Queen Rules a New Home

She's done!  I started this broad in January, and have worked on it every single month of the year to various degrees.  And I've learned a LOT -- just when I thought I knew everything I needed to know about quilting.

Designing, cutting and piecing was a breeze.  Basting was less successful:

But after getting my pins in place and moving the furniture back into the living room, the real challenge began. 

Quilting it!

Must have new machine!  And it became clear that I didn't use enough basting pins when my in-the-ditch quilting started leaving smalls tucks in the corners. Gah!

But I carried on...  3 months were used on the machine quilting portion because I HATED being at my machine.  It should not have taken that long.  And that left me with very little time to hand-quilt a design in the blocks and on the borders.  I only had a remaining 3 months for that, and I had to choose a less complicated design to get it done in time.

Finally, I borrowed a closed-toe foot to bind from the left-over backing material, which went much better than planned!!  1 day of dedicated cutting and sewing.  Less time than I've ever spent on binding, and seriously the largest quilt I've ever had to bind.

Here she is before I washed the chalk quilting outlines out.  I had a very hard time packing her up for the journey to her new owners.  Not just because of the massive size, but because of how much I have fallen in love with this quilt over 2012.  It's everything I ever hoped to be able to do with a quilt, and by far, my best accomplishment in this field.

Three on the Way!

I have been very focused on the one huge quilt I'm doing, so I haven't had a lot of new projects coming down the line.  At least not until recently.

Three baby quilts!

I've started cutting one for a quick sample block to make sure I want to continue with the design and fabric choices.  Seems like you can't really get to the point of being sure without a sample block.  At least I can't.   Here are the current fabrics, subject to change:

 

 The rainbow filigree print is what I'm not sure about.  But the pattern I'm using works best when one of your fabric choices is a wild, chaotic print.

Then I'm taking the mellow road for the next baby quilt.  I can't decide who's getting this one yet, I just really missed hand-quilting a fairy frost.

Not as bold as I usually like, but I am completely in-love with that green.

The third baby quilt is undecided.  I haven't even gone through my stash for it yet.  If I use left-over fabrics, there's no doubt it will be turquoise, since I have SO MUCH of that color.  But if I discover the gender of one of the two later babies is female, I'm whipping out my Dogwood Trail collection again! 

I don't plan to have any of these completed until February, so I might be away until the queen is finished.

Happy holidays!

Incomplete

My completion rate has plummeted!  I sort of expected it to go up now that I no longer have a job.  But it turns out I don't need much of an escape at this point.  Also, a lack of funds will stop many projects dead in their tracks.

But I wanted to post what I've been working on.  These are are pretty much covered and just need their finishing touches.

This is a new autumn table runner.  I used scraps from other projects, and found the green border and backing fabric when I was looking for something else.  I'm hand quilting it in a pebble pattern, which takes forever, but is a relaxing project when I need something to do.

It's impossible to see the quilting.  Once it's done I'll take a proper photo.

This is my latest baby quilt.  I found 2 yards of pink fairy frost in my stash!!!  Turns out hand-quilting this fabric is a dream!  I've been looking for other colors online, but was faced with choosing between FAR too many color options, so I quit before buying a single thing, lest I buy a bolt of each and throw us into a serious debt.

I used part of my Dogwood Trail collection, as you can see.  It looks very granny, but I'm totally in love with it, and probably will never give it away or sell it. The center is quilted in a big circular medallion, and surrounding it is just corner-to-corner straight stitching.  I have the binding all ready to go, I'm just suffering from mid-summer lag.

Then there's my pride and joy, which I've being delaying on.  I'm not sure if I should take a big risk and use an insanely beautiful and weird fabric I'm in love with as a thin 2nd border, or just chill out and make it normal.  I think I'm going to let my inner freak finish this up, but the inner lion tamer keeps giving me good reasons NOT to.

Like the fields of eternity!  The biggest quilt I've ever embarked on.  I'm trying not to show too much of it.  The majority of this quilt is supposed to be a surprise.  *sigh*  I really need to be over this indecision-hump.  I should have started the quilting of this one by now.

Changed My Mind

I didn't end up going with the celestial idea from the last post.  I grew to hate the yellow being anywhere near my turquoise.  So I added a green border.  It looked a little too weird, suddenly having another strong color along the border.  So I cut out some stars from my leftover green and appliquéd them in place.

I am still horrible with appliqué, and didn't improve much with this practice.  But I'm looking up class schedules at local quilt shops to see what I can learn.

This is quilted in a star pattern.  I am so over free-motion quilting on my machine.  It just wasn't built to handle that kind of job.  So until $300 drops from the sky for a new machine, it's hand-quilting or fixed machine-quilting.

I'm going to put this quilt up for sale on my Etsy account this week.  But it's going to be hard to part with!

Fabric Avalanche

I sold the baby quilt I wrote about in my last post.  That fueled the last two days I spent maniacally digging through my stash looking for another project to sell.  I found a small cache of turquoise fabrics I forgot I had, then got to work.  I ended up cutting most of the 9" blocks I needed from another project I abandoned years ago.

This is where I am now:

I was going to do a baby quilt again, but I want more out of this small little thing.  So I pulled out my yellow for a border, then dark blues/blacks for a darker night sky feeling to go around it.  Instead of hoping that I get it right, I'm letting my gut do the decision making on this one.

Which means....  I need more fabric!  As always.

Baby Quilt Experiment

I've been in love with this fabric for over a year, and finally decided to buy it as part of my baby quilt experiment.  So I picked up a nice darker purple for the back and border.  The goal was to find out how long it would take me to hand quilt something crib sized.  It was a simple piecing job, but once the hand quilted motifs in the center were done, I decided to just do a quick machine zig-zag stitch along the border.  This one will be for sale soon.

I always think it's so weird to see quilted pieces in a picture.  The indentations look inverted unless you work on your eyes for a second.

Below is a sample from my current project.  I have lots of time for this one, its due date being in December.  I'm not sure I've ever loved a project so much.  I'm in love with the colors, and the design when combined with the fabric choices.  This is for a client, and I dearly hope they enjoy the finished product as much as I am enjoying working on it.

Placemats

I made a table runner a while back for my cousin, and have finally gotten around to doing placemats for her as well.  I went through some 10" squares from a collection I bought last summer, and just finished these last week.



I didn't want to add any extra colors on either side, so they ended up being 14"x14".  I like them better as squares.   I machine-quilted these in a meandering pattern.  Still trying to brush up my skills, though it seems pointless on this machine.  It's just not built for free-motion, and I ended up breaking WAY more needles than necessary on such a small project.

The only handwork I did on these was hand-sewing the back of the binding.  I truly enjoyed making these.  It's nice to not have to focus on complexities and just enjoy the process.