Red, White, and Blue Blog Hop - my turn

It is my turn on the RWB blog hop!

For my first block, I pulled all the red, white, and blue fabrics from my stash and this is all I could find. What to do, what to do???  How about an improv block!  I just started piecing the fabrics together and then added a star and some stripes at the end.

So, I liked it but felt it needed something - but what?  I tried some hand stitching.

Much better - well, at least I think so.  Um, except that little freehanded stitched star in the upper right corner - next time, I should draw it first and then stitch.

So, my block was finished with almost two weeks to spare - yay!  But then, the RWB blog hop began and you all were not only making wonderful blocks but LOTS of them!  I was inspired to make more - only problem was I had used up pretty much all my red fabric.  Fortunately, I remembered that I had recently received a charm pack of Vintage Modern which has reds in it - it wouldn't be a big deal to take two or three charms out of that pack, right?

This is what I made:

                               (I think this one also needs a bit of hand stitching!)

Hm, is there something wrong with this last picture?  I didn't even realize the mistake until I uploaded the photo for this blog post.

Much better! Well, I guess that is what my seam ripper is for!

For these blocks, I used a mix of traditional and modern techniques which resulted in a traditional block with a modern twist OR a modern block with a traditional twist, depending on your perspective!  I wrote more about this block here and I plan on writing a tutorial/pattern soon.

Want to enter this week's fabric giveaway?  Click here - it is open until Sat, July 14, 2012 at 8pm EDT).  For the details and/or if you are wondering about or are here for the Let's Get Acquainted Blog Hop, the Advice for New Bloggers series, the Let's Figure It Out Series,  or the Monday Link-up, click here.

Thanks for visiting!

And be sure to hop over to the other bloggers posting today for the RWB blog hop:

Cat Patches

quilting by dawn
Bobbie

Kathy H

Sparrow In Flight

WIPs and an HST with a Twist Pillow

WIPS:  

1. Circle of Geese (from Kelly's blog hop post )

2. Pop bottles (used this pattern from sewtakeahike)

3. and 4. I now have 27 9" squares for my crazy nine patch that I wrote about last week.  

5. and 6.  As I think I've mentioned, I am participating in the Red, White, and Blue Blog Hop (I'm posting this Friday - these are not my red, white, and blue blocks.)  I unfortunately realized that I didn't have very much red in my stash but instead of buying more fabric, I decided to use a few squares from a charm pack of Vintage Modern.  I only wanted to use a tiny bit of the charm pack so I had to improvise and figure out a way to use only a couple of charms.  Surprisingly, I actually liked what I ended up with (I can't show it until Friday) so I decided to use some more of the Vintage Modern along with some Essex Linen to experiment with my new "pattern."

Well, since I only had one charm pack, I used that up pretty quickly so I opened my drawer of 5 inch squares, cut them into HSTs, and tried some more variations.  What do you think?  I took lots of pics of the process so I'll write up how I made them soon.  I'm not sure what to call it - something along the lines of  (Traditional) HSTs with a (Modern) Twist - maybe?

I decided to make this one into a pillow and to quilt it by hand - alternating between stitching inside and outside of the diamonds.  I need to do that more often as I love the look of hand stitching.  Now, I just need to find the correct size pillow form.

Wow - I never feel like I get a lot of sewing done until I put it all together in a post and realize that I did!  I'm excited to see what everyone else is up to so I'll be linking up and visiting at WIP Wednesday.  

If you haven't already, click here to catch up with the blog hop news including a thoughtful post by Kati of From the Blue Chair, a great fabric giveaway, the weekly calendar and the Monday link up.

Modified Mist Mini, a Tote, and a WIP

If you are looking for the blog hop, the giveaway, the advice series, the figure it out series, or the Monday link up, click here.  Otherwise, here are some quilty things I've been working on lately. (As suggested in yesterday's comments, I uploaded the pictures for this post directly from Flickr.)

I made another quilted tote bag - these are fun to make and have so many uses - diaper bag, pool bag, library bag, school bag, crochet project bag . . .  I took lots of photos when I made this one so I'll be writing up a tutorial soon.  

My other project this week was this mini quilt:

After finishing the HST blocks I wrote about last week, I decided to look around to find some other fun blocks.  This is a modified version of a block called Love in the Mist.  I just changed it up a bit by adding the middle section.  The block finished at about 24 inches square (I just used a picture to make it with my own measurements) so I decided to quilt, bind, and call it a doll quilt.   

And my WIP?  I finished my first Swoon block (though if I'm going to make a whole quilt, I'm going to use this one for a small project and start again without the pink background!)

And I'm still working on my big WIP - finding a sewing machine!

Question:  In the comments of one of the past blog hop news, one commenter asked what the etiquette was for how many link parties you can/should link one post to?  I have the same question - what do you all think???  As for me, since I usually only write one or two "linkable" posts each week, I tend to link the same post until I write a new one.  


And on the subject of link ups, to see where I like to sometimes link my posts, click here.  Some of these, I link to every week but most, I only link up intermittently.