epic college map quilt complete!

I could not be happier with the way this quilt turned out!  It is exactly as I pictured it in my mind thanks to the amazing quilting done by Carol Linder in Hampshire, IL.

The map portion is quilted in a 3" grid to mimic the latitude and longitude lines on a wall map. Thing 2 made a list of 40 city and country names that she wanted to be placed randomly over the quilt top in lower case script - places she has visited as well as places she hopes to visit in the future.

Carol had some difficulty finding a script font that would string letters together to form words; all of the script fonts she already owned would stitch a hard start and stop for each letter. That's a lot of starting and stopping spread over 40 words!

But she persisted and was able to find this font, and it's perfect stitched in medium grey thread!

The final requirement was that the words interrupt the grid lines and be randomly scattered across the quilt in both the horizontal and vertical directions but only in the "ocean" areas, not on the continents. And again, Carol rose to the challenge plotting out all the lines and words on her computer to perfect their placement.

She had to quilt all the lines in one direction first, then remove the quilt from the long arm and rotate it to quilt the perpendicular lines. It all worked perfectly!

A repeating looped stitching pattern in olive green thread fills all of the flying geese units.

Bridges on the back symbolize Thing 2's interest in Civil Engineering and Physics.

We haven't washed the quilt yet, so it's still crisp and crinkle free, but I'm anxious to see how it looks after washing.

That will have to wait a few months though, because it's living in it's new college home now.

I asked Thing 2 if she was disappointed that more people wouldn't be able to see her quilt since the bed is lofted so high. Her response - "Mom, so many more people are going to see the quilt on your blog than would ever see it here on my bed!" :)

Next time I'll show you the coordinating pillow sham I made with some of the extra flying geese units.

If you would like to know more about how I created this quilt top, you can read these earlier posts:

• epic-college-map-quilt
• progress-report-epic-college-map-quilt
• applique-finish-line
• and-done

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.  

and this is the reason I always buy extra fabric

While sewing all the corner units to set the "Amish with a Twist" blocks on point, I realized that a few of my blocks didn't match those shown in the quilt pattern photo. What?! And I had been so careful labeling everything and translating it from the black background version color chart!

The Diamond Star and Flying Geese quilt blocks do not contain that pewter grey color in the pattern quilt (and I didn't much care for how dark it made these blocks anyway) so I remade them swapping the pewter for a light pink. The revised versions are on the left in the photos below.

Less dreary = much better :) And I'll just toss those extra blocks into the "future kitchen sink quilt" bin where they will be resurrected into something fabulous far into the future...

But for now, the word of the year is FOCUS. As in keep-your-head-down-and-finish-this-quilt-before-starting-anything-else focus!

The on-point setting triangle units are all pieced and sewn onto all of the blocks ...

Sashing and cornerstones are up next for these blocks and then two borders. Yay for progress!!

back at it with blocks 7-12!

New year, new sewing energy!! Happy 2014 everyone!

We're covered in snow here in Northern Illinois with more expected this weekend. Perfect weather for sewing and online house hunting for properties in the southeastern region of the US! Quite a bit of both has been happening around here these first few days of 2014, but on to the sewing update...

I'm making progress on the Amish with a Twist quilt for my mom. All 12 block centers are completed, and the corner pieces needed to set them on point are cut.

Blocks 7-9 feature the stitch and flip method of adding triangles to the edges of squares or rectangles. Snowballs, diamond stars, and flying geese are just of a few of the blocks you can sew using this technique.

Blocks 10-12 combine techniques from all the previous blocks to create Hole in the Barn Door, traditional Square-in-a-Square, and Birds in the Air...

You may have seen photos and blog posts very recently about the Economy Block quilt along going on now with Brenda at Pink Castle Fabrics, Katy at I'm a Ginger Monkey, and Rita at Red Pepper Quilts. The economy block is a traditional square-in-a-square. The quilt along is focusing on using up scraps and stash to make these fun blocks - something I should definitely jump into! But I'm trying to maintain focus and get this quilt top finished. It's my #1 sewing goal for this year.  Ideally I'd like it to be completed in time for Mother's Day, which right now in the depths of snow and cold feels like years away.

What's your #1 sewing goal for 2014?


You can read about blocks 1-6 in this post.

border challenge - flying geese

Part 1 of my Border Challenge is complete! Flying geese all around...

Each one finishes at 1 7/8" x 3 3/4". There are 52 flying geese making up this first border, and the overall size of my quilt is now 29" square. I had to shave just about 1/4" total off of the center to make the geese fit correctly, but otherwise I think I lucked out in getting them to fit.

To give the borders the look of flying beyond the center corners, I first sewed the bottom border beginning at the bottom left corner and ending about half-way across the block - a partial seam. Then I could sew the left border completely from top to bottom. Continuing clockwise around the center block, I sewed the top then the right borders completely, finishing with the rest of the bottom border seam. Just a couple of extra steps that really change the look!

I used the fast flying geese method that makes four identical geese units from just 5 cut squares with no waste. You can view a great tutorial here that shows two methods - making one block at a time and the one I used to make four blocks. This tutorial also gives you the formulas for cutting your fabrics based on the finished block size you need.

The brown fabric used to make the geese is Kaffe Fasset shot cotton in Terra Cotta, and the colorful bits are some of the same fabrics I used in the tree with additional Amy Butler, Kaffe, AMH, and Michael Miller fabrics tossed in for variety.

Our next class meets March 20, which means that I have my homework done early, which almost never, ever happens! As the months roll by and the quilt top gets larger and larger, I suspect I'll need every bit of the 30 days between classes to finish my assignment. I'm excited to see what the next challenge brings!