Afternoon at the Beach

This week, I finished my "Afternoon at the Beach" flimsy:

That second row, the fish inside the storm at sea, is paper foundation pieced. I thought it was going to take me forever. I have a hard time wrapping my head around the backward-ness of paper piecing! After I finished that row, I decided to add a 1" sashing of the light turquoise between the storm at sea row and the sailboats row (which I see I need to trim up!), to help break up these two rows. I still need to tear out all the little paper pieces from this row, but that can be done as I'm watching tv.

If you're new here, you may not know that all four of these rows are patterns I got at different quilt shops through the Row by Row Experience. I've decided to only make a 4-row wallhanging, so it obviously won't be eligible for a RXR prize.

This quilt makes me smile. First, I love the bright colors and polka dots. Second, it reminds me of when my kiddos were younger, and my friends and I would bring all our kids to the lake for the day. We spent many fun summer days hanging out at the beach. Now that the kids are teenagers and in their early 20s, they'd rather hang out at the beach with their friends but without the moms!

I'm linking up to Judy's Design Wall at Patchwork Times.

Happy stitching!

Monday Design Wall

I've finished the 3rd row of my Row by Row Experience wall hanging. This pattern is courtesy of Stitchin' on State:

These adorable sailboats will actually be the top row of the quilt, with another row in between the sailboats and the sunbathers. Here it is with the two rows I finished last week:

I've started the last row, but it's taking me for.ev.er. It's machine pieced with paper foundations. Granted, it gives me nice sharp, accurate points, but it's so fussy with putting the fabric on, flip it over to sew, flip it back over for the next piece, etc. By the way, this last row is from Quilting Connection. It will eventually be a "storm at sea" row with little fish inside. Here is what a fish half-block looks like:

 That small polka-dotted triangle (the fish's tail) is 3/4" by 3/4" by 1". Here's the back:

Here's a pile of my 10 fish:

 Then I had to sew two fish together, swimming in opposite directions:

 Finally, I added four triangles, to set the fish on point:

That's about as far as I've gotten. I still need to make 16 paper-pieced sashing strips and 12 paper-pieced cornerstones. At least each of those only have 5 pieces of fabric, and none as tiny as those fish tails!

In other news, I've gotten 2 blocks made for my pixelated heart quilt, which I'm using as my current leader/ender project:

I'm linking up to Judy's Design Wall Monday.

Happy stitching!

Monday Design "Wall"*

*Since I don't have a design wall, my floor will have to do!

If you're a quilter in the USA or Canada, you are probably familiar with Row by Row Experience. It's a fun, free shop hop that extends through all 50 US states and many Canadian provinces. Each participating shop is giving away a pattern for a row (36" long) designed by someone who works at that shop. The shops cannot mail or email the patterns out, you have to actually visit them to get their pattern. There are prizes for quilters who bring in a finished quilt that includes at least 8 different shops' rows.

This year's theme for Row by Row Experience is water. I decided to play along, but I only want to make a wall hanging approximately 36 X 36". I didn't want to just go anywhere and get whatever rows were available, so I went to the RXR  Facebook pages to determine which shops to visit, then I collected four patterns to fit my "Afternoon at the Beach" theme.

Here are my first two rows sewn together. The top row is four sunbathing girls, courtesy of Material Girl Fabric Shop. I used three different shades of tan/brown for their skin. The girl on the far left is the lightest; her skin almost blends in with the sand in this photo. For the girl on the far right, the blue embroidery floss will be tied together to look like a string bikini. I'm not going to tie the floss until after I quilt this.

The seashell row is from Crazy Redhead Quilting. For both rows, I used Lite Steam-A-Seam 2. Since this will not see much use, just hanging on the wall, I decided to do fusible applique. My other two rows will be pieced.

I'm linking up to Judy's Design Wall Monday.

Happy stitching!