X and + Quilt Top finish #006

I'm in love with my newest quilt top creation, the X and + Quilt.

I bought a bundle of the Cotton and Steel Tokyo Train Ride fabric that included 13 or so fat quarters.  I really wanted to create a quilt using all those fabrics in 1 quilt.  After much searching, I came across the X and + quilt block and thought it would be a great block to use fat quarters with!  Check out Petals and Pins X and + quilt HERE

Here are some close ups of the blocks.

You can find the Tutorial for the block HERE

The block measures 12 inches square once complete, so I didn't need too many to make a decent size quilt.  I decided to go with 30 blocks (5 blocks wide, 6 blocks long). In a perfect work, this is a 60 in X 72 in quilt.

This block was pretty simple to do.  Along with the Tokyo Train Ride, I mixed in pink fabric from Tula Pink's True collection fabric and pink fabric from Tula Pink's Elizabeth fabric.  I also added in some Doe Carolyn Friedlander's third fabric collection Doe by Robert Kaufman.  I love Pileofabric for buying fabrics (it's where I got Tokyo Train Ride, Elizabeth and Doe from).  Follow Pileofabric on instagram for great specials.  I bought the Tokyo Train Ride collection on a buy one bundle get one half off deal!  The neutral fabric used in all the block came from by trip to Hancock's of Paducah, also a great place to buy fabric in person and online.

Now I am working on the back.  I will be piecing the back.  As part of doing this quilt block, you end up with lots of little triangle scrapes. 

I decided to sew them together into little HST (half square triangles) and then make rows of flying geese.  I think I'll have enough to make 3 rows of flying geese to make vertical stripes on the back.  I'll link them together with some other fabric I have yet to choose.

 I'm looking forward to trying some custom quilting.  Check out Kathleenquilts.com.  Each Friday, she provides suggestions for custom quilting and she featured my quilt on August 21st.  Check it out HERE!



Heirloom Quilt for a friend

I lived in California until a was seven.  My mom's best friend, Sherlyn, had 3 kids around our ages that we spent all our time with.  My mom recently went to California to visit Sherlyn and was bragging to her about my quilting (as all moms do).

 

Sherlyn's mother had hand pieced a quilt top that Sherlyn had always wanted to get quilted.  Sherlyn's mother, Charlotte, created the quilt while caring for Sherlyn's mother-in-law who had Alzheimer's.  This quilt top means a lot to the family since it has memories of both grandmothers.   The quilt had been stored in a plastic bag in the garage for years since she didn't know the first place to start with getting it quilted. 

Sherlyn was impressed with the pictures my mom shared and asked if she thought I would be willing to finish the quilt for her.  It would be a great heirloom for the family, especially completed. 

 

 

I took on the challenge, reminding them that I am new to quilting, so it would not be perfect. 

 

 

The quilt top was not complete.  It was just a bunch of random blocks that Charlotte had put together.  I had to cut off some so that it would be squared off. The fabric used was a real mixture of fabrics (not much quilters cotton that I'm used to).  I decided to do an overall quilting design that might help pull everything together into a unified quilt.  When taking Leah Day's Craftsy class, Free Motion Quilting a Sampler, I found that the wondering clover design was pretty easy for me to do.  I thought the flower like clover would complement the quilt well.  So that is what I did.

 

 

Picking the backing was a little more difficult.  Sherlyn expressed that some of the fabric used in the quilt top was not her taste, so I went with a more contemporary fabric, with some of the colors from the quilt top.  That way, if she didn't like the top, she would reverse it and have a different look. 

 

 

For the binding, I went with a fabric I found in Paducah, KY when we did a trip there to Hancock's of Paducah.  (By the way, if you haven't been to Hancock's of Paducah, this place was amazing!)  I think the binding really complemented the quilt top.

 

 

This was by far the largest quilt top I tried to quilt.  Luckily my Singer 8500Q has a large throat, I was able to work on the quilt with ease.  The middle was a little difficult; however, I think the machine would be able to fit a much larger quilt.  The final size is approximately 90x85. 

 

 

I can't wait to ship this off to Sherlyn. I hope she is really happy with it and her family will treasure it for years to come.

Photo Shoot

I finally got an opportunity to photograph my finishes.

001 My first quilt ever:  click here for blog post

002 A quilt just for me: Click here for Blog post

 005 Manly Quilt for my Husband: Click here for Blog Post



Manly Quilt - Kaleidoscope Plaid finish #005

For my third quilt, it was my husband's turn.  He really wanted a manly quilt made with plaids.  I found a kaleidoscope quilt that someone made with plaid that we both liked.  So I went in that directions.  I bought I Kaleidoscope rule to cut out all the pieces.  My husband is tall, so he wanted a really large quilt to cover him from head to toe.  I chose to make a 9 inch block and make the quilt nine rows of 6.  That would make it 81in X 54 in.  Then I could add a border if it wasn't quite big enough. 

I needed 108 pieces of each of the 6 fabrics

The only plaid fabric I found was a cheap, homespun fabric.  I highly recommend that you don't use homespun fabric if you are new.  Every time I took my seam ripper to it, the fabric would become unwoven.

This was a large undertaking.  My first few blocks looked kinda rough (the points of the triangles disappeared).  During this time I discovered by local quilt shop.  When talking to here, I learned that there is a quarter inch foot that will help me with my seam allowances.  Once I started using the quarter inch foot (and lots of starch on the pieces). My blocks started coming out much better.  This was my first decent block (I think it was the 8 of 54 one I did).  Not quite perfect, but I was happy with it.

54 blocks later.....

Once I finally got the blocks made and pieces, I decided to add a 3 inch border. 

I used my walking foot to quilt the quilt.  Check out final photos Here

I had no issue fitting this quilt into my new Singer 8500Q

Technicolor Galaxy - Star Points - Block 2 and Piano Keys - Block 3

I started the star points (block 2) to the Technicolor Galaxy as planned.  Paper piecing was the technique used for the blocks.  This was the first time I ever heard of paper piecing.  Once I read the instructions, I wish I knew about this before I started the Kaleidoscope quilt for my husband!  It would have been so much easier.

I wanted to have orange coming out of the center of the color wheel (Block 1) and I love gray and found so gray and white fabric I thought would work well for the "rays" from the sun center.  I didn't have as much fabric for what I originally had planned but added the orange butterfly fabric to augment it and I think it turned out well.

 

I'm decided to just use the walking foot to do the quilting.  I love the way the quilting with the walking foot turned out.  The back of the quilt will all be different grays/blacks. 

Before I finished, block 3 instructions came out.  It appeared to be an easy, paper pieced block.  So I went ahead and started on it.  My original plan was to go with blue on the first outer ring of the quilt.  I stated second guessing myself because my grandma said she wanted the quilt and loves reds. I thought about adding red to the first ring but decided to go with my original plan. I think the blue compliments the center and star points.  I might still add some red to the first ring in the arrow points, but not yet.  Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.

 

 

Dinosaur Baby Quilt 004

One of our friends are expecting a little boy in June.  I really wanted to make them a baby quilt; however, I was pretty nervous about it because it will be my first project that I've giving to someone else. 

I didn't have a pattern in mind when I started this time.  I want to pick the fabrics first and then use those as the inspiration for the quilt design.  I went to my LQS, Quilters Attic in Goodlettsville TN and found  a pillowcase bundle that included a dinosaur fabric.  The bundle included 3 fabric, enough to do a pillowcase.  I also saw on the bolt they had another dinosaur fabric that would coordinate for the back.  So I bought the pillowcase bundle ($24 for approximately 3/4 yard of the green dinosaur fabric, 1/2 yard of the white circle fabric, and 1/4 yard of the orange dot fabric) and 1 yard of the backing fabric.

Once I got home, I started brainstorming different designs.  I would bounce them off my husband and the first several, he was happy with.  I finally stumbled on Amy Smart's (diary of a quilter) four patch design.  Fast Four Patch Tutorial I thought it would work well with the amount of fabric I had.  I designed to sketch out the design.  I had a fat quarter of orange fabric in my stash that I used to supplement the orange dot fabric.  I also originally thought I had enough fabric to get all 20 squares of the white circle fabric but I was 2 squares off.  Luckily I had the exact size of square left over from my first baby quilt that I could use (score)!

Then I started cutting.  The small squares are 4.5x4.5 and the large ones are 8.5X8.5.  It took my about 2 hours to iron and cut all the fabric and only 2 hours to sew together the whole quilt top!!  I was so pleased with how fast it came together and how well it turned out!

Next came the quilting.  I wanted to do a simple design so I knew I would be successful and it would look good.  Since I've only FMQ 1 time, I didn't want to do it for a quilt that I was going to gift.  I ended up quilting in the ditch of all the large square and doing somewhat of an echo on the inside of all the large squares.  I used a walking foot for the quilting.

Binding is a solid blue.  I love how cute it turned out.

When I took it to the baby shower, it was a huge hit!  I was shocked with how excited the other guest at the baby shower were about it.  It definitely eased by nerves to know that everyone loved it. 

Technicolor Galaxy - Block 1 - Color Wheel

I've been looking at blogs to get ideas and learn more about quilting. I got excited when I came across Pile O' Fabric blog. She has a skill builder block of a month class designed to build your skills. I looked through the 2013 and 2014 BOM and saw several techniques I had never heard of before. I started stalking her website waiting for the announcement of the 2015 quilt. I was hoping it was going to be a good design. I was definitely not disappointed!

The Pile O' Fabric 2015 BOM is Technicolor Galaxy.

When I first so this, I couldn't wait to get started. I didn't even know a design like this was even possible for quilting. 

As part of the class we received a color sheet to design our own quilts. At first I wasn't sure if I was going to do the prescribed design or change it up. I looked at Instagram #skillbuilderbom and #technicolorgalaxy and so some other people's ideas and thought I'd give another color scheme a try!

I wanted the center to have the coloring of the sun where it is darker in the middle and go out. Here is a rough coloring of what I have in mind. The background will be dark colors. 

I bought the templates from Pile O' Fabric (which I'd strongly suggest if you decide to join the class). Before the first lesson in February, I preped the templates and pulled the fabrics for the first 2 months (the color wheel and star points). For Christmas presents from my family, I got money to start a stash! I bought ever fat quarters in a rainbow of colors and pulled most of the fabrics from the stash 😄

For the first block, the center color wheel, we cut the fabric to the right size, glued it to muslim and made bias tape to shape in circles on top. It was an interesting technique. It took me several tried to figure out how to properly make the bias tape but after I figured it out, it wasn't too bad!

This is the shaping of the bias tape.

Then I laid it onto the glued pieces and stitched it down.

Then I basted the quilt and did FMQ. I love the final result!  Not bad for a beginner 😀

Just for Me - Paisley Window Pane finish #003

After I finished my first quilt, I was hooked.  I purchased the window pane pattern from Amy Smart of Diary of a Quilter for my second quilt. I went a little crazy at Joann's and decided to make a really girly quilt with a bunch of different fabrics I really liked. 

 Since it was all squares and triangles, it was really easy to put together and went pretty quickly.

I used a paisley fabric for the back and decided to trace out some of the designs using free motion in order to quilt it.  This was my first attempt at free motion and I liked it.  At the time, I didn't know that when you start FMQ, you should bring the bottom thread up.  I also didn't know about tying off the thread and burying them.  So, I  just trimmed them when I started and stopped.  Hopefully it will stay together fine.

Check out more photos Here