Urban Circus Rag Quilt

I loved the Laurie Wisbrun fabric line the moment I saw it, but it was hard to get hold of the blue 'earth' colourway so I ended up with more of the yellow & green 'spring' prints.

I knew I wanted to rag quilt it and then along came a tutorial from Moda Bakeshop 'A Day in Central Park' - uh oh, dilemma! I love central park and was busily collecting those prints too... but stuck to the plan.

This is the first time I've done 'quilt as you go' blocks, and these were so easy with just 2 diagonal quilting lines on each block. It was when I started joining the squares that my brain went a little screwy! You have to stitch them with the back sides together and I'm so used to 'right sides together' that the seam ripper came out a few times I can tell you!

I was going to back it in the busiest of the prints, the one with the circles and stripes but realised I didn't have enough so out came the seam ripper and instead I went for Kona Corn Yellow and Chartreuse.

Why is it as soon as a quilt goes outside for photos all the bugs in the world land on it?!?!?!

I'm going to add at least one, maybe 2 more rows as soon as my order of wadding arrives. It's currently 36" x 36" square.

I need to order some of those sprung loaded fiskars scissors for all the snipping ahead! and I'll make up some scrappy binding I think.

I think it looks really bright and cheery and I can't wait to hear what everyone else thinks so please leave me a comment.

Bloggers Quilt Festival...I'm too late

The Bloggers Quilt Festival is on over at Amy's Creative Side and wow! there are so many entries!

All my favourite big names are there; Lily's Quilts, Twin Fibers, Linzsews, Don't Call Me Betsy, My Fabric Obsession, Bearpaw, Freshly Pieced, Gen X Quilters, VeryKerryBerry...

and with over 600 entries it's an amazing way to discover new blogs and see more great work. My favourites amongst the new blogs/names to me are;
#14 Candy, #135 Laurel H, #186 Sarcastic Quilter, #187 SewCraftyJess, #313 Lindsay Sews, #380 Marg, #412 Kay, #544 isisjem

I don't have many quilts under my belt, in fact, i'll soon be finishing my third so wasn't going to enter but then as the Urban Circus Rag quilt started to come together I thought I might just get it in in time but alas no, Amy's page crashed and the linky is now closed, sob sob.

But here it is, I'll write another post in a minute about it.

Tuesday Tutorial

Did anyone else catch this post from Moda Bake Shop this morning? A Day in Central Park...

I've been wanting to do a rag quilt with my Urban Circus by Laurie Wisburn fabric and needed a good, beginner proof tutorial to get me going. And look whats taking shape on my (very temporary excuse for a) design wall this afternoon!

I've come to a grinding halt already as I've run out of the print I decided to use for the backing, but a quick order to Amanda at Simply Solids (who has some Urban Circus on sale!) and I'll be back up and running in no time hopefully :o)

P.s. If you go to Simply Solids and get the Urban Circus or Tufted Tweets on sale, please mention you saw it here! Thx.

In anticipation of tomorrows linky with Lee at Freshly Pieced, I'll be linking this post with WIP Wednesday. Head on over there to see what everyone else is up to this week.

Stats:
Completed this week: 0
New Projects this week: 1
WIP: 3 (Black and white bed quilt back, Lily's QAL Dresden, Urban Circus Rag Quilt)

In Monday's Mailbox...

A lovely little package from Simply Solids;
Some Laurie Wisbrun Urban Circus Elephants and Tufted Tweets - both on sale(!), one of the Kate Spain Central Park prints I was missing and some more KONA Black as I'm thinking of making a wagon wheel like Lynne's (Lily's Quilts), as seen here