My latest projects

I've been remiss with blogging about what I've been working on for some time, beyond the Jacob's Ladder UFO I had prioritized for the Quilting is Murder challenge.  However, I've been hinting about this for ages ... as long ago as Christmas, when I wrote about one of them, "It occurs to me that it's one of those things that happens when you give a gift and find that you've inadvertently received one in return."  Let me explain ...

... in December, I participated in the Quilting Gallery Blog Hop Party and gave away a jelly roll of Moda's Fruitcake line.  Well, Fruitcake had pretty much been retired by that point and it wasn't easy to find images of the fabrics which I could post on the blog, so I went to Moda's website.  Which reminds me, if you have not spent a good deal of time at Moda's fabric collections website, you should.  They list EVERY one of their fabric lines and then what freebies they offer for each: 

Swatch Page Print out for an instant Shopping List to take into your favorite quilt or specialty store.

JPG Images Upload our images into your favorite quilt program.

Group Description Learn more about the collection and include in your newsletters, blog posts, and more!

Marketing Tools Print on cardstock and tag your fabrics and gifts to identify the collection.

Free Pattern Download a free pattern to use with the selected collection.

The "Free Pattern" is a goldmine since these patterns are designed to work with ONE fabric line and often using one form of precuts (from fat quarters to charm squares).    When I was looking up Fruitcake, I clicked on the "Free Pattern" link for the line and found just what I had been looking for.

I'll back up a bit.  Last summer, we took the kids tubing down the New River in Radford, and we all had a great time.  It was a gorgeous morning and there were dragonflies everywhere, landing on us and the tubes.  I wanted to try to capture that memory with a quilt, and I ordered a fat eighth bundle of Moda's line, "Dragonfly Summer." 

I didn't know what to do with it, but the free pattern for Fruitcake was a pattern which looked just like the innertubes, and called for a collection of fat eighths ... how perfect!  I cut and pieced all of the circles in one long night, and since then have been working on appliqueing them to sand-colored backgrounds.  Contrary to the instructions, I am not doing raw-edge applique but needle-turn applique.  Each evening I have some handwork to do on the sofa now.  Here are a couple of the blocks:

They actually work out to be pretty large - about 20" background squares.  But they go fast.

I have another project that I worked on a bit last night but couldn't take pictures before my phone battery died.  However, between working on all these other projects, I squeezed in one more.  I was so inspired by Pat at Color me Quilty and her Gothic Windows tutorial posted at Happy Quilting that I had to find a way to work a few of those into my quilting queue.  Coincidentally enough, I had also recently received email from the guild asking for donations of small quilts for the Virginia Quilt Museum's silent auction fundraiser.  I put two and two together and rifled through my stash of 2.5" strips for some arresting colors.  I have three of the four finished and the fourth, in the bottom right, ready to be tacked down:

The only deviation I have made from Pat's instructions is that I am sewing down the windows by hand rather than machine.  I love Cathedral windows squares - I have made three various CW projects so far, including one in silk - and I love the handwork.  I like the striking contrast of the deep purple and bright red with white accents, and luckily I don't need a border since there is a size limit of 72" perimeter on submissions.  Keep an eye on the auction - it could be yours!  But if you don't want to bid, it is easy enough to make your own from Pat's great instructions.  Go check it out!

So these are just a few of the projects I've been working on now that I've let the Jacob's Ladder rest a bit.  There is one more as well - a biggish one - that I'll blog about another time.