kin-cha-ku making

Summer, is here! We've experienced a couple days of summer heat here in the city.  As I sat in the workroom and have had the windows open last few weeks. I could hear neighbors' a/c have been running most of the days.  I was debating if I should turn on ours? I waited till yesterday when the workroom turned into a sweat shop and lightly headache from the summer heat came down on me,  the apartment temperature was reached 88 degrees by 10a.m. !  I had moved myself to the kitchen where is cooler and kept water bottles near by...  Oh.. Today is a much better day; few hours of summer shower that cool off the roof top and the roads, lightly summer breeze comes into  the workroom windows as I am writing the post.

Yesterday, I managed to pieced and hand-quilted this custom {kin-cha-ku} and finished up this morning. It is always really fun to custom patchwork pieces for someone. This is first time, that I was requested for darker, dirt a like, and browns colors. It definitely is different from other requests.

I've always pull fabrics out as the request came in, so I hold on good ideas on the colors as I dig through fabrics boxes. The next morning before getting fabrics cut, I would work on prints around each other and do more adding and subtracting prints. It works out really well for getting fabric pulls.

Within this kin-cha-ku, I mainly used Suzuko Koseki fabrics for the bag and accompanied some versatile prints from the years of collecting. These colors are rich and versatile from each other. I break down from all the dark and brown prints by using some light colors to give some contrast in between. I particularly love how the tiny hand-quilting stitches could vivid being seen from darker prints.

This kin-cha-ku is being wrapped among with other handmade pieces and ready to be post this week. I used the tiny scraps and made a greeting card to go along with the outgoing post, so it might bring up smiles to the person.

Pattern: Kin-Cha-Ku 
Quilting: Hand-quilting tutorial 

I worked on {this quilt} over the weekend. It is being basted and ready for quilting. Just need to find a raining day to work on the quilting and a good audio book to accompany me. Soon, I will be able share this quilt with you and why it waited almost three years to finish up as  supposed have it done three years ago.

Do you have any sewing projects line up for the summer days? I have a list of quilts that would like finish up before starting a new quilt, very attempting for making new quilts.

more later...

xxc