WIPs on Wednesday!

I have so much that I’m working on…. I didn’t have half of this until I decided to make my own mini Quiltcon right here at home, with a quilt class on Thursday night, a lecture on Friday night and a workshop on Saturday!

Well…. This one I’m supposed to be working on… But I’m nervous and haven’t quite started sewing anything yet….

And this one I was moving on pretyy fast until my quilting class bonanza! I’m hoping to finish it this week!

This is the one I started in my class on Thursday with Katie. And I did inherit most of the finished pieces from a quilting friend! When I finish it will be similar to these quilts of Katie’s.

And my improv start!

And lastly, I’ve still got to finish Dad’s quilt! I’m so close!!!

How many do you have on your list????

Seattle Modern Quilt Guild BOM

Last year I kept saying I was going to play along with the Seattle Modern Quilt Guild block of the month, and I never did. This year I can’t get enough of it!

You probably remember last month I made the Inside Out Pineapple Block. And then waited patiently for the next months border! I guess since were doing a medallion quilt, BOM stands for Border of the MOnth!

The new border only makes me more excited about it! I kept with the greens, but added a punch of orange! We have a committee that is making the borders up as we go. The February designer, Yeechi,  did a great job with the border and the instructions! You can always quilt along here!

Now March is back on me to design! I think I have an idea of what to do!!! I can’t wait to share it! I’m thinking there might be some triangles!

 

A New Christmas Pillow

This project started out as a mistake, but turned into something I love!

A new Christmas pillow!

I was making these blocks for our last do.Good Stitches quilt of the year and I totally made a mess out of the directions. I don’t know why I couldn’t seem to get it right. Anyway, I ended up having a bunch of little half square triangles that were smaller than they were supposed to be. I knew I had to do something with the pieces!

The pattern is for the Moda Love block.

With the input of awesome Seattle Modern Quilt Guild friends, I ended up adding the border and quilting the top to make into our new pillow!

I added a zipper. I used to always do this, but then went back to the easier envelope back style. But this time I decided to add the zipper. I just happened to have a green one out on my table, so I used it!

There’s nothing too special about the back….

I’m so happy I didn’t just scrap my mistake pieces! I think it turned out just lovely for a Christmas pillow, or an any time of year pillow for that matter!

September do.Good Stitches Quilt

My second do.Good Stitches quilt for the Nurture Circle is a success! If I do say so myself!

The family loves it so much, they asked if I could donate money and keep the quilt…. Um, no. But I’m glad they like it!

I’ve been wanting to do a half square triangle quilt for some time now. There is a ton of inspiring ones out there, for sure. But I wanted the blocks BIG! So we each did two 20″ squares! We followed the tutorial at That girl that quilt, method one. We started with (2) 15 inch squares of different colors, sewed around the edges and cut per the tutorial. This leaves you with (4) 10.25 HST squares. For more variation, you actually need to do it 3 times, which actually gives you enough for 3 blocks.

I guess I could have made a super huge quilt, but instead I did something I have never attempted before… I made the back and front of the quilt the same! When I was basting it, I realized it was a little trickier than I realized it was going to be to match up all the lines. It’s not perfectly aligned, but it’s pretty close!

The other problem with making the same front and back was that it was hard to come up with a quilting pattern. If I followed the triangles on the front, it wouldn’t be the same on the back… They are the same, but the triangles don’t necessarily go in the same directions! So I picked this grid pattern! I like it!

I also love the colors! Have you read The Invention of Wings? It’s fantastic! It’s about slave ownership and two sisters that grow to fight slave discredit and abolish the owning of slaves. Which doesn’t sound like a very fun topic, but trust me it’s awesome! The two main slaves in the story are the seamstresses for the family and they are also quilters. In the first few pages they describe a quilt they are making and it’s these colors, pink, orange, red and purple. And black. I was totally inspired. I knew I wanted to put these colors together with a half square triangle quilt!

 

My original intent was to add in some black once I got the blocks. But I loved it just the way it was without the black. So then I was going to bind it in black…. But obviously, I didn’t do that either. I used a scrappy binding combining all the colors of the quilt.

I also wanted all solids. I used Kona Solid Kumquat for orange, Kona Solid Tomato for the red and Kona solid Pink for (You guessed it) the pink. The purple is a Clothworks. The white is also Kona Solid White. Each person used at least 3 colors and white.

Our group uses the labels and I love how perfect the colors matched!

 

I’m also super excited that this one, plus two others from our circle, was nominated to be in the do.Good Stitches Quilt Show at Quiltcon! I’ll know soon if it made the cut or not!

Our quilts go to My Very Own Blanket, an organization that give foster kids their very own blanket. I recently learned that they personalize each quilt with the child’s name. I certainly hope that whoever gets this one loves it as much as my kiddo does!

 

 

 

 

 

Another do. Good Stitches Quilt

Our June quilt is done! Carla, from Modern Bias, designed and completed this one for the group!

 

image via Carla

The combination of jewel tone and low volume works great in this triangle quilt!

 

image via Carla

When we were first given the assignment, we were given the sketch above as an idea of what it was going to look like. I loved the sketch! It sounds like she got just enough different colors to make the rainbow, so she switched gears on the design. You can read more about it here. And I love the finished project as well!

model picture via here.

She asked for scrappy jewel tones. So I googled jewel tones and some fantastic fashion images to inspire my blocks! I decided go with the orange and purple!

We used this tutorial by Carla to get the right size for the 60 degree triangles. We also sent 2 low volume triangles that you can kinda see in the background.

image via Carla

Look! One of my blocks got included in her photoshoot!

 

image via Carla

And checkout the back! I love how she used a few extra of the jewel tone triangles on the back.

Kudos for Carla for designing this quilt and being chosen as a finalist for the do.Good Stitches Quilt Con Special Exhibit! Awesome!!

 

 

May do.Good Stitches Quilt

Yes, I’m soooo behind on the May quilt. We are supposed to finish our quilts two months after our month, so this was supposed to be finished in July….

My group hasn’t tried to oust me yet, so my new goal is NOT take over our alloted time on my next one. I think I can…. I think I can… I think I can….

This quilt is one I designed myself. I know that there are other similar blocks out there, but this one I actually made up myself. It’s a paper piecing pattern and I’ll get it ready with the pattern here shortly!

I asked each group member to make 2 blocks. So all of the two colored blocks the members made. Then I cut and pieced all the large hexagons. Have you tried this? It’s easier then it seems!

For the quilting I randomly picked a hexagon, and started quilting in the ditch around that one. Then I randomly picked a width, about 1.5 inches and just kept going out from there. Round and round and Round we went. Originally I had planned on starting with one, then moving to another and another. But I liked it just coming from the one, so I went with it!

For the binding I chose to go with the same yellows as the background. I don’t know why, but I love the bindings to kinda disappear in most of my quilts.

A couple of the blocks were a little too small to use on the front, but I couldn’t not use them. And I think they made a perfect back piece!

All of our quilts go to My Very Own Blanket, an organization to get foster kids a blanket of their own!

I hope my group can forgive me for being a slacker with getting this one done!

AND…. This is my second finish in my third quarter finish along. I had five projects that I wanted to finish… I only finished 2. But 2 is better than none, right?

Our July do.Good Stitches Quilt

The  Nurture Group of do Good Stitches has done it again!

This quilt was designed and quilted by Kat from Kat and Cat Quilts!  The block was designed based on the Fibonacci Sequence, AKA the Golden Spiral or the Golden Ratio. The  I’ve always had a thing for the Golden Spiral! Maybe it’s being an architect or something, I don’t know. Kat has a wonderful explanation of the mathematical equation and how it’s found in nature, here.

The blocks were pretty easy to make. Of course, Kat, has a great tutorial here! When you make the block you end up with two opposite blocks.

The first set I made ended up being a tad to small. Not sure what I did wrong…. Luckily I figured it out before I actually finished the blocks! I love the stripes, too. I ended up donating these blocks to our Seattle Modern Quilt Guild for our charity quilt. The charity quilt didn’t have a particular block, but particular colors. And luckily for me, teal and green just happened to be the colors!

So I started again. Got it just right and mailed them off!

Love how the quilt looks with the different solids and all the blocks put together! And as usual, Kat’s quilting isn’t too shabby either!

And the back! You can read more about Kat’s finished work on her blog here.

Thanks to the Nurture Circle for another fun quilt!!

Michael Miller Petal Pinwheels Challenge

This summer our local Modern Quilt Guild took on the National Quilt Guild challenge, hosted by Michael Miller fabrics using their Petal Pinwheels line! I love the line! very much….

And I decided to make place-mats! Do you remember the place-mats I received in a swap last year? We love them and use them all the time. So I wanted more. The colors in this line coordinate with the ones I received, so that helped nail me down on what exactly what I was doing for my challenge project. She used a mix of paper piecing and improv, so so did I!

We were all given this adorable tiny little bundle of fabric! Like I said, I love the fabric…. BUT…. I decided to cheat. I love the fabric (did I mention that?), but I didn’t want to buy more new so I used my stash of low volume. One of the rules was that you can only add in any solid or Michael Miller printed fabric. My low volumes are who knows what… Not necessarily Michael Miller. (sorry).

The first one I did used a little paper piecing pattern I love made into a bigger block I made up, and mixed with a little improv! The paper piecing pattern is the little triangle pieces, called Mini Trajectory by Simply Cotton. It’s a free pattern on Craftsy! Go get it! So I made four of these little guys and then added in 1.5 inch pieces between the paper pieced pieces. Then just filled in with a bit of improv to get to my final size of 12 by 16 inches.

This one is similar to the first in that it started with a paper piecing pattern and then improv finished it off. This pattern is another free one from Craftsy. It’s another small one. I made 4 and put them together. It’s the 4 inch kaleidoscope block from Red Pepper Quilts. I quilted it based on the kaleidoscope and pulled my lines from that. But see that little circle from the center of a flower??? In hindsight I wish I had done the circle quilting on this one… (keep reading and check out my circle quilting!)

Place-mat 3. Squares on squares on squares. I started with itty bitty squares in the center, surrounded by squares twice as big as the middle and then on the side, 2 more squares that are twice as big as the middle sized squares! Wow, that felt like a long sentence! I was going to use this one to practice my free motion quilting, but got scared and stuck with lines…. One thing we really love about the swap place-mats is the free motion quilting…

The last one is my favorite and my husbands! I think it’s the contrast… Again, a bit of paper piecing with improv! This pattern is a free pattern from Wombat Quilts, the Star String Paper Pieced Pattern. I did have to scale the pattern down a bit. The pattern makes a 12 inch block, but I needed a 10ish inch pattern. Then I did a sort of log cabin around it. And here comes the circle quilting! I’ve been seeing a lot of it around the quilting world lately and I wanted to give it a shot. Love it!

And then we had a tester! They work! When I first received the place-mats, I didn’t know if I’d be able to use them. They were so pretty! But once you take plunge, you’ll do it too! Make your own place-mats!!!

You can check out the national winners of the challenge here.

And this is my first finish in the Third Quarter Finish-Along!! Can I finish anything else on my list???

My 1st T-shirt Quilt!

So last week was Kids Clothes Week over at Elsie Marley. Did you make anything? I usually make clothes at least once if not the whole week. But I was super busy finishing a quilt top! And it was made from a friend’s childhood t-shirts. So I was working with kids clothes…. Does that count?

A teacher from the kiddo’s school asked if I could turn her old t-shirt pieces into a quilt top. And of course, you know what I said…. Yes! I had them for way too long and I finally started my plan of finishing projects that are piling up under my ironing board…. Since hers was just the top, I figured it was an easy one to cross off the list!

Have you ever made a t-shirt quilt? Well, neither had I. I have started one! HA! That’s no surprise is it! Anyway… I got the pieces from her and she had already fused a feather weight interfacing to the piecing! That made my life easier, for sure. When I started mine, I didn’t use interfacing… Luckily I only finished one block. But the fusible interfacing really helps with the shirts stretching and also with combining different types of knits and if you are introducing other fabrics like we did on this one. The black is a cotton.

She had also started a little bit of it, so I knew the look she was going for. She had started two rows. So I continued with that, making 4 separate rows, then sewing the rows together. I like how that gave it a bit of an organic layout. I also like the black borders between the pieces being different sizes. A bit impromptu if you will!

It’s such a small world too. As I was making her quilt I knew I had heard of her high school, but couldn’t place where. Ends up, my co-worker went to high school with this teacher and was friends with her older sister! Funny!

So I handed off the quilt top to her and she’s having it finished by her mother, I believe! I really enjoyed working on it and it totally inspired me to get back to the one I was making for my family!

Have you ever made a t-shirt quilt?

Third Quarter Finish-Along

ok, I’m doing it too. I’m joining the Finish-a-Long. I make lists. Do you make lists? I like making lists so I can scratch things off the lists when I finish something! And this is kinda like a list… (trust me, everything I”m showing you here is on my list!)

So, I’ve been seeing a lot of my quilting buddies post about this Finish-Along thing… At first I didn’t know what they were talking about. Then I realized what was going on! You show everyone what you’re working on, but what isn’t finished. And try to commit to finishing it by the end of the quarter! SO I’m in!

The project I’m going to finish first is the Modern Quilt Guild’s Michael Miller Challenge! I don’t have much left!

Then I’ve got to get my do.Good Stitches bee quilt finished for our Nurture Circle.

And I totally missed the deadline on the Seattle Modern Quilt Guild’s Modern Metallic challenge, but I still want to do it!

I did start this gnome quilt right before my machine took it’s nosedive.

I really want to finish my husbands quilt….

And trust me… I have a much longer list, should I keep going???

There’s the BOM of the month neon quilt I want to do… There’s a friend’s t-shirt quilt top… There’s my t-shirt quilt… There’s the tree quilt I started about 4 years ago… There’s the memory quilt… There’s the teacher totes…

I could keep going, but I’m going ot stop now…. What are you working on?