Luminous Layers Flimsy

This month has been just nuts. Real life drama and happenings, quilty drama (see end of post!) and happenings... Amidst it all, I have managed to get the flimsy finished for the May challenge for Island Batik, where we were to 'Make it Modern'.

This month's challenge is sponsored by Hobbs Batting, and I will most happily be using their black batting to quilt this! Once again, I cannot say enough about the quality of Island Batik fabrics, who provided these beauties. This quilt goes from huge, 16" star points down to 1" so there was a fair amount of handling.

And pretty much zero fraying.

DrEAMi! #28

Yikes! I nearly forgot about this month's Drop Everything And Make it! party aka DrEAMi! It seems too early for this to be the last Saturday in May, but here we are.
I get the best squirrel photos, articles, memes, and this one is right up there with the best of the best, from Tish at The Madd Quilter:

Oh Billy, one day within the next year I hope, I may cross another item off my bucket list and go see you play in NYC. Hope I haven't given you the ear worm I've now got!

I myself have been chasing a few squirrels this month, two of three I've caught, the third needs this month's patterns printing out and I need a black cartridge and keep forgetting the few times one of us is out, to pick one up.

Good Vibes Only H2H Quilt Finish

My third quilt commitment is fulfilled for H2H 2019, and I have also fulfilled another of my Q2FAL goals. My list is here.
This lap quilt is destined for a boy, and is made using Allison Harris's 'Positive' pattern she recently released. She blogs and sells her patterns at Cluck Cluck Sew. I own a few of her patterns, as well as her book, Growing Up Modern, one of the first modern quilt books I bought. This is, again, another quilt with a clever block construction. I named my quilt 'Good Vibes Only' and I filled it with positive words and thoughts of healing as I made it.

Beothuk Star QAL: Second Set of Blocks and a Flimsy

It never gets old seeing a quilt I designed on paper and/or in EQ come to life in fabric. And then... when others make my designs in their own fabrics, and with their own spin on the design, I get even more excited than Rufus with his big yellow ball.

I hope the first eight blocks went together like a breeze; a reward is needed after all those HSTs... (ha! I'm a poet and I didn't even know it!) This week we are making the second set of eight and then sewing them together, adding the border and we will have our flimsy!

The Marauder's Map OMG

I am happy to report that just past the mid-way mark of the month I had one of my two OMGs finished. This is a cushion, or as Dayna calls it, a pillow cover. It was supposed to be a Christmas present, but it got pushed out of the way, forgotten, remembered, no time, forgotten...and now DONE!

I picked up this fabric at JoAnn's to make Dayna a pillow cover at the same time as I picked up the Slytherin fabric for Brady's and Game of Thrones fabric for Brianne's. I got theirs done in record time since I was flying out there in a couple of days for Christmas. I meant to do Dayna's, but the suitcase quilt, and a Mexico trip got in the way... And then I forgot about it because I'd put the fabric in a cupboard, then remembered, then forgot...sigh. When I was packing up my sewing stuff for the renovations, I found it, and was stabbed with guilt, so I kept it out, and made it my OMG.

Sweet Star Progress

Fabric, as we know, is darn expensive. Here in Canada we are hoping that the prices come down now that we have entered into the TPP agreement (Trans-Pacific Partnership), so hopefully we can get shipments directly to us from Japan, for example, as opposed to having those containers go to the US and from there we import it. This hikes our prices up because we pay duty twice, the duty that the US is charged, and then the duty that Canada charges for an import from the US. A quilt shop owner explained it to me, so correct me if she was wrong. Bottom line: fabric is expensive, so any time I can avoid wasting it, I'm a happy girl. Here is my progress for the Sweet Star block for Jessica Dayon's QAL.

Being Bad

Well, I'm good, in that I am up to speed with the Sweet Star QAL, and I made this week's Tiny Tuesday block as well as one green one from March. I worked some more on my third H2H quilt, but didn't get the flimsy finished yet, so I'm bad there. I'm also bad because although I have nailed down my design (eeek--it's a star quilt) for this month's Island Batik challenge, coloured it in with the Twilight Chic fabric in EQ8, and got approval from my quilt-loving daughter, Dayna, I haven't cut into said fabric yet. But it's been ironed and will be cut into as soon asap. And!!!! I have a super-exciting announcement within this post! First here is the Sweet Star QAL Week 2 blocks, another set of four:

 I am still loving this fat quarter bundle of Blueberry Park fabrics. I have used every one but one, so now will mix up the first 8 combinations. I will have a post this week about how I'm making these blocks, using less fabric and sewing less seams.