Sunny's quilt

And now a flashback to November 2015 to show you a secret project...

You may remember that in 2014 I made a quilt for each of my five sisters-in-law on my husband's side of the family.  In 2015 I was on easy street because I only have one sister-in-law on my side!

Sunny (Allysun) is my youngest brother's wife, and her personality is just like her name - happy, smiling, cheerful, sunny.  Their living room is decorated in greys, black, and pops of gold and yellow, so of course her quilt had to be primarily yellow :)

Her Twisted Blossoms quilt was made using the Quick Curve ruler and Metro Twist pattern (both from Sew Kind of Wonderful) and their quilt along found here.  That ruler requires a firm "measure twice, measure again, then cut" mentality; I wasted a good chunk of fabric when I first started cutting.  But once I realized my error and re-read the directions it was all smooth sailing from then on.  The curves are so slight that sewing the convex and concave units together was quite easy - no pins! - and the blocks are trimmed to size after sewing so it's nearly foolproof.  IF you carefully measure before cutting ;-)

I made 12 blocks using different yellow and grey prints combined with Kona Cotton in Snow.  Petals of each blossom block are formed by four sections cut and trimmed with the Quick Curve ruler and four modified half square triangle blocks.  The center squares are all unique grey prints combined with the Kona Snow to form a square-within-a-square.

Then it's a basic nine-patch construction for each block finishing at 16" square.

I switched up the final assembly of the quilt adding 2" finished sashing and grey cornerstones between each block and around the outer edge - it just needed a little something more than the blocks right next to each other could provide.  So with the added sashing the quilt finished at 56" x 74" - a generous lap size.

The quilting was done by Carol Linder in Hampshire, IL using the pattern "Random Clams" by Jessica Schick in a silver grey thread.  The binding is a white dot on charcoal grey from Jen Kingwell's recent Moda line "Gardenvale".

Sunny seemed thrilled with her new quilt when I presented it to her at Thanksgiving, and she later sent me a photo if it in their living room.  Great color matching if I do say so myself!

I have so many works-in-progress right now that it's a bit embarrassing.  But I still managed to start two new projects last week!  One of them is being quilted right now, and I hope to bring you photos of it completely finished next week.  Maybe one day soon I'll count all the UFOs again and publicly confess the number...

Christmas gift sewing part 2

More Christmas gift sewing - pillow shams to coordinate with the Amish with a Twist quilt I finished for my mother in June :)

Luckily I had some extra bits of all the solids used in the quilt, so I opted for a simple design of 2.5" finished squares with a Kona Snow border.

40 squares per pillow...

A simple crosshatch quilting design and a raspberry binding finish these standard sized shams perfectly.  They measure approximately 21" x 27".  The backings have a simple envelope closure in Kona Snow.

And yes, she loved them!  When she gets the filler pillow forms she promised to send me a photo of the whole ensemble so I'll share that later.

In other Christmas gift news, one of my SILs told her husband that they need to purchase a new sofa to coordinate with the quilt I made for her - haha!.  Have you ever redecorated a room around one of your quilts?

baby quilt for Zachary

Our nephew and his wife welcomed son #2 - Zachary - to their family in November, 2013. Fortunately they are a patient couple, since I'm just now getting to work on his baby quilt.

John (the daddy) provided me with the paint colors for Zachary's room - a light grey and medium blue - and I set to work choosing the fabrics. They are all Kona solids except for one leafy print from Vanessa Christenson's line "Simply Color" for Moda. This is the final layout before sewing, and it was 100% inspired by this quilt I saw on Pinterest. I have no information about the maker of the original quilt, but isn't it fabulous?!

one last fall project

In my house there are no Christmas decorations allowed until after Thanksgiving, so I've still got a few days left to enjoy this scrappy pumpkin...

Pumpkin fabrics: Lots of 2.5" squares of Kaffe, a little AMH, some Tula Pink, and some Michael Miller, swapped and shared from stash with my friend Andrea. Background: Kona Taupe (I think).

Quilting: outline/echo straight-line stitches in taupe using the even-feed foot on the background, and free-motion contouring in an orange variegated King Tut thread on the pumpkin.

Backing: An out-of-print Kaffe Fassett fabric called "Fans". Binding: Kaffe "Exotic Warm Woven Stripe", also from the stash!

Final measurements: 16.5" wide x 15.5" high. A hanging sleeve on the back holds a very small dowel rod that slips right into a pair of little 3M hooks mounted on my kitchen pantry door.

Given the small size of this project I didn't make use of a huge quantity of scraps, but the only thing I had to purchase was the background. In fact, now I've got even more scraps because Andrea and I just cut and cut and cut orange squares for an entire afternoon, not really paying attention to how many we might use. We've each got enough squares cut for 3 or 4 of these projects! My excess squares have been neatly tucked away in the 2.5" square bin for next year - maybe they'll become some fall-themed trivets using Insul-Brite as the batting?

Thank You Lynn!

I have a wonderfully spunky friend Lynn (who always has the most infectious smile on her face) with mad skills in graphic design. Earlier this year (much earlier) she designed a logo for our newly forming Crystal Lake Modern Quilt Guild. In order to thank her properly with no funds to our name, we designed and made a quilt specifically for her.

And now that quilt has been delivered to her! After I finished sewing the quilt top, Paige (our CLMQG President and amazing machine quilter) finished this on her long-arm machine with an all-over pattern of swirls and curls in a light yellow thread.

The backing is one of my favorite prints from Heather Bailey's Pop Garden line - Pop Daisy in Red.

Lorrie (another CLMQG member and friend from SewMod Designs) sewed the red and white polka dot binding.

And this is my lovely friend Lynn. If you are ever in need of some awesome graphic design work, drop me a line and I'll pass your info to her. She really is the best!

Thanks Lynn!!

You can read more about the construction of this quilt here. The finished size is approximately 63" x 68".

thank you quilt for Lynn

Happy April everyone! The last two weeks have been filled with spring break fun for me as first my college girl was home for a week long visit, and then Thing 2 had her break from school. If only both school breaks had aligned in the same week! But the four of us still managed to spend a lot of time together :)

I intended to keep this quilt a surprise for my friend, Lynn, but I just had to give her some sneak peeks. She designed the logo for our new Crystal Lake Modern Quilt Guild early this year, and to thank her Paige and I decided to make a lap quilt. Lynn requested a zig-zag or chevron pattern using the same colors in the Fiestaware pillow I made for her in 2011.

We decided on something similar to this quilt by Rita at Red Pepper Quilts. I cut about 30 strips each of red, green, yellow, and blue fabrics, and 60 strips of Kona snow all measuring 2" x 22" and sewed them in sets of three - two colored and one Kona strip in each set.

Those 60 strip sets measuring 5" x 22" were then each cut into 4 segments measuring 5" square.

After the blocks were arranged in the zig-zag pattern on my design wall, the rest was easy! It took a bit of time to get all those rows sewn together, but I think she's gonna love it!

Block size is 4.5" finished. The finished quilt will measure 63" x 67.5" with 14 blocks across and 15 blocks down.

My job making the top is now done, so I'm handing it off to Paige for quilting on her long-arm machine. After some red dot binding is added it will be headed to Lynn's home. Maybe. It's really turned out well, and it might be quite difficult to actually give it away!! This pattern would be a great use of strip scraps, so I'll likely make another one. Maybe one with a dark solid instead of the Kona snow?

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...

Rugby Stripes for Ben

I can finally show you all the quilt I made for my nephew's son, Ben, and I'm thrilled to report that Ben's dad thinks it's "awesome"!!

100% of my inspiration for Ben's quilt came from this quilt by Carol/mamacjt. At the time I decided on this design I knew she had a pattern in the works, but I couldn't find it available to purchase. So I took out my trusty graph paper and colored pencils, guessed at the ratios and dimensions, and made up a pattern for myself. But lucky you! The pattern is now available to purchase from mamacjt!! Contact her here if you are interested in purchasing one.

Her original quilt had the bars arranged in rainbow order, but I thought for a baby boy the "mixing up" of the colors was more fun. The solids are a mix of Kona cottons, Moda Bella cottons, and some others from who-knows-where. Each appliqued circle is a completely nephew appropriate car print (Ben's dad loves cars)from Michael Miller - Honk Honk in Brown. It's really a very deep, dark, chocolate-y brown with retro cars in green, orange, and yellow against a cityscape backdrop in blue.

I really struggled with a quilting design for those colors bars. Something about an all-over pattern didn't feel right, and I eventually came across this meandering waterfall-type design in some notes from a free-motion quilting class I took a couple of years ago. It was quite easy to do, very forgiving, and is well suited for quilting at slow speeds - the speed at which I have the most success!

The back is almost as much fun as the front with it's random width stripes of leftover solids and the car print. The pieced binding is also made from the same solids. It was my first attempt at a pieced binding and here's the very scientific approach (insert sarcastic air quotes here) I used to figure out how much of each color to cut to have it come out evenly: quilt circumference divided by number of colors plus a couple inches added for error. Result = Total dumb luck that it came out (mostly) even with all the colors!

Each individual color, however, was chosen using a very reliable and nearly foolproof method - paint chips. His parents mailed me the paint chips they were planning to use to create a checkerboard-like pattern of giant squares on one wall of the nursery, and it really was quite easy to find the perfect solids to match!

The quilt doesn't really have a name, I just called it "Rugby Stripes" in the title because Ben's dad likes to wear rugby stripe shirts :)  It measures 38.5" x 51.75".  It's definitely one of my favorite quilts that I've made!  Thanks Carol for the inspiration!!

it's in the mail

Yesterday I put Ben's quilt in the mail, and it should arrive on Friday or Saturday. I don't want to ruin the surprise for his parents, but I really feel the need to give a little peek, so here is the main section of the quilt back...

I am so excited about this baby quilt! Here's hoping his parents are too :)