Neutral Quilt

in

Over the past two weeks I've made myself a new lap quilt. I didn't want a throw or something to cuddle up with Chop in. Just a lap quilt. Something I can have on my lap in the car. In front of the fire. While I sew. For traveling. Small was my ultimate goal. I had made this one with that intent & sold it to someone who totally fell in love with it two weeks later, since then I've missed the feel of a small lap quilt. I'm embarrassed to admit that it took me this long to finally sit down & make a new one!

I've been scrap happy this month and finding immense pleasure in sewing with the tiniest bits of things that are really special to me. I decided that this quilt would be scraps only. Not cutting into fat quarters. No buying new fabric. Just using scraps and being inspired by my home places board on pinterest.

I'm drawn to very open, clean, minimal homes with a cozy feel. But not impersonal feeling modern homes. And apparently things that are european, especially dala horses. I really want one! Like a nice white ceramic one. Or a pine one. ANYWAYS. I picked scraps that I felt conveyed this cozy intimate feel, my favorite Japanese linens, some special Japanese tone on tone fabrics from Karyn that I couldn't bear to cut up. That was my other rule. No cutting of the bigger scraps. I wanted to leave them intact so I could get the most out of them. I used a scrap of my favorite house fabric from Ink & Spindle which made me feel SO EXCITED but SCARED. I'm glad it's there. Once I started sorting through my scraps I realized a few things:

  • I had lots of fabric with houses & homes on it. I love love love little houses!
  • I had lots of fabric that is playful, kawaii-esque. And I want more more more!
  • I love fabric with TEXT on it.
  • I love love love international themes on fabric. France, Sweden, Japan, Russia...
  • I finally used some TRIM in a quilt! I collect trim and mostly it just marinates in my stash. I used a Shinzi Katoh cat trim I bought a spool of last year.
  • I had lots of fabric that reminds me of my friends. I have lots of fabrics from Karyn; who is one of my closest friends-I'd say almost 1/2 of the fabric is from theworkroom, Amanda sent me some scraps that are in here and I'm totally loving getting to know her better via instagram. One of my favorite cream fabrics is from Ashley, it's like little bear paw quilt blocks!

I added a secret message within the quilting...be cozy & content. Often when I'm sitting down "relaxing", my mind is racing of things I "should" be doing, so this is my reminder to myself to be content.

While sorting my scraps I found a small piece of plain linen left over from a pouch. I thought it would be fun to try and cross stitch on it so I took one of the trees from the L*K pattern I'm working on and stitched it onto the linen but I had NO idea what I was doing, somehow it's only the size of a quarter. But I *love* it. Unfortunately I didn't finish off one of the ends properly so one of the stitches is coming off :(

While rummaging around I found a bunch of tiny hsts I'd made from kokka robot fabric & shot cotton. I've always wanted to have a zig zag quilt but don't really want to make one. Weird right? So I pieced a small (2x4inch) zigzag into this quilt and pieced the other hsts randomly through out.

I loved Claudia's perfectly pieced cross in her Swiss Pixel Quilt but I don't own any red fabric (true story! crazy right???) and if I did own red fabric, I'd be paranoid of it bleeding on my quilt (as a side note this is the first time I used a color catcher!) so I used my favorite Lizzy House Castle Peeps fabric to make a cross. I like it because the candle sticks remind me of a winter night. The rest of the back is Heather Ross FFA2 Purple Moons, I had a chunk left over from an older quilt so it worked PERFECTLY! I quilted it at home in a simple stipple in my favorite King Tut thread that variegates from cream to linen to off white to pale gray.

I'm super glad I made this. It's kind of like a little treasure, lots of special out of print fabrics, it's neutral so it'll always match everything in our home and it crinkled up beautifully. AND! I even pieced in some selvedge! Normally I don't save mine but I had some from a piece of Megumi Sakakibara fabric that was TOO sweet to not include! I feel like I could show you guys a zillion more photos but I don't want to bore you :)

I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving! I finished knitting my hat & one mitt. I bought myself a skein of Tosh in Glazed Pecan that I've ALWAYS wanted the day after Thanksgiving and I hope it arrives soon! I've been listening to this a lot this morning and it's very sweet! I'm working on a Maple Leaf Farmer's Wife Block & debating making a Bear Paw...even though the book doesn't have one. SPEAKING OF BOOK, I've LOST my copy. I have no idea where it's gone too! I have all the files on my laptop but WHERE IS MY BOOK! oi!