A Little Catching Up

January 22, 2019

Its been a little while since I blogged about anything, so I thought I should probably catch you all up a little bit.

I’ve been working on the Good Fortune mystery quilt from Bonnie Hunter for the last several weeks, pretty much exclusively. I went through many different border ideas because I wasn’t crazy about how my color choices played out in the border that was originally designed. It was all just a little too “Go Vikings!” for my taste. No matter what, every time I looked at that overwhelming purple and gold it just screamed football to me and that is just not what I was going for.

So then I tried this.

That seemed a bit much, so then I thought about this.

But that seemed too washed out. So I settled on this for that round of the border.

Then came the final outer border. I just pieced together a bunch of neutrals. My plan was to have neutral squares for the corners, but of course, once I looked at that, it seemed a bit blah. So… on to trying to figure out what to do with the corners.

These are just some of the options I considered, but ultimately, this is where I landed with it.

This is what the corner blocks look like all layed out together. I think this might make a really interesting block to do sometime as a quilt unto itself.

So the Good Fortune Top is officially finished. Measuring in at about 82 inches square, this is the biggest quilt I have ever made. I will be looking for someone to long arm this for me as this is way too big for me to tackle on my own. I don’t even have a place big enough in my house to lay it out on the floor to sandwich it, LOL. I’m excited that it will be big enough to use on my queen size bed, though. Even if the colors don’t match the room at all.

So there you have it, that’s the majority of what I’ve been working on for the last several weeks. I have one other smaller finish that I will share soon as well, but this is enough for today.

Christmas is over so I can finally share these...

December 27, 2018

In an effort to have everything done way ahead of time for Christmas this year, I have had these little gifts finished since about mid October.

I knitted this little sweater from a free pattern on Ravelry for my niece’s little boy. I added a couple of inches to the length because it just seemed a little short. Extra length will come in handy with a growing 2.5 year old anyway. The pattern was really pretty easy to follow, but if I were to make another of these, I would probably do the placket in the front slightly differently. It was really hard to match those stripes up, and I didn’t get them matched all that well, but it is what it is. I adore this peacock blue color and these jewel tones together. It feels so thick and soft and cozy. It knitted up in a hurry since it was super bulky weight yarn.

I have niece and a great niece who are literally 20 days apart in age, so it comes in handy when sewing for them. I can just sort of draft one thing and then make two of them with some slight variations. More variations were needed for Christmas sewing since one lives in a northern climate and the other livers in a southern climate. I drafted the tops for these myself. Just a basic high yoke bodice with a gathered lower portion. Instead of gathering, I decided to use smocking to add some embellishment and detail. The bottoms are both made from the Bella Sunshine Designs Rose Bubble Shorts Pattern. I LOVE this little pattern. I hacked it into long pants for the one who lives up here in the cold north. The long set top is made from flannel and the pants are a small wale corduroy.

The short set is made from a sweet pink quilting cotton that has been hoarded in my stash for way too long.

I’m so glad to finally be able to share these little sets. The smocking was fun to do, but I have to take it in smaller doses than I used to, my eyes are getting too old for marathon embroidery sessions any more.

Good Fortune Udate

December 24, 2018

Just a quick update on the Quiltville Mystery. Here is my clue number 5 for this week. As I said before, I swapped out blue for purple and orange for yellow. These look a little “Minnesota Vikings”-ish. But I’m sure once they are in the quilt they will look fine. I have to talk about how great the Easy Angle and Companion Angle rulers are! I never thought I needed specialty rulers until I tried these, but they are fantastic! These little blocks turned out exactly on size without any trimming or fuss. I will have to go into more detail at a later date on how to use them for those who haven’t tried them yet. And a BIG thank you to my husband for going and braving Joann’s on the last Saturday before Christmas to find one of these rulers for me while I was at work. Thanks, Love!

And with that, I wish you all a very Merry Christmas, Kwanzaa, Solstice, Yuletide, or simply a great week! May it be filled with goodness, love and light.

I've Been Through the Desert on a Quilt With No Name

December 20, 2018

“It felt good to be out of the rain…” Oh sorry… Anyway.

i’ve been working on this fun little number lately. I had several half square triangle (HST) units and four patch units left over from previous projects, so one night I just started throwing them up on my design wall and this is what emerged. I started sewing the smaller HST’s into four patch units yesterday and I realized this morning that I have a few of the four patches turned the wrong direction, so I will have to fix that. I’m trying to decide on a name for it, but I’m coming up blank. I thought about calling it “Throwing Up Leftovers”, but, you know, that didn’t seem like the best name for a quilt, LOL. Anyone have any ideas? Because, clearly I’m out of them, LOL.

Good Fortune - Quiltville's Mystery for this year

December 19, 2018

My last post talked about last year’s mystery quilt from Bonnie Hunter. I’m also participating this year and as of right now we are four clues in. I changed up the color palette a little from Bonnie’s original color scheme. Her original colors were red, jade green, blue and orange along with neutrals in whites and creams. I changed the jade green to lime green, the blue to purple and the orange to yellow. Hoping it all goes together ok. I wanted mine to be just a little different than the thousands of others that will be out there at the end of the mystery. Here is a rundown of all of the clues so far. I can’t give sizes or piece counts, but I can show you pictures of what I have made.

More Mysteries and Quilting

December 18, 2018

If you follow much quilting at all on on the internet, you will be familiar with Bonnie Hunter and her Quiltville blog. Every year for the past 9 years, Bonnie has hosted a mystery quilt during the Holiday season. Every week, beginning with Black Friday, she posts a new clue and all of the instructions on how to complete it. I participated last year for the first time and I have to say that I am now hooked. It was a TON of little pieces and the quilt was BIG, at least for me. I don’t usually make them any bigger than a large lap size, maybe a twin size if i’m feeling ambitious. This thing was nearly a full size, so it was a real stretch for me. It almost fits our queen bed, if it had just a little more drop to the sides, we could use it for our bed quilt.

I wound up sending it to a long arm quilter to complete the quilting, which was another first for me. I just didn’t want to wrangle that huge thing on my machine and risk messing up the quilting after so much work putting it together. I chose to have it quilted with flowers and dragonflies by Missouri Star Quilt Company. The price was reasonable and it turned out much better than it would have if I had tried to quit it myself. All in all I am really pleased with how it turned out.

Miss Aeris seems to have given it her approval, too and that is so VERY important.

Of Mysteries and Quilting

December 17, 2018

A couple of months ago I joined a group on Facebook called Mystery Quilts Anonymous. This group does back to back mystery quilts. This goes on, basically, year round. You can jump in at any time and participate. These are really fun mysteries and usually the clues are pretty simple and pretty doable in the given amount of time. The patterns are put together by a really sweet lady named Debi Montgomery who lives in New Zealand.

The first one that I decided to participate in was back in late October into early November. It was called “Snowflake Splendor”. I chose a silvery blue-gray fabric with snowflakes on it and a glittery white that reminded me of fresh snow in the sunlight.

I really enjoyed putting it together and here is the final result. It is still just in “flimsy” form and needs to be sandwiched and quilted, but all in good time.

Hello!

December 17, 2018

Hello and welcome to my new blog! If you have been following MCM Studio Designs on Facebook for the last few years, you will know that I’m currently on hiatus from designing new patterns. There have been quite a few significant changes in my life in the last couple of years. They have been changes that have caused me to need to take a step back from a few things and to re-evaluate what my new “normal” should be. That has meant taking a break from the world of pattern designing and the pressures that go along with it.

That being said, it doesn’t mean that I have taken a creative break. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. I’ve been finding more time to explore new ideas and to revisit areas of creativity that have been neglected for far too long. I’ve found a lot of freedom in stepping away from the rat race and embracing some real “me” time.

Along with garment sewing and my passion for all things “little girly”, I also have a love for quilting. This has been my most recent indulgence. I may eventually put some of those ideas into pattern form, or I may not. I’m totally going with how I feel as far as that goes.

I’ve decided to set up this blog so that I can share the things that I have been working on and what new ideas may arise. There will probably be no real rhyme or reason to how often or what things I will post. I just like to share what I’m working on and I hope that there are those who will enjoy reading about and seeing those things.