modern. It seemed perfect, and sizing it down to a lap quilt would be easy. The only problem was it required more than a half-yard of any one fabric unless I wanted to do it scrappy.

Which I didn't. A big part of the beauty of this quilt, in my opinion, was the simple color.

Back to the fabric store…(darn) and I settled on a navy quatrefoil (Quattro by Studio M), yellow polka dots (Social Club by the Comstocks), and an aqua houndstooth (Trendsetter by Fancy Pants Designs). I'll use Kona Ash for the sashing and border. It's my favorite gray and non-white background. I've probably bought at least a bolt by now :-)

I also bought template plastic from Joann's. I don't have a ton of experience with template piecing, but I did want to try something more durable than card stock, since there are several patterns in the book I want to try.

And I'm excited to try some more curved piecing. I've done some improvisational curves from a pattern from Jacque Gering's and Katie Pederson's Quilting Modern, and I've experimented a little with an art quilt I made, but I have not made drunkard's path blocks before. I have to say that Angela Pingel's method was so simple. The first couple of blocks were a little awkward, but before I knew it, I was piecing pretty quickly.

After a few, I did find that I liked using 3 pins instead of just one in the center. Pinning the two ends helped me get going just a little quicker. But, sewing from each end to the middle was surprisingly effective.

Here's a pile of my finished curved blocks, ready to be pressed and trimmed! Since I'm sizing it down, I didn't have that many to make; I think 24 in total.

And tonight I got them all trimmed up. I had just one or two that ended up being off, but I think they'll be okay.

I'm surprised at how quickly this quilt is going together!

Update: I'm linking up to WIP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced. Love her blog so much!