Magic Mojo

I think my sewing mojo is back, firmly in place.  First, the little projects I did last blog helped, then, as part of my Program directing at Great Lakes Heritage Quilters, we had two "Workshop UFO Sewing Days" Friday and Saturday.  Sewing all day long both days (except for a good deal of talking & visiting) was great fun & got me moving again.  I completed all but one of the needed arcs form my Wagon Wheel quilt.  that last set of arcs will be easy to kick out, then I will be on to piecing them together into the blocks.  That is a fabulous quilt pattern & seeing fabric & color choices of others making the same quilt was great fun.

As two days in a row of sewing most of the day weren't enough, Sunday I sewed some more.  I previously posted a baby quilt I was making for my daughter's friend, who had her first baby, a boy nicknamed 'Bertie', born earlier in December.  Some pattern issues, some quilting dyslexia, and I decided to make her another, which ends up being an additional quilt.  Small, 25X31, it's ideal for strollers or car seats.  I just 'winged it' & used strips from my scrapbox and green 'grunge' fabric for the background.  I love, love, LOVE it.  It quilted up quickly, using a simple, wavy lines method that softens its linear quality.

The two quilts are now boxed up & will be dropped at UPS today for their destination in Boise Idaho.  Daughter Katie says she is SO excited for her dear friend from her wonderful Writer's Workshop days and beyond, still good friends, to get the quilts for her baby.  Here are both of Bertie's  quilts:

As I've said before, and think most quilters would agree---baby quilts are the BEST.  So fun to make, small, do-able, instant (almost) gratification.  And after all of the fun of the choosing fabrics, design, piecing, quilting & binding, it then gets to be used for a BABY!

Sunday I also joined Instagram and the 'Economy Block quilt-Along' .  One of my 'modern friends', Vicky is doing it and her blocks are AMAZING--she really inspires me.  Her fabric choices are awesome & I would love to have them in my stash.  I think we need to fabric shop together!  I followed Red Pepper Quilt's instructions & am making the blocks at 5" finished.  Vicky's are larger (maybe 8"?)  to accommodate some of her novelty fabrics & they look great.  Her quilt will definitely go faster than mine.  Here is what I have so far, and a close-up of a few.  Novelty fabrics in the center, red for inside triangles & aqua fabrics for the block backgrounds.   I guess I should have made one more before photographing to have an evenly filled rectangle, but oh well!!

I love Rita Hodge's work, Red Pepper Quilts.  It's very colorful & fresh & she also has some great tutorials.  I'm a little torn about my blocks, as I love hers which is very scrappy & colorful,  but I decided to do mine with a more limited color palette.  But I plan on not using any of the aqua fabrics for the outer triangle mores than once.  We'll see....... I did start to add some other red fabrics (besides the solid) to make things more interesting.  I figure if I change my mind & want to go multi prints/colors, there's still time to do that.