Originally Cait and I were going to make the Summer Breeze picnic quilt but as the days wore on and neither of us had chosen fabric for it, we decided to trade with May and made Peanut the Elephant.

These instructions were especially frustrating and while I felt like I as winging it a lot of the time, she came together in about 3 hours and I love her.  As did my friend Rose.  She is half of the band Vandaveer who played here on Saturday.  She came into town earlier in the day and stopped by the studio while I was working on this little girl and fell in love. So, of course, I had to give it to her.  After she left I embroidered Rose’s name on this girl’s haunches and gifted it later that night.  I hope she is well loved!

I made her from fabric I’d had in my stash for a very long time and a Denyse Schmidt print.  I really like that the trunk is gathered at the end.  I don’t like that I used nearly a whole bag of stuffing and she still wasn’t stuffed enough.  I only sewed on the dark part of the eyes and gave her some eyelashes.  She is awfully cute!

Not only Rose but three other people fell in love and asked if I could make them one.  Looks like a have more small stuffed elephants in my future!  Be sure to check out Cait’s lovely wee one.

Next month’s project: Summer Breeze picnic quilt.  I picked out the patterned fabrics, I just have to decide on the background.

I don’t always get very personal on my blog but things in my life have changed a lot in the last few months.  I ended a long term relationship and am learning a lot about myself.  I’ve been surrounded by wonderful friends and I am especially thankful for Austin and Erin’s support, their prayers, and all their encouragement.

So back to the quilt, Ashley and I finally gave it to them at a picnic this week and it was received with many squeals, hugs, and thanks.  It was just the reaction we were hoping for.

The front, as I mentioned, is scraps set in Kona cotton in slate.  It’s backed with more scraps and a geometric print I bought at JoAnns a couple years ago, which coincidentally, Erin made curtains out of at the house!  I quilted each block with a square spiral in different color thread and echo quilted the blocks with walking lines in a pale blue/grey thread, it’s bound in Amy Butler’s oxford stripe from the Belle collection, and simply labeled.

I can’t wait to show off pictures of their little guy bundled up in this quilt!

And then it felt like a chore, getting it done and getting everything in there.

So I deleted everything I wrote and will just say this: Instagram is on Android and I couldn’t be happier (except that it doesn’t upload to Flickr quite yet).  So, at least you can see what happened recently.  It includes a music festival in town put on by my friend Philip, fabric, beautiful weather, beer, and friends.  It was the best weekend ever.

I feel an amazing summer coming on.

For our (Cait and I) Last Minute Patchwork + Quilted Gifts challenge, I had picked pillow covers. As it turned out, I didn’t like a lot about the way they were put together so I ventured away from the instructions a little bit.  As they are written in the book would be a good project for beginners but I wanted a little more work to do :)

None of my fabric was calling to me until I realized that a remnant I bought at Karen Gray‘s last week was a home dec fabric that I probably wouldn’t use otherwise (it’s Anna Maria Horner’s Turn of Events in azure), so I pulled some coordinating solids and the scraps from The Undertoad, and went for it.

I pressed all the seams out and top sewed them outside the lines in navy blue thread.  I chose to use an invisible zipper closure instead of sewing it right around the pillow.  My zippers aren’t perfect but they’re good enough.  They are backed in the scraps from the Undertoad’s backing.

I think these pillows will live on the studio couch for awhile.

View the past projects here and be sure to look at Caitlin’s great interpretation of the pattern!  Next month: Summer Breeze Picnic Quilt.

It’s backed with a Lotta Jansdotter print that reminded me of kelp, Heath in turquoise, a dark habitat print that reminded me of sea anemones, and all the scraps from the front.  It’s quilted in a cloud pattern with pale blue thread on Ursula the Long Arm, bound in a Kaffe Fassett shot cotton stripe that worked perfectly, and labelled.

Did I mention I made this quilt start to finish in 10 days?  Yeah, part of it was procrastination and part of it was because of the studio move and not having the space to spread out and work on it.  But I finished it!  It’s amazing what I can do on a deadline :)

I hope Erik loves his quilt.  This has become one of my favorites and I will definitely make another HST quilt in solids one of these days.

Caitlin told me a few weeks ago about a challenge being put forth by Umbrella Prints that I’m excited to take on.  Umbrella Prints is a textile house in South Australia that make hand printed organic fabrics and the challenge is that you buy a random pack of their trimmings (hemp/cotton fabric screen printed with eco-friendly inks) and then you have until May 31st to make something beautiful with them which you photograph and submit to them to win either Judge’s Choice or People’s Choice.It’s a pretty interesting mix of fabrics, mostly blues with some neon red-ish orange thrown in.  I think I know what I want to do, based off a quilt I pinned a few months back.  I’ll be sure to give more details when I get started and let you know when you can vote for my piece!

After these two I have no impending deadlines but that doesn’t mean I don’t have lots of things I want to finish! I’m sure a springtime finishing challenge will pop up in blogland somewhere and I intend to join. How great would it be to enter into summer with a clean slate?!