Finish Along: 2016 Q2 Goals

During the first quarter of the year, I finished two projects on my finish-along list--the purple and gold jellyroll race quilt, and the My Small World quilt.

So here are my Q2 finish-along goals:

Three of these were also on my Q1 list. Clockwise from the top left they are my scrappy pillow, Alabama Chanin skirt, my Weekender bag, and disappearing 9-patch quilt. The Weekender has been intimidating me for a while, and I need to just do it. I need to buy cord for the piping, the zipper, and a solid fabric for the handles and maybe the bottom panel of the bag. I have been wanting to make a Sew Together bag but feeling like I ought to finish this Weekender first. I can do it!

Additionally, I'm also planning to work on:
Finish all the 12" leaf blocks for my leaf quilt

I started this quilt back in September. I got the idea for the scrappy blocks from Lynn at K&S Design Girls. I'm planning on making 25 of the 12" maple blocks and alternating them checkerboard style with off-white blocks. With a few small leaves for fun. I have 16 of the leaf blocks done and hope to finish the remaining 9 and most of the background blocks by the end of June.

I'm also continuing to work on my hand pieced trip around the world quilt top. Hopefully I will blog about some of these projects over the next few weeks as I get things done!

Finished Quilt: My Small World

I finished!



My Small World--quilt pattern by Jen Kingwell, this one made and quilted by me. 53"x33".

This was a big project. I started sewing it in May 2015 and finished it earlier this week. I kept track of my quilting time--8 hours and 25 minutes of machine quilting, and 95 minutes of hand quilting. The orange peel blocks and the two appliqued circles in section 2 are the only parts that I hand quilted.


The back of the quilt is made of mostly fat eighths of a Momo fabric bundle I bought a while back.



Overall, I'm happy with it. I'm also tired of it and maybe will be more enthusiastic about it after some time not working on it or having it in my list of ongoing projects. There are a few places where I don't love my fabric choices and also a couple parts of the quilting that didn't come out as well as I'd hoped.

But. I love a lot about it. I like the sky and the green background on the left side. I love how section 5 turned out. (All rainbows and sunny with the hexagons, dresden block, rainbow, and New York Beauty.) I'm very happy with almost all of the machine quilting. I feel like I learned and improved my needle turned applique skills. And I improved my fabric selection over time as I made the different sections of the quilt. Scale and value are really important when working on such small pieces.

Just so you know, the only place where I didn't follow the pattern is the 4"x2" heart in section 2. I made that heart back in the year 2001 when I was just a baby quilter. It was an extra leftover from my flag/star mini quilt, which was probably my first mini quilt ever. 

Most of the binding pieces are from my binding scrap rolls. I cut 2 new pieces for binding the sky section.
I'm so happy to have this quilt done, and I'm planning on getting it up on my front room wall really soon. 


This quilt is one of two items I completed from my Q1 Finish-Along blog post. It feels good to get long term projects finished!

My Small World--Finished Quilt Top

I finished my My Small World quilt top!



I started this project back in May last year. It's been fun to work on, and challenging. Choosing colors and making the applique portions in part 5 have been the hardest parts. There are a few color/fabric choices I don't really love, but overall I am really happy to be to this part of the project.

A few tips for anybody thinking of making this quilt: follow along with the hashtag on Instagram--#mysmallworldqal and/or #mysmallworldqal2. There are people there who have done blog posts with details for completing each section. Sarah at Sew What, Sherlock, has free paper piecing templates she'll pass on if you send her a ransom photo of you with the pattern. I don't know how it's even possible to do the New York Beauty block in section 5 without them, so thank you, Sarah!

I made the pinwheels, quarter-square triangles, churn dashes, and flying geese using traditional piecing methods and good old quilt math, rather than make templates for every size of square, rectangle, or triangle. I did use the pattern templates for the hourglass rectangle/triangle blocks, the orange peel applique blocks, the circles, the rainbow, the Dresden, the little doors, and the scallops. I found a website and printed my own 1/2" hexagons on cardstock.

When I appliqued the hexagon section to the background, I used a water soluble marker to draw the semicircle pattern onto my pieced hexie chunk, then pinned it in place. I turned the edges under as I sewed it to the background, and then cut out the backing behind it and trimmed the bulky hexagon excess. I had thought about staystitching and trimming it before appliqueing it, but the way it did it worked ok.

Pattern info: the pattern is by Jen Kingwell and is available here. The finished quilt top is around 33" x 53".

I'm taking a little break from this project but soon I'll be figuring out the back and getting it ready to quilt. If anyone has any questions I'd be happy to answer in the comments.

2016 Finish Along Q1 Goals

A few weeks ago I counted up my UFOs, quilting and otherwise, and the number is bigger than I'd like it to be. So I decided to participate in the Finish Along that's been going on for the past few years.

Here are the projects I'm hoping to complete by March 31:

My Small World quilt

I don't think I've blogged about this project at all. I started it last May as part of the quiltalong on instagram. #mysmallworldqal is the hashtag. I need to finish piecing part 6 and applique one more section onto part 5. Then baste, quilt, bind.

Scrappy pillow

This is based on a tutorial by Amanda Jean, with some changes. 
Needs more hand quilting, maybe some machine quilting too to speed things up. And then to be made into a pillow cover.

Alabama Chanin skirt

I started this way too long ago. Maybe close to three years ago. I think part of the reason I haven't finished it is I'm apprehensive about how it will fit and/or look on me. I need to just get it done, it is so close. I think it will turn out better than how I've been worrying it will be. I need to finish the stitching and cutting on this panel, and then sew the 4 panels together and attach the elastic.

Disappearing 9-patch quilt

I made this quilt top from a layer cake along with my sister-in-law and the kids a while back. It's going to be donated, probably to the children's hospital. I'm waiting for batting to arrive, then it needs to be basted, quilted, bound.

Jelly roll race quilt Also for the children's hospital. This is not really my style--I got the kit during the year I was a member of a traditional quilt guild here. Needs to be basted, quilted, and bound.

Finally, this won't count for the finish-along, but I also want to complete 6 more rounds on my hand-pieced Trip Around the World quilt. And I'm also going to make some more x+ blocks. 

I'm linking up at A Quilter's Table, and looking forward to finishing lots of projects in 2016!

Little House Pillow

At the end of October I came across this blog on Pinterest and couldn't get those little house blocks out of my head. I had a Winterberry charm pack on hand, so I did some quilt math and made a block that wasn't quite right. I redid my math and template drawing, and made 9 little houses.

I decided to sew them into a pillow, because I have more space for pillows at this point than I do for Christmas wall quilts.



The houses are free motion quilted with an orange peel style corner-to-corner curve design, there's a wavy stitch in the sashing, and the loopy border quilting is a variation on, and my first attempt at the Beginner Loops design from the Inbox Jaunt. You can tell I didn't mark any lines to guide the width of my motifs... I think it looks ok anyway.

I made some little log cabin blocks with the scraps and put a row of them on the back. I used some of the leftover charm squares too. The back isn't quilted, it's a double layer of quilting fabric.


The pillow is 18" square and the house blocks finish up at 3 3/4" square.

I'm really happy it's done and looking forward to sewing something with larger pieces of fabric next.

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!