Sew Along, WIP, and Cute little play balls :)
So our friends visited this past weekend, and we were able to give them our Christmas gifts. Which included these play balls I made for their darling little daughter:
I love how they turned out! I used this tutorial by Purl Soho for fabric beach balls. But I didn't really care for them to be beach balls....so I only used one fabric per ball and didn't applique the circle onto the end. I ended up making the medium sized ball. The small was too small for the scale print I chose, and I thought the big ones were too big. I really liked how the cubes turned out with one kind of fabric instead of mixing them, and I think it turned out really well on these balls as well. I made the cubes with vintage fabrics, which I was also planning on for these balls until these cute, brightly colored modern fabrics caught my eye at the LQS. I couldn't resist! Some of them are Joel Dewberry, but I'm not sure about the other ones. Love! She loved them, but the adults had a good time with them as well :).
I only got 1/4 yard of each fabric, so my scraps were pretty minimum, but I managed to squeeze a little something out of them!!
Yup, I even had some solids in my stash that were bright enough to pair with these fabrics! Which is also WHY they were still in my stash - I don't normally use such bright colors, so they've been chilling for awhile. I saw the Sew Along Randi was hosting and thought it would be a great idea to look into my stash and see what I could find. It really pushed me to create color combinations I never would have otherwise - and I love the results!! Randi gave directions on quilting and finishing them, but mine are going to chill for now. My mom and I bought a ton of bright prints to make a Swoon quilt out of, and I might see if I have enough scraps from those fabrics to make more. Maybe I could make a lap quilt out of these! I love how it's pushing me out of my comfort zone.
What's that? Did I paper piece it? Of COURSE! lol :) This simple block, "courthouse steps", is very similar to a log cabin block, and is great for paper piecing. Of course, it's great for regular piecing, too, I just like the accuracy :P. My blocks will finish at 11" - pretty large for me! The strips are 1" wide, which is perfect for the larger scale of these prints. The blocks are supposed to be 13", but I didn't have enough scraps for the last row, so I just stopped. You can use my paper piecing template by going here. (You will need to create an account, but it's free and they don't send any spam or anything.)
Well, that's just going to sit in the WIP pile until I either accumulate more or decide to do something small with them. But everything did not go so well....because I was working with scraps, every cut had to be calculated, careful....and I was doing so well!!! Until - duhn duhn duhn.
I was cutting out fabric for a third block. I accidentally missed one of the strips - one of the LARGER strips - and didn't notice until I spread them out after I cut everything else. And if I had cut it correctly initially, I would have had enough fabric. But I don't now!! I can always cut stuff smaller, but I can't make anything bigger :( I seriously just need one more, small little scrap. 1.5" by 8". And I'm sooo. annoyed. Maybe the next time I'm at the LQS I'll grab some more. But it defeats the point of using scraps. Ugh. Sigh. So annoyed :/ So this will potentially be in WIP limbo for quite some time.
Annnnnd, just in case you were wondering - you were, weren't you? - I'm STILL working on that double Irish chain quilt!!! My big WIP. I love it. And I'm just ITCHING to quilt it, so I've been working on piecing it lately. Here's my progress chart:
It's getting so very very close! And because this blog post has gone on forever and taken up so much time, I must adieu. :D
