Beach Breezes

My Dulcinea is done!

I'm calling it Beach Breezes because I used the Salt Air fabric line from Cosmo Cricket.

I've been saving this line that I love for the perfect project and I thought Dulcinea was definitely it!

This has got to be one of my favorite Schnibbles!

  

The pinwheels work so well with the summery, beachy Salt Air theme.

And because the pieces aren't too small, the fabric really shines!

I wish I would have gotten more of this line while I had the chance.  

  

Salt Air has often been used with a white background fabric, but I went with a tone on tone cream that is really close to the cream shown in some of the charm squares.

I like the soft look it gave to the whole quilt. 

By using the two fairly new charm packs in this vintage pattern, I didn't have quite enough squares for the border, so I followed Carrie's advice and used some of my background fabric in the border to make up the difference.

I'm pleased with how it worked out!

The pieced border took some time, especially since I got kind of crazy about some of the placement.

I don't do random well.

As soon as I read in the pattern that I should join the fabrics in the border in a "very random manner", I knew that part would be a challenge for me!

But I "pressed" through it and made myself be okay with some of the fabric placement, even though they may not be quite as evenly spaced as I would like, and I love how it turned out!

I'm sure you know to be on the lookout for the parade coming up in the beginning of the month on the blogs of both Sinta and Sherri, who are so kind to put on the Schnibbles parade each time.

And special thanks to Carrie Nelson for designing such amazing patterns and for being so helpful too!

I'm on the edge of my beach chair wondering what pattern we'll be working on next month.

I can't wait to find out!

And by the way have you seen Thelma's version of Dulcinea?

It's so cute and creative! You definitely want to look for it!

I love to see what everyone does with the patten chosen each month for the Schnibble parade.

I hope to see you there!

Anything can happen Thursday

These Dulcinea blocks are coming together beautifully!

I just love when the blocks need to be trimmed to size.

It always makes the finished product so neat!

My Fit to Be Quarter ruler has been perfect for that. 

Even with two trips in the past two weeks and guests visiting today, I had a bit of time to start quilting this one.

I appreciate your quilting suggestions for it in the comments a few weeks back.

Swirls seemed to be what would work best to me.

I wanted to make sure I had the freedom to choose where to quilt at the last minute to get all those seams flattened out. There were so many of them!

More pictures to come soon! 

Enjoying the Salt Air

Between the activities that summer brings, I've been working on the next Vintage Schnibbles project, Dulcinea.

I decided to go with the fabric line Salt Air.

Luckily the cutting is simple and quick, which makes it easy to do bits and pieces when I can.

Great for this time of year!

I'm linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday.

What are you working on?

One more

 After making one Triple-Zip Pouch I just couldn't stop!

I had to make another!

This one will keep me organized on trips we're taking over the summer.

Grad gifts

Graduation season is wrapping up and I've got a few gifts to show.

 They're in the mail right now.

Making their way to a high school graduate who is a family friend.

So if you think this might be you, stop reading here......you know who you are!

This Triple-Zip Pouch that I made for her, is from a tutorial I ran across on Debbie's blog, A Quilter's Table.

The fabrics I used are pretty close to the colors of the college our friend will be attending in the fall. 

I love that there are three separate sections in this bag. I matched the lining of each section with the fabric below the zipper, but it would be fun to mix it up too.

Debbie had a Triple-Zip Along on her blog earlier in the year, but I didn't know it was going on until it was too late.

I added the button to my side bar anyway, as inspiration and to remind me to make some of these cute bags during the year and this was the perfect opportunity!

If you click on the link you will see lots of adorable bags that were made during her Triple-Zip Along.

My graduate friend can toss this in her backpack or purse and keep a few small school necessities organized and easy to find!

A pillowcase in her school colors is on the way too.

Hopefully a fun addition to her college dorm!

A little Sweetwater runner

I finished this up a few weeks ago, but things got crazy and I just didn't post about it.

Well here it is.

My Spring Pots table runner designed by Sweetwater.

I started it as my first Label Crew project and I planned on using scraps, along with a few pieces of Noteworthy that I already had on hand.

Once I looked at what I had, I realized that the scraps I intended on using just didn't look near as nice as the fabrics from the Noteworthy line did, so I ordered the rest of the Noteworthy fabrics I needed to make the runner. 

I'm glad I did.

The straw and blue twill tape was something I added after I quilted it.

Ever since I made this pincushion I've been collecting twill tape.  All kinds.

I bought this tape at Michael's one evening after dinner when we stopped in to buy poster board for a junior high school project.

I had no plans for this twill tape.

Weeks later when I finished quilting this, it just looked like it needed something else.......that straw and blue twill tape!

Perfect!

I'm pleased with how it turned out.

Especially since there was plenty of hand buttonhole stitching to do!

It had been awhile since I did much of that. 

 .......I had a hard time getting a nice picture of the whole thing.......

Maybe it's even reversible?  

I used some of that fun text fabric on the back and I think I could even consider it a reversible runner.

I like the backing that much!

I'm happy to have this out on the table now.

Ginormous Gentle Art

Okay, maybe it's not ginormous, but it is bigger than normal.  And ginormous sounds good with Gentle Art so I went with it! 

I believe the word ginormous came from the movie Elf, which is one of our favorite movies.......we even make it a point to watch it once during the summer....... so I always think it's a fun word to use!

Anyway, back to the matter at hand, my Gentle Art quilt is finished!

I really like how this one went together so I just kept on going!  

I used a combination of fabric lines from Bonnie and Camille.  Ruby, Vintage Modern, Marmalade, and Happy Go Lucky are all in there! 

I love the orange and navy blue in Happy Go Lucky so I used lots of that!

At one point, I had the inner border finished and I forgot to use the cornerstones!

  I decided I really wanted them in the quilt to anchor that white border a bit, so I went back and added them in. 

I thought it would be easy, but not so much!

It should have been easy, but I made some silly cutting mistakes and I ended up having to remove the entire inner border and replace it by the time I was done.  

Good grief!  

I'm happy that I did add the cornerstones, but I wish it wouldn't have taken me so long to fix them!

Maybe I was distracted by all that we have going on here right now! 

It's a big week at our house!  That's why it's been pretty quiet here on my blog.

My oldest son is graduating from high school!

We made these treats to celebrate his graduation and his birthday, which is this week too!

Well, I'm going to go celebrate and eat one of these!

 Don't forget, there are many more beautiful Gentle Art quilts floating around blogland.  

They're all made from the pattern created by Schnibbles designer by Carrie Nelson.

You can see them during the parade at the beginning of the month on Sherri's blog and on Sinta's blog too. 

 I'm looking forward to seeing them all!