Phew. Did you have a good long weekend? I did, I spent some quality time with my sewing machine for the first time since returning from the craziness of Quilt Market. It felt good to get back in the swing of things, but I still feel like I have a mountain of commitments to climb, and I'm still having a rough time finding my groove. For the moment, though, I'm going to be happy about what I've gotten done so far!

My New York Beauty Mini
I officially shipped off my NY Beauty swap mini to my partner this morning, after finishing off the binding in the parking lot of the post office this morning. I had a really hard time deciding how to quilt this mini after I finished off the piecing, and got a last minute strike of inspiration last night, to work toward accenting the spikes of each block. I did a whirlwind style of FMQ in the negative space between the spikes, then a swirly sun surrounded by a super tight stipple in the remaining negative space.  I'm really happy with how it turned out, though I was a little unsure as I was stitching last night. I thought perhaps I was going overboard, but then again, I really enjoy densely quilted quilts. This mini was a lot of fun to work on, and I really love the way the DS Hope Valley Canyon Stripe the mini. Working with these Oakshott shot cottons was so much fun! It was hard to ship this little mini off today!




Precious QAL Pillow
My sewing space was definitely in need of a good pillow, and Kelly's QAL was the perfect motivation to pull some treasured fabrics together for a fab pillow. I used Tamiko's great square-in-a-square pattern and added a fun black Alexander Henry pin dot to border the pillow.




I've got a zillion other things I'm working on, including posts for the EZ Dresden Challenge, the Bella Parade, Purse-Palooza, and the Zakka Sew Along. Hopefully next week I'll be able to snap some photos to share on those projects, too. What are you working on this week? I'm linking up with WiP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced, as always :)