Mr. and Mrs. K

Two Nicoles, one post.
The first Nicole is my brother's girlfriend. I decided to make her a tote bag for the upcoming holiday season out of some of my favorite fabric:The pattern is the Flourish Tote. The instructions were clear, it probably took me a total of 2.5- 3 hours, and I'm happy with the construction. I wouldn't recommend it as a first bag pattern for anyone, as there were some slightly advanced things like curved corners and sewing through so many layers. The only thing I need to add is some gray grosgrain ribbon going through the loops in the top. I used quilt batting instead of fusible fleece, and decided with all the heaviness not to put the darts in the bottom corners. Here's a shot of the inside, showing the six pockets (more Heather Ross stripes and dots):
The second Nicole is a friend of my husband's from law school, and she recently got married. Since she's a good friend, and warrants more than a blender, I made this for her and her new husband:
Click to enlarge-- also, it's really sunny outside here today!
All of these fabrics came from my stash except for the gray kona (I think it's called Charcoal). I took my original inspiration from Alissa's Sparks Baby Quilt but quickly deviated. Each of my center squares are 4", and I fussy cut birds:Then I added a rectangular border around each bird, and alternated the direction of the rectangles (vertical, like the one above, and horizontal). For the horizontal blocks, I added 2.5" of the gray to either the top or the bottom (half of each) and then sashed the blocks. The outer border is 6" on the top and bottom, and 3" wide on either side. I quilted 1/4" around each seam. I love the back, too:
(It's windy-- ignore my shoe at the bottom!)
I used the rest of my bird fabric (IKEA-- and the same fabric I used for my bedroom curtains) and more Lotus. Here's a closeup of the quilting, from the back:

I can't wait to put this in the mail and send it off to NYC! It feels so good to finish something, especially two things that make me proud.

Stephen

Here it is, nearly finished. The Stephen:I couldn't resist taking pictures today, as it's finally sunny and I'm home at a decent hour. All that needs to be finished is one side of the binding (the short edge on the right-hand side). Here's the back:
I know it looks white in the picture, but the back is actually a baby blue pinstripe. The strip is made up of orphaned blocks that just didn't make the cut for the front. When I was taking pictures, a woman walking a dog stopped to compliment me on it. I actually got a little shy talking about it, which kind of surprised me. Still, I was pleased. I free-motion quilted it, and it's a little larger of a stipple than I typically like-- my machine was getting grumpy from all of the seams. This is the first time I've stippled pieces as small as 2.5" squares covering a decent-sized area. I'll probably take more pictures of this one once it's completely finished (out of the dryer, with all my extra threads snipped) because I love it so much.

lotus in progress

I don't know why I'm taking my sweet time on this one.This is the quilt top that is currently a square, and after looking at it out in the sunshine, I think I'm going to keep it a square. I'm insanely happy with the way this is turning out, but it's still too small for the person it's going to. I'm going to add some more borders.This was the easiest way for me to use two different fat quarters for the borer. All I did was cut them into 3" wide strips x width of the fat quarter (about 21"). Then, I sewed the strips together, alternating red and blue. When I finished sewing a strip to one side of the quilt, I cut off the extra, and started sewing the next side (like making one round of a log cabin, all the way around the quilt). It's easy to see in the picture; three of my corners came out blue, one came out red (above). Love it!

Irish Chain revamp

You saw the 25-patch blocks that I made out of the Amy Butler Lotus. As I previously mentioned, I kind of screwed up making a traditional Irish Chain quilt. I hadn't sewn the blocks together, but I had already made 4 of these:I wanted this quilt to be a 2-block quilt, with the 25-patches in between the other block. So, I put those aside and came up with a few of these:
Closer, but still not quite right. Too flat. I tried reversing the colors, with an outer white border and an inner red one. I kind of surprised myself with how long it was taking me to find something to make me happy-- typically, I'll just dive right in and be happy with the result.
And as they say in Pulp Fiction, "DISCO." This is right. Here it is, nestled among its' 25-patch friends on my design wall. I got some Good Folks in the mail yesterday, and decided to dedicate 2 of the fat quarters to this cause. The yellow-green in the Lotus is complimented by the yellow in these, and that inky gray/blue also adds some interest.
The orphan blocks will probably make it into the back. This quilt is for a friend of mine who asked for me to make him a quilt. This is a modern floral quilt-- and yet I think it's still masculine. What do you think?