Improv Piecing Challenge quilt top done!

My modern quilt guild challenge project is due next week! Today I finally got the top pieced...

It's baby quilt size - about 39" x 44". Wow - it is so much harder to piece odd-sized/shaped blocks than I expected! I didn't want any bias grain along the outside edges of the quilt, so the whole thing took more planning than I anticipated. Originally I intended to have the column of blocks in the right third of the quilt, with the other 2/3 to the left just open (negative) space. But after piecing it that way, the symmetry-loving part of my brain said, "ummm, NO!" So now it's sort of large 9-patch layout, which makes me happy.

Looking at the photo just now, I feel like it needs a little more white on the top and bottom to balance it out - maybe just 2"-3" each. What do you think?

My next step is to find a fun backing and get busy quilting!

a summery pincushion to swap

I'm finally back to show and tell you about the pincushion I made for my guild swap. (I took a little vacation hiatus with DH to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary. And because we're the best parents ever, we let our girls come along too.)

So here is the super-cute pincushion I made for my swap partner whose favorite color and season are yellow and summer :)

I used the same tutorial that I referenced in my previous post, but did a few things differently that seemed to make it easier this time around.

Before folding the white edges over to be stitched down, I applied a touch of Roxanne's Glue Baste so I wouldn't have to secure them with pins for sewing. Much better results and much easier! The center still could be better, but since this is only my second attempt (and I knew it would be covered by a button!) I let it slide.

I made the backing more like an envelope pillow backing to better hide my hand closure stitches - the edge of one backing section is folded under slightly and overlaps the other backing section.

I sewed the back together after stuffing it just like I sew on bindings. Pretty good results, I think...

I took a slightly larger seam allowance - a hearty 1/4" this time - to make sure all the corners were well within the seam allowance and no raw edges were peeking out...

A small muslin case finishing about 1/4" smaller than the pincushion holds the crushed walnut shell stuffing. It's a full case, but not overstuffed since I had a bit of difficulty getting the last muslin case into the pincushion form. But by making the stuffing case a bit smaller and not filling it quite so full, I had no problems with this one.

Since I had never made a pincushion before, I had no idea that crushed walnut shells make a fabulous stuffing material. They give a hefty weight to the pincushion and help maintain the sharpness of the pins used in it. You can buy them in bulk at pet stores since they are primarily sold for use as reptile bedding. My LQS carries one cup zip-bags of them for $1 - so much better than buying a 10 lb bag. But if you do use them, you'll definitely want a muslin bag to hold them in your pincushion because they are tiny - like grains of sand!

Finished size - approximately 4" square.

Since I missed our last guild meeting while I was away on vacation, I haven't yet received the pincushion made for me by my secret swap partner. I can't wait to see it!

pincushion fun

My modern quilt guild is coordinating a pincushion swap this Sunday. We each filled out a short list of questions about our favorite color, season, movie, music, etc., and then randomly drew a paper. Our guild is relatively new - just started in February this year - so this is a great way to learn more about another member.

It took me forever to decide on a pattern for my swap partner until I found this Cathedral Window one on Pinterest with a tutorial - woo hoo! So I decided I'd better make a trial one first, and here it is...

I followed the tutorial just as it is written and... not too bad, huh? Here's the back where I had a bit of trouble keeping my stitches hidden since the pincushion might be a tad overstuffed with crushed walnut shells.

Here's a photo of the only little problem I encountered (good thing I made the trial one first!) - I didn't take quite a large enough seam allowance when sewing the front and back together, so in a couple of the corners the dark blue fabric is not sewed down. A little touch of applique glue and now the corners are just fine since this version is for me.

I added a button from my stash to the top which adds to the cuteness factor and handily covers up the center spot where the cathedral window sections don't quite match up.

Maybe you recognize these fabrics? They are all leftover from the college quilt I made for Thing 1 last summer. The woman organizing our swap told us that she makes many gift quilts and always makes a pincushion for herself from the leftovers as a visual/decorative reminder of the quilt and it's colors and fabrics. Well I thought that was a pretty cool idea even though I use magnetic pincushions due to my extreme clumsiness (frequently knocking them off the sewing table - but the pins snap right back into place with a quick swipe across the floor!) and my fondness for that wonderful snap/click sound the pins make as they are caught by the magnet when I just toss them in the general direction of it while sewing :)

But I think I could really get behind this idea of a decorative pincushion for each gift quilt. Wouldn't they be so cute all lined up and displayed together?!

Next time I'll share the one I made for my swap partner, and tell you about a few of the modifications I made to the tutorial that made things a little easier for me.

baby quilt for Joel, part 2

Just a few more snapshots of the quilting and binding that are now completed!!

Continuous, concentric squares - say that fast three times! I marked out the spacing for each square with a wash-out blue marker, but occasionally varied the number of squares within each space to mix it up a bit...

A shot from the back showing some quilted arcs. You can also see the bias-cut striped binding (because that's more fun than straight cut) and the circle print backing, both from Heather Bailey's Nicey Jane line. The binding is entirely machine sewn to make it more durable to stand up to lots of carrying around and washing :)

In all the sashing and borders I quilted these stacked triangles. So easy once you get into the rhythm...

My first attempt at a swirly scroll. They were so much easier to sew than they look! I did practice drawing them first, but seriously - not that hard...

And finally these pulleys. They kinda remind me of diaper pins which are not exactly mainstream anymore. Does that make them cool and retro?

This week I'll be writing a label for this quilt, and then it will be off to Joel's house!

Photos and instructions for all the quilting patterns I used in this post can be found in this book by Angela Walters (my new favorite machine quilting book!)

baby quilt for Joel

My nephew and his wife are the proud parents of a new baby boy, Joel, born on May 12 - Mother's Day! I've had the quilt top for this new little guy done for a couple of months and just this week started quilting it.

The day after he was born I got busy pinning it. Just a bit of a teaser here to give you an idea of the color scheme without giving away too much...

And here are some detail shots of the quilting I've done so far. My favorite part - the sun!

Some spirals...

Clamshells...

Pebbles in the stream...

And a little bit bigger teaser...

Except for the spirals, I've not quilted any of these patterns before. I used Angela Walters' book Free Motion Quilting with Angela Walters for both inspiration and how-to help. Her instructions are diagrammed so clearly that I just jumped right in and tried some new things! You can find it online here.

So far I have three of the six main sections quilted - halfway there! My goal is to finish the quilting this weekend, binding next week, then off in the mail it goes to baby Joel's house :)

quilting decisions

My long term piecing project - The Tree of Life quilt top - has been sent off for some heavy-duty custom quilting. I dropped it off last week with my long-arm quilter, Carol. The top is about 83" square, so I wasn't about to tackle that by myself!

I knew that I wanted some dense custom quilting rather than an all-over background pattern. Carol suggested I choose a wool batting (which I have never used before) to make the quilting really stand out. I'll confess that while making this quilt, I decided that when it was finished I would enter it into a judged show - something I've never done before. Maybe the upcoming September show in Madison, WI will be the one. Wool batting is supposed to spring back from being folded better than cotton batting and also hang better, so wool it is.

Several quilting designs were churning around in my head, so I tried some out on graph paper (love that stuff!) to see what I really liked best. First I drew a grid of most of the entire top of the quilt to figure out the scale of blocks vs. sashing vs. borders. On this go-around I sketched out my top ideas for sashing quilting...

Then I made a larger diagram of a single tree block to see what filler patterns looked good in the backgrounds...

It seemed that adding a little color to the diagrams would help with choosing thread colors, and by this point I had also wised up to the fact that if I made copies of the diagram I wouldn't have to keep drawing them over and over to avoid erasing. Duh.

Design decisions for the tree blocks were made pretty quickly, but the border decision took much longer. I am not a fan of "feathers" in quilting designs. I know lots of people think they are beautiful and flowing and organic, but to me they just look like (and forgive me if this ruins your love of feather quilting) intestines. I know, gross, right? But that's what immediately comes to my mind every time I see them! So here I am doodling away trying to find something that is appropriately scaled and dense enough to stand up to the block quilting designs I've chosen and not be stuck with feathers. Leaves? Nope - not dense enough. Spirals? Nope - scale is all wrong...

And here is my attempt at a variation of feathers that includes swirls (you know I love swirls!) but this one just looks like intestines drawn by Dr. Seuss. Definitely not the right theme...

I ended up choosing a pattern from Carol's library of border designs that incorporates a little bit of leaf with some swirl action too. Whoops - I should have drawn it before leaving her house so I could show you here!

Carol will be using many colors of thread - magenta, turquoise, sea green, gray, purple, yellow, and a blue green to add lots of dimension to my already colorful quilt top. It won't be ready until early July, and already I can't wait to see it!

I pulled all of the sketched quilting designs from three different books, all great references to have in your quilt book library:

Beginner's Guide to Free-Motion Quilting by Natalia Bonner
Free-Motion Quilting with Angela Walters by Angela Walters and
In the Studio with Angela Walters by Angela Walters

And lastly, a funny story about this quilt that should have a photo accompaniment, but doesn't... I purchased a couple of different border fabrics that I really liked (at the time) about 2.5 years ago when I first had this tree quilt idea. But now they seem kind of ridiculous (and on the verge of [gasp!] ugly) so I pieced them into the backing. Said backing was hanging over my upstairs railing a couple of weeks ago when my husband spied it and (pointing to the ridiculous fabrics) said to me, "Did you buy that fabric? I mean, did you pay money for it?" Hilarious!

border challenge 3

My Border Challenge class meets again this week, and I am ready!

For the third round, our design element assignment was a four-patch block. Ugh. The second border I had added felt square-ish enough already, so I decided to include only a few four-patch blocks (tiny ones at that!) and to set them on point. My color requirement - determined by drawing a crayon - was blue green. Hey - I can work with that! In fact I already have in both the first and second borders.

The most challenging part of the assignment was this ugly fabric... Yes, it had to be included somewhere in the border. I've heard that no fabric is ugly if you cut it up small enough, so that's what I did. The squares in my four-patch units are 1" finished! Now look back at the first photo... Doesn't seem quite so ugly, does it?

I went with a relatively simple border this time. While I love the top so far, it was feeling just on the edge of being too busy and a bunch of four-patch blocks all around would have tipped it right over that edge. But I think the 3" of blue green and 1" of burgundy all around stop the "busy-ness" and ground everything in the center. Which means now I can go crazy on the next border! We have two more challenges until the class ends, and I'm hoping for triangles and applique to be our remaining design element assignments. We'll see what happens on Wednesday!

Can you see the strips of Kite Tails in Emerald on the top and bottom between borders #2 and #3? I had some strips left over from the back of my Twinkle quilt, and the colors seemed to be perfect, so used them to elongate the quilt into a rectangle. And it really is straight along the bottom. I think I was a little too heavy-handed when smoothing it out over the design wall, stretching it out a bit too far on the right bottom.

Current size is 48" x 55".

The blue-green border fabric is Carolina Chambray from Kaufman in Marine. I purchased this fabric at an LQS - Sew Generously - but can't find it in that color online to provide a link for you. It's like a shot cotton with two different thread colors for the warp and weft, but a little heftier in weight and body. Very nice.

The ugly fabric is... hmmm. How can I say this politely? It's not the ugliest fabric I've seen, but I won't be searching for more of it ;)

Three borders down, two to go!