Running Away- QDAD to Reality

Although I haven’t done one lately, if you follow me on IG, you know I love the Quilt Design A Day challenge!

Yes, this is a quilt from last year… But I haven’t posted about it yet…. Now that we have that out of the way… SO! When I heard that the QDAD group was going to have an exhibit at Quilt Con, I knew I wanted to participate! And I did! And my quilt went to Quilt Con! It was so cool! My first year getting to go to QC and my first year with not one, but two, quilts in QC!

Is this making any sense to you? Are you wondering what I’m talking about?? So the QDAD group has a ‘spark’ every day and it was the same thing with the show. We had the image above, by Michelle Wilkie, that was voted on by the group as I understand (It was before my time in the group) as our spark. It’s a view from the Highline in NY. Sometimes I can come up with a design in the typical 20 minutes that you are encouraged to spend on the design problem. Now this one… Different Story! I started to hate this image!

Here’s a little insight into my design process! This one went through a LOT of transformations! I started with the top left image and moved across the top row. Plus more… Then I switched gears and started moving closer to the final design…

Once I got the design settled, the quilt was a breeze! Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if I spent more time working on the design than the quilt!

There are a couple of things about this quilt that I love. One is the quilting. It’s nothing fancy, but I love how straight and even I got it.

And secondly, I love how the matched binding turned out! I think it really makes the quilt!

And then the back turned out pretty cool, too. I used left over fabric from the front, but also leftover blocks from the front. Now I know there’s some fellow Bama fans out there thinking, what are you doing making a quilt in Auburn colors??? Well, it’s hard for me to believe too, since I was brought up not having a fondness for this color scheme. But I have grown to love the blue and orange together! And remember, I was given the color scheme and fabric colors for this one!

The token label picture…

ok, I just had to throw this behind the scenes photo in. I don’t know why exactly, but I love it!

Let’s go back to QuiltCon for a minute. The coolest part of this challenge was seeing everyone else’s quilts at Quiltcon. We watched each other come up with designs and then execute them. But to get them all together and see how different each one is, even though we all started from the same inspiration photo, was awesome!

These are just a sampking of some of the other quilts from our exhibition:

Top Row (L to R): Windows and Angles by Carol Byrnes; Structural Transparency by Emily Doane; Finding Home by Anne Sullivan and City Lights by Stacey Day

Bottom Row (L to R): City Windows by Carolyn Goonrye; Downstream by Yvonne Fuchs; Bend Don’t Break by Karen Foster and City Squares by Tiffany Baxter.

And back to the beginning! I love how it turned out!

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Finish Along Quarter 3 2017 Goals!

Last quarter I got three of my to do list done! I got the Inside Out Pineapple Bed Runner, the Chaos Quilt and the Raindrops on Wildflowers quilt finished. Pretty good… So once again the list is going to be very similar to my last one!

This is an old one that has been sitting on the shelf for about 3 years. Sitting there with a front and back done! So it just needs a little quilting love… It’s basted. It’s getting so close… Like right next to my machine!

I’ve picked this one up again and hope to finish it ASAP for the whole gift giving thing!  This one uses the quick curve ruler by Sew Kind of Wonderful

And here’s a sneak peek at the next Nurture Circle do Good quilt. I’m going to try to make a good impression this go around and actually finish my quilt in the allotted time frame! Fingers crossed!

And there’s this one I’d like to finish from a year ago….

I don’t know if these actually count, but the two above I only need to make the quilt tops. The first one is waiting on me! The second one isn’t quite ready!

The last three I want to keep working on, or start, but I doubt I’ll finish them!

My Seattle Modern Quilt Guild BOM quilt ….

I want to start and finish my Christmas quilt and I want to have it done for next year and at the rate I’m going, it won’t be done, unless I do it now!

I’m STILL working on the Technicolor Galaxy Quilt!

And that’s my ongoing to do list! I printed my list to help keep me on track near the end of this quarter. My friend laughed at me that I keep a copy of my quilting to do list in my purse!

Inside Out Pineapple Bed Runner

And you guessed it, another quilt!

Another one to mark off my Finish Along to do list! This one I am in love with, but for some reason wasn’t able to photograph it as wonderful as it really is!

My stepmother told me she wanted a quilt made with my Inside Out Pineapple quilt pattern. I love the pattern, of course. You’d hope I would since I made it… But it’s so time consuming! So I was contemplating how long did she really want to wait on this project! And luckily before I asked that question, she clarified that she only wanted a bed runner. Oh, yes! I can do that without taking forever!

A bed runner… It does look pretty, but I’m still curious about why… You’ll notice I don’t make many mini quilts. A couple of reasons… I don’t have wall space to hang them. And If you aren’t hanging them on the wall, what is the point of them? They don’t really serve a purpose. People make awesome mini’s and I love seeing other peoples minis, but for some reason when I quilt, I think it needs to be able to be used…  I don’t know why I think this way… So I’m still kinda miffed at the bed runner concept. But it turned out great!

Her other request was for it to coordinate with the cross stitch pillow I made her a couple of Christmas’s ago. So that narrowed down the colors! And you know me and my white backgrounds! I was trying to figure out how to incorporate the white background and still coordinate with the pillow. Then my friend Debbie asked where the white was in the pillow! Ummmm…. there isn’t any. So what was I doing. Then I tried it with the grey background and, OH YES!

The grey is my favorite staple, Sprinkle by Cotton and Steel! Love it!

Besides the grey, I used a combination of yellow, green and teal solids and prints. Prints! Another quilting concept that I don’t use much! Yes, it still kinda reads as a solid, but I did branch out and use prints with my solids!

Throwin’ in my label picture!

And here it is in it’s new home! It looks quite nice and does coordinate with the pillow. My step mother was very excited and put it on the bed as soon as she got home from visiting us! I’m glad to know it was well received and will be well loved!

This was a great project to use the Inside Out Pineapple Pattern for! I got really quick at making it, but I also didn’t get burned out with having to make too many!

 

 

The Chaos Quilt

Another quilt finish! Sometime soon, I’ll show you one of the non-quilt projects I’ve been working on… But not today!

I took a class with Libs Eliot for her Chaos class last year. Back when I felt like I was in a design rut… It was an interesting class. I don’t know that I’d call it a class actually… It was more of a, shall we say, a directed sew-in….

You pick a handful of block designs and then roll a dice to random place your blocks. Then you start piecing! Pretty easy! It is interesting to see how different, yet how similar everyone’s quilt from the class ended up!  I really love the colors I chose, if I do say so myself. And best thing about it… All the fabric was from my stash! Oh, yes! Boom!

It took me a while to decide how I wanted to quilt it. At first I thought I wanted to random lines around this way and that… I had a couple of other ideas, but they weren’t right either. then came this straight line pattern. I started a little way out and worked into the center. At the time I was quilting with my regular all purpose foot because my walking foot was not working. It totally pulled on the fabric and it looked horrible! I waited until my new walking foot came, picked out all the quilting and started over. Best decision!

I then headed back to where I started and then worked my way to the outside of the quilt. And I just kept going and going….

The back! For the back of this one I used all the blocks that I miss cut! I did somehow cut a few wrong…  Also there were a couple of extras that I made on accident, so I cut them down to fit in, too. I like the back. It kind of looks like a mini version of the front!

Throwin’ in the ‘ole label photo…. Did have to order a new set of 50 for 2017… Will I use them all this year… Ha!

People often ask me what I do with all my quilts. I keep a few. I gift them every now and then. But, a good bit of them go to charity organizations. This one went to my son’s school auction. Since it’s not my design, I’m not as attached to it as others I’ve made. But I’m super excited about the recipient who ended up being the highest bidder. My kiddo’s second grade teacher and she’s very excited about it!!

 

Inset Corners- A Quilting Tutorial

One more post about my Raindrops on Wildflowers Quilt! I’ll show you how I made all those inset corners!

I made the block up to start with, but then I had to figure out how to actually put it together. I thought about more piecing, but I had to make a lot and that would have been too many steps per block. So I had to figure out how to make with as few pieces as possible. I made a little video of how many steps there still are in the block!

Anyway… I digress… Back to the corners… Maybe everyone else knows how to do this. I did a lot of inset corners on the Weight of Love quilt I made, but for some reason it took me a little while to get it to make these blocks! I kept forgetting which way to sew them together… Finally it stuck and I was on a roll!

First up, stack the two fabrics on top of each other so that they overlap.

Then trim the two pieces of fabric. And you end up with the pieces above.

Mark one piece, on the right side, 1/4″ down from your corner.

Mark your second piece, on the wrong side, 1/4″ down from the corner.

Stack your dots! I’m using solids, so it doesn’t really matter for me, but you’ll want these to be right sides together!

Then sew, using a 1/4″ seam along the edge and stop at your dot.

When you stop at the dot, leave your needle down, but raise your foot. Then pull your top fabric around to align with the bottom piece. Sometimes the fabric wants to bunch under the needle, sometimes it doesn’t. Not sure why… But when it does, I just go in with my tiny scissors and move the fabrics behind the needle so they aren’t bunching. If you watch the ‘video’ above, you’ll see these steps in action!

Then continue sewing out to the other end!

Here’s the kicker! Iron into the V. If you iron the other way, you’ll get bumps.

Then you have this!

Some pretty awesome looking inset corners! Oh, yea!

Honestly, I kinda hated cutting the second one off to add the half circles. But it had to be done. I thought about not using the half circles on the back blocks, but I really like the half circles, too. Big Dilemma I had!

Hope this helps in your sewing fun!

What Shade Are You? Giveaway!

Like I mentioned the other day, there’s a tutorial and a giveaway coming up! I haven’t been able to get the tutorial together yet, so how about a giveaway? Yes?

 

In case you missed my last post, I used all these fabrics in my latest quilt, Raindrops on Wildflowers! And you can win a fat quarter bundle of all the different fabrics I used!

But this giveaway is a bit different! It’s on Instagram. I hope everyone has an Instagram account and can play along! You can head over to my Instagram account to sign up! My Instagram name is imfeelincrafty. If you don’t follow me, please do! I love making friends over on IG!

The rules are:

1. You have to like my picture of the giveaway on IG.
2. You must be a follower of both myself, @imfeelincrafty, and @rjrfabrics
3. You must tag a friend that loves colorful fabric! Ok, they just need to love fabric!

The giveaway on my page will be open until Thursday at 5PM PST.  Good Luck!

 

 

#What Shade Are You with RJR Fabrics

It’s my turn on the RJR What Shade Are You blog hop!! Have you been following along with the #whatshadeareyou series with RJR Fabrics? I started following RJR fabrics when I found the series or blog hop or whatever you want to call it!

What is this # I keep talking about? Each week or so, they feature a quilter with a quilt made from a bundle of RJR Fabric and then have a giveaway of that fabric bundle! The fabric bundle was what originally hooked me, but the quilters are amazing! I’ve found some new quilters to add to my IG feed, for sure. One day they had a call for bloggers interested in participating, so of course I volunteered and they accepted me.

I used the following colors:

Eggnog 228
Canvas 150

Carrot 131
Oriole 314
Bandana 367
tangerine Dream 276
Orange Crush 372

Cove 294
Riviera 274
Luau 376
Turks and Caicos 292
horizon 354

Pistachio 404
Spring 405
Lucky Green 406
Sour Apple 346
Grass is Always Greener 347

2961-001
2960-004
2960-001

Super excited, right?? Yes, I was. Then panic struck! Me being in the lineup with all these other quilters that use tons of different fabric. I typically only use a few different colors in one quilt, but all these others use tons of colors. I remember walking around Quiltcon looking at the quilts with more than just a few colors for inspiration…

Then I decided on a design I had made in one of my office meeting sketches. It was a design I could incorporate a bunch of colors into. The kiddo and I got to work and picked the fabrics, finally… Then they came. And stage fright set in again. And I decided I didn’t want to make the design I was starting to make…

So in came design idea number 2. A Quilt Design A Day design! The ‘spark’ above from Design Seeds inspired my purple design. And that purple design became my #whatshadeareyou quilt! I thought it would be cool, but I still wasn’t sure it would stand up against all the other quilts in the series. Once I started going, it kept growing on me and I liked it more and more! And now I love it! I hope you do too!

I’m calling it Raindrops on Wildflowers! As I was quilting it, I debated, one big spiral or three spirals? The whole family agreed on three circles. The kiddo said it was like raindrops in water!

The quilt block is obviously something I just made up, but then I realize it was full of inset corners! Ergh… But I remembered they aren’t so bad and I pretty much mastered it! Well, for this block at least! I’ll post a tutorial soon.

The front had to be the solids collection, which I love. My go to solid fabric is typically another brand that I won’t mention here… But I might have just been swayed! This fabric is much softer than my usual. And there’s still tons of colors to choose from. No reason this fabric can’t be my new go to!

And the back is actually a really fun polka dot fabric. The front had to be solids, but you could choose anything for the back. Obviously I had different intentions since it was a different quilt design I ordered the fabric for, but I like the polka dots and stripes together!

And stayed tuned… A tutorial and giveaway will be popping up here shortly!

 

Left and Right Quilt Tutorial

Remember my do Good Stitches Left and Right quilt that I wrote about last month?

Honestly, It’s pretty easy…. I’ll show you how we did it. You’ll need 3 colors of fabric for the flying geese, white and a pile of grey scraps. Unfortunately, I don’t have a quantity of how much of each fabric you’ll need. You’ll need to do the math on that based on how large of a quilt your looking for.

image via A Quilters Table

First, we’re making a big batch HST. Have you tried my friend Debbie’s tutorial for big batch HST’s? It’s awesome! You can find it here.

To make your big batch HST’s you’ll need (1) 9×9 square of white for every color 9×9 square. (1) set of 9×9 squares will give you 18 HSTs.

You’ll also need to cut:

(9) 2.5×3.5 white rectangles- (1) for each set of HST (which will make 1 flying geese).
And grey scraps

Once you’ve got your HST’s, we need to add the grey bits! Then line up the ruler so that you are cutting off the tip of the colored edge of the HST, 1.25″ away from the center.

Add small scraps of grey to each corner. I suggest chain piecing at this point. I also didn’t trim the grey scraps. I just made sure they were big enough that once they are folded over, they cover the corner.

Trim each HST block to 2.5 inch squares.

Next, let’s make some flying geese! Sew together 2 HST’s to make your flying geese blocks. Chain piece again.

Sew the 2.5×3.5 rectangles on to the left side of each HST block. Make sure they are all pointing in the right direction.

Then do it again and again and again for each of the three colors.

OK, from here on out, I don’t have very good pictures!

Sew the blocks together along line 1, shown above, first. Do this with all the flying geese blocks.

Next take the double flying geese blocks and sew them together along line 2, shown above. Be sure to backstitch at the top and bottom of each!

And do that until you get length you want of the each of the rows of each color. Add strips of white between and you’re done!

There are a lot of little blocks, but they go pretty fast, especially if you chain piece them!

What do you think? Will you make it? If you do, please let me know! Can’t wait to see it!

Left and Right- Do Good Quilt Finish!

It’s long overdue, but I did finish another quilt! Another Nurture Circle do. Good Stitches Quilt!

Remember how I do those Quilt Design a Day projects? I haven’t posted any of those on the blog recently, either… Well, this quilt started as one of those designs! (you can see the group here)

This was the prompt we had! This silly picture of heart shaped sunglasses by design seeds was the inspiration. I took this and came up with this…

I got some great feedback on this design, so I knew I wanted to make it into a quilt. I thought the variation of fabric from a quilt bee would make this quilt fantastic!

And, if I do say so myself, I think it turned out pretty fantastic!

I think it was a pretty easy block for the group to make. Each person made 18 half square triangle blocks, 6 of each color. You can find all the directions here. I’ll post the directions to the blog shortly!

I’m so in love with the colors! And the variations on each color that came from all the members.

For the back I made a play on scale and made the one of each flying geese, but BIG! I always try to avoid these pictures with the wind, but I love how this one shows the little ones on the front juxtaposed next to big ones!

This picture shows the quilting the best. I did my usual straight line quilting, but at an angle with the flying geese. Then did a little stitch in the ditch along the flying geese to get the zigzags.

And of course, my label picture! I had fun photographing this one at the boathouse where we recently had our SMQG retreat with the help of Allison Sews and Snippets of Sweetness!

And I can mark this one off of my 2017 Finish A Long Quarter 1 List! Linking up here.

 

 

QuiltCon 2017 Favorites

OK, you might be bored with QuiltCon pictures by now, but I’m going to post more anyway. Sorry! I’m headed off for a quilting retreat this weekend and I thought to look back at the inspiring quilts from QuiltCon would be a good way to start off the weekend!

Hyperbolic Hexagon Tessellation by Jennifer Kloke

I was about to write, This is one of my favorite…. But they are all my favorites! So I’ll just get that out right now so I don’t start each paragraph with that same sentence! I took a million pictures of my ‘favorites’, but the ones I’m showing today are the ones that I keep coming back to in my head, the ones that really left an impression on me!

As you probably know, this was my first year to go to QC and the first year to have a quilt (or two) in the show! So imagine my surprise as I rounded the corner, looked up and saw my quilt at the end of the line of AMAZING quilts! It felt awesome!

And I got closer and closer and super close!

And technically, I didn’t make this quilt all on my own! This was one of the do.Good Stitches quilts that I designed and made with blocks from my group!

This is my friend Matt! He’s amazing! He’s the only guy in our guild and did I say amazing? It was great to spend a lot of the day with him wandering around looking at quilts. Maybe a couple of critiques… This is the quilt he designed for our guild’s charity quilt. He also talked me into spending way too much at the BlocLoc booth! And yes, I’m glad he did!

left: The Kiss by Kay-Anna McCalla and right: Lilianna Kehnle

These two were both from the youth category. Love seeing the youth quilts. I didn’t realize that there was a youth category. I came home and told my son about the category and he got excited. Just the other day he told me we needed to get started on his quilt for the show! We’ll see if it happens!

Serenity by Stephanie Skardal

Ok, this totally grabbed my attention for a couple of reasons. One, it totally reminded me of seersucker, which I love. And two, after doing my striped quilt using striped fabric, I was in awe of the time it took her to make this one of tiny pieced strips!

Big Island Blossoms by Sheri Cifaldi-Morrill

oh, yes, please! I’m learning applique now through our guild’s BOM so this is what I am aspiring to!

Go North by Maritza Soto

When you walked in the show, the Best in Show was right there, but it was surrounded by people so this is technically the first quilt I saw when I walked in and, boom, I was drawn right to it! Love the colors, the solids and the quilting!

left: Lincoln by Kim Soper and right: Still With Her by Liz Harvatine

Now the juxtaposition of these two was thoughtful, in my opinion. I had been warned about overhearing people’s conversations around quilts. Let’s just say I loved it and I overheard someone else who didn’t…. I won’t go in the politics of it, but I could go on….

Fireworks by Jeannie Jenkins

Made in GDR 26 by Emily Doane

 

Double Irish Divergence by Debra Jalbert

Another few where the bright color placement is now seared into my brain!

I Know The Stars Are There Beyond The Clouds 2 by Heidi Parkes

I have no idea how to hand stitch a quilt. None. But this lady does! Amazing! This quilt was huge! And complete with yards of hand stitching. Maybe once I get this applique thing down, maybe I’ll learn to hand quilt. It’s a such a beautiful technique.

Square Count Game by Debra Jalbert

This might just be my most favorite… Love the white. Love the bright. the quilting is awesome. Love the little pops of color. I want this quilt! Very inspiring to me…. And I just realized that two of my favorites are by Debra! I think we could be quilty friends!

Yay or Nay by Debbie Jeske

I also loved seeing my friend’s quilts at the show too. That’s just awesome in it’s own right. But I also love this one by Debbie! I really love the story of the name. Check it out here.

Half Circle Mirror by Cheryl Brickey

I was drawn to this one because it reminds me of the quilt design a day project that I like to do! I don’t think it is inspired by that, but that’s what drew me in. A lot of my designs and QDAD designs can be pretty minimal and I start to doubt the design, but seeing this one hanging there reminded how beautiful minimal can be.

Autumn is Wistful by Chawne Kimber

Loved this for reminding me of home and growing up. But the technique is awesome too. I’ve seen the technique used with knits in clothing, but hadn’t thought about it for quilting. Why not???

Bling by Kat Jones

And last but least, Best In Show! No words. Awesomeness is all I have to say about this one!