Quilting

I began this quilt at the St. George retreat I attended in January 2015. It was taught by Melissa Corry from her book, Irish Chain Quilts and I got one of each block type made during the retreat. Plus a photo opp!

Then it languished for a long time as other projects came up and I had to gifts to make, plus quilts for Festival of Trees that benefits Primary Children’s Medical Center. So along about the fall I decided to make this quilt a semi-priority and get it done. I got it all out, remembered how it worked, and then did many of the blocks as Leaders & Enders while working on other projects. It’s amazing how much you can get done while sending through one additional seam after every seam you’re intentionally working. All of a sudden you have enough little pieces sewn together to make a whole block! That’s basically how this quilt ended up going. When I had a bunch of almost-blocks ready, I focused and sewed together a bunch of blocks, laid them out, and started sewing together some rows. And the quilt magically came together.

It’s an Irish Chain variation called “Two Paths Crossed”, as the reds and greens line up into chains across the quilt. The green is Dapples by Free Spirit for Westminster Fabrics and the red is Essentials by Wilmington Prints. The gray background is a fleur-de-lis type swirl called Jams & Jellies by Jill Finley for Henry Glass & Co., and the small square centers and the binding are Atelier by 3Sisters for Moda. It was machine quilted with gray thread using the Drop of Paisley pattern by Linda at Just Sew. 

I had some extra blocks so I laid them diagonally across the back, cut strips of the chevron fabric, Remix by Ann Kelle for Robert Kaufman, to fit on each side, then cut border strips of the red for the top and bottom. So there it is! This is destined to be the quilt for the downstairs guest bedroom.

I really enjoyed meeting Melissa at the retreat and learning some of her strip cutting and piecing techniques that were applied to this quilt. It took me a year and I have more to finish from that retreat, but here’s the first!

During January we finished all the pieced blocks and had three applique blocks left. The first of these is #40 Friendship Dahlia. We chose the fabrics, traced and cut the patterns, fused the webbing to the fabric and got them all fused to the 9×9′ background. Then it was time to do the blanket stitching on our machines. We all chose different fabrics and centers and when it came to thread color, there was a fair amount of debate. In the end ShaRee and Terry opted for blue and brown, matching their center circles. I did white to contrast with my black center. None of us wanted to do all different threads as we thought it would be too distracting. Once we finally did all the prep work, it took some time to sew and we ended up finishing the next week when we did all of the next block. [Read more…] about Ode to the 1930’s Block 40, 41, & 42

As I mentioned in this post about quilt #1: “I had no plans to make Christmas quilts for our sons in 2016 as I’d made them quilts for Christmas 2015. They both visited in September and independently requested a quilt for Christmas. That put a bit of a panic in my holiday planning, for sure. But I got busy and started work. And now I’m finally getting around to sharing them.”

Quilt #2 is a picnic quilt for Brian that he requested for beach trips and concerts in Central Park. I upcycled old jeans I have been saving for quilts and improv pieced them into strips of 1.5″, 2.5″, and 3″. I just randomly sewed together strips in varying lengths until I thought I had enough to make a top, then laid them out, trimmed, and adjusted until I had the look I wanted. I totally love this design much better than squares and since there are never four meeting seams, there is less bulk.

The backing is a Kaffe Fassett backing fabric that is bright and fun to offset the dark blues. I had planned to just fold over the backing for the binding, but a happy accident required me to cut and do a binding the regular way. And with all the concentric circles, it makes a nice, almost striped, contrast to the backing which I really love. So it turned out great even though it ended up being more work than I had planned.

The label is a pocket from a pair of jeans and the machine quilting was done by Linda at Just Sew in big orange circles. I was debating about thread color and when I was in the store filling out the order form I was discussing it with a couple ladies working there. I kept saying I wanted to do orange but was afraid it wouldn’t look good. Finally one of them said, “Be bold! Do orange like you want to do!” So I did and I’m very glad because the orange quilting really shows up nicely and gives the front a lovely texture.

Brian was so happy when he opened it on Christmas and is looking forward to good weather so it can have some fun urban adventures.

 

 

I had no plans to make Christmas quilts for our sons in 2016 as I’d made them quilts for Christmas 2015. They both visited in September and independently requested a quilt for Christmas. That put a bit of a panic in my holiday planning, for sure. But I got busy and started work. And now I’m finally getting around to sharing them.

The first is called “Star Wars: Past & Present”. New lines of fabric had been released for the “The Force Awakens” and was readily available but Mark grew up with the original trilogy and is a fan of all the films. (Hence the request for a Star Wars quilt). So I scoured the interwebs for classic fabric pieces and found them in a variety of Etsy shops. The pattern is called “Groovy” from Quilt Etc. in Sandy, Utah that I was given during a shop hop. The fabrics used are a charcoal Peppered Cotton, and Thicket Dashes from Gingiber for the log cabin sides. The sashing & large backing pieces and the binding are Starlet Black Star and Red Star respectively, from Blank Quilting. The border is “The Force Awakens” from Camelot Fabrics, along with the large squares from their various Star Wars collections. I fussy cut all the large squares to show the pattern to best effect and in the case of the badges, to show different characters as much as possible. Also the classic word squares are slightly offset to show different names at the top and bottom. I also fussy cut the cornerstones to show off a character or symbol. I really love how that little extra effort turned out. Those cornerstones really pop!

I like pieced backs and also wanted to use up the licensed fabric because I didn’t think I would really use it another quilt. So the back is very heavily pieced and I totally improv pieced based on the remnants I had left. The fussy cutting on the different fabrics left me with lots of odd sized pieces, but I managed to make it work. It was machine quilted at Thimbles & Threads in Draper with gray thread in a digital box style with curved corners that softened all the squares but stayed in the theme.

Turns out Mark hadn’t really expected me to actually make it between September and Christmas, so he was really surprised to open the box. But he LOVED it!!

 

 

In November and December of 2016, and January of 2017, we did the three blocks that are 3″ square and serve as fillers among the larger blocks. We made six of #34 Triangles,  eleven of #35 Pinwheels, and nine of #36 Bowtie. That finishes up all the pieced blocks for the quilt and all we have left are various applique blocks. These small blocks go all over the quilt so we decided not to be constrained by color in the surrounding blocks but just use some of our fabrics we haven’t used elsewhere, or that we just really like. So they are a potpourri of 1930’s fabric in our collective stashes for this quilt. [Read more…] about Ode to the 1930’s Blocks 34, 35, & 36