Completed King Size Quilt

This past week I finished up the binding and hand quilting on my king size quilt. I was hoping to be able to take photos outside but I need helpers, dry weather, and good light all at the same time to make that happen, and that might not be possible for a while. So for now, here are photos of it inside.

I had to look at photos of the finished quilt top to remember which way I had decided was the top.

The quilt consists of 16 improvised log cabin blocks that are near 16" square. I used flea market fancy fabrics and other fabrics that coordinated with the FMF. The fabric used for the sashing and borders is Moda crossweave. 

I machine quilted the quilt on my Janome QC 4900. There are a few pops of hand quilting too. The main trick for machine quilting this quilt (around 96" x 104") is to not put all the batting in at first.

*For my first chunk of quilting on this quilt, I pin basted a piece of batting that was as wide as the two center rows of blocks, plus about 4 inches on each side. Depending on the design of the quilt, it would be good to try to divide the quilt into thirds and put the middle 1/3 of batting in to begin with.
*Then I machine quilted that section, leaving the 4 inches on each side, and the borders, unquilted.
*Next I attached batting to one of the sides, pin basted the batting in, and quilted it. (But not the borders.) This tutorial of mine shows how my grandma taught me to piece batting and that's how I attached the batting during this process.
*Then I attached the batting to the other side and quilted the blocks and sashing on the other side.
*The final step was quilting the whole border, which wasn't really difficult at all because I didn't have much quilt to the right of my sewing machine needle.

Here are a few close-ups:

I quilted feathers with echo stitching in the sashing and borders. In the borders, the space around the feathers is quilted with small loopy quilting. I thought about doing something fancier, but decided to make it easy on myself at that point.

I like the pink/blue/gray color scheme of this block.

 

I quilted this block after I learned to do the clamshell/paisley quilting design.

 

The feathers and the flowers I put in the feather intersections show up pretty well here.

 

This one has a lot of texture, plus it shows one of the little hand quilted spots in the quilt.

The back of the quilt:

 

Mostly kona solid fabrics, with a couple of extra blocks. We can reverse it if we get tired of the front, I suppose.

A closer view of the little block in the center of the back: 

 

I'm really happy to have this project completed and on my bed! I'm not sure I'll make another quilt this big for quite a while, but I'm glad I made this one and I feel like I learned a lot along the way. 

Other blog posts about this project:

http://www.sewinspiredblog.com/2011/05/blocks-flea-market-fancy-improv.html

http://www.sewinspiredblog.com/2011/05/improv-block-progress.html

http://www.sewinspiredblog.com/2011/06/last-3-blocks.html

http://www.sewinspiredblog.com/2011/06/king-size-quilt-top-finished.html

http://www.sewinspiredblog.com/2013/01/machine-quilting-king-size-quilt.html

Machine Quilting a King Size Quilt

The last couple weeks I've been pushing hard to finish up my king size quilt. I made the quilt top in the spring of 2011 as part of a Naked Bed Challenge on twitter. I got the quilt backing made soon after we moved into the house here in Washington, at the end of 2012. (I don't think I've taken a picture of the back yet, though.) I started the machine quilting at that time too, but lost steam on it and put it away for a while. Then, I was getting all gung ho and ready to finish it up around the end of June, right before I hurt my finger and had to take an extended break from sewing.

So anyway, finishing the quilt is on my sewing list for January, and I'm getting really close! I've been taking photos and posting them to instagram as I go; if you are on instagram and want to follow me, my username is VickiDJL. Here's a recap of the last few days of work:

Quilting a feather in the sashing. 

 

Ironing the quilt back to prepare for adding in the last section of batting. I lowered my ironing board to about 18" tall to do this. It was silly. I'll explain how I did the batting more completely when I blog about the finished quilt.

  

Quilt all rolled up while I was quilting the last section of quilt blocks (the green mug is my thread stand):

  

Center section all quilted, borders still need to be quilted: 

  

Reverse view of some of the quilting. The big feather at the bottom is part of the border: 

  

More of what the border quilting looks like, from the back: 

 

The border fabric on the front and thread are both gray and the quilting doesn't show up well, especially in the evening after the sun has gone down. So I flipped over the border for this picture, and then had a dancing girl who wanted to be in the photo too. If you look closely, you can see the loopy quilting I'm doing as filler around the big border feather. 

I have all the border feathers finished, and just need to finish adding in loopy filler quilting on two more sides of the quilt, and then the machine quilting will be done. There are a few more sections of hand quilting to do, then binding and labeling, and then it will be completed!

New Year Sewing

I've been busy sewing the last couple weeks.

I finished this mini heart hexagon quilt:

 

This is going to be sent to the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative. I'm planning to make a couple more quilts for them in the next few weeks and then send them all in together. If you haven't made a quilt for AAQI yet, think about it. They sell/auction mini quilts to raise awareness and to fund Alzheimer's research, and they accept quilts no larger than 9" x 12" so it's not really a big commitment to make a quilt and help them out.

****

I already finished my do good stitches blocks for January. Crazy, huh?

 These chevron blocks were made using the herringbone block tutorial from Bijou Lovely.

A couple of other small things:

 

My little girl helped me make this skirt for her doll, Molly. (She pushed the foot pedal on the sewing machine.) I have "1 or 2 doll clothes items" on my January to-sew list and this was fun and quick to make. 

 

And we had been needing a new ironing board cover for a while. I got the fabric at Ikea a couple weeks ago. I used an old towel (trimmed and edges zigzagged) and one layer of cotton batting (scraps I sewed to fit the ironing board) for the padding. I looked at this tutorial on Moda Bake Shop and decided to follow the method described there for finishing the edge and making a casing (even though I didn't make a quilted top like they did there). I just used kitchen string to adjust the cover to fit; it worked great!

Pettiskirt!

I sewed this pettiskirt for my little girl in the evenings after bedtime in the last couple weeks before Christmas.

 

I followed this tutorial from the Girl, Inspired blog. Here are a few changes and other notes on the project.

*I bought my nylon chiffon from this website, and it was 54" wide, not 108" like the fabric.com chiffon used in the tutorial. That was easy to adjust for.

*I made the waistband/yoke a little longer (maybe 4.5" or 5" instead of 3". I can't remember exactly.) I also changed the top tier of the skirt to 6.5" wide instead of 6". I wanted more of a size 4/5 skirt instead of a 3/4.

*I omitted the lining layer. I was in a hurry, and it was late! At least I finished it on the 23rd instead of Christmas Eve. I could still add a lining, but I probably won't. The skirt is fine without it.

*I got a generic ruffler foot from amazon and it worked pretty well. It didn't fit my machine perfectly, and it did occasionally make my needle screw come loose and then things would make loud clunking noises, but as long as I kept checking that and tightening it, it worked fine. 

*One other thing I would change, if I make another one, is to use matching thread. The tiers are stitched with white thread and then I serged the seams with pink. It's what I had, and this wasn't thought out very far in advance of when it needed to be done, but next time I think it will look better with matching thread.

Here's an action shot!

2012 Sewing Review

... plus one knitting project.

Happy end of the year! It was a challenging year in a lot of ways, and I'm glad it's over. Glad I'm almost 6 months out from smashing my finger. (By the way, don't ever do that.) I'm excited for a new year; I love this time of year with the possibilities and new start.

Hearts

Hi! I hope you're having a good holiday season. Ready for the New Year?? :)

I got some cute pastel charm packs for Christmas and I've also been wanting to make paper pieced hexagons again. Here are some that I made yesterday:

I played around with some layouts in EQ and decided to make a heart, out of hexagons. Maybe more than one. Here's a long and triangular kind of hexagon heart:

(The big one, above, takes 59 hexagons. So you don't have to count.)

And here are some short chubby hearts:

I like the pointy ones... but I also like the smallest chubby ones. I think they would be cute on a tiny quilt. Each one is made of just 13 hexagons. 

Let me know if you decide to make a hexagon heart!

Orange/Aqua Star Blocks

Merry (almost) Christmas! And Happy Holidays too! :)
I finished the handmade gifts that were going to make the mailing deadline and sent them off. A couple people are going to get Happy New Year gifts from me. So the last few days I've had some fun working on a star quilt I started a while back. Here's a shot of most of the blocks so far:

  

I have finished 6 more blocks that aren't shown here, too.

I have been crowdsourcing advice on the color scheme for this quilt, trying to decide if I should add pink or not. I made up a block with some blush colored Mendocino octopi fabric, it's sort of peachy pink but has a dark orange octopus in it. So that color is in. I think. I'll have to lay the whole group out again next time it is light and we are home, and see how it looks.

We are excited for our 2nd annual Christmas Eve in Seattle traditions tomorrow; planning on visiting a fun beach and going to a very delicious restaurant too. I'm excited for Christmas and also happy for the solstice and the return of lighter days.

Also--it took me forever, but I finally uploaded photos of my November Believe Circle blocks. The theme this time was orange and gray improv:

 Our group took the month of December off; I'm looking forward to next month!

Giveaway Winner! and Quilted Tote Bag

Hi everyone! The winner of one of my patterns for the Sew, Mama, Sew giveaway was commenter number 81, Allison from Dreaming in Patchwork. I've emailed her to confirm her pattern choice and will send her the pattern she chooses as soon as I hear back!

I also wanted to show off my new quilt-as-you-go tote bag. It was very gray here today so the pictures are kind of dark.

 

And the other side:

 

I made it using the quilt-as-you-go process described on Elizabeth's blog. I used white thread for the quilting on the upper part of both sides of the bag, and navy blue thread on the dark bottom section.

Here's the inside:

 

I made a simple pocket with room for my phone and a few pens. 

Overall I am pretty happy with the bag but there are a few things I'd change if/when I make one again. The handles... I'm still not sure I like them all colorful and think they might be better made from one fabric. Also I think the bag would be better with the handles attached slightly closer to the center of the bag. At least the handles are both the same length and it's a good length. 

The lining isn't quite the perfect fit either, it's a bit too big, but I guess that's better than too small. I think next time I make a bag I'll cut the lining out to match the exterior pieces before assembling the interior. 

Here's a closer view of the quilting:

The bag measures about 13" high and 16" wide (with my church binder and books inside) and it's just the size I wanted. On to last minute Christmas sewing!

Baby Quilt for Brayden

Recently a group of blogging friends and I finished up a group baby quilt for Natalia's baby boy. She was given the quilt last week, which means it's time to blog about the group project now!

So, in order, here's how we completed this group quilt, with participants on both U.S. coasts, as well as in Utah. :)

We used a design by Amy E (Amy's Creative Side), who adapted a pattern from her book, Modern Basics, to make it baby quilt size.

Candy, of Candied Fabrics, dyed the beautiful fabric for the quilt.

Amy E and Amylouwho completed the quilt top.

Rita from Mochi Studios beautifully hand appliqued the baby's name.

And when it got to me it was time for quilting.

First off I had to press the quilt back and top. Isn't this fabric amazing?

This is the back of the quilt. I love it.

And here's the front:

I love how the colors pop against the blue background. 

I decided to quilt a squared-off pattern that would be called "loopy" if it was done without the square corners. It was a new quilting design to me and it went pretty well, but it can be a challenge to quilt square corners when you're used to quilting curves. 

 (quilting action shot)

In the colored rectangles, I quilted outlines and X's, using my walking foot.

This photo, and the rest of the photos were taken after the quilt was washed and had shrunk up a bit. I like how the square loops turned out but next time I do them I will try out a larger scale. 

Also, I hand quilted around the letters using 2 strands of embroidery floss.

After the quilting was done, I bound the quilt using 4 of the fabrics from the colored rectangles (there wasn't enough turquoise, but it turned out fine without it.) Here's the finished project!

And the back:

It was fun to plan out this group project and to have it turn out so well! You can see the adorable baby with his quilt here!

Giveaway Day!

Happy giveaway day! I'm going to keep this short and sweet since I know you want to visit all the excellent giveaways linked up over at Sew, Mama, Sew!

I'm giving away a PDF (electronic) copy of one of my two quilt patterns to one commenter. To enter, please leave a comment telling me your favorite item you've made this year. And which pattern you prefer if you win. The choices are:

Evergreen State (Christmas-y! Or not, try it in different colors.)

Or Ruffle Crush (cute ruffles, pattern includes two sizes of quilts.)

If you want more information about the patterns you can check them out at my Craftsy pattern store.

Also, if you are new to my blog, I just want to encourage you to bookmark/pin my blog and come back and check out my tutorials. I have a few clothing construction tutorials and quilting tutorials including how to baste, free-motion quilt, and bind your quilt.

Giveaway Details:

Giveaway will be open until December 7 at 5 p.m. PST.
Giveaway is open to everyone.
I will post the winner by December 9 and will email the pattern to the winner that day as well.
If you are a no-reply blogger, please make sure your email address is included in your comment so I can reach you if you win.

Thanks for stopping by, and good luck!

***Comments are now closed, winner TBA soon!***

Pink/Grey/Red/Black

I just finished up the September quilt for the Believe circle of Do good stitches.

 

The sun was actually shining for a few minutes so I got a shadowy photo. Maybe I should have waited 5 minutes.

For this quilt, I asked our group members for two blocks each in a pink/grey/red/black color scheme, using Jacquie's Orange Crush quilt as an inspiration for the block design, with just 2 or 3 colors per block.

I decided to make the quilt with 15 blocks on the front and 5 on the back.

 

The gray solid fabric and the print used for the main backing fabric are from Connecting Threads. I got another pink fabric from Connecting Threads too, but it was more coral pink than I wanted so I stretched the 2 yards of the shirting-like print with a horizontal strip of grey and the wide strip of blocks. 

(See, the clouds came and no more shadows by the time I took this photo in the same place.)

I machine quilted it with rows of wide figure-8 swirls. Thread is Isacord from my LQS.

 

This was a quick way to get the quilting done. It took some time to get used to quilting on this scale; usually I quilt smaller. It was fun, too.

Here's what the quilting looks like on the back:

 

 It feels good to have another finish for the year!

Mini Zig

I finished up my Mini Zig quilt, and am planning on entering it into QuiltCon's Modern in Miniature quilting challenge.

I can't really explain how I made it; it was quite challenging to put together and I switched to a different construction method after making all the left leaning strips sort of like this: measure, mark, pin, sew on the line, press, cut, start over. For every single piece of each strip. Then I messed up on seam allowance when I started method 2 (angles make things different) and in the end replaced all of the pieces I sewed on the messed up way. I think I ended up with a reasonable technique for making this kind of chevron piecing that keeps the side edges of the strips on the straight grain of the fabric.

Here's the sketch I made before starting; I switched the colors around because my stash is low on reds. And I like blue:

The quilting is a mix of straight line machine quilting, free motion quilting, and a few rows of hand quilting. Here are some photos that show the quilting better:

 
And, the back:

 

I used the leftover triangles as leaders and enders, and then made them into the three little blocks on the back.There are still lots of larger scraps left over from this project, but the tiny ones are all used up.