Super Mario Bros. Quilt Top

So glad this monster of a quilt top is finished. I made the blocks with Angela's Super Mario Quilt Along group. It was made some vibrant Kaufman Kona cottons here.

click picture to see names of kona used

from the Fabric Shack.  I love how this shop cuts fabric in quarter yards and have the best price for kona! They have great customer service too. Fabric amounts and the discussion we had on what fabrics we used was helpful as we are fans of many differents solids. It did not seem to matter whether the fabric was cut in fat quarters or regular cuts of fabric. Fabric Shack cuts its quarter yard fabric in 10 in cuts too! Nice, huh?

All of the patterns are here in google docs, but I took the patterns and modified them to allow for less piecing as you can see in this Goomba 

or cloud.

Add caption

I got creative and modified and added and modified additional blocks.

Beetle

Fishy

Piranha Flower

Spiny

Koopa Troop

You think I would learn and keep things simple. :) 

Here is the backing. I thought a test pattern would be fun and I needed to use up the scraps from the top. Not sure if I like it, but I wanted to play and not order more fabric. The extra blocks have made this about 90 by 90 inches. Even though I made it for my husband I think my son might steal it as it is perfect size for a full bed.

I am thinking of an all over meandering of rectangles and squares. I continue to rethink it over and over again as I want it to be perfect. I wish I could be less of a perfectionist. So I am hoping for a Christmas finish for this quilt. 

Taking Stock of Things

I have been spotty about the blogging this year, but I just haven't had time to devote to the computer. This morning I took a picture of tops and backs that have been finished in that time. These are UFOs that have been taunting me. Now the fun part...quilting.

It was a good break. More pictures forthcoming soon.

Green Tea and Sweet Beans Quilt

I am working on blocks from Jennifer Kingwell's pattern Green Tea and Sweet Beans. I need something that includes some hand applique and varying techniques. I intend to finish all the applique blocks by hand and adapt the others to be made by machine. As far as a stack of fabrics, I have none. I am going to make each block with what I have that makes me happy. Hopefully they all will fit together. I do have many of the same fabrics so this quilt will fit my stash well. Some linen and text fabrics will be added to the mix and I have been collecting lots of dots so this should be fun.

On another note, my Canon Rebel camera does not seem to be working well with capturing light very well. I am completely frustrated with it. Even outside pictures get overexposed easily on the Auto setting. I dropped it while hiking last year and broke the basic lens, which I bought new, but the camera has never been back to normal. Does anyone know whether these cameras can get serviced/tested like sewing machines can?  Maybe I should go back to the basic Canon Powershot version. Buy a better lens than what came with the camera? What do you think?

The Supernova Quilt

I have been saving, swapping and swooning over these fabrics for years. I finally cut into them and a few others.

I thought the Supernova quilt from Quilting Modern would be perfect for them.

It wasn't as scary to cut into this group of fabrics as I thought. Although I was muttering under my breath when I cut a strip of swimming sisters a half inch too short. You know that feeling?  I even had some park slope leaves in the stash! I've been working on this for the past couple of weeks for only 15 minutes at a time. I will admit I am a hopeless copycat. Wouldn't you?

I've "claimed my blog" through bloglovin, as most people have, since Google reader will be no more. Care to follow? That was easy. I love how a summary of random blogs is emailed every night, of blogs I follow, to mix things up.  It will automatically transfer all the blogs you are currently following in an instant as well. Less work is a good thing.

Blogger's Quilt Festival: Picnic Stashbuster Quilt

If there is one quilty fact you should know about me is that I love to hand quilt in perle cotton. I love mixing up the colors, the forgiving  nature of the stitches, and the notion that the recipient will know that I lovingly worked on their gift in my hands for hours, days, weeks or months. In some cases years. Even though it takes a while, I am very proud of the results.

This quilt started with a stack of Denyse Schmidt's Picnic and Fairgrounds.

I used the design for a scrappy Kaliedoscope called the Stashbuster from Sarah Fielke's and Kathy Doughty's book Material Obsession 2. I strip pieced my version, not using real scraps. In the border, you can see the strips I cut the triangle templates from.

Sewing along with others, at Don't Call Me Betsy's Kaliedoscope Along in June 2011, the top was completed.

I used multiple colors of perle cotton 8 to stitch along each piece in the Summer of 2012.

An overall grid in lime was added along the white pieces as suggested by the book.

Each yo-yo was applied by hand applique, once the quilting was complete. Aurifil in 50 wt works great.

I added a scrappy binding to complement the the scrap quilt look. (9ish yards of hand finished binding takes forever. Good thing it means you are almost done.)

The quilt measures 72 by 80 inches and fits comfortably on a twin sized bed. The quilt is for my four year old Zoe.

This was finished in August of 2012 as I have been taking quite a break from blogging.




My next two handquilting projects are my Single Girl, the quilting is halfway complete, (yay!), and my Granny square quilt.

If you like what you see, follow me on Bloglovin in the top right corner. Also, see my other handquilted entry (#62) in the category Bed Quilts.

Thanks for visiting both my entries for the Blogger's Quilt Festival.