I am almost embarrassed to admit how long I sat on this quilt top and back, waiting to finish it. Apparently, I had plans 8 months ago to baste and quilt it right away! Ha, well things must have crept up and it just was pushed further and further down the priority list. It feels really good to check this UFO off my list.

The blocks and cornerstones of this quilt were all made using Kaffe Fassett’s striped fabrics as well as Moda cross weaves. I am SO sad to say that I just heard last week from Brenda at Pink Castle Fabrics that Moda has discontinued their beautiful cross weaves. It’s really a shame, I hope they bring them back at some point. But for those that are hoping to stock up or try them out, you can find a few still on Etsy.

When I originally made these blocks, I wrote up a quick tutorial. The blocks actually came together rather quickly and I love the variety of them. Then I used 3″ finished white sashing with corner stones between the blocks.

It’s actually hard to see the detail in the photos since I washed this quilt before taking pictures, but for the back I used two blocks of solid fabric and then incorporated strips of Kaffe stripes and Moda cross weaves. I love the look.

I quilted this in a free motion meandering style, giving it that cozy, crinkled look. It measures about 44″ x 58″. I’ll be putting this quilt up for sale in my shop soon.

This weekend was my son’s 3rd birthday. We spent both days celebrating, relaxing, but not sewing. But that’s ok, I really love this guys and can’t believe how fast he is growing up. I hope you all had a wonderful weekend!

First, I just wanted to thank everyone who listened to my interview on Pat Sloan’s radio show yesterday! I truly appreciated all the kind emails, tweets, Facebook messages, text messages…I have the best group of friends here and I am forever grateful for all of you. If you didn’t get a chance to listen live, you can still catch the program recorded on the American Patchwork and Quilting radio show website. Also, speaking of Pat – she is doing a big Valentine’s Day giveaway over on her blog today, go check it out!

On to the fabric! The above huge bundle of beauties arrived over the weekend from the fabulous people at Art Gallery. This is the Summerlove line which will be available in March (with some of their wonderful solids and oval elements mixed in). I can’t wait to play with these! Any suggestions as to what I should make? My first thoughts were a string quilt.

You also may have heard that Moda has reprinted the super popular American Jane Pezzy print.

I thought I’d be able to resist these…but that only lasted about 2 days. This is a fat quarter set. You can find these at Fresh Squeezed Fabrics and Lark Cottons.

Don’t forget to stop back tomorrow for the last star tutorial of the Solstice Stars Series!

Earlier this Fall, I was lucky enough to received some fabric from Quilt Market from my friend Katie. I had done some graphic work for her and as a “thank you” she really spoiled me with a Fat Quarter set of Echo by Lotta Jansdotter as well as a little sample charm pack of Malka Dubrawsky’s upcoming fabric line for Moda, A Stitch in Color. I saw a bit of this fabric in person at Malka’s Improvisation Piecing class from the summer, and I’ve been excited about it every since.

I’m not sure if you have ever seen these little sample charm packs, but the squares are 2.5″. I knew I wanted to showcase the bold prints in this line, so I decided to make a simple patchwork quilt with several shades of off-white and tan from my fabric stash. This is another project that I thought I would finish in a couple hours but sewing 200+ tiny squares together accurately actually took longer than I thought!

For the quilting, I wanted to do something a bit in contrast to the horizontal and vertical rows and columns, so I decided to first quilt a diagonal line through all the squares. Then I added two more diagonal lines in the resulting empty diagonal sections, leaving every other section empty. I am thinking about hanging this on a tan wall in my house, so I bound it in off-white so it would not blend into the wall.

I went to the Arboretum again today for my photos. Winter is really taking it’s time to show up here in Chicago. I know I shouldn’t complain because a couple months from now I will be SO ready to be done with the cold and snow, but I will miss having a white Christmas if it doesn’t start snowing soon.

It’s still beautiful though, even without the white stuff.

Despite my continued “Multitasking“, I finished a quilt this week! I mentioned this quilt top last week. It has been in process (ahem, on the design wall) for maybe six months? I had initially planned for it to be as big as my original Off Centered Innocence quilt but I decided to face reality and time constraints and finish this one up as toddler sized. The pattern for this quilt is my Off Centered Squares pattern.

This quilt uses a variety of Moda cross weaves, combined with Kona white and a tan Essex linen. I have now quilted with a lot of different types of fabrics – cotton, linen, voile, double gauze, shot cottons, home dec, flannel…cross weaves have been my biggest challenge. They really like to stretch and shift. However, the end result was worth the stress. This is one very soft quilt.

The back of the quilt was made with left over cross weaves as well as some white and tan Kona cottons. I quilted it using a meandering free motion style and the binding is also a cross weave. It measures 36″ x 48″ and is listed in my shop!