WIP: A Baby Quilt

Wow, it's been a long time since I've sewing. This has been our busy season with work. Throw on a couple of grad school finals and sewing has been practically non-existant. Fortunately, I managed to squeeze in a little sewing time here and there over the past month to throw together this simple baby quilt for my cousin who's expecting her first baby late this summer.

This was the second tumbler quilt that I made. Both went together very easy. I used my Accuquilt Go! to cut the fabric. I used four charm packs for this quilt that I had lying around for a while now. I'm determined to use some of the fabric I have in my stash, so I'm hoping to use fabric I have on hand for the backing and the binding.

My goal is to have this quilted and bound within the next month. I think it's do-able, but you never know. 

Tumbler Quilt Finished

I finished my tumbler quilt last week and I brought it with me to get some good photographs when I went to visit my parents at their beach house.

I love the way this quilt came out. I started this as a leaders and enders project a while back.

I used four charm packs of Kate Spain's Fandango line that I cut out using my Accuquilt Go! cutter.  I used the baby die for this one since the regular die is larger than a charm pack. 

I quilted this one by quilting on either size of the zig zag seam and I really like how it came out.  I think the quilting looks even better on the back of the quilt.

It's backed using an Art Gallery print that I had in my stash.  It's from the Botanica line. 

My brother-in-law is expecting a baby in November, and if it ends up being a girl, I was thinking of giving this quilt to the new baby since it's a perfect baby sized quilt.  I forget the actual dimensions, but it took just a one yard cut of fabric for the backing.

WIP Wednesday: More Machine Quilting

Last weekend I got my tumbler quilt basted and last night I begun to machine quilt it.

I'm echo quilting on either side of the zig zag portion of the tumbler blocks.  This one is also the perfect size for a baby quilt, so I want to keep the quilting fairly light.  I can't wait to have yet another quilt finished soon! 

I hope I can continue this pace of finishing up so many quilts this year.  Unfortunately, I don't have many other small quilts that are ready to be quilted, so the pace might slow down a bit soon.

Twister Quilt Finished!

This weekend I finished putting the binding on my twister quilt.

I love the way it came out.  I used two It's a Hoot charm packs for the twister portion.  I then used coordinating fabric for the binding and backing.  The white around the outside of the quilt is a Kona white.

I quilted this little quilt on either side of the horizontal and vertical seams.  I was trying to think of some way to play off the twisting pinwheels, and realized that with this type of quilting, the quilting would go through the long point of every pinwheel.

 I love this mini quilt.  I think it would be a perfect baby quilt.  I know so many people having babies this year, so who knows, it could wind up being for one of them.

I can see myself making more of these twister quilts in the future.  They come together so quickly and look great.

Eva Package Quilt Finished

Last week I picked up my Eva Package Quilt that I had 4/5 of the way machine quilted.  I decided that it was high time I finished quilting it and marked complete.

I finally finished the quilting one evening last week and prepped the binding the following night.  I wrapped it around an empty spool of thread that I had just emptied while finishing the quilting to bring with me to retreat. 

While at retreat, I machine stitched the binding to the top and after dinner and a couple of margaritas the first night, I decided it would probably be best if I didn't try to stitch a straight line or use my rotary cutter.  I ended up hand sewing about 3 feet of binding that night while chatting with everyone.  The rest of the binding was finished last night.

I brought the quilt to the park this morning on my way to work and took a few pictures of the finished quilt.  I love how it came out and can't believe I waited this long to finish it.

 

I love the way the early morning sunrise hits the quilt in this photo and just makes the quilt glow. 

Here's the back.  Normally I like my backs to be all one fabric, but I wanted to use what fabric I had on hand, so I added the pink stripe to the purple for this back.  I love simple backings.  I added a label on the bottom right corner. 

Here's a closeup of the back and binding.  My quilting is FAR from perfect, but that doesn't keep me from enjoying the quilt. I got the inspiration for this quilting design from Judi at Green Fairy Quilts here.

And here's the front with the binding.

YAY!

Twister Quilt

Back in January Aimee was supposed to give a demo of the twister ruler but we had one of our few light snowstorms of the season and the meeting was canceled since we have folks traveling from all over the eastern part of Mass.  To make up for it, Aimee gave the demo at retreat.

Rebecca is showing Aimee's sampler quilt that she brought.

Here's the quilt that I made using the ruler.  While Aimee showed us using the ruler for a layer cake, I made this using two charm packs. 

The fabric is Momo's It's a Hoot by Moda with some Kona white added for the border. 

Tumbler Quilt Finished

I started making a tumbler quilt using Kate Spain's Fandango fabric a while ago as a leader and ender project.  I started by sewing tumblers in groups of twos randomly, but with purpose.  I never pieced the same color or pattern together.  The pieces were cut with my Go! cutter out of two charm packs of Kate Spain's Fandango.  Well, I finished the quilt at retreat this weekend and I can officially have my design wall back at my house. 

Here's the quilt up on the design wall at retreat. I have been working on this one for quite some time, at least six months, so it's good to see it completed.  I'll probably finish it with some straight line quilting. It's not very big, so it shouldn't take me that long. 

Here's a close up of the quilt.

This was quilt top number one that I finished at retreat!  Yay!

Oopsie

So I was so proud of myself, completing block 9 of the Carol Doak Radiant Star BOM, but when I went to photograph it with the rest of the blocks, it was 1/2" too big!  Ahh

It's a cute block too!

I always measure to make sure the block is the right size before I start sewing, but for some reason, this time around I must have measured wrong.  :(  Welp, this block might become a pillow.

Another Simply Radiant Block

While I had no machine, I prepped a couple of the Simply Radiant BOM blocks from the Carol Doak Yahoo Group.  Here's this completed block.  I just love how these blocks are turning out.

And here are the eight that I've completed.  Just four more to go.

This block is in the upper right corner.  I said it before, and I'll say it again, I love these!

Storm at Sea Top is FINISHED!!!!

I finally managed to get some halfway decent photos of my completed Storm at Sea quilt top. I love looking at all of the different patterns that emerge as you look at this quilt.  When I show people this quilt, I'm always interested in what stands out to them first.  What pops for you? 

I LOVE this quilt top.  The colors are more earthy that I would have picked for myself, but because it's going to be hanging at my parent's beach house, on a yellow wall, this quilt will fit perfectly there.  It finishes at 57" x 66".

Here's a view from the side.

And here's a picture of the back.  I love how neat the back of a quilt looks when you remove the paper.  All of the seams are pressed so nice and it looks so neat.  I just have to go back with some tweezers and remove some of the tiny bits of paper before sending this along to Judi at Green Fairy Quilts to work her magic on. 

Progress on Storm at Sea

I've been trucking along, working on my storm at sea quilt whenever I have a few minutes here and there.

I have stacks of blocks in multiple stages of completion...

I would say I'm probably 2/3 done with these diamond blocks.  Once I finish them, I can begin assembling the quilt top.  So far, these diamonds have been the most tedious part of this quilt.  I think it's because I'm anxious to begin piecing the top and see how it's going to look. 

Storm at Sea Progress

I began planning and making a storm at sea quilt for my parents a while back but put it aside to work on a few other things recently. 

Here's the rough sketch that I did a while back based on the fabrics that I am using.  The colors are totally off shade wise, but It's good enough to get the gist of things.

I finished the 42 3" small squares yesterday and I'm going to move to the large squares next.  I think there's 30-something large square blocks.  I'm paper piecing this quilt because I like the accuracy it gives me without having to worry about my 1/4" seam being off a bit.  That's the beauty of paper piecing, you don't have to worry about that.  Just sew on the line.

This is what a stack of 42 3" paper pieced blocks looks like all trimmed up. 

Quilt Top Complete

This weekend I finished a very large quilt top, a large queen.

The bottom (left) is made using a layer cake.  I used Frolic by Sandy Gervais.  I'm sending this one off to my quilter since I don't feel like dealing with a quilt this large.

Photographing this quilt involved moving furniture at my aunt's house to have enough space.  It's that big!

Simply Radiant BOM - January

As I was preparing to teach the BMQG paper piecing, I was looking for just the right pattern that didn't have too many pieces, needed to be pieced together to show how to join two paper pieced blocks, and had different angles to show how to take care in lining up the fabrics.  I decided on the January BOM from Carol Doak's Simply Radiant Star BOM.  I hadn't made this block, but it appeared to be the easiest block out of the bunch.  It would be perfect.

Here's my finished block.  I really like how it came out.  As I was preparing and picking out fabrics I decided that I needed a block with red as the dominant color.  I think this works well.

Here are all seven blocks so far.  See why I thought I needed another block with red as the focus color?

I put this aside for a while, but I'm going to TRY to pick it back up again and get a few more blocks done.  All of the patterns have been posted for the quilt, I just need to finish them all. 

Starting a New Project

I've begun working on a new project, a quilt for my parents.  They wanted a quilt for the stairway leading to the second floor of their beach house.  We picked out some colors together and I decided on a Storm at Sea pattern since it fits nicely with a beach house.

I found a blank template online and colored it in with the colors we were thinking of.  We had already decided on the Origins line by Basic Grey for the quilt, I just needed to figure out the pattern.

I also found some free paper piecing templates online, so I printed those out to use for this as well.  If you've read this blog at all you probably know that I really love paper piecing.  I love the perfect points that you get with paper piecing.

I've started to do some cutting but haven't finished.  I needed to order more fabric online since I couldn't find it near me anymore, so that delayed be a bit.

I haven't started a new larger quilt in a while, so it's been fun to get into another project, although I'm still working on trying to finish a bunch of other projects.  Oh well, the life of a quilter I guess - start three projects, finish one.  Right?

I likely won't have a ton of time to do much quilting over the next three weeks.  I've got a bunch of stuff going on for work including my company's customer user conference in Las Vegas in a few weeks, so I'll be leaving the DH behind to head out there.  I'll have to see if I can bring a hand sewing project with me.  We've got family in town from GA as well starting this weekend.  I hope to really pick up on my quilting again come mid-May.  

Um, I think I have a problem...

Yeah, so I think I have a problem...

This has become my stash of Kate Spain's Central Park.  This doesn't include my fat quarter bundle of the entire line.  The minimum cut of fabric is 2 yards above which would mean that this photo has over 20 yards of fabric.  EEK!!!

Here's my real confession - I don't even know what I'm going to do with this fabric.  I just love it so much that I must hoard it.

I think this comes from my love of Full Moon Forest and the fact that I discovered it after it was out of print.  Now, I'm constantly searching for some FMF at a reasonable price, kicking myself that I didn't stock up when it first came out.  On another note - I saw a half yard of FMF for $25 on Etsy last week.  That's $50 a yard!!!  I don't think I'll ever reach a point where I'd pay $50 a yard for some simple cotton quilting fabric.  That's just crazy people.

Radiant Star BOM - Block 6

Well, after a break from quilting for a few weeks with traveling for work and pleasure, I finally got back into the swing of sewing the other night.  To start, I worked on catching up on the Radiant Star BOM.  I think we're up to block 9, but I just got to finishing block 6.  Progress is progress though.

I love these blocks.  I think it's fair to say that I really love Carol Doak's patterns and I love to paper piece.

Here are the first six blocks.  Half way done!  I love how using one line of fabric for the entire quilt pulls everything together even though the blocks are all different.  

Figgy Pudding - Finally Finished

So I finally got the binding finished on my figgy pudding disappearing nine patch quilt.  It's now hanging up in my kitchen just in time for the holidays.  YAYAYAYAYAY!!!!  (I'm a bit excited about finishing this one given my previous frustrations with the quilting.)

I used the green grunge fabric from the same line for the binding.

It's a great feeling to have a quilt finished.