Eking By

It may be the last day of the month, but I did manage to get my July do. Good Stitches Blocks done.  We were asked to make 2 Rolling Stone blocks using this tutorial here.  The blocks were supposed to be scrappy blues with the background being ivory/off-white low volume prints.

Wholecloth Journey

When I first started to really learn how to Free Motion Quilt a little over two years ago, I participated in a wholecloth quilt-along with Leah Day.  It was the first time I had ever done anything like that and really learned a lot from it.  I didn't have any idea when or how, but I knew that I would like to try something like that again.

Fast forward a year and a half and I get an email from a from from my mission in Spain asking if I know if there are any LDS Temple quilt blocks.  I had no idea, so I started asking around and was pointed in the direction of this website here.  They have the paper piecing and wholecloth outline for just about every temple and a couple of other interesting church things.  As soon as I saw the pattern for the Spain Madrid Temple I KNEW I had to make it my next wholecloth adventure, but unfortunately, life got in the way and I was just too busy to even think about tackling the project. 

Things finally settled down a bit and so two months ago I took the plunge.  The entire process has been a huge learning curve, because I had to completely design how I wanted it to look.  I just had an outline to work with.  I found this picture of the temple and used it as a rough guide:

One thing I found particularly hard was trying to make a 3 dimensional object look good on a 2 dimensional surface.  I used darker thread for shadows and let the over hangs pop out to try to help.

There are so many things I would change if I did it again, but one thing that really interested me was the contrast on the back with the dark chocolate color as the background.  It completely changes the look of the quilt.  I originally thought a neutral closely resembling the stone color was the best choice, but I am realizing that I shouldn't have been so afraid of bold colors.

 In the end, I'm just really excited to have completed this project and am grateful for all that I learned while working on it.  It was a really good learning experience for me.  And most of all, I loved working on this quilt, because it reminded me of all the wonderful experiences I had a decade ago as a missionary in Spain.  I'm sending this quilt off across the Atlantic to Spain with a special smile on my face.

Linking up to TGIFF.

Quilting Catch Up

I'm thrilled that I got all four of the June Building Blocks quilted last night for FNSI.

I'm not usually a huge fan of quilting pebbles, because they're time consuming and rather unforgiving, but I do admit the finished product looks pretty cool. 

It feels good to get last month's blocks finally done, but I'm well aware that this month is over half way done and I haven't even pieced together July's Building Blocks or done my do.Good Stitches blocks either.  I'll just enjoy the moment with my June blocks for now and worry about this month's blocks later.  :) 

Prepping

For the first time in over a year I'm going to participate in Friday Night Sew In.  Joel's headed to the temple and I'm going to quilt.  It's the perfect motivation for me, because I have barely touched my sewing machine recently and I'm over a month behind on the Building Blocks Quilt Along. 

I marked all four blocks and layered them, so that I'm ready to go as soon as the kids are down to bed tonight.  I'm hoping to get 3 of them quilted tonight.

Swirly Skies

I finally got the sky quilted.  My only disappointment is that the thread doesn't read blue against this fabric.  It blends in with the gray of the temple.