WIP Wednesday and Why I Don't Like It

Oh, it's not WIP Wednesday I don't like.  It's this quilt, the April project for Jelly Roll Party:

And again, it's not this quilt design I don't like.  Or the fabric I don't like.

It's the combination of this pattern and this fabric.

The pattern is "Garden Paths" by Amanda Murphy.  The sample quilt is made with Amanda's "Veranda" collection for Robert Kaufman.  It is a lovely collection of multi-colored floral and citrus-y prints.  I am using a new line from Moda, Sakura Park by Sentimental Studios.

(photo lifted from Suzzett's Fabric)

I chose this fabric because "Veranda" is no longer available, and I think it's important to make shop samples from fabric that is available at our host shop, Ruth's Stitchery.

Here is the photo of the original sample quilt:

(from Amanda's blog)

As you can see, the original fabric has a wide variety of colors and prints.  Sakura basically has three colors, pink, blue and green.  I chose the pink tone-on-tone as my accent color.  It is turning out to be a really, really PINK quilt.

Plus, once again, a photo highlights a piecing mistake I made:  twice, I have the same green prints adjacent to each other.

Linking up to WIP Wednesday, the QuiltCon edition, at Freshly Pieced.

    

Sigh.  I have to finish this sample, but I do have a "Veranda" jelly roll.  "Someday" I will make the quilt again using Amanda's fabric!

From the desk of your

Monday Monday!

It's a holiday -- no mail in the US today while we celebrate the namesake of My Little Sailor's ship, the USS George Washington!

The Front Range Modern Quilt Guild celebrated its second "birthday" on Saturday.  What a bash!  Prezzies for all, cake, the Madrona Road Challenge pillow exchange -- too much fun!

Michael Miller company graciously provided fabric packs of the blue colorway of "Madrona Road" by Violet Cross to hundreds of modern quilters for this challenge.  I think every guild member who received fabric made a pillow:

Here is the pillow I made for friend Kari:

See how much I love you, Kari, I paper-pieced this block!  It's from Nancy Mahoney's "Kaleidoscope Quilts."  I even did some hand-quilting around the white triangles (sadly not visible in this photo.  The light in our meeting place is bad bad bad!).

You might not know, but the pillows Kari made were selected from dozens of entries to be displayed at Michael Miller's booth at QuiltCon in Austin, Texas this week.  Well done, Kari!


Just look at the pillow Angela made for me!  She really went above and beyond to make it special,  surveying my friends as to what I like:  "Marti doesn't like blue" (oh, no, the fabric is blue, what will I do?)"  "Marti talks ALL the time about Her Little Sailor.  (I know he's on an aircraft carrier.  In the Western Pacific.)

Angela printed out a photo of Jacob's ship and traced it to cut out the ship's profile from the text print.  In the lower right hand corner, the text reads "Prince of the Pacific Northwest."  What she didn't know is, My Little Sailor was born in Tacoma, Washington -- he is truly a Prince of the Pacific Northwest!"

She fashioned a lighthouse from the herringbone print, and fussy cut a flower to form the light.  She then quilted yellow "light rays" emanating from the light.  And "waves" on the blue "water."  She even stitched the ship's CVN number, "73" on the "island" of the ship!

I should have taken a photo of the back -- she attached a metal snap to close the cover.  Clever, huh?

I gotta tell you, when she presented it to me . . . well, let's just say Mary Kay waterproof mascara really IS waterproof!  Thank you, Angela, I will treasure it!

Let's take one more look at all 26 pillows.  A couple of people purchased fabrics from the orange/pink colorway to match the wishes of the recipient.  And every single pillow is incredible!

What a display!

So how's your February UFO coming along?  I've only received a few entries for the parade, so this is your official "nag nag nag" statement!

From the desk of your