tagged hawaiian

This little quilt finally went off to its new home so I can post it here! The pattern is called "Tagged" so I'm calling mine "Tagged Hawaiian" since I used some of my Hawaii stash for the featured squares. The pattern is from the book Growing Up Modern by one of my very favorite quilting gurus, Allison Harris. Her gorgeous blog is Cluck, Cluck, Sew and I never miss it. I ordered her book shortly after it was published and this is the first thing I've tried from it.

The pattern was super, with great directions for cutting and assembly. Allison did all the thinking for me! Now I can't wait to try something else from the book.

I actually already had both the red and the aqua left over from other projects, and I had collected some single-color Hawaiian florals last summer. The binding is leftover from a friend's son's Bar Mitzvah quilt from a long time ago. (The Bar Mitzvah boy is now a Sophomore in college!) I just did some simple straight-line quilting.

I didn't know what I was going to put on the back, but can you believe this -- I actually already had this Japanese-Hawaiian print from my Hawaii shopping binge from two years ago. What a perfect match! And enough fabric that I didn't even have to piece the back.

This one went to a couple of friends, one of whom works with Bill, who are having their first baby any day now.

I got this picture from the soon-to-be mom after the shower. I hope the whole family likes the quilt as much as the cat does!

red and aqua life-savers

Here's a new quilt now hanging over the back of our couch. I previewed it in this W.I.P. post and now it's finished! It came together really quickly--just squares and half-square triangles.

I admired a design I saw on Red Pepper Quilts and I thought it would be perfect for the reds and aquas I've been hoarding collecting. Since I'm kind of late to the red/aqua party, not only did I have some nice prints in each of the colors, but I also found some where the fabric designer had put them together for me. That floral on the left is my favorite in the whole quilt.

I picked a couple of prints from the top for the back. I waffled about whether to use a blue or a red print for the binding, but in the end I liked all the prints so much, I decided to make a scrappy binding.

I stitched in the ditch around the blocks and then quilted the diagonals through the life-savers. I am so happy about how this one turned out!

The back of our couch is getting pretty crowded -- good thing I have some gifts and commissions coming up!