Big finish

I finished up my #apqquiltalong quilt, back in May. This was the quiltalong hosted in 2014 by American Patchwork and Quilting on instagram, called Tone it Down.

I had such a good time making this quilt. I was inspired by Svetlana at SOTAK's pastel version of this quilt but changed it up a little bit, ending with pink (on the coral/peach side), golden yellow, turquoise/aqua, and mint green along with a variety of grays. The background is all kinds of low volume fabrics; white or gray toned along with creamy off-whites. I think it worked. Some of my individual blocks, a couple of the yellows actually, were kind of uglies on their own but I knew that they would add to the quilt as a whole even if they were never going to be anyone's favorite.

I machine quilted it on my Juki with waves and swirls. This quilt is big and quilting it was a challenge. I started and stopped a few times and that made it take forever. But I did eventually push through and complete it.

I have one construction tip for next time (yeah, maybe) or if anyone reading is considering making one. Don't cut the long sashing pieces until the blocks are all sewn and measured. With so many small pieces, seam allowance is critical for this pattern, and while I was very consistent with my seam allowance, I was a tiny bit too scant and my blocks ended up about 1/8" bigger than the sashing measurement given in the pattern. And then, most of my sashing pieces were cut with the long side along the grain of the fabric, which means I couldn't really stretch them to fit. So I mostly eased the blocks to fit the sashing by sewing those seams with the block on the bottom. It worked out fine in the end, but would have been better to just cut the sashing a tiny bit longer to fit.

The back has a long pieced strip, a couple of Kona solid fabrics, and a Violet Craft doily print in gray-brown. Binding was a kona pink that coordinated with most of the pinks on the front.

Overall, I had a great experience making this quilt. Each block is an accomplishment in this pattern, and completing the whole quilt (75"x93") is something I really feel good about! It's on my daughter's bed now, and I love the feeling the soft colors add to her bedroom.

Rhino Quilt 2

I'm sharing this quilt as my entry to Blogger's Quilt Festival. As always, many thanks to Amy for hosting the festival! Please stop by Amy's Creative Side and look at all the quilts!

My first rhino quilt was finished in early 2014 and given to my brother. By the time I finished it, I was sad to see it go, so much so that I decided to make another one to keep.


This time I made the rhino from squares cut from a Kona Summer 2013 rollup (minus 2 colors I didn't care for), and the background is mostly a cooler white/light (except for the pink and yellow bits) where the first rhino had an off-white background.


(My quilt holders are not equal heights. This was taken in a hurry in a little bit of rain.)

The back has a strip with the leftover pieces of the rollup, a scrappy turquoise strip, some gray flea market fancy seeds, and a stripe fabric from the Basic Grey PB&J line.

The machine quilting on this quilt was similar to how I quilted the first rhino quilt. I quilted swirls in the rhino again:


And this time I quilted the background in a sort of vertical finger-like stipple. Does anyone know if this has a name?


I was asked how I made the rhino on my last rhino quilt post, and I didn't ever get around to answering, until now. There are a lot of steps and this is not a real tutorial but I wrote up the process I went through to make my two rhino quilts. Let me know if you are using this technique and need any clarification of these instructions.

To begin with, the main idea is to enlarge a shape onto fabric: when I was a kid, my mom had some pattern books that had small versions of a pattern overlaid with a grid; you were supposed to enlarge the pattern manually by drawing the image onto a larger grid following the line in one square at a time. See the image on this blog post for an example. Here is how I got my small grid image and enlarged it onto fabric.

1.   I had my smart teenager remove the background of a rhino image in photoshop.
2.      I uploaded the photo into EQ7 and started the process for a photo quilt, and then copied a screenshot of the rhino image with a grid overlay before clicking the preview button to make the image go pixelated for a photo quilt.  (If you don't have EQ then you need to figure out a way to get a grid overlay on your image.) Carefully consider the size of your finished applique and the size of squares you want to use. I used 2.5" squares (2" finished) for my rhino quilts.
3.      I printed out the screenshot image and then used it to draw the outline of the rhino for my project on graph paper.
4.      I used the graph paper drawing to determine how to piece the rhino. I pieced it in 5-square-wide columns, then sewed the columns together. I pressed seams open (normally I don't but it was helpful in this project.) I learned the hard way that anywhere there is a tiny fraction of a square included in the rhino shape, that square needed to be sewn onto the big rhino.
5.      After the whole rhino was sewn together, I used the graph paper drawing as a reference and drew the rhino edges on the right side of the fabric with regular pencil.
6.      I trimmed the whole rhino edge about 3/8" from the pencil line.
7.      I clipped inner curves and hand basted the edge under.
8.      I arranged the rhino on the prepared background, and hand basted it to the background. It was a little challenging to make sure the rhino was straight.
9.      I carefully machine appliqued the rhino to the background, sewing a scant 1/8" from the edge of the rhino.
10.  I removed both sets of basting stitches.
11.  Then I asked for some expert opinions and was told I should remove the background fabric from behind the applique. So I did, carefully cutting the backing away, about 1/2" from the stitching line.
12.  My quilt top was ready for basting, quilting, and binding!

I hope this helps anyone who wants to make a quilt like this! Please let me know if you decide to make your own large format applique quilt with this technique. :)

Giveaway Day!

This giveaway is closed now, the winner is #40, Lindsay. Thanks for commenting!

Hello friends! I'm back at the blog for Giveaway Day! Sew,Mama, Sew hosts giveaway day (which lasts several days) twice a year, make sure to visit their page and check out all the handmade items and sewing supplies that are being given away this week.



I've made a couple cathedral window pincushions this past week and last night I decided to finish this one up and give it away. I'll include a little bundle of scraps, too. If you're interested in making your own pincushion, I used this Riley Blake tutorial to make mine.

This giveaway is open to U.S. commenters, to enter please leave a comment telling me something fun you hope to do this summer. Comments will be open until May 10 at 5 p.m. Pacific time, and I'll update this post with the winner at that time. Comments are moderated so don't worry if you don't see your comment right away. Please make sure your email address is included in your comment if you're a no-reply commenter.

Have fun with all the giveaways!

EQ7 Block Challenge

Hi! I found out earlier in the month that Electric Quilt was having a block design contest using the new Fresh Cut fabrics from BasicGrey, and decided to enter this block:

Here's what it would look like in quilt format with the blues, greys, and pinks from the line:

Or you could go all multicolor like this:

I had fun working with EQ7 and this fabric line. Guess I should make up one of these blocks in real life, next.

QDAD and miniquilt swap

Over the last couple months, I participated in the latest Schnitzel & Boo miniquilt swap on Instagram. My favorite thing about doing these swaps (I don't do them very often) is the challenge to make something the recipient will really enjoy. Also, I've been participating in the Quilt Design A Day group on facebook for a few months. I do not do a design every day, but I've posted over 50 designs to the group since last August. I ended up making one of my QDAD designs into an actual quilt for this swap.

Here's the design I posted to the QDAD group on 9/3/14:

 

I started with the cross and crown quilt block and changed it up, adding flying geese rows down the vertical and horizontal centers, and changing the corner units to a sort of bear paw shape. The QDAD group has a suggested palette each day and that's where these colors came from.

I wanted to make my mini with just one of these complex blocks, so here's what I posted to IG when I was considering this for my mini quilt design.

 

And then I changed the colors (I actually used another QDAD palette) and added a sawtooth border as seen below:

 

I figured out the cutting and triangle math and sewed it up! Here is the finished quilt, 18" square:

Here's a closeup of the quilting:

I've started another one just like it for me to keep.

A couple other things--I made some mug rug Valentines and sent one along as an extra with my mini:

I turned and topstitched the edges instead of binding such small quilts.

And, last week I made a 12th man quilt;go Seahawks!

 

Hope you have a great week!

Scrappy Stockings (again)

I finished up 2 new Christmas stockings for my husband and myself about 2 days after we put away all our Christmas decorations. So I don't have photos of all five of our family's stockings together and the beginning middle of January is a weird time to share Christmas stocking pics but hey, I got them done and wanted to share.

I used a charm pack of BasicGrey Christmas fabric from a few years ago to make these stockings, with the charm squares cut into 2.5" squares for the stocking fronts. For the backs of the stockings, I sewed together more of the 5" charm squares. The backs of the stockings aren't quilted.

I originally made this pattern up about 12 years ago when I made a stocking my for oldest son. In 2010 I had finished my daughter's stocking and I shared the pattern and tutorial on the Sew We Quilt blog. Last month I tried to retrieve the pattern from scribd, a process which was free and easy in 2010, and in 2014 it was not so easy. So I've uploaded it to Craftsy (for free) for your stocking making pleasure. The instructions are still available here on the Sew We Quilt blog. 

Here's the link to the stocking pattern. When you print the pattern, make sure page scaling is set to "none."

I'd love to see your stockings made from this pattern!

Happy New Year!!

Here's my 2014 mosaic of completed projects:

 

My main sewing goals for 2015 are to blog about my work in the Quilt Design a Day group, continue to create and post designs to the group, make a few of my QDAD designs come to life in fabric and thread, and make and sell some quilt patterns. 

Oh, and finish all my UFOs! j/k. Or maybe not.

Here's to a happy and peaceful 2015. 

Holiday Sewing

Happy holidays! We had a good Christmas here; I hope you are having a good holiday season, no matter what you celebrate.

I have been busy with sewing and life and not making time for blogging. Here's the start of some blog catch up.

I made potholder/kitchen towel sets for my sisters this year. I have 5 siblings and we have a rotation of which sibling we give to each year. Last year I didn't make a handmade item for my younger sister, so this year I made potholders and patchwork towels for both of them.

 

Chicken potholders and matching towels for my sister who owns chickens. The chicken block tutorial is here. I use one layer of heat resistant batting and one layer of cotton batting for my potholders.

 

Pink and orange scrappy set for my other sister. I decided to use decorative stitches to sew the binding down on these potholders and it didn't end up looking as good as the straight stitch I usually do.

 

And a half square triangle pillow I made for my mom. I have a similar pillow on my couch and Mom really liked it when she visited this past summer. I had this one languishing in a UFO state and decided to finish it up and send it to her. I'm interested in experimenting more with value and HSTs one of these days.

A couple weeks ago, we had the holiday party for Seattle MQG. I made this SEW quilt.

This is my first try at trapunto. It was really easy and you should try it! I sometimes avoid trying new things and I'm glad I finally tried this technique because it was really no big deal. I can make up a mini tutorial on it if anybody is interested. 

And this is the gift I received. These beautiful nesting zip pouches were made by Ruth (I don't know her last name or have a blog or IG link for her, sorry!) It was fun when I opened the gift to unzip the big pouch and find the second one, and then to unzip that one and find the small one.

The other thing I wanted to share is the beginning of the Christmas stockings I'm making for myself and my husband.

Four years ago, I wrote up a tutorial for scrappy stockings on the Sew We Quilt (formerly Stash Manicure) blog. I had made these quilted stockings for my 3 kids but my husband and I have been using flannel stockings (with glitter on our names) that my mom made in 1996 when we got engaged 2 days before Christmas. I'm finally making matching stockings for us, even though Christmas is over for this year. The pattern I uploaded in 2010 is on Scribd and it was free to download at the time, but now you have to either pay money or upload a document in order to download something. I uploaded my heart block tutorial (I'll share here soon) and was able to download my pattern. I think I will put the stocking pattern on Craftsy as a free download and hope to show more progress on these stockings in the next few days.

Bloggers' Quilt Festival--Rainbow Scrap Quilt

Hi quilters! I was hoping to have my rhino quilt #2 finished in time for this edition of Blogger's Quilt Festival, but it didn't work out. I've completed most of the free motion quilting, but started having pain in my wrist a couple weeks ago and decided to rest it instead of push through and finish the quilt and make things worse. It feels a lot better now, so I'll probably work on finishing the rhino up soon.

I decided to share my Rainbow Scrap Quilt for Blogger's Quilt Festival. This quilt is a little heavier than some of my others, probably due to all the seam allowances as well as using a heavier batting than I normally choose. So now that the weather is back to the gloomy/rainy/dark season, I'm happy to have a bright and extra warm quilt to cuddle under. The kids like it a lot, too.

Here's a close up of the flower quilting:

You can read more about this quilt here.

Thanks so much to Amy, as always, for hosting Bloggers' Quilt Festival! Stop by Amy's Creative Side to see all the quilts!

Project progress

So, I've been working on a few things since my last post.

My rhino quilt is all basted and folded neatly on the big chair. Here's what I did for the back:

 

And the backing where I cut the backing fabric out behind the big rhino applique:

 

Here's an evening (poor light) basting shot:

 

After I got the rhino all ready to quilt, I didn't want to start quilting yet, and I decided to make a couple blocks for my #apqquiltalong project. I ended up making 4 this past week. I really like this one:

 

For now, I'm planning on making (at least) 2 blocks a week until I get all 20 of them done. I have 7 so far.

I also finished round 13 on my hand pieced trip around the world. Pink henna garden fabric, so sweet.

 

Finally, just wanted to share my tutorial on Louise's Sew Ready to Play series. Her blog is I'm Feelin' Crafty and it was fun to make a project to share with her readers. I made a Uno card case so we can keep our new Uno cards from getting all bent and lost. See my tutorial here. 

Have a great weekend!

Create Handmade Gifts for All Winners

Hi! Today I've got the winners of the Create Handmade Gifts for All blog tour.

The winner of last year's Quilting Arts Gifts magazine is commenter number 34, June. And number 30, Gina, is entered to win the Grand prize--the messenger bag pictured on the cover of Create Handmade Gifts for All.

I've emailed the winners and Candy, and she will be holding the drawing for the Grand Prize soon.

I'll be back soon to share rhino quilt progress. Have a great Thursday!

Create Handmade Gifts for All--Blog Hop and Giveaway

Hi there! I'm super happy to share my friend Candy's new e-book, Create Handmade Gifts for All, with you all today. Candy blogs at Candied Fabrics, where she shares her amazing creations showcasing her beautiful hand dyed fabrics and free-motion sketch stitching and quilting. Candy also creates patterns and online dyeing courses, and keeps busy teaching university biology and selling her wares at art fairs as well. Candy is an inspiration (a hard working one!) and I really love her unique design and color sense.

The e-book contains patterns for 18 different gifts--bags and accessories, home decor, and holiday ornaments/decor--just in time to start thinking about handmade holiday gifts if you are a thinking-ahead type of person. One of my favorite projects in this collection is the convertible tote bag:

The bag can be used as pictured here, or the strap can be adjusted and the top flap folded up, to give you more room in the bag if you need it.

And now for the giveaways! Please leave one comment per person, telling me about your favorite handmade gift to give or receive. I have comment moderation enabled so your comment won't show up until after I approve it.

One commenter will win a copy of last year's Quilting Arts Gifts magazine.

And one other commenter will be entered to win the Grand Prize, the messenger bag that is featured on the cover of the e-book. Comments will be open until 9/24 at 5:00 p.m. Pacific time, and I'll draw the winners and post them that evening.

Check out all the other stops on the blog hop for more chances to win. Good luck!

• Monday, 9/8 – Susan Brubaker Knapp of Blue Moon River
• Tuesday, 9/9 –  Vicki Welsh of  Field Trips in Fiber
• Wednesday, 9/10 - Deborah Boschert of Deborah's Journal
• Thursday, 9/11 – Amy Ellis of Amy’s Creative Side
• Monday, 9/15 – Sue Bleiweiss of Sue Bleiweiss
• Tuesday, 9/16 – Natalia Bonner of Piece N Quilt
• Wednesday, 9/17  – Diane Doran of Ooh! Pretty Colors
• Thursday, 9/18 – Vicki Christensen of Sew Inspired
• Friday, 9/19 - Candy of Candied Fabrics

Works in progress

I've been working on my hand pieced trip around the world, slowly but steadily. I have half of the 12th round finished and the next 3 rows are planned out (pink, turquoise, red dot). It's a good project to do while watching Netflix and fun to see it grow, even though it's slower now.

 

And I'm back to working on my rhino quilt again. I put it away a few weeks ago with the rhino hand basted to the background. Yesterday and today I machine stitched it in place and started removing the red basting threads (the edges of the rhino were also hand basted under, before stitching it to the background.)

 

Other than that, I've been busy getting the kids into school and getting all settled in with our routines. I need to go buy another compass for high school geometry and somebody needs new shoes this week, too. I went to high school curriculum night last week, and get to go tonight and tomorrow to hear what to expect this year from the elementary teachers. 

Hope you're having a good September!

Trip Around the World

A few weeks ago, I saw Jan's blog post about her trip around the world quilt, and I couldn't get it out of my mind. I went back to her blog and saw that she posted again about her project, which led me to the Brigitte Giblin Quilts facebook page and eventually to me joining Brigitte's second Trip Around the World challenge group. The challenge is to hand sew a trip around the world quilt, using squares that are cut 2", with a "red spot" fabric for the center and then certain other rows. It took me a little while to get a hold of 1/2 yard of a good red dot fabric, but I did, and here's what I have so far:

It is getting a little more challenging as the rows get longer, and I'm a little scared about the length of the later rows (from looking at some of the photos from the first challenge group, I'm guessing it might end up with 27 "trips" around the center maybe.) But it's a good project to keep my hands busy while I watch a show and it has been really fun choosing the different fabrics for each row as I go. 

If you're interested in seeing more of the challenge photos, the hashtag for the challenge is #bgtawc. I love seeing all the different versions of this quilt.

Modern Quilt Guild Challenge Quilt--Entomology

Today's the deadline for the latest Modern Quilt Guild challenge, and I got my quilt finished and posted in the MQG forums early this afternoon. I had a hard time getting the colors to show up right in my photos, so I'm including pictures taken both outside and inside.

It's titled Entomology.

I made three paper pieced moths using the challenge fabric for the wings and a gray solid for the bodies. I designed the moth pattern, just to see if I could, inspired by an old scientific insect drawing that a friend pinned on Pinterest. This blog post on Shape Moth was very helpful for figuring out how to draw the pattern in EQ7. Sewing the moth blocks was pretty labor intensive, but by the last one I had figured out some tricks to speed things up and make sure everything fit together correctly.

The antennae were embroidered with embroidery floss in a basic chain stitch. I decided to hand quilt the moths with perle cotton, and then machine quilted the background. I got about 6 pokes that drew blood while hand quilting over the last couple days, but didn't get any on the quilt!

This quilt was kind of an exercise in using what I had on hand. I had thought about buying a light gray fabric for the background, but still had a large chunk of the aqua solid (Kona ice frappe), so I decided to use it even though I've used that same fabric in my last three mini quilts. Same with the quilting thread--ideally I would have used a slightly lighter aqua thread for the machine quilting, but I used what I already had and I think it turned out fine.

Here's the back:

And one more photo of the front, outside (on the shadier side of the backyard) this time:

I'm really glad I was able to participate in this challenge. I learned a lot and might even try making more paper pieced insects someday. Thanks a bunch to the Modern Quilt Guild and Michael Miller for providing the challenge fabrics!

Vacation fun

We've had a busy couple of weeks! The 4th of July was really fun, starting with meeting up with some old friends from Kansas for breakfast.

 

The food was very, very good. The kids' menus had eggs to color on the back and the kids had a lot of fun with that. This one is Rainbow Dash.

  

Later on, we had friends over for dinner and visiting, ending with watching our city's fireworks show. It was pretty good!

Then we got up at 4:30 a.m. the next morning and got on an airplane to California. We stayed with my sister-in-law at her (very kind and gracious) mom's house for a few days and then went to San Diego to a family reunion where we celebrated my grandpa's upcoming 90th birthday. I also got to spend time with a very good friend that I hadn't seen since 2008.

We went and watched the sunset one night. It was so pretty. And much earlier than where we live.

We saw airplanes and a Ripley's Believe it or Not exhibit at the Air and Space Museum.

And Lego Doctor Who, when we ate at the mall food court. Bowties are cool.

 

I made quilted zipper pouches and brought them for my sisters and SILs that I saw on the trip. I need to make one of these for myself, soon!

 

And I made bibs for two cousins who are expecting their first babies.

It was so good to get reacquainted with siblings, nieces and nephews, cousins, and everyone else. These feet belong to a really cute and sweet 2 year old niece. I came home feeling exhausted but also full of so much love for my whole family. I'm so glad we were able to spend time with all our loved ones.