Supernova...

My friend Brandy made this super awesome Supernova quilt. The pattern can be found in the Quilting Modern book. She wanted some quilting similar to how the amazing Angela Walters quilted the sample quilt in the book. Keep in mind, I don't have a long arm, I work on my home machine, and I enjoy it a lot. I hope to one day have a set up in my home so I can play around with more ellaborate designs. But back to the quilt. So, mimicking her design, I started with a layered lotus flower in the center. That's what I call it. I'm not sure what kind of flower that should be called. Then I did some starburst in the white. I followed that with some pebble quilting in the yellow, and then some stippling in the purple/turquoise. I ended it with more startburst on the outside of the supernova. I really love the way it turned out, and I hope she does too. I think she plans on binding it with that mustard yellow stripe. How pretty would that be? Have a good week!

A little piece of Africa...

Today I got to mark another quilt off my WIP list. I'm pretty excited about it for a couple reasons. One, It's a sentimental quilt, and two, it's the biggest quilt I've done completely on my own machine. Yay for accomplishment and progress!

This is supposed to be a birthday/Christmas gift for my little brother who'll be turning 26 (gulp!) in November but since he lives in a place that has moderate winters, I figured I'd send it to him early so he can use it as the weather starts to change. I am absolutely in love with this quilt. Back when I was a preteen I talked about serving a mission for my church. I had big dreams of getting a call to Africa and serving in remote villages surrounded by wildlife. Of course that didn't happen. I actually fell in love with the man of my dreams my third year of college and married him in the LDS Oakland Temple. Since I'm 2 years older than my brother, this happened all before my brother decided to turn in his papers. Guess where he got called to? Africa. Johannesburg South Africa to be exact. I was a little jealous, not of the specific country, but that he got called to the place I had always wanted to go (not South Africa specifically, but Africa in general).

While there he received the designed piece of fabric from a family that he visited. Now, this quilt is a small twin finished. So you can imagine how little that panel was to begin with. My mom wanted to make this quilt. She bought a few yards of striped flannel from Joann's that matched almost perfectly, and the orignal plan was to cut batting to the same size, sew around the perimeter leaving an opening for turning, and then top stitch the perimeter and sew along the curves on either side of the circles to hold the batting in place. That remained the plan for the past 3 years until I told my mom to send it to me so I can get it done. Once I got it, I realized that the original plan was great and all, but my brother is 6 foot 4 inches. He wouldn't have been able to cover his legs with the thing. So I hit up my local quilt shop during a weekend sale and got the orange fabric which is Timeless Treasures, and the zebra print (unknown) for the back. I figured it was fitting for an African quilt. I am in LOVE with this quilt. I LOVE the colors even though they aren't really me and I went a little crazy on the quilting. I did some lotus flowers in the circles and then followed the scallops with different designs. Some are basic lines, some are vined hearts, some squigglies, and some zig-zag. The orange is covered in large stippling. The panel is voile I think. It's really soft, but was a little touchy to work with. It frays like crazy, and moves a lot! It would also get those little clumps of excess hairs after moving it around so much with my quilting gloves. Kind of like what happens to a bathing suit if you rub velcro over it. Oh, and please excuse my son's messy room. His bed is the only twin in the house, so I use it often to compare my quilts to a twin size bed. 

Update!

Sorry I haven't posted any super dupe fun sewing stuff lately. Would you believe that I was completely out of batting? So today I hit up Joann's for the first time in a long time, and got a LOT! Like enough to at least finish the two twin size quilts I'll be getting done in the next couple months, a few baby quilts, and another large throw quilt. So that'll be exciting for me, since I've got a LOT of WIP's I'd like to finish before I start NEW ones. I also received an order for a custom quilt. I'm pretty excited, because it's NERF themed! I can't wait to see it done, right now it's just a pile of uncut fabric and a sketch. I do have some things I've been doing but I somehow overlooked them and didn't take decent pictures of them. So, I hope these iphone photos suffice. If you'd like to get more frequent updates from Finding Sweetland, maybe consider following me on Facebook. No pressure though, I'll still like you all anyway!

I got this quilt put back up on my wall:

I also put this quilt up on my little wall:

I bought my first quilting book from Lizzie House (that came with a cute little handwritten note from Lizzie):

Made a few little pouches using the Noodle-head tutorial:

Made a pencil pouch using my own measurements (with a boxed bottom):

And quilted this quilt for my friend Brittany. See more pics of the quilt, here. She even used a raw edge binding...super cute.

Okay so I promise, more sewing fun, and better pictures coming soon! Hope you all have a great memorial day weekend!!

Traveling Quilts...

These quilts were pieced by a recently made friend, Hilary (see the quilt I made for here HERE). She has dipped her toes into the quilting world and is ready to jump in! She sent them down from Alaska to be quilted and bound. Unfortunately the lady that she was wanting to do the long arm quilting has been a bit overwhelmed lately, and since I'm all about getting projects done so people can fully enjoy their quilts, I somewhat talked her into letting me do them instead. I hope she likes them. The Vintage Modern (Bonnie and Camille for Moda) is a disappearing nine patch and has an all over hearts on a vine design. I LOVE the way it turned out...I'm definietly using that quilting design again.

The boy quilt is made from Denyse Schmidt and other fabrics from JoAnn's. I did a swirly pattern in diagonal waves. I really like that one too!!! That design will also be put to good use again! And then when I was done I added a little woven tag that I got from Yvette (craftozgirl) during the Modernista Homemade swap through flickr.

These will be taken to the post office today and shipped back to Alaska!