Quilting

We got back from our Utah vacation late last Friday. We were there about a week and we had a wonderful, busy time. We met two nieces we hadn't seen before and spent a lot of time with my family and my husband's family. We also saw friends from Kansas that we haven't seen for almost two years; I'm so glad it worked out and we were in Utah the same time as they were. We went to the water park and splash pad and had Gandalfo's and Cafe Rio, and my in-laws made delicious German food too. It was so nice but also exhausting and we were glad to get home and try to get back to normal for a couple weeks.

My mom got a new longarm recently and I quilted my scrappy trips quilt on it.

One big problem--you may have heard that longarm quilters want your quilt back to be 4-6 inches larger than your top on all four sides? Now I know why. I made my quilt back about 4" longer than the top, total, and we didn't load the quilt on the machine so the top would be centered on the back. So my quilt back was too short and now I'm going to have to add another strip of fabric to the quilt back so I can finish up the quilting. I don't think I'll ever make that mistake again. :)

But overall I had fun quilting with the longarm and I do think I want one of my own, one day. It is a lot different from quilting with a domestic table-top sewing machine, because it's a lot easier to move the machine. (And it's way faster too.) I did mostly swirly loops but I tried a few other quilting motifs too (which were not as easy and mostly didn't look as good as my simple loops.)

I am working to finish up Jan's quilt as well. Today I finished quilting the inner border and started the outer border. I'm doing a double feather again, with a row of echo stitching around it to help fill in the space.

9-patches

My boys have been out of school for just 2 1/2 weeks and summer has been really busy so far, with lots of transitions. My oldest was at scout camp all last week and this week has been busy with July 4th stuff and family activities (pool, zoo, dutch oven cake making, oh and chores for all). Everybody got through the 4th safe and sound this year, I'm happy to report.

I spent some time (when I had a few minutes for my brain to focus) working on a project/article for the next issue of Modern Patchwork; it will be fun to see my work in print again. I have a working list of ongoing projects too... but decided to get out my Neptune fabric and make some 9-patches. I ended up with 20 of them.

 

I have more fabric but not a very big variety any more so I decided to stop here and keep the blocks different and interesting. I'm going to get some light aqua sashing/border fabric and do something with a row of squares for a border, too.

Creeper Pillow + Vintage Quilt

Hi! I finished up my oldest son's Creeper pillow last week and wanted to share:

 

He plotted out the piecing diagram by himself, and then did a good job sewing it together. I quilted it a while back and decided to finish it up. One mistake--he wanted me to use black thread on the green part and green thread on the black part--but there was a miscommunication on that. Next time we collaborate I'll make sure I clear the thread choices with him before quilting!

I've also been working on a quilt for a friend:

 

Jan asked me to quilt up this vintage quilt top for her a while back. (Actually before we moved away from Kansas.) I can't remember the details of where she got it but it's pretty cool. The navy blues, reds, and small calicoes remind me of being a little kid and hanging out with my Grandma.  It's a generous twin size, and parts of it aren't exactly flat, so it's a bit of a challenge to quilt, but I'm making good progress. I decided to try out a different batting (Hobbes 80/20) than what I normally use and I like the extra loft.

This week's projects

I worked on some small projects this past week. It's been a nice break from making bigger quilts, but I'm gearing up to get back to that and finish 2 larger quilts really soon.

 

I made this zip pouch for my 3rd grader's teacher for an end of the year gift. We put a gift card and some dry erase markers in it. I've made a few of these bags, and I like using 5" charm squares for them.

And I got this Madrona Road scrap mini quilt top finished up. I started the improvised log cabin blocks a while back and decided to make them into something. 

 

I wish I had realized the dark pink "L"s on the top and bottom were both facing the same direction, that's not something I would have kept, but I'm not going to change it now. I need to figure out a quilt back for it and it should be quick to quilt.

And here is a big log cabin block:

 

It's the beginning of a quilt back. A (long) while back, my friend Jan asked me to quilt a quilt top she had, and I'm finally working on it. It's a traditional log cabin quilt with a lot of navy blue, and some pink, red, green, yellow, and orange. I need to press the top and then I'll show it here. 

And here's a frog my kids photographed earlier in the week:

 

She's a little tiny one.

I have one more cool finished project to share, that I haven't got a photo of yet. I'll get that done soon and hopefully be back with a quilt back to show, too. Hope you're having a good weekend!

What I've been working on

I've been working on a few different projects and quilt blocks and it's finally time to blog about them.

 

These are the (late) May blocks for my do good stitches group. The pattern is from Sew, Mama, Sew (but modified for a 12" block) and I didn't follow the instructions. I put mine together half-log-cabin style and the pattern directions suggest sewing it together in straight rows. Which makes sense because it would have been way quicker and easier.

  

These are a couple more scrap blocks to add to my slowly growing pile. I sorted scraps today and I'm thinking I might need to focus on scrap quilts for the summer or something like that. Need to make a dent in the pile o scraps. 

And here is my completed scrappy tripalong quilt top for my do good stitches group:

My request for group members was to make "boyish" blocks with red, yellow, blue and their preferred neutral (could be solid or printed white, offwhite, gray, brown, whatever.) And also to make sure the middle diagonal row was an obvious dark or light. With the variations of colors and those obvious diagonals, I think the quilt top is really dynamic and just...full of energy. This quilt top has 20 scrappy trip blocks and it measures 61" x 49".

Finally, I made this dress for my girl:

I still need to tuck in thread ends, I know.

I cut off the bib part of her overall shorts that I got a couple years ago for the bodice, and made the skirt with a clearanced cloth shower curtain I got at Target sometime last year. 

I'm not sure about it. The skirt pattern is from Ottobre Design issue 3/2006 (it's on the cover) and the ruffles are a bit over the top compared to what she normally wears. The other thing (really, the main thing that's bothering me) is the overalls "bodice" is longer than the one in the actual pattern, so the skirt doesn't really have that empire look it has in the original pattern. I'm considering taking the skirt off of the overalls and making up the bodice from the pattern; and then attaching a different style skirt to the overalls bodice. I'm not sure what I'll do yet but it's always a bummer when things don't turn out the way you envision them.

I'm finishing up a teacher gift next week (maybe a couple) and also making the back for my son's creeper pillow. And working on scrap blocks. What are you working on?

Summer Stars--Blogger's Quilt Festival

It's time for the Blogger's Quilt Festival again! Amy over at Amy's Creative Side hosts this parade of quilts twice a year; thanks so much for the work you've put into the festival, Amy! I'm happy to have a brand new finish to share this time. :)

Earlier this week I finished up my Summer Stars quilt and delivered it to my friends with the Seattle Modern Quilt Guild. We are having a star quilt exhibit at Island Quilter next month (starting on June 7); if you are in the area you should go see the quilts!

I am thankful for my getting-taller helper. The fence was wet and I couldn't hang the quilt up there like I normally do for photos. The finished quilt measures something like 61"x66".

This quilt is made of 8" and 10" sawtooth star blocks using various new and old orange and turquoise/aqua fabrics. The borders are made from (most of) the half square triangles that were leftover from making the star blocks. I used Kona Aqua colored solid fabric for the borders.

Here's the back:

The Chinese character fabric was exactly the right length so I cut it into two pieces and then filled in the middle with the two leftover stars and some other smaller and bigger chunks of fabrics. The dark turquoise fabric along the top is the hanging sleeve for the show.

I machine quilted swirls in all the stars, like this:

 

There are 27 star blocks and I quilted a different design in the corner squares of each block. Kind of silly, but it was kind of a fun challenge to keep coming up with ideas.

The following photo shows how I quilted the borders. There are three borders on the top and 2 sides, and five borders on the bottom of the quilt. I did a figure 8 loop for the inner border, circles in the triangle borders, and a double feather in the wider, outer border.

 

Here's one more photo of the quilting:

 

 along with the little section of turquoise in the orange binding. 

Thanks again to Amy for hosting Blogger's Quilt Festival--head over there soon for more quilt eye candy. :)

Giveaway Day Winner!

The winner of my rainbow scrap pack is #63, Mamma Nene. Congratulations!

Star Quilt Top Finished

 

I didn't have great lighting for this... yes it's too sunny and I'm not complaining. Seattle was tied for "hottest major city in the US" yesterday at 89 degrees in our particular neck of the woods. I love it. It's not quite that warm today but it's still beautiful, bright, sunny, warm. I'll get a better quilt photo when I finish up all the quilting. This quilt is going to be part of a star quilt exhibit next month, over at Island Quilter with Seattle MQG.

Putting all the borders on wasn't the most fun ever but I love how it's turned out so far. I wasn't sure what to do as far as measuring the sawtooth borders, so I added the blue pieces to the ends with a little bit of extra length, and then pinned the borders on starting in the middle. Then I trimmed the ends. The plain borders were all measured and done the "right" way.

Next up is making the back and thinking about the quilting. Should I go buy some aqua thread or quilt it in white? Or both?

Giveaway Day!

Sew, Mama, Sew is having their semiannual giveaway week again! I have a rainbow scrap pack up for grabs. I might still add some pinks... maybe some selvedges too. 

 

To enter, just leave a comment on this post. I'd love to hear what you're working on or what your plans are for summer this year. I'm moderating comments (because the word verification is so annoying), so your comment won't show up until I approve it. I'm willing to ship international. The giveaway will close on May 10 at 5 p.m. Pacific time. I'll email the winner (and post the winner's name here) so make sure you're not a no reply blogger (or include your email address in your comment.) 

If you're new, welcome! I have a few quilting and clothing sewing tutorials linked up under the top banner, if you have time, or come back later. :) Good luck with the giveaways!

Don't forget to head over to Sew, Mama, Sew for many more chances to win. :)

Star Quilt Progress

 

I'm working on putting the rows together for my star quilt. I am going to use the leftover half-square triangles from making the stars for sawtooth borders. There are two sizes; not sure if I'm going to use the skinny ones or the wider ones, or maybe, some combination of both. 

I just realized I sewed the fish block sideways. I think I will leave it that way.

I've ordered solid light aqua fabric for inner and outer borders--I want to separate the pieced borders from the stars so they will be more visible.

What are you working on this week?

Granny Square Quilt, Finished

 

I finished this quilt a couple days ago. Maybe I should start keeping track of when I start new projects... this one took quite a while but I just made a few blocks at a time, and then used several of my blocks in my charity version of this same quilt. My sewing machine had a computer malfunction partway through quilting this. I was still able to quilt, but the computer screen is stuck on bobbin winding mode. I have a Janome MC4900... any other Janome users have this problem? It's been at the shop for a few days and I'm waiting to hear what the damage will be.

 

I free motion quilted a curvy corner-to-corner thing on all the squares, and then did a simple stipple in all the background space. We went to Utah for spring break earlier this month and my mom let me bring home her Juki for a while, so I finished the quilting using that machine. I am liking the Juki, it's so fast!

 

And here's the back. I started with the pink/orange section in the middle, I wasn't thinking of anything I could use that Amy Butler piece for, and then used a few other fabrics I am ready to be done with to make it wide enough. Then the green... the remains of some of my very first quilt shop fabric purchase are in that chunk. I have moved on from the dusty sage green love of the late 90s, for sure. After I finished up the green, I thought I was going to use a black and white Chinese character fabric for the rest of the back but it wasn't meant to be so I put together another section made from blues and then separated the 3 colors with white/white-ish 6.5" strips.

The binding is 4 colors--aqua, pink, purple, and yellow. I was going to do it all with the aqua/green Heather Bailey bead fabric but it would have used it almost all the way up so I mixed it up a little bit.

Thanks to Blue Elephant Stitches for the Granny Square Quilt tutorial and to traceyjay quilts for the setting triangles directions!

Bee Blocks

I've finished up my March blocks for do good stitches (because I'm doing all of them on time this year)

 

These were the easiest bee blocks ever. They are 12.5 inches, not small at all.

 

And I'm in charge for April so I have those ones done too. I'm requesting scrappy trip along blogs in red, yellow, and blue with your choice of neutrals (white, off white, tan, brown, whatever looks good). And an obviously dark or light strip down the center. 

 

 (Since I had to use that diagonal stripe in the above block, I decided green is ok too.)

Easter Dress 2013

I finished up my daughter's Easter dress last night. Actually I didn't try out the buttons and it turns out I had to remove one and resew it because it wasn't placed quite right. So I finished it this morning.

This fabric is hard to photograph just right in my house; I'll try to get some outdoor pics when she's wearing the dress on Sunday.

I used the Oliver + S bubble dress pattern. It went together fairly easy, and I'm happy with how it turned out. I made the size 3 with the skirt the length of the 4, but it's still pretty short on my daughter. 

When I broke my finger last summer, making this dress for my girl was one of the things I daydreamed about at the very beginning. (I had to wait a week between the injury and the surgery so there was a lot of serious pain going on, and laying in my bed, and hardly any sewing for a few weeks.) I'm glad to have it done and will probably make another one. Maybe I'll try one without the side seam scallops next year.

Here's the back:

I have a little baggie in with my sewing notions and found the perfect buttons in there. I have no idea what they were originally bought for, but they match the flowers in this fabric just right.

 

P.S. I love automatic buttonholes. They are the only thing I unplug the foot control on my sewing machine for.

Craft Tree: Just for Kids

Last week I got my copy of the new booklet, "Just For Kids"--it's a compilation of 15 sewing projects for kids, published by Interweave.

My Stacked Coin Doll Quilt is the first project in the book. :) I love those puppet/washcloth mitts on the cover too.

I'm thinking about making a couple more of these small quilts for an ongoing charity project through my local quilt guild.

There are several other booklets in the Craft Tree series and I was told they will be available for purchase at big box craft/fabric stores...not sure if they're there yet though. For now you can buy them here.

What I'm Working On

I've been working on a few different things the last couple weeks:

L's Easter dress. I'm using the Bubble Dress pattern by Oliver and S. It looks cute so far (and no sleeves makes it a bit easier, too.) I'm excited to see how it looks with the skirt "bubbled".

My Alabama Stitch (affiliate link) skirt . I've wanted to make one of these for so long, and I'm glad I finally actually got started on it! I was hoping this would be ready for me to wear by Easter; it might not be. It's coming along, though.

 

And my granny square quilt back.

I ended up doing something totally different than I thought I would do. I started by making the orange/pink section. I wanted to use up the Amy Butler peacock feathers fabric (too multicolored!) and found some of my older orange and pinks to put with it and get them out of my stash. Then I made the green section, again using several older fabrics. Some of those are from my very first quilt shop fabric purchase back in 1997. Not so much a fan of the muted sage green these days. After I finished the green and orange sections I thought I was going to put a big (whole) piece of fabric in between them, but that didn't seem right so I made a pieced blue section too. And then separated the sections with pieced white/light strips.

I'm not too far out on finishing the Easter dress and I'm plugging away on my skirt. Hope to have a finish to share here soon!

Birdie Ruffle Crush Quilt

I have a new baby niece and I finished up her baby quilt a few weeks ago. I finally got it labeled and sent off to her, and now I can share it here.

 

I used my Ruffle Crush quilt pattern to make this quilt. My sister-in-law chose most of the fabrics--I pulled the small squares from my stash and from the leftovers from her other daughter's quilt. There's even a piece of the striped fabric from her son's quilt in this one, too. The binding is Kona pomegranate.

The back is just one fabric this time. 

 

I sewed the ruffles on this quilt with my ruffler foot and it was challenging to keep the non-ruffled segments of the quilt straight and square that way. It turned out ok, but I think when I make this quilt again I will do the gathers by hand, in order to have a quilt with all right angles.

I did echo quilting around the birds in this section.

And figure-8 loops in the pieced strips and swirls in the orange dots.

You can find the Ruffle Crush Quilt pattern in my Craftsy shop. If you make one, I'd love to see it.

Claiming

I still think the big G will reverse their position on reader... but I'm switching anyway. 
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I have a quilt back and front to show you, and tomorrow will be cutting out an Easter dress for L and a skirt for me. Hope you have a great weekend!

Finished Circle Quilt

Yesterday I finished up the binding on my circle quilt. I am trying to make a dent in my UFOs and am glad to have this one done.

(my helper's arms were not quite long enough to hold the quilt out straight; it's a big quilt)

The quilt is 60" x 80", and I quilted it in a spiral, mostly using my walking foot. I had some issues with the layers shifting, even with the walking foot and having the presser foot pressure loosened. Part way through, I undid the remaining basting pins, smoothed the layers out again, and rebasted it, with the pins closer together than the first time. Then I loosened my presser foot pressure a little bit more and started quilting again. It went better after those changes, but there was still a little bit of minor shifting.

The center of the quilted spiral was quilted last, with my free motion quilting foot. I was really nervous about how that would go, but I was able to quilt it more smoothly than I expected.

The back of the quilt is pretty simple with red and yellow fabrics I got from Connecting Threads, and blue kelp I got on sale a while back.

Most of the binding came from my binding scraps (I had a lot of brown) and I added some red, yellow, and blue fabrics. It was nice to have most of the strips cut and pressed already. 

This is my second circle quilt; my first one was a baby quilt made for my niece in 2010. When I made that quilt I wrote a couple of tutorial blog posts about designing your own circle quilt and drafting the patterns/templates for this block. Back then, I also promised a "how to figure yardage" post... and then I never wrote it. So I'm thinking I will go ahead and write that soon--let me know if you think it's something that would be helpful!

Modern Basics II Blog Tour

Hi everyone! I’m happy to be a part of the blog tour for Amy Ellis’s new book, Modern Basics II. Amy and I have been friends for a few years—I love her quilts and I know she works really hard on her books and other creative endeavors. Amy blogs at Amy’s Creative Side and she is probably best known for the twice-yearly Blogger’s Quilt Festival that she hosts at her blog, along with her first book, Modern Basics. Modern Basics II is a wonderful follow-up to her first book, and includes patterns for 14 beautiful quilts. 

This quilt is called Confetti Crossings. I love this quilt with the warm spring-y fabrics alternating with bold "X" blocks.

Confetti Crossings is made with two different blocks, a 16-patch and a graphic “X” block made from half square triangles. Amy has included instructions for making this quilt in two sizes so you can make a large bed size quilt (93” x 93”) or, if you prefer, a throw quilt (56” x 68”). I think this quilt would look great with a few varying blacks and whites for the X blocks and then total scrappiness for the 16 patches. Or—you could flip the color scheme and make black and white checkerboards for the 16 patches and then use different bright colors with white for the X blocks.

Amy’s asked us to share about a favorite quilting tip or tool. One of my favorite/essential quilting tools is the Kwik Klip. 

I always pin baste my quilts, and I use my Kwik Klip to close the pins. (You just hold the safety part of the safety pin with one hand and use the Kwik Klip in your other hand to push the pointy end of the pin into the safety cap.) It’s fast and easy and saves my fingertips from getting poked and scraped by all those safety pins.

You can visit all the blog tour links below, starting today, to learn more about the quilts in Modern Basics II.

 

Emily Herrick    http://crazyoldladiesquilts.blogspot.com/
Amy Newbold    http://sukiedontyaknow.com/
Dana Bolyard    http://oldredbarnco.blogspot.com/
Amy Webb    http://www.amylouwhosews.com/
Martingale    http://blog.shopmartingale.com/
Victoria Findlay Wolfe    http://www.bumblebeansinc.blogspot.com/
Katie Blakesley    www.swimbikequilt.com
Chelsey K    www.fatquartershop.blogspot.com
Terri Harlan    http://sew-fantastic.blogspot.com/
Mary Kolb    http://maryonlakepulaski.blogspot.com/
Pat Sloan    http://blog.patsloan.com
Natalia Bonner    http://www.pieceandquilt.com/
Candy Glendening    http://www.candiedfabrics.com/
Vicki Christensen    http://www.sewinspiredblog.com/

Then visit this link and complete the form to enter to win an electronic copy of Modern Basics II. There will be 15 winners, and Amy will contact them on March 4. Good luck!