do you have a favorite kona solid?

I’ve been thinking about solids lately. I love them, and try to keep a selection on hand, but there are definitely a few that I return to over and over. My go-to solids, if you will… the ones I like to buy multiple yards of…

konas

These are two of my current favorites – Kona Aqua & Kona Medium Gray. (I still love Kona Coal (very very much!) but I’m trying to give the medium gray some love too!).

Do you have any favorites? A certain color you always reach for?

kona-solids

(from top to bottom: Green Tea, Sage, Dark Violet, Thistle, Grass Green, Aqua, Medium Gray)

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Aqua & Med. Gray purchased from Blueberry Buckle Quilt Studio. Sue carries a huge selection of Kona solids and ships really quickly!

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Framed… a mini spring quilt

A spring quilt for a nice spring day!

framed-mini1

The inspiration for this little quilt is from my favorite picture frames. I love the oversized matting with the little tiny picture in the center. We have one in our kitchen and every time I look at it I see a quilt. In fact, I was considering going with this idea for my month for the Bee Imaginative quilting bee (which is why these fabrics will look very familiar to my bee members!). At the last minute I went with something else, but decided to finish up this quilt as a little sample.

framed-mini-quilt2

I made two tiny wonky log cabin blocks and two wonky striped blocks (though I think it would be fun to make one where each center block was a different block style, scaled down to a mini size). Each of these little blocks were surrounded by a sea of white and then framed with a solid (or a solid/print combo, as is the case for that one block!)

framed-mini4

My big dilemma was how to quilt it. Since there’s so much solid white space, I wanted the quilting to add some interest. I decided to go with straight lines surrounding the center blocks. I think it fills the white space nicely, and I love the patterns where the lines cross.

framed-mini-back2

The back is simple – some white and some purple, with one little extra block for interest. It measures about 30″ square. I don’t have a plan for this one yet – it might end up on one of our walls, or it might show up in the shop!

framed-mini-back

Posted in [search] Wonky/Improv Quilts, 2010 Finished Quilts, Finished Quilts, Posts about Quilts, Quilts | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 24 Comments

the thing about string quilts…

I had big plans to make a queen sized string quilt using 5 1/2″ squares.

It didn’t happen.

string-quilt-2

The thing about string quilts is that I love looking at them (and I’ve made quite a few!), but if I’m going to be honest, they can be a bit tedious to make. Back in July, I asked you if I was crazy to attempt it, and I think that most all of you said I was not. Though I’m thinking now that someone should have! My original plan was to make 10 blocks a day, which would have given me enough blocks in about a month and a half. Well, by the end of August, I was only at 85… clearly this wasn’t going so well. I set them aside until just recently, when I finally was forced to realize that there was no way I was ever going to have enough for a queen sized quilt.

string-quilt3

So I sewed together what I had. And you know what? I think this size is perfect. Just what I wanted. (or at least that’s what I’m telling myself!)

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The tutorial for string blocks can be found here, in case you’re interested!

Posted in Posts about Quilts | Tagged , , , , , , | 49 Comments