Summer Treats

Very proud of my take on the Momofuku Milk Bar birthday cake. You know, the confetti kind with rainbow sprinkles in the batter. I highly recommend the cookbook. Even if you aren't a baker, it's worth picking up for the beautiful, fresh images. And if you are a decorative arts nerd like me, you'll notice that the endpapers are a baker's take on the marbled papers found in so many antique books. Genius!

The Legendary Quilt of Sleepy Hollow

I think I mentioned that I have a few Halloween-inspired quilty projects in the works. Here's one that's been in progress for quite some time, inspired by the (probably antique) prop quilt that makes an all-too-brief cameo appearance in Tim Burton's film adaptation of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Although, personally, I prefer the old animated Disney version - which so happens to be narrated by none other than Bing Crosby!

I know I'm not the first to be inspired by the Sleepy Hollow quilt, but so far I'm really happy with my version. Choosing the fabrics was one of the hardest parts - I pulled almost all of the prints from my very humble fabric stash but had to add in a few special fabrics to get just the right look. After a lot of iced coffee, I finally finished the twin-sized quilt top to my satisfaction. Eep! So excited that this is going to be my very first bed-sized quilt!

One thing I do wish I'd done differently is buying an acrylic triangle template! I made my template from a flimsy piece of plastic that ended up getting rather distorted after so many cuts. As a result, I had to do more fiddling than usual to get everything to line up. Oops!

As of today I'm about a third of the way through the process of hand-quilting this baby. So I have plenty of time to mull over possible fabric choices for the binding...

Summer Colors

Is it really June already? I've been enjoying every bit of summer that I can, because I'll be starting graduate school and moving back to the east coast in July. School in July - ugh! In the midst of all the packing, I'm squeezing in a little coloring time to relax.

Coloring with crayons (Crayola, of course!) is one of my secret skills. I also collect coloring books - everything from Ancient Egypt and Pirates to Barbie and Disney Princesses. It's all about choosing the right colors and layering them! Mixing colors to get just the perfect look is my favorite part of quilt-making too.

In Like a Lion...

March - what a month it has been!

After a few weeks of nervous anticipation and preparation, I flew to the east coast for a weekend of important interviews. Then spent a few days biting my nails while I waited to hear back. Thankfully, all the news was good. I'll be moving across the country again in July to pursue my master's degree.

In the meantime, I've been wearing some lovely hand-knit wool socks (I highly recommend this book to any would-be sock knitters). Not too many new stickers on the FWSQ or spider web progress charts, but I finished up an old quilt top and have been rapidly stitching up a new one. It's a project I've had in mind since Halloween, and I'm glad to see it turning out very much like I imagined.

Don't you get the feeling that spring is in the air?

So Vintage Pyramid Quilt

Remember my first quilt top? I finished quilting it this fall, so it's about time I shared it here. It's entirely made of vintage fabrics (mostly sheets and pillowcases) with soft cotton batting. My mom claimed it immediately, of course!

Just Another Single Girl

I have about five million projects in progress at any given time. But once I finish up at least one more thing (and I'm very close, so stay tuned!), I'm planning to start the wildly popular Single Girl pattern.

I'm not sure about what background fabric I'll use. Scrappy neutrals maybe? I want the rings to be 100% vintage fabric. Not the pretty pastel floral bedsheets and pillowcases like I used in my triangle quilt, but a real variety of colors and prints.

I know I'll be using up all my vintage scraps on this one. Hopefully I'll have enough in my big bin to make the quilt at least 3 by 3. We'll see!

Quilty Spider Webs

I am so proud of my beautiful Spider Web blocks. This is going to be a wonderful quilt someday but it's very slow going right now! I'm using all my favorite modern scraps and prints - lots of Lizzy House, some of Tula Pink's Birds and Bees, and some of Anna Maria Horner's Field Study. Yum!

But I have to admit, spider webs are a lot of work (and waste quite a bit of fabric - boo!) I suppose it will be worth it in the end - if I ever finish! Hopefully I can finish a block and add a new sticker to my progress chart today...I'm still only at 6 blocks.