Pillow Talk Swap 8

The mailing deadline for round 8 of The Pillow Talk Swap is today, so naturally I just finished my pillow right before midnight last night. I'm pretty sure this is my favorite pillow I've made yet.

Despite being so under the gun to finish, I did actually start a couple of weeks ago. This star pattern is called the Lonestar, and I made it by hand-sewing 200 diamonds together using the English Paper Piecing method.

I then machine appliqued the star to the background, and did a little straight line quilting for interest.

I love the Flea Market Fancy grey seeds that I used for the background - I'm already starting to fret I didn't buy enough of the reprint and this is the first I've used of it.

I sure hope my partner likes her pillows big - I put one of our king-size pillows inside for these pictures!

If nothing else, I know at least someone approved:

Hope you are all having a fantastic summer. ;)

<3 Kelsey

P.S. Linking up to Amy's One Thing, One Week Challenge.

Lounging in style

Admit it - you wish you could do it too.

Just Because

Just because some moments are too precious not to share.

<3 Kelsey

Farmer's Wife Mini Blocks

For some reason, cats are obsessed with fabric and quilts. It doesn't matter if I put down a single quilt block or a full sized quilt, there is likely to be a cat sitting on it within 5 minutes. My kitty has even been known to settle down sitting across stacks of fabric.

It occurred to me a while ago that this is the perfect excuse to make a mini quilt! This was my Sienna can have her very quilty spot to lay down without having to be in the middle of my project. I've been itching to join in The Farmer's Wife Quilt-a-Long, but am waiting for my EQ7 to arrive so I can finalize my fabric selection. So this weekend I decided to make Sienna a quilt with miniaturized Farmer's Wife blocks while I wait  for my software to arrive.

So far I've made 4 blocks.  

Each block measures 4" x 4" (compared to the original 6" x 6").

My plan is to do 3 across and 4 down with a thin strip of Kona Ash sashing in between, but I'll settle on the final size once I can lay them all out.

I'm really enjoying the colors I've pulled so far. If they look familiar, it's because I used them for my June blocks for the do. Good Stitches bee. They were still sitting on my sewingcoffee table taunting me for the last few weeks.

I've been considering this as the color scheme for my main Farmer's Wife quilt, but I'm concerned about needing to buy more fabric and being able to find the same prints - especially for the green circles.

Solids would be the easiest to ensure I can keep enough of, but that seems too plain to me. I think I read in The Farmer's Wife Yahoo Group that this quilt takes some 11 yards, so I definitely wouldn't have close to enough with what I have of these prints in my stash currently. Anyone have a good idea how much fabric I should buy ahead for this? I've been using the paper piecing method. So far it doesn't seem to be using much fabric...

My current list of fabric options for the final quilt are:

• The above fabric selection.
• The same colors as above, but all solids.
• Grey + Chartreuse
• Grey + Red
• All one line of Momo (It's a Hoot if possible)
• All Happy Mochi Yum Yum (Pretty, but already being done by someone else.)
  

Thoughts?

<3 Kelsey

Linking to Fabric Tuesday.