it's been busy

A few months ago,  friend handed me all the pieces she'd cut for a quilt she didn't have time to finish.  I agreed to piece and quilt it.  And it was supposed to be done by Christmas, but there was a lengthy delay for many reasons.  Mostly that I got a job.  And while it's only part time, it still threw off my estimated completion date by over a month.

This is a baby quilt that she'd carefully picked the fabric for, and cut with precision.  I was kinda amazed as I was piecing it.  My stuff is never measured that carefully!  I briefly considered trying to convince her to cut all of my future quilts.

Once the blocks were done, she arranged them how she wanted them.  This was a pretty fun process, fueled by some of the best iced coffee I've ever had, while dodging toddlers in various stages of mobility.

Here's the finished product:

And the quilting:

Turns out I might need to take a class to perfect corners.  I have them down when it comes to cutting separate binding.  But turning the leftover backing forward?  Saves so much time, and the corners make me batty.  But I enjoyed quilting this one.  The repetitive, but beautiful design (from a stencil) was very soothing.

The next project is a table runner for a friend in Sweden!  Here are the fabrics I've been cutting this weekend:

Don't be fooled by the boldness of the colors.  They actually play a very small role in the overall design.

Pink Dogwood Baby Quilt

Remember this one?

I finished up the quilting on this last summer.  Then no one on planet earth gave birth to a girl.  So much for getting ahead of the game.  But someone has just bought it!  So I finished up the binding and got it all ready to go.

The quilting:

The finished quilt:

I had to do the old way of binding, which is great because it's a bit more durable.  But it means a good few hours of dedicated hand-sewing.  Glad it's done, and especially glad it's getting a home. 

Turquoise Lover

So many turquoise scraps, and no more baby quilts to use them on this year.  So what better plan than to make something else especially for a turquoise lover?  Especially one that just moved into her first home this year!

I didn't want to do anything too crazy, and I can sometimes tend to get a little weird when given complete freedom.  When the friend mentioned that's she's not only a turquoise lover, but adores it combined with red?  Well holy crap, it gave me an idea.


 

I cut out a bunch of starfish.  I just wasn't sure if I could figure out how to affix them to the table runner.  I am not proficient with applique.  But after causing a flaw on the quilt (accidentally sliced one of the blocks with my rotary cutter after it was pieced), I had no choice.  I tried to fix the slice with an invisible stitch, and it was NOT invisible.  So now one of the starfish is covering that up.  And I'm not sure I'd have had the courage to attempt it without being forced to desperately save the table runner top.

The applique adventure came after I had finished quilting it, and I'm glad of that.  It filled in the spaces around my design well.

It's a stencil I've had for more than a year, but never had a great place to use it until now.  Turns out the design is MUCH more amazing on the quilt than in theory!  So I was absurdly excited about that.

Here's the completed table runner on an actual table.

I would not be offended if you ignored my attempts to stage the perfect picture.  Some day I'll take a photography class.  But in the mean time, this runner is now enjoying the luxurious life with a new, loving owner.

Last Baby Quilt of 2013

This was pieced in just a few days.  I had started cutting for this quilt in January when I was having trouble being decisive about the Blue Stars quilt.  On the borders, I ran out of that particular cream, so I thought it would be fun to diagonally piece the corners.  Well, I don't usually do diagonally pieced blocks, so when I was trimming them down, I only trimmed one side after sewing them in.  So ALL of the corner border blocks are completely irregular!

I wanted to do all creams because I had seen someone do a subtle watercolor style quilt with only cream prints, and it was so beautiful.  So while I forwent the watercolor style, I still like the look of varied creams.  And the fairy frost green is something I've wanted to use forever.

Quilting this was a fun project.  I used an older stencil I have that I always fall back on.  But this time I realized when I use the stencil closely in rows, it creates a totally different look.

The big lesson I learned here is not to use the colored chalk on light fabrics.  The white always washes out.  And this is chalk specifically for cotton fabric.  It's supposed to wash out!  But it didn't.

Luckily, it faded enough that it just looks like I used a pale green thread.  Which I didn't -- it was white thread when I started this.

I'm slowly becoming more adept at binding in this way.  I truly hate cutting separate binding material, spending WAY more time than I like at the iron, then sewing carefully and pulling crazy maneuvers to close it off before having to flip it and hand-sew the other side.  I've been cutting the backing down to 1 extra inch on all sides and just turning it over the edges and sewing *one time*.  It takes no time at all compared to the traditional way.

This is the last one for a while.  But see, I was looking forward to my break in quilts.  Then the day after I mailed this one off, I started a new project!  It's a smaller project, a table runner with my favorite turquoise scraps.  But still...  I'm a quilter that can't sit still. 

Baby Quilt 2

As usual, I completely forgot to take pictures of the finished product, thanks to my irrational excitement at pulling it out of the dryer and finding it totally intact.  Luckily, the new owners kindly took some photos for me.

This is not a color combination I would have come up with on my own.  I know browns have been getting popular for nurseries over the years, but I was never much of a fan.  I was planning to use a nice bone muslin with the green and blue, but what I bought was too thin for me to work with easily, and it was driving me crazy.  In the end, the brown was sturdy, soft and contrasted enough to make the blue and green pop out.  I really dig the look. 

I ended up quilting a leaf border design on the sashing.  I was hoping to add some owl appliques, but it turns out it's much too soon in my skill level to attempt organic shapes.  This was a good quilt for me.  The quilting itself was very calming, and the piecing only took me a day or two of dedicated machine work.  The backing is solid brown, and I turned the edges to the front for the binding.  I've become very fond of that binding style.  It saves me so much time.  No extra cutting, folding, ironing and best of all, no hand-stitching around the back!  If only I could get my one sewing foot to cooperate -- it's open-toed, and tends to bunch the fold.

And with the new baby:

I still want to use the muslin.  Maybe for a whole-cloth quilt.  I like the look of it paired with a nice hand-quilted design.

The third baby quilt of the year has been pieced and basted already.  I have just started quilting it today.  I think it's going to take me about 3 weeks before it's done, unless I get inspired to add some touches.

Blue Stars

I finally finished piecing the blue baby quilt.  I get really giddy when I get to this point, because there's generally a lot of frustrations before I do.  But this one was easy.  Just time consuming.  I am so glad I finally gave in and started using a rotary cutter.

Probably the only quilt I've ever planned and pieced without changing my mind a hundred times.  I'm so pleased with the outcome, I actually started out this post with "look how amazing I am!"  Haha.  I'll get over it.  But maybe not until months after I've mailed it off to its new home.  Maybe years.  Come on, that's a damn fine quilt.

Hand-quilting this starting on Sunday or Monday.  Not sure if I need new thread or not.  Let's see, I've got pink, red, brown and lavender!  So, looks like I will have to make a quick stop at my favorite quilting shop in the world.  Hahahaha... quick stop.  Oh, I kill myself.

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.