Jeans quilt top nearly finished.  I will change out two squares in the lower right where I ended up with three blocks of the same fabric.

Big questions: how to back it and quilt. This might need to be tied as I cannot imagine dragging it thru my machine as heavy as it already is.

Costumes for my grandaughters

My sewing has been kid stuff lately, my grandaughter prompted a sewing plurge with superhero fabric. I've made two tops and leggings for the 1 year old and two tops and leggings for the 4 year old and finishing up a panne velvet dress, all fabrics chosen by the 4 year old.

Years ago, my son had an AstroBoy style costume acquired at a garage sale. He wore it non-stop. I had that

in mind when I made the ankle cuffs for the big girls costume.

I'm linking up to one of my inspiration pages, Amanda Jean's Finish it up Friday.

2 more batik stars

It's been several weeks since I sewed anything, but I've been pinning pretty blocks to inspire me. Here are today's efforts: a Starflower block and a Spider-leg block. I made both from my batik scrap stash, making half-square triangles from 4 inch squares. It's great to be back in the sewing room. A big thank you to all those quilting bloggers out there in cyberspace, for all your great ideas. I'm never finished but I'm still linking up to Finish it up Friday, cause that Friday deadline keeps me motivated.

Got three more stars completed this week. This one is the paper-pieced Whirling Star from Fresh Lemons, and it is still pieced with scraps that relate to the scraps in the other blocks. However, I found myself at Stone Mountain this week, buying more batik to try to match an olivey green that I have used up. I also saw more stars on Faith's flickr group that I want to try: a Scrap Star and a Lone Starburst (the pdf for this template is the link). Still not sure what I will do with all these stars, but a neighbor has asked for a quilt for a fundraiser, so that may be the destination of these blocks.

Off to work now. Even though I haven't finished the quilt or even the concept and I still havent gotten to any WIPS, I've finished the blocks I'd planned this week, so I am still linking back to Finish it Up Friday, the inspiration that got me going on this sewing spree. These last two are pieced using nickle squares and the one on the left needs a little re-working to assure that there are still points on the stars when sewed together.

After paperpiecing two stars with Faith's tutorials I feel so much more comfortable! Not quite easey-peasey, but fun.

Solstice Stars -  Work in Progress

Star of Mystery 

After a Holiday weekend long pinterest fest, I was inspired. 

So I used the Holiday to be creative. No sandwiching and finishing quilts that have been languishing in a bin for me. I started Fresh Lemon's Solstice Stars. I tackled a paper pieced star today which took quite a while. I love that it came out pretty sharp, but I still find paper piecing to be pretty stressful.

Another Star

Faith's tutorials are great though: and by the time I had pieced the 3rd side of the outer section of  the Star of Mystery I was in a groove.  I do love Faith's instructions. 

My  biggest take-home lesson was to slow down, take the time to lay out all the pieces, and really "see" them, before starting to sew: Much more pleasing and no seams to rip out when you've planned what you are doing. 

Ribbon Star

My small cutting board turns out to be perfect for carrying the parts to the sewing machine after a final trimming. 

Non Whirling Dervish

So here they are: 4 Solstice Stars, one modification of one of Faiths Six Point String Star and a take off on Becca's Whirling Dervish mini quilt, all more or less 12.5 inches square. These last two need were definitely a practice run and need a repeat to get them right. All material is scrap batiks from my stash.

We'll see what the weekend brings. I still have one more paperpieced star to try and then figure out a layout and how many stars I need to make that:

The blocks are actually straighter than they look, I need to stand on a chair to shoot straight down, so the photos aren't at an angle.

String-pieced equilateral stars
Might be my favorite.

Two-color Star

Portrait Quilt

This is a project my husband and I did together a while back for a friend's Big birthday. He adapted a photo in Photoshop, simplifying the image and turning it into blocks of color. He then printed out the image, cut up the shapes for patterns, then we cut up fabric, layered and fused the pieces down and stitched very close to the raw edges. The fabrics were batiks in honor of our Indonesian friend.

julierosequilts: A Finish-- does almost count????

LOVE THIS REDWORK BIRTH ANNOUNCEMENT. WISH i HAD THE SKILLZ

julierosequilts: A Finish-- does almost count????