Rear Window finish

A July finish that is finally photographed! One more quilt off of the UFO list!!

I used the "Rear Window" pattern from Blue Underground Studios and started with a bunch of Amy Butler prints from her early Daisy Chain line. The designer's original quilt was in a trunk show at a local shop a couple of years ago, and I really loved it just as it was, so I tried to use many of the same fabrics.

But of course there are some Kaffe prints in here... Bekah in Green, Paperweight in Sludge (one of my all-time favorites despite the unfortunate color name), and another fabric from his collective that I just can't recall the name of...

All mixed in with some Denyse Schmidt Hope Valley greys and other random teal/turquoise prints. The overall swirly quilting pattern was done by Carol Linder in Hampshire, my go-to long-arm quilter :)

The backing is a mix of two Amy Butler Daisy Chain prints that I scored on clearance at QuiltHome.com - yay! - and the binding is an ombre-like blend of teal, turquoise, and sea glass green that blends well with all those prints in the quilt top.

A close up photo of the backing center section shows off the quilting in sea glass green thread.

And here's a shot of the full backing.

This quilt has seen a lot of use recently by my girls during family movie nights on the couch. Yes, it is summer, and yes, the A/C is usually running, but that hasn't stopped them :) In fact, Thing 1 has decided that we should stop using our lightweight fleece "TV watching" blankets and start using more of "all these pretty quilts".

chipping away at the list

I am making progress on my UFO list! Last week I finished the backing for two big quilts and off they went to be quilted.

First is "Rear Window". This is the quilt I had started in February, 2012, when Thing 1 decided she'd like these same color fabrics for her college quilt. Needless to say, I put these blocks aside (which were nearly all complete) and worked on her quilt. A couple of weeks ago my friend Andrea came to sew for the day, and I finally finished it!

While I was working at Quilt in Joy, we had a Blue Underground trunk show, and this is one of their quilts we had hanging in the shop. I loved it so much I copied as many of their fabric choices as I could for my version. I guess it's not really a "version" if it's a near 100% copy, but you know what I mean. It finished at 66" x 81" - nearly twin sized.

And finally my Twinkle quilt made with 168 unique bits of fabric, most of them Kaffe and cut by my good friend Sharon :) I've had this huge quilt top (84" x 98") finished since last fall, but kept putting off piecing the backing because I didn't want to wrangle with the nine yards it required! But now it's done and waiting patiently in line to be quilted by Carol. I stepped out of my comfort zone choosing the quilting thread for this one - magenta! I do love that color, and there seems to be quite a lot of it in the fabrics, so rather than going with the safe blue or green thread, I took a leap. It will either be fabulous or a lesson learned... we'll see!

So I guess I'm still holding steady at 28 UFOs, but these two have moved much closer to dropping off of that list! Enjoy your week, and go sew something :)

Oh, the places she'll go...

We're gearing up for Thing 1's big move south to college in just a couple of weeks! She's got her dorm room assignment, two roommates, class schedule, and now a fully complete bed set! The hand-sewing project I previewed for you in my last post is finished - a toss pillow to coordinate with her quilt...

I used the Clover Yo-Yo Maker Extra Large size to craft 36 yo-yos for the pillow center. They each measure about 2.5" in diameter. You can order one from amazon.com and many other online retailers, but I was lucky enough to find mine at my local JoAnn's store.

The inspiration for this design came during a summer shopping trip where she spied this pillow...

To make this personalized version I chose one of the fabrics used for the block frames in her quilt and added some teal chenille ball fringe to the edges of her 20" finished pillow.

Most of the yo-yo fabrics are found in her quilt, which I'm thrilled to say is also completed! Here's the front. It's so large that even standing on a chair she couldn't hold it up off the ground - 78" wide by 102" long - yikes! (I ended up adding an additional row for those of you who remember reading about my dilemma over making it larger.) That size should provide about 15-18" of overhang on the sides and end of her lofted dorm bed.

For the backing she chose an Amy Butler Daisy Chain print, and I added a 8" wide pieced strip to the center. My original reason for adding the center strip was to avoid purchasing 3 more yards of backing fabric, but I'm so glad I did it this way - much more interesting :) Money saved and better result = win/win!

The quilting was done by my regular long-arm quilter, Carol Linder in Hampshire, IL. My college-bound girl chose an overall loopy, swirly pattern in a medium teal thread - fabulous!

Now all the quilt needs is a fun label for the back. I've got a design drawn out on paper and my Pigma Micron pens ready to go!

Quilt Pattern - Green Glass Door by Blue Underground

college quilt top completed

The quilt top for my college-bound girl is complete! She laid out all the blocks to her liking, and I think she did a fabulous job evenly balancing the lights and darks.

The pattern is "Green Glass Door" by Blue Underground. The finished size of this quilt is 78" x 87" which I thought was big enough for a dorm-sized bed. But I've just learned that dorm beds are 80" long! So I think we're going to add a 7" or 8" strip to the top edge of the quilt to add some needed length. Maybe a near solid in a darker teal, or a strip of a bigger patterned print bordered by some 1.5" width strips like all the blocks. I don't think either will look too out of place, since the top will be covered by a pillow most of the time, but if you've got a different idea let me know ASAP!

There are lots of Amy Butler prints from a few of her fabric lines in this quilt - Daisy Chain, Midwest Modern 2, and Lark. Also a little Joel Dewberry Modern Meadows, and of course Kaffe - shot cottons and prints. A nicely blended hodgepodge of teal and turquoise :)

I'm sending it out to be quilted - this thing seems huge to me! It's the largest quilt I've made to date. As I was crawling around on the floor pinning the last long seam I thought to myself, "this is why you haven't made a king-sized quilt for your own bed!"

It definitely needs a name. So far I'm drawing a blank...

quilt for a baby girl

My baby girl, that is. Thing 1 is headed off to college far away later this fall, so I've started a quilt for her to take - a little piece of home to have with her every day.

These are a few of the blocks I've completed up on the design wall. I'm using a pattern from Blue Underground Studios called "Green Glass Door", but Thing 1 chose teal, turquoise, and blue as the colors she'd like to have, so we'll have to come up with a different name :) It finishes at 78" x 87", which I believe should fit those extra long twin dorm beds. Please give me a shout right away if you know from experience that this is not the case!

The pattern features six varied block sizes all bordered with 1.25" finished strips. I've got two of the six block sizes bordered - the biggest and the smallest - all finishing at 14.5" high. The width of each block is where the variation comes in. You need 20 fat quarters for the blocks and about 3.5 yards total of solids/near solids for the block borders to complete this quilt.

Oddly enough I had already purchased half-yards of most of these blue and teal fabrics to make another Blue Underground pattern (Rear Window) at the time she chose these colors, so there is a similarly colored quilt in progress in tandem with this one. Lots of blue and teal in the sewing room right now!!