My Sewing and Quilting Adventures

Its been an awesome quilty day for me today :-). First I saw this beautiful pincushion all the way from Norway in the mail from Anita@ Quilt in a not-shell Cute little it pin cushion - from Anita in Norway! My husband was like you got a mail from Norway. You could see a big smile beaming on my face :-). It was pretty special! Handmade things always stay close to my heart. Isn't that label with the kitty so cute too! Couple of hours later I got an email from Adrianne @  On the Windy Side that I won 2nd prize on the "2014 Pantone Quilt Challenge - Radiant Orchid" for "Quilt top" category. Isn't that awesome! StarBurst Quilt Top - 2nd prize in the quilt top category I might change the name by the time this quilt is done though ;). This has been my favorite quilty day ever! Happy Quilting All! Hema (a.k.a Malini) P.S: I promise next time you hear from me about this quilt, the quilt will be all finished with binding ;). 

Wow! just when I thought my fabric buying was under control this happened. With so many wonderful fabrics lines coming out every day, I just couldn't resist these buys at the wonderful Bits N Pieces , Liz @Bits N Pieces had some awesome sales which I couldn't resist. First comes my most favorite fabrics right now, Sphere by Zen Chic: Moda Sphere by Zen Chic Next is April Showers by Bonnie and Camille, I wasn't planning to buy these but when I saw these at the store just couldn't resis: April Showers Last but not least is my another favorite - Hello Petal by Aneela Hoey, looks this is going to be year of purples: Hello Petal  Now linking up to Lindsey's Fabric Frenzy Friday@Fort Worth Fabric Studio  and Marlize's Anything Goes Monday@Stitch by Stitch blog. Happy Quilting! Hema (a.k.a Malini)

My quilt top entry for 2014 Pantone Quilt Challenge is my Star Burst Quilt Pattern. I was hoping to finish the binding for the challenge but lately its become very hard to find time for sewing. Here are pictures of my quilt top: Star Burst Quilt Top - Take in February Star Burst Quilt Front - showing the outline quilting Star Burst Quilt Back - Hello Petal kids playing fabric Quilt Statistics: Dimensions: 48 x 64 inches Fabrics for the front: - different shades of Kona Cotton purples/violets including Orchid Backing fabric: - Hello Petal Background fabric: - Kona Cotton (Light to Dark) - Silver, Ash, Iron, Medium Gray, Steel, Coal, Charcoal and Pepper Thread: Sulky 40wt thread for front and King tut variegated thread Category: Just the Top Now entering into the "Just the Top" category of Radiant Orchid 2014 Pantone Quilt Challenge

Last Sunday finally I got the outline quilting done for my Star Quilt. Just outline quilting using ruler on long arm Love the cross block Hello Petal Kids playing on the back I still feel these stars need little bit of pop. Hmmm... something is missing.  May be I might add a border. I just can't let anything go.....I right I feel like Bob Ross(Create Channel on PBS) ;). Do you think  border would give a pop to the stars? Before you go a sneak peak of my recently acquired stash, Moda's Hello Petal FQs from Bits N Pieces . Now I know why they call "March Madness"... Hello Petal by Aneela Hoey Aneela Hoey on her blog has tons of great pictures of the fabrics and projects made from Hello Petal. I just love everything she designs. Come back later to see more of recent buys ;). Why bother to take any fabric resolution ;) Linking up to Lee's Freshly Pieced blog.

This past Monday I went for Paint Nite with my friend Bala. She is an amazing artist and you can check out her facebook page: Bala's Kalai Oviyam . It was girls night out after a long long time and we had lot of fun. Here are some pictures: Paint Nite - Japanese Cherry Blossom Bala Painting Hema Painting Showing off our paintings together :-): Bala(left), Hema(right) I see more painting in the future :-) Linking up to Marilize's Stitch By Stitch blog. Happy Painting! Hema (a.k.a Malini)

I have to admit setting aside 30 minutes of sewing time every day for ourselves seems so hard. I did have some starting trouble but once I setup by machine for free motion quilting I was able to spend anywhere from 30mins to an hour each day. Groovy quilt - 80 x 80 inches As soon as I started quilting this Groovy quilt, the flash back on why it went into the  UFO was fresh in my mind. I know once this quilt is done I would absolutely love it. But my choices for this quilt made it a beast for my DSM with small throat space: 1. the size 80x 80 2. FMQ different designs for each color and pretty dense actually. 3. Wool batting 4. Trying to be perfect, but I did give up on this This is what I have got done so far after a total of 4 to 5 hours of quilting. So, you can imagine why I call this quilt a beast. Quilting on the Pink blocks - this one had some hiccups since I was quilting this after a while Quilting on the Pink blocks - this one did come close to what I had in mi

I am really excited to get this far. This quilt has been the longest time I quilted on the long arm. 3 trips to Bits N Pieces , each consisting of 3~ hours at a time. So total of 9 to 10 hours of quilting. Lot of firsts in this quilt. The quilting is 1/2inch apart and I used the rulers for all the colored area in the quilt except for light blue block which I quilted at home on the HSM/DSM. For the white background, I just winged it and did free motion quilting square spirals design. It just seemed easier to do that in the beginner before getting comfortable with the long-arm ruler and its faster too ;). Here are some pictures of the quilt. Textured Solid Quilt - thinking of renaming to "Color Splash" The original quilt pattern from Quilting Modern book was called " Shattered " and Jacquie mentioned that she was upset about an incident and wanted to create a quilt. Whereas my inspiration of this quilt was on a happy note. Hence, naming it as "C

I welcome you all to Day1 of Think Ruffles blog hop organized by amazing Mdm Sam @ SewWeQuilt and our amazing cheer leader Amy @ SewIncrediblyCrazy blog. I wanted to thank both Mdm Sam and Amy for this wonderful blog hop. Now peak at my project, a ruffled pillow with zipper. I have been wanting to make ruffles for a while and had one particular pillow in mind, V & Co's white ruffle pillow . I made mine with white Kona Cotton. The strips for the ruffles are 1.5inches. The finished pillow cover is 12"x18". Kona Honey Buns - 1.5inch strips My Little Quilty Model Oh..Ruffles...Ruffles... This time around I even got to add a zipper. Yay for me! I saw this video on zipper and it just made it so much more simpler to add a zipper to any project.   Invisible Zipper Ruffles posing for camera Oh My, these ruffles are addictive Do you see the snow outside the window? Ruffles smiling for the camera - isn't that too bright ;) ? Th

February is a very sad month for me. Life always happens and my quilting stuff comes to a halt. But I did manage to start and almost get done this Riley Blake Designs(RBD) challenge by MQG. We were given 5 different basics from RBD and I choose to use just the blues and yellows. Here is my mini quilt approximately 24 x 36 inches. Riley Blake Challenge quilt I always get stuck with big projects and elaborate quilting. I just wanted to keep my quilting really simple and used my walking foot and one of the wavy or curly designs from my sewing machine. These really look like clouds. I think I will be exploring more of designs on my machine using walking foot. Once in a while, its nice to take a break from free-motion quilting. Now linking up to NewFO Challenge at CatPatches.

My longest UFO is the quilt I made for myself in Fall of 2012 which is still incomplete after almost 1.5 years. I think my worry point was that I had already spent 15hours of quilting and didn't get much done. Looking back how many more hours of quilting I had to put in this quilt, this went into my UFO bucket. Here is a post from a year ago when I did some feathers on this. I still have lot of quilting to be done, I think about 6 colors I completed one color(orange) and 1 is almost there(gray). Some FMQ feathers on the boyensberry color like the one below: So, my groovy quilt is going to wake-up from my UFO and get done this month. I am hoping to spend 30mins at least each day on this until this 80x80 inches quilt top is done. Linking up to Berry Barn Designs for 30/30 sewing challenge- week1 .