Christmas Garden

This is my most recent finished project.  I finished the binding on my way home from our trip to New Jersey to visit family.  This is the first quilt that I have made that is for my own bed.  It is for the Christmas season, so I won't actually be using it anytime real soon, but at least it is finished.  Also, it completes one of the things on my quilting "to-do" list from last year.

I decided to call it Christmas Garden, because it was made from a block called Nordic Garden and the focus fabric was poinsettias.  Seemed appropriate for a Christmas garden to me.

Patriotic Bento Box Baby Quilt

Last year I made a patriotic quilt out of Star Spangled Bandana fabric using a Bento Box pattern that I found online.  (I called the quilt Fireworks!)  When I started making the quilt, I thought that I would make it a little larger than the size that I finally went with, so I had three blocks left over.  I wanted to do something with the leftover blocks, so I bought some more fabric in the same line, cut three more 2-1/2 inch strips (the original was made with a jelly roll), and voila, a patriotic baby quilt.

It measures 36 x 48 inches, which seems like a good baby quilt size, or I suppose that it could be used as a lap quilt by someone in a wheelchair.  It might be a good size for that, I'm not really sure.  I also still need to decide what I'm going to do about the quilting.  I'm not sure if I want to quilt it myself, or have it quilted.  Ah, decisions, decisions. . .

Andouille Quilt in Cool Blues

This quilt top gets me yet another step closer to meeting my quilting goals for the year.  One of the goals was to  make a quilt from one of the quilting books that I got for Christmas in 2014.  This pattern comes from one of those books, Jelly Roll Jambalaya Quilts by Jean Ann Wright.  The pattern is called Andouille Quilt and the original is made in warm shades of red, orange and yellow.  I wanted something cooler, so I went with cool blues.  The pack of "2-1/2 inch strips" that I used was called "Artisan Spirit - Shimmer Blue Lagoon" from Northcott Fabrics. 

The reason I put 2-1/2 inch strips in quotes above is because they weren't really 2-1/2 inches wide.  They weren't even consistently the same width within each strip.  Maybe a couple of strips were 2-1/2 inches wide.  Several, if not most, were only 2-3/8 inches wide.  That's not a lot of difference, but in a pattern like this it can really add up.  It was frustrating to work with.  I used a narrower seam allowance, and still had to trim the "blocks" to a shorter length than what was given in the directions.  It worked out in the end.  I just wish that pre-cuts were more reliably the size they are supposed to be.

Moda Row for July

This month our assigned row was the Weathervane row.  It is due for the class meeting in July.  I won't actually get to attend the July meeting, because I will be out of town visiting relatives in New Jersey, but my row is ready none the less.

Rainbow Binding Tool Star

This is a wall-hanging sized quilt that I made to test out the binding tool star pattern before I tried it large scale for my son's quilt.  I also wanted to try making a different size star.  In the original pattern, you are told to cut out the shape of the binding tool, which is technically 1/8 of an inch shorter than the size of the square that you are sewing it to, so I wanted to see if it really needed to be an 1/8 inch shorter or not. 

So I tried cutting 6-1/2 inch stripes, trimming it them with the angle at the end of the binding tool, and sewing it to a 6-1/2 inch square.  Then I used 3 pairs of colored strips instead of 4 pairs.  It worked out perfectly.  I added a one inch (finished) inner border and then a four inch (finished) pieced border made from the remaining 2-1/2 inch strips.  It used 12 jelly roll strips in total.

I have no idea yet how to quilt it.  If I went with an all-over quilting design, I don't know what color of thread to use, as black seems a bit harsh for the colored areas.  Also, any one of the colors might look odd in the "other colored" patches.  Oh, well, it can stay in the UFO pile for a while until I figure it out.

Moda Row for June

This month our row for Moda class was made of 6 Wheels blocks.  Each block was 10 inches.  I decided to go with 3 blocks using a complimentary color way and 3 using an analogous color way.  And, of course, once again Mickey Mouse makes an appearance. 

I finished it just in time, too.  I finished it on Tuesday with the class meeting on Wednesday.

Binding Tool Star Quilt

In the fall, my youngest son will be living in an off-campus apartment instead of in the dorm.  This new arrangement allows for him to have a full-sized bed instead of a twin bed.  That, of course, means that he needs a new quilt for the larger bed.

I let him sit down and look through my issues of Block magazine, and he chose this beauty for his new quilt.  The original pattern was a little small for what he needed so we increased the number of blocks from 16 (4x4 layout) to 36 (6x6 layout) and left off the border.  The original pattern called for a jelly roll of fabric, but that wouldn't have been enough for the extra blocks, so I figured up the yardage to cut our own 2.5 inch strips.  He went with me down to the quilt shop and picked out all of the fabric.  I think he did a really good job. 

The finished quilt top measures 96 inches square.  In fact, it would actually fit a queen size bed pretty well, as you can see above with it laid out on my queen size bed. 

Blessed are the Peacemakers

This is my finished quilt from the 2015 Moda class at the Front Porch Quilt Shoppe.  I decided to name it "Blessed are the Peacemakers" (from the Biblical Sermon on the Mount/Be-attitudes), because the book that the pattern came from was called Vintage Quilt Revival and the fabric line I used was called "Piecemakers."  Revival made me think of the week-long special church services from the church of my youth, and piecemakers, of course, made me think of its homophone, peacemakers, and voila, we have the name.

Below is a picture of the label I made for the quilt.  I used a leftover scrap of the background fabric for the main part of the label.  Even though it has a small pattern to it, I thought it would work out fine, and I think it did.

Darling Grannies Quilt

Our extra project at our Moda meeting last month was the Darling Grannies Quilt by Sterling LaBosky from Moda Bake Shop.  It calls for two charm packs and a yard of background fabric.  I happened to already have two charm packs of "Happy Flappers" fabric, and a yard of Kona snow fabric, so I decided to give it a try.  I think it makes a nice lap or child-sized quilt. 

I haven't decided yet what I want to do with it, so I'm not planning to quilt it (or have it quilted) right away.  I already have three quilts out to be long-armed at the moment, and I have a double-bed size quilt to piece for my son, so this one will be waiting for a while, I think.

Farmer's Daughter Row (2016 Moda)

Today I finished the row of Farmer's Daughter blocks for our Moda class.  I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.  I noticed that I was gravitating toward yellow fabrics.  I had actually planned to use yellow in a couple more of the blocks until I realized how much yellow the row would have if I did.

A Study In Scarlet

This is my finished quilt from our guild mystery quilt from 2015.  I decided to name it "A Study in Scarlet" after the first Sherlock Holmes novel.  It seemed appropriate because it was a mystery quilt done in all shades of red (and black, obviously). 

Below is a picture of the label.  It is made from a piece of 2.5 inch strip leftover from making the top.  I thought it would blend better than making it with white or off-white like I normally do.

Peacock Blue Charm Quilt

My latest quilt top, that I finished yesterday.  It is made from two charm packs of Christine (in peacock blue) fabric.  I ended up cutting out two charms from yardage to get the right number of charms in each color to make the pattern that I wanted, so I ended up with 6 unused charms. 

I want to have it quilted in a variegated peacock blue thread that I saw at my quilt shoppe.  The thread is the main reason that I made the quilt.  I saw the thread and decided that I wanted to make a quilt in those colors.  I had to order the fabric online, so I hope that it will actually match the thread.

Falling Charms in Ellie Ann fabric

Today I finished this quilt top. I bought the charm pack back in 2013. Once I actually started working on it, it only took me 2 days to get it together. It uses one charm pack and some jelly roll strips, but not even close to a whole roll. The pattern came from a Missouri Star tutorial, but the original used more charm packs.
Now I need to get the backing fabric ready and send it off to be quilted.

Completed House Row

This is my first completed row of our Moda quilt this year.  I got it all sewn together yesterday.  This row was divided up over 3 months, but future rows will be completed in a month.  I'm trying to keep it fun and not stress over it too much.  Whimsy is the goal, not perfection.

Quilting Goals Update

I mentioned earlier that I didn't meet my quilting goals that I set for myself in 2015.  So this year I'm am continuing in my effort to meet those goals, and I've gotten one step closer to meeting one of them - make a quilt for my bed (queen size).

Last year, my intention was to make a queen size Christmas quilt for my bed out of the blocks we made as our guild project for 2014-2015.  I was going to use one of the blocks, repeated 15 times, as an alternate block to make it large enough.  Once I got the blocks made, I didn't like it that way.  I thought it was too busy.  But I still really liked the blocks set together, so I made even more of them - 25 in total.  I added several borders to it and made it into something big enough to fit my bed.

However, in my hurry to get it to the quilt shoppe for quilting, I forgot to take a picture of it.  But here is a picture of one blocks.

I'll post a picture of the whole thing when I get the quilt back from the quilt shoppe, if I remember, and definitely once I get it bound and labeled.

Snowflake candle mat

I finally finished the little candle mat/wall hanging/mini-project from back in August.  I'm not exactly sure when I finished it.  I didn't make a label for it, like I normally do, because it was such a small project.  Then, I forgot to take a picture of it right way too.  I know that I have already shown it at both my quilt guild and my Moda group, so I finished it in either late January or early February.  So here it is, belated, but finally posted.

A Funky Forest

These are the tree blocks for our March Moda meeting.  I wanted to make sure that I got them finished before I started back teaching.  Don't know how much time I will have for sewing during the next couple of months. 

It is my first time teaching on the term/compressed schedule system.  You have to cram a lot of information into a short period of time, so I'm sure I will be pretty busy.  Wish me (and the students) luck!

Extra blocks - finished

I had to cut out extra pieces to use as a demo on how to make the butter churn block and the milking day block for my guild meeting last week.  Today I decided to go ahead and sew those blocks together, so I wouldn't have loose pieces laying around. 

Here they are, together with the original demo blocks.  I might add sashing and a border and make them into a little wall hanging or I might save them for a larger project.  I haven't decided yet.  At least they are no longer just loose patches.

Houses - all in a row

For our Moda class this year, we are doing a row quilt.  The first row consists of houses with tree and star blocks in between.  For this month, we were supposed to make the houses.  Here are mine, all lined up in a row.  I was going for something fun and whimsical this year.  The finished quilt is twin bed sized, so I wanted something that a little kid would (hopefully) enjoy looking at and sleeping under.

Getting Ready for February

February is my month to present the blocks for our current quilt guild project.  This year (and into next year) we are doing blocks from Farm Girl Vintage by Lori Holt.  I chose the Butter Churn block (top) and the Milking Day block (bottom).  I did mine in the 12-inch size.  I would not have wanted to do the milking day block in the 6-inch size, simply because of the pieces that make up the handles on the sides of the milking can.  The little "flippy corner" piece is cut at 3/4 inch square for the 6-inch block.  That is quite small. 

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the blocks, because I'm not planning to make the guild project quilt this time.  I tried to come up with a pattern to use multiples of just these two blocks, since I have to cut extras to show how the block is put together, but I couldn't come up with one that I liked.  Below are pictures of the blocks with the extra pieces to use in the demonstration.

The Milking Day blocks are identical to each other, but the Butter Churn blocks use different fabrics.