Paper Starfish

I'm in love with the Retro Flowers Quilt pattern. Me and hundreds of other quilters! The quiltalong on Flickr has 140 members so far. I've been looking for something great to do with my Flea Market Fancy reprints.

And *ahem, cough, cough* yes, that stack has grown since I first shopped for a little bit of Flea Market Fancy.

I've never sewn curves. And in case you haven't noticed there are a lot of curves in the Retro Flowers Quilt!

The only thing to do was jump in. I bought the acrylic templates to make sure my cutting was perfect. I did a test petal with some Aunt Edna fabric that fits in quite well with Flea Market Fancy and voila:

I think it came out pretty darn great! I was kind of giddy about it. It seemed like such an accomplishment to have it come out with matching seams and no crazy bunching on the curves. The problem is it. took. forever. And this is only one petal of one flower. I have 63 more of those to do. Yikes!

I did this last weekend but I guess it's taken me a while to post it! The Retro Flower came together nicely. It was slow though. Slow. The pattern as written calls for 16 flowers. More curves this weekend!

And a blast from the past... remember spinning?

The picture isn't the best (taken with my phone) but we're doing an economics unit in class and studying a local fiber artist so I thought I'd bring in my wheel for my students to see. I'm spinning a gorgeous blend with a bit of bamboo. Hope to have this done this weekend!

Hello Knitting and Crochet Blog Weekers! I don't know that I'll get something posted every day for this but I thought today's topic was interesting. When I look through my stash (both used on Ravelry and waiting to be used) I see a lot of reds, plums, fuschias, wines.... I knit some for me and lots for others and I gravitate towards buying, spinning and knitting these colors.

What's really interesting is that I wouldn't call these colors my favorites at all. I don't dress in these colors. I tend to focus on neutrals: browns, black, khaki, etc. when I buy clothes.

What about you? Do you buy yarns in predominantly one color family or do you buy in rainbows? In quilting and fabrics I think I branch out much more color-wise.

As an avid blog reader, I enter my fair share of giveaways. Last week, I won! Randi from Fresh Squeezed Fabric has a giveaway every Tuesday for a fat 1/8 bundle. Check this out:

Some of my favorites are in there. Pearl Bracelets, Flea Market Fancy, polka dots!

I'm not affiliated with this shop in any way but I wanted to mention it because I've shopped there and had a great experience. Randi sold me a custom bundle several months ago that was exactly what I wanted!

Yes, it's been very spring-like off and on weather-wise but now it really feels like spring because we have our first babies:

Can you see those little beaks peeking up? So sweet!

I think I mentioned that I went to a local guild's quilt show a few weeks ago and fell in love with some hand appliqued quilts. I've admired Kathleen Baden's work before but this put me over the edge so when she offered me a class at a local shop, I jumped.

This is the project she had me start with and so far Im in love with the process. It's entirely done by hand so I'm pretty proud of myself. I need another leaf and then three berries before I'm finished with the applique part!

What do you think? Does anyone out there do applique. I'm looking for a pattern to start after this!