house numbers

all the houses are freshly painted and numbered

while some eager residents are already settling in

and discovering new neighbors

some are still adding last minute details

I hope they have a happy and comfortable living here. I envy that they can hop to the town to have a yummy Paris macaroon anytime they like but can also enjoy the green sorroundings all year round.

I have never seen a house with the number 'zero'. So I couldn't help assigning it to the tiny house of the bunch :)

The flower prints and yellow trees are from Far far away collection by Heather Ross. Maureen gave me this blue floral when we were visitng her in California. Suzuko Koseki's 'Sites of Paris' in light mint green is what inspired me with the theme. It has Moulin Rouge dancers, romantic postcards, Eiffel tower, fun text and fashion accessories.
 I thought Atelier Akiko's fabric in light blue is perfect for the sky. I love that it gives an illusion of delicate ribbons floating in the sky.. perfect for Paris, don't you think? ( ' u ' )

The houses and numbers which are focus of this quilt are from Ikea. When I spotted the House print on the shelves I instantly felt like making a LogCabin quilt with them as the center. But I had no idea what to to do with the number print but it looked too good to leave behind. I am glad they came together in this quilt. Each house has a unique number so that the postman would have no worries finding the right address.

These are the biggest blocks I have ever made. They are 14" square. By the time I finished making all the blocks I was also running out of fabrics. Now I only have small scraps of Suzuko fabric left :/

What are your plans for today? I will be working on putting these blocks together :)
Thank you for stopping by! Hope you have a Sunny morning!

sweet home

.. a sweet home to live, laugh, enjoy each other..

 nestled among wild roses under clear blue skies

sunshine, daisies and a curious owl near the window

a small shady patch of green grass in a corner of the garden to rest and dream...

Wish you and yours a very happy Thanksgiving full of love, laughter and sweet scents ( ' v ' )

wrap up and a new start

Thank you for your kind words and sweetest comments on the basket quilt. I am so grateful for the continuous support and sweetness of my old friends and warm welcome visits of new friends. Appreciate it all more than I can say! ( ' v ' )

There are miscellaneous blocks left. I hope you don't find it as a repetition after seeing the completed quilt :-\

All I want is to sing it song and singing..

These cherry lovers seem to be quite at home in my sugar and creamer set.

It is a happy day!

Yum! these nuts will last me all winter!

shoot the apple in 3 minutes!

(time is running out and I am too scared... help!)

 Now my new project is planning for a quiet and cozy neighborhood in the outskirts of Paris. 

Away from hustle of the city but still close enough to walk to a cafe' or take a friend along for a lazy day of sightseeing. So far it is only two houses, I will share more as the work is progressing.

Hope you are staying warm and toasty.. temps are certainly dipping! ( ' n ' )

Basket full of wishes

Hi, welcome to Lakumuki if it is your first time visiting here ( ' v ' )
It is exciting to be part of Blogger's quilt festival with my quilt "Basket full of wishes". It is a wedding present for a friend. I've been working on this quilt for almost a year and only just finished it.

 My idea was to fill the baskets with special treats for the bride and groom while creating a fun story around each basket block. I hope this quilt will bring lots of smiles and happiness to the newly married couple.

After piecing the basket blocks, I added layers of little pieces to them using Machine Appliqué technique. I took my time to play around with various arrangements for each basket. Often times when I felt a basket is missing something, I put it aside and moved on to the next block. Later I would come across a cute mouse or a curious bug lurking among the fabrics and I would go back to fill those gaps. It's been a slow process but a very satisfying one.

I posted a tutorial here detailing the steps I followed. It is really fun and easy to do if you like to try :)

When putting the quilt top together, I alternated the baskets with a plain block and arranged them in a diagonal setting. The white space surrounding the baskets was like a blank canvas inviting me to add little flowers, flying birds, hearts, music notes, colorful balloons.. anything I could think of to make the quilt more cheerful and lively. I had lot of fun thinking about what kind of text to add next to the critters to give them unique personalities.

There are 42 baskets in this quilt each one telling a story of its own. If you like to take a closer look at individual baskets, please visit my Flickr or earlier blog posts here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, borders.

The quilt was too big to machine quilt at home, so I contemplated hand quilting it. But I couldn't wait too long to finish it as this quilt has been eagerly waiting to go to it's new home. Then I came to know about Emily @ Emerson quilting through Tamiko's blog. Emily did an amazing job with the quilt and finished it in a very short time!

I suggested simple crisscrossing lines with soft curves to give it a feeling of sweet dream or a soft breeze. I also requested for a batting with thin loft. Emily quilted around the appliqué pieces to make them more noticeable. It looks very organic and clean like I was envisioning. Emily is incredibly creative and dedicated. I am so thankful to her for the efforts and thought she has put into this quilt. She shares a sampling of her gorgeous work on her blog.

For binding, I picked this cute Minny muu print by Lecien. It has tiny mice scampering around with cheese! I love that this shade of green gives a freshness to the quilt and also ties in with the theme of treats!

And for the backing I felt this bold and whimsical yellow print provides a good contrast to the delicateness of the front while adding some weight to the sea of white in the quilt.

I chose fabrics from Apple Pie collection by Sandy Klop for the baskets and backing, as my friend loves bright sunshiny colors. They suit her perfectly! It is an older collection by Moda from four years ago.

Quilt Festival stats:

Quilt size is 93" * 108"
Special Techniques used: Machine appliqué
Quilted by Emily Sessions

We took these pictures at Arnold Arboretum in Boston like most of my other quilt pictures. It is a breathtakingly beautiful landscape to visit if you are ever in town ( * u * )

Thank you so much for taking the time to look at my quilt! I enjoyed going back in time to share my experience of making of this quilt with you.
Also a huge Thank you to Amy for this wonderful opportunity to see so many beautiful quilts!!

Have a great weekend!

basket full of wishes - borders

I hope you had a gorgeous fall weekend! After a week of rain and clouds, weather was perfect here, so we went for a walk along Charles River to soak in the colors. I also made this Pumpkin Stew after a long time. I guess shades of yellows and oranges sum up our weekend!

I finished putting binding on the Basket quilt and we took some pictures in the Arboretum. I have few miscellaneous blocks left to share with you but for a change I will show you borders today ( ' v ' )

I planned two borders for the quilt. A pieced inner border of triangles to echo the shapes in the basket and a plain border on the outside to create more happy scenes with appliqué. 

  

I prepared a template which is slightly smaller than the triangles I used in Basket handles. This template also helped me in fussy cutting interesting prints for this border. There are Chocolate wrappers, small baskets, kitchen objects, fruits & veggies, cute bunnies, text prints,  flowers and polka dots. It will be fun for our friends to discover something new every time they look at the quilt.

I wasn't too worried about this border not being a perfect fit in the corners as I was going to mask any irregularities with appliqué pieces like you see in this above picture. I covered a misfit triangle with these mushrooms ;)

 I had to stitch the applique' pieces by hand as it proved difficult to turn the quilt top freely to machine appliqué them. But I was careful to press the pieces on a fusible before attaching them to the border to avoid any fraying later.

( a French chef ready to prepare Sunday brunch & Ironing on a Friday )

This is a funny scene I added on the top. Wife is getting ready to go for shopping with her friends and is in her dreamy world oblivious to her husband cleaning the house. Husband is not very happy about it but on the outside he is praising his wife on looking so pretty! ( I have this dreamy feeling too when I go for fabric shopping. And I get the same expression from Kalyan like this guy here ;)

Like this "Spoon & Fork", and "Cup & Saucer" our friends are made for each other and are so perfect together!! We wish them all the happiness in the world!

There are few more scenes in this border but I didn't take good close-up shots of them. I hope they will show up well when I post pictures of the whole quilt next week.
Enjoy a lovely evening! ( " v " )

basket full of wishes - part 5

Being a Chocolate lover it was like a dream to plan for these Chocolate baskets. I wish I could fill the whole quilt with them. These cute candy makers have been working hard to come up with delicate creamy confections. They are all neatly wrapped and tied in pretty bows, ready for our enjoyment.

Please come in for a cup of hot-chocolate and some serious Chocolate tasting ( ' v ' )

I thought we could indulge in some knitting too as winter is approaching and new woolens to wear would be nice :)

My friend's mom used to knit beautiful sweaters for everyone in the family. 

She loved this block as they have many fond memories of their mom knitting for them, probably with a basket just like this sitting next to her.

mm... Truffles! Almond coconut, Honey Hazelnut, Chocolate Rasberry, Tangerine rose.. 

pick your favorite :)

Not a happy sight for this poor chef! Chocolate attracts naughty kids & puppies and even a trail of hungry ants..

Love is in the air!

Boy : on a date today? 

Girl: I am your fan!

Both the bride and groom adore Chocolate as much as I do. I imagined their secret wish must be sitting in this Chocolate heaven enjoying until the last bite disappears into their tummy! :)

Have a sweet day!!! 

basket full of wishes - part 4

For some of the basket blocks, I wanted to convey the feelings and moods of changing seasons... bird songs in spring, colorful flowers of summer, pink leaves of autumn and floating snow flakes of winter.. I hope you will enjoy catching a glimpse of all four seasons at once ( : v :)

We love sitting in our nest and singing songs!  

 Welcome to spring!

Sunday mornings are so relaxing!

I live in this teal colored shed. I have my own spade to grow flowers & mushrooms.

Hanging clothes in the sun

We can hang rest of the clothes later. Let's watch balloons.. 

 Uh-Oh! looks like this owl is in trouble!

Mrs. March is popular for her Jams. Don't forget to take a Jar with you :)

 I have to hurry home to taste Mrs.March's Jam with my morning toast..

 play with me... it is so much fun jumping on this pile of leaves..

Good wishes for a Merry Christmas and Happy New year!

Thank you for taking time to scroll through this post loaded with pictures.
I hope it brought back memories of your favorite season :)

London bag

It is hard to believe London Olympics are over already! These past 16 days have been unforgettable. In the event of these games coming to a close, I thought I’d share this London bag I made for a friend.

Earlier this year I had a request from my friend for a bag that she can take to work. It had to have lots of space for her files and pockets for everyday items that she carries.

First thing that came to my mind was “A day in the park Backpack tote” pattern by Liesl Gibson that I stowed away somewhere about 2 years ago. I have wanted to try this pattern very badly but was also quite nervous at attempting a bag with so many details.

I only made one or two simple totes before and wasn’t sure if I could do it. But finally I am glad I had this push!

I really didn’t had to fear that much…the instructions were very well written and walk you through each step carefully.

 (zipper pocket is on the other side)

The original bag size was a bit small for my friend’s files to fit finishing at 12” wide and 2” deep. So I made some changes by adding a couple of inches to the width and to the side panels. I also increased the height of the outside pocket for more storage.

The feature that attracted me most about this pattern is the convenience to turn it into either a backpack or a tote and I even got the hardware for it. But my friend is not into Backpacks and only wanted a shoulder bag. So I omitted those details.

I got these fabrics at SuperBuzzy. The linen dotted fabric on the outside is actually reversible. I used the cross-stitch print which is on the reverse side for the handles and for lining the outside pocket. Handles are cream colored cotton webbing. I stitched fabric on one-side to make it match well with rest of the bag.

By the way, SuperBuzzy's Birthday is approaching this month. So there is a huge sale going on right now. If you’ve had your eye on any special fabrics, maybe it is a good time to take a peek ( * V * )

While we were in California last month, we visited this super cute shop in Ventura. It has been my most favorite online shop for a long long time and I was so happy when I heard that Kelly was opening a retail store last year. Kelly was so amazing in person and so warm and wonderful! It was a great pleasure to meet her. She was busy as a bee on the day we visited but was always smiling and helping us. Thank you so much Kelly for such a memorable time in Ventura!! Happy Happy celebrations on SuperBuzzy’s Birthday!!!

Some adorable fabrics I got at Superbuzzy...

TP collection         Happy Smile       Party planet        Toothpaste Kokka

The teddy bears are so cute with rolling eyes and wearing polka dot Bandannas, I couldn't resist them!

In the Happy smile farbric, do you see someone not very happy? I feel like giving her a lollipop and making her smile too! I love the outfits these sweet kids are in!

These kitties were looking so fragile and needed some attention (that's my excuse for getting this glittered fabric  ;) It is a heavy weight fabric perfect for making accessories.

This Toothpaste fabric is just awesome! Kelly said she is planning to make a dress for herself with this fabric.  How cool is that!!!

I hope the 'Happy Smile ' fabric made you smile too! Keep smiling and enjoy your day ( : u : )