pixelated heart quilt

In the middle of January I became obsessed with making a pixelated heart quilt after seeing a photo of this one made by Amanda at Westwood Acres Fabric Shop.  Though I already have plenty of works-in-progress to keep me occupied, I couldn't seem to let go of the idea.  So...

Just like her quilt, I used 5" cut squares, and I'm happy to report that ALL the fabrics for the quilt top came from my stash.  Lots and lots of Anna Maria Horner prints in this pile - I just grabbed every pink or purple fabric I had and got busy cutting.  The quilt needs 70 colored squares, but I cut 100+ so I could be choosy about where I placed them in the center of the quilt layout to form the heart.

Low volume fabrics make up the background; 215 background squares plus 70 colored squares yield a 67" x 85" (twin sized) finished quilt arranged in a 15 x 19 block grid.

I took all the cut squares to my quilt guild's January sewing day to get the layout set and get most of it sewn together.  I arranged the heart center and sewed it into rows before positioning the background squares.  (Why do all banks have such hideous carpet in their community/meeting rooms?)

I didn't press any seams at the sew-in; I just kept sewing all day to get each row assembled.  Then the following week at home I pressed the seams for each row in alternating directions so they could be nested and all the corners would line up as I completed the quilt top.

Here's a shot of my favorite section of the quilt - the top center of the heart.  I finally cut into and used this french macaron fabric that I've been saving for a few years :)

The print on the right is my backing - Caravan's Light in Sunrise from the Bijoux collection by Bari J for Art Gallery fabrics.

"Dahlia Dance" is the long-arm quilting pattern I selected; it was quilted by my fellow guild member Isis.  The lilac polyester thread (brand name Glide) has a bit of sheen to it, and I love the results!

Pellon Nature's Touch all cotton batting is in the center.  I hadn't used this batting before, but I may be using it exclusively from now on.  It is lightweight with an excellent drape, and after washing the quilt's texture is so soft and crinkly. 

Perfectly sized for a twin bed!

We had a bit of snow here on February 14 - the day I finished binding the quilt - so I had my husband bundle up and hold it for an outside photo.  Great guy, huh?

I started cutting fabrics for this quilt on January 19 and finished the last stitch of binding on February 14.  26 days start to finish - that's a record for me.  Of course the super speedy quilting job by Isis made that possible!

I'd like to make another one of these quilts in the future using smaller squares to yield a lap sized quilt.  Squares cut at 4" would yield a 52" x 66" quilt - perfect for couch snuggling and movie watching :)

I'll let Thing 1 and Thing 2 hash it out over who gets which size ;-)

Many thanks to Amanda at Westwood Acres for her blog post about her beautiful quilt!

and done!

The Epic College Map Quilt top for Thing 2 is finished! I spent much of last week churning out 200 flying geese blocks assembly line style, and then last Saturday I started playing with the layout of the blocks and ended up finishing the entire top :)

I had it in my head that 198 flying geese blocks (finishing at 3" x 6") were needed for the borders, but I really only needed 98. As I sat on the floor Saturday positioning the blocks I kept wondering "why does it seem like there are way too many of these?" Ummm... because there were too many! When designing the pattern I had intended to use my Sizzix dies to cut all of the pieces which included 196 background fabric triangles - aha! That's how the extra 100 got stuck in my mind! But then I decided to use the Eleanor Burns flying geese method (shown below) because there is no triangle cutting involved and very little fabric waste. So the lesson here is always check back with the pattern before cutting - and that no matter how long you've been sewing there is always something to learn!

Now for the fabulous 4-at-a-time-super-easy-and-accurate flying geese method that I used - you'll need a "Quilt in a Day" Flying Geese ruler.  There are two sizes available; mine makes blocks 1.5" x 3" or 3" x 6".  I'm using a Frixion pen to mark my fabrics because the ink vanishes when you iron it, but you should definitely test this on your fabrics first!

To make 4 flying geese units that finish at 3" x 6" cut one 9" background fabric square and one 7.5" main fabric square.  Place the background (grey) fabric square right side up and mark the center diagonal line.  Place the main (pink) fabric square right side down over the background piece and mark the center diagonal line.  Center the main fabric just by eyeballing it, but make sure the diagonal line matches up with the background.  Pin in a couple of spots to secure.

Now sew a 1/4" seam on both sides of the drawn line.

Cut on the diagonal line.

Press each unit with the seam allowance toward the background fabric.

Place the two units right sides together with the main fabric pieces opposite of each other.  DON'T NEST THE SEAMS - align the outer edges of the two pieces.

Mark the center diagonal line on the top unit as shown and pin to secure.

Sew a 1/4" seam on both sides of the drawn line.

Cut on the drawn diagonal line.

Make a small snip in the center of each seam allowance to aid in pressing the seam allowances correctly.

Press the seam allowances toward the background fabric again.  Here is a shot of what your two pieces should look like from the back and front.

Align the marked triangle on your Quilt in a Day ruler with your block as shown.  (Those little tan dots are sandpaper disks I stuck to the back of the ruler to help keep it from slipping around on the fabric.)  Trim the excess fabric along the right and top edges of the ruler, then pivot the fabric and ruler so you can cut the left and bottom sides.  If you have a rotating cutting mat on hand definitely use it for this step.

And from two squares of fabric you now have four perfectly sized identical flying geese blocks!

I repeated this process 49 more times to get my 200 blocks (even though I could have stopped at 24 repetitions - hehe!)

200 flying geese ready to go!

This is the background fabric that Thing 2 has chosen; it's from the Waterfront Park line by Violet Craft for Moda.  Line drawings of bridges in white on navy - perfect for a Civil Engineering major :)

Monday morning this is off to the quilter!  I probably won't see it again until mid-July, but I'll be sure to share photos of the finished product before it heads to it's new (dorm) home in mid-August.  Oh, and she loves it.  She really loves it :)

Final stats:

• Quilt will finish at 66" x 93"
• Applique center finished at 42.25" x 81"
• Side borders to applique section (added before flying geese) finish at 6" x 81" and 5.75" x 81".  These borders were not pieced - they were cut on the lengthwise grain to avoid seams.
• 6.5 yards of background fabric is probably what is needed to make this quilt without sewing an extra 100 flying geese.  7.5 yards is what I actually purchased and cut. 
• Flying geese units were made from applique scraps and quarter yard cuts.  Fabrics used include several Studio E Peppered Shot Cottons, a few P&B Textiles blender prints, as well as AMH, Parson Gray, Juliana Horner, and Denyse Schmidt prints.  

flower garden hexagons = slow sewing

Confession: Late in 2014 I started yet another hand sewing project.  At the time I was having such fun making the English paper pieced (EPP) hexagons for my Red Hot Dreamy Hexagons quilt top (which by the way is finished and just waiting to be quilted!) that I immediately started making more when I saw this book cover...

I'm using primarily Kaffe Fassett and Anna Maria Horner fabrics to make my star and flowers and a wide variety of light-to-medium grey prints for the background hexagons. The center star of the quilt top is almost complete!

The pattern calls for 759 colored hexagons (to make the star center and surrounding flower blocks) and 532 background hexagons!  Wow - that is a LOT of hand-sewing!!  I haven't yet made a count of how many are completed because I don't want to discourage myself, but I plan to show you my (slow) progress on this throughout the year.

The great news is that this project is perfectly portable - I've worked on these hexagons while traveling in Florida, Indiana, Texas, and Ohio and in front of the TV many evenings.  You only need to bring along a small bag of precut templates, precut fabric squares, needle, thread, small scissors, and reading glasses while you're on the go :)

I use a 1" Fiskars hexagon punch to cut my EPP papers.  I am way too cheap to buy enough EPP papers for a project of this size, so I cut my papers from the subscription inserts found in magazines.  FREE EPP papers, people!  Using a hole punch tool to make a hole in the center of each paper makes them easy to remove later.

A few of my fabrics were cut using a 1.25" hexagon die and my new Sizzix Fabi Cutter, but I found that they were a little too small to easily wrap around the papers, so I've gone back to my original method of using 2.5" fabric squares for 1" hexagons. (The 1" measurement indicates the length of each side of the hexagon.)  There is a 1.5" hexagon die available for the Sizzix Fabi, but I'm too cheap to buy another die when 2.5" squares work just fine :)

As you can see, there is not a lot of seam allowance on the back side of these EPP hexagons - too fiddly for me.  The method I use for thread basting my hexagons is actually a mash-up of several methods, but this YouTube video is the closest demonstration I can find online to show you how I do it.  I don't glue baste my hexagons - I tried that method but it just didn't work for me.  Thread basting takes longer, but thread is cheaper than glue and it stays in place just fine.

Along with the star center I've completed four of the 32 flower units...

This photo shows the back of the center star unit. You can see that I've removed the papers from all of the hexagons that are surrounded by others.  The perimeter hexagons still have their papers enclosed; I don't remove the paper until a hexagon has been sewn to another on all six sides.  You can also see that the green and black hexagons do not have any thread basting.  These are the ones I tried to glue baste, but the seam allowances didn't remain glued down long enough for me to sew them all together, so I ended up re-gluing all of them.  What a waste of time!

And here are the back sides of my flower units. I'll leave all the basting stitches in even after the whole top is put together. There really is no reason to spend the time removing all those stitches - they'll just be concealed on the back side against the batting and won't interfere with the quilting process.

And one last shot of the center...

This is going to be a very lengthy project. I hesitate to even venture a guess at a completion date, so for now I'll just plan to write an update periodically and maybe at some point provide a count of how many of the 1,291 hexagons are completed.  But that would require counting.  And I'd rather just spend the time sewing :)

these skirts aren't just for summer

These are fall skirts! I've now finished three more skirts using the book The Essential A-Line by Jona Giammalva (previously blogged about here.)

I cannot say enough good things about this book! As you probably know, I love skirts, and this book is by far the best one I've seen to help you make your own fitted pattern that can be varied in so many ways.

The first skirt here is the basic A-Line constructed as directed in the book. It has a side seam invisible zipper and traditional (slippery fabric!) lining. What do you think of that fabric? I can wear ANY color with it! It is called "Effervescence" in Jewel by Robert Kaufman. The fabric is printed with a border running along the selvage on one side, but I was able to cut around that.

Can you see that zipper? No, you cannot, because it is invisible!

Next up is a variation of the basic A-Line. You may recognize this AMH print because I already have another skirt made from it!

This time I changed the pattern from the book to utilize a center-back zipper installation. Since I'm going to be teaching some beginning sewists how to make these skirts, I think a regular centered zipper is far easier to master than an invisible one.

I also added an interfaced waistband facing to this version because I think it helps the skirt to lay better around your middle section.

The lining is a poly/cotton blend broadcloth that is layered together with the main fabric, so it does not hang freely as a traditional skirt lining would. This gives the skirt a bit of a heavier feel (perfect for cooler weather!) while still blocking out any sunshine "see-through".

The hem is encased in a bias binding - one of the hem variations shown in the book. This fabric is one of my all-time favorites: Paperweight in Gypsy by Kaffe Fassett.

And lastly, my version of the book's Patchwork skirt. The author made her patchwork skirt with all 5" squares, but I was inspired by another skirt I saw over the summer made from many different sized cuts of fabrics. I got together with a friend of mine a few weeks ago and we each made one of these skirts (similar but different due to fabric layout) utilizing a shared set of 16 fat quarters. I'll share another post soon with photos of that sewing session - so fun!

Again I added the center-back zipper and waist facing.

And the bias binding hem. This hem fabric is Oval Elements in Licorice by Art Gallery Fabrics.

These three fall beauties are now hanging in the window of my LQS advertising my upcoming November class! I've structured the beginning basic skirt class in two three-hour sessions to be held in the evenings.

Then in 2014 I'm planning to add more classes so students can make some of the book's variations of the basic A-Line skirt. Currently there are two versions on the cutting table in my sewing room - the inverted pleat skirt and the tiered skirt - with a Friday deadline! Must get busy sewing!

Enjoy the week!!