Monthly Archives: August 2012

Quilting Beyond Stippling

Posted on August 30, 2012 | 3 Comments

Stippling has always been my go to quilt design.  Before I was even quilting, my notebooks always had doodles with plenty of stippling designs.  This year I have really been trying to get out of my comfort zone and try new designs.  Earlier this year, I did a baby quilt by echoing the pattern of the quilt.  It turned out super cute.  Beyond echoing, I needed some how-to pictures so I per-ordered Angela Walter’s new book — Free-Motion Quilting with Angela Walters: Choose & Use Quilting Designs for Modern Quilts.  By reading this book, my free-motion quilting skills have already improved.  So far, I have been able to use three of her designs on the following quilts:

Wow is all I can say!  Using her step by step guides, I just followed her designs and before I knew it, I got my rhythm down!  By trying these new designs, I am now even more into free-motion quilting (and I didn’t know that was even possible!).  This book is definitely a keeper that I will be referencing quite often.  Great job Angela!

I am linking up with TNT (Trying New Things) with the Happy Quilting Blog.

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Posted in Quilting

and Repeat, WIP Update

Posted on August 29, 2012 | 1 Comment

“…and Repeat.”  This is the saying that goes through my mind as I count to 72!  I continued to work on my Pickle Dish Quilt this week.  It was 72 curves, 72 squares, and at last — the 72 background pieces.  Now that I have reached 72 on each of the sets, I can start my assembly line to combine the three segments.  One day (and hopefully soon), I will finish up the top!

Thanks for your input as I was selecting my background fabric.  With your help earlier this month {see my background dilemma post}, I picked the yellow.  Although it is bright, it does have a golden hue to it.

Here is a glimpse of my background pieces and the layout of the curves with the yellow background.  Lee from Freshly Pieced Blog is hosting the Work-In-Progress Wednesday Link-Up.

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Posted in Projects in the Works

Circles, Triangles, and a Quilt

Posted on August 27, 2012 | 2 Comments

Each time I finish a quilt, I think “This is my favorite.”  If you ask me today, I think that this baby quilt is my favorite.  The pattern is Chopsticks from Julie Herman of Jaybird Quilts.  It uses equilateral triangles with various border widths and alternating foreground and background colors.  I love how I used a solid mixed with prints to really have the Kona Ocean Blue pop.  The prints are a mix of various half yards that I collected over the years.  They all use a circle theme, with one showcasing shapes.  I thinks that it is a great mix of shapes, as the ‘blocks’ are triangles and the prints are circles.  To continue the use of geometry, the back is full of numbers!  It was a fun quilt to make and best of all, the pattern instructions were very clear (thanks Julie!).

Here are my link ups this week:

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Posted in Baby Quilt, Completed Quilts

In the Works – A Car Mat

Posted on August 15, 2012 | 1 Comment

Little Jimmy is officially into toys — well, objects in general.  It is only some time before he figures out toy cars.  What a perfect way to play with them on a quilt with a town and roads.  About a month ago, I basted this panel with some Richard Scarry fabric for the backing.  Inspired by Angela Walters new book (Free-motion Quilting with Angela Walters), I wanted to incorporate many designs into this quilt.  I started with pebbling the roads.  Oh my!  It looks great, but took forever!  This past weekend, I finished pebbling all of the roads.  In total, I think that it took me over 5 hours just to do the roads.  I still have more to quilt, but I may be reconsidering the density of my other quilt areas.

I was too busy with pebbling that I didn’t make any more progress on my pickle dish or underground railroad quilts.  Next week….

Lee from Freshly Pieced Blog is hosting the Work-In-Progress Wednesday Link-Up.

 

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Posted in Projects in the Works

Squared 2

Posted on August 13, 2012 | 1 Comment

I was on a roll making this square in a square pattern from the Kelby Sews Blog.  On Saturday, I posted my first quilt from this square in a square pattern.  Here is the second with a Jungle theme.  I have quite a collection of fat quarters.  Before I started buying more yardage of fabric, I would pick up a few fat quarters of  fabric each time I went shopping.  Over time, they accumulated; however, most of the projects I work on are not fat quarter friendly.  With this simple pattern, I was in luck.  All I needed was to combine 6 fat quarters and within a few hours, I would have another baby quilt.

Here are my link ups this week:

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Posted in Uncategorized

Fabric Update

Posted on August 12, 2012 | Leave a comment

This past week, I continued to work on my black-background-batik pickle dish.  I know that I will need to go fabric shopping for a background, once I determine my background fabric.  By this time next week, I will probably have made the plunge and there may be additional fabric to report.  In the meantime, there wasn’t any new fabric this week.

I finished up a couple of baby quilts with binding.  One of these was my square quilt that I showcased yesterday.  In the report, you will see a glimpse of my Chopsticks Quilt.  I will show more of this quilt later this week.  Also, the backing of the Twister Quilt pushed my numbers for this week to 3.75 yards.  I am slowly climbing out of the hole.

By the way, my Twister Quilt is being featured on the I Should be Mopping the Floor Blog today!

Linking up with Judy of Patchwork Times.

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Posted in Uncategorized

Square in a Square

Posted on August 11, 2012 | Leave a comment

Lots of squares – each block surrounds a 5.5″ square twice.  The pattern is from the Kelby Sews Blog and uses fat quarters.  The number of blocks is based on the number of fat quarters used.  This baby quilt is the perfect size a for a pack ‘n play.  I explored a new quilting pattern using more squares.

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Posted in Baby Quilt, Completed Quilts

Saving Time with Machine Binding

Posted on August 9, 2012 | 2 Comments

I have spent many hours binding by hand. In fact, it took over a month to hand bind Jimmy’s bed quilt.  I really like the way hand binding looks with the blind stitch, but sometimes time doesn’t allow for hand stitching.  When I was at one of the PMQG sewing nights earlier this year, it was mentioned that Red Pepper Quilts had a great tutorial on machine binding.

When I attempted machine binding in the past, I sewed my binding onto the back and then stitched it down in the front.  It worked, but the back was a little all over the place (probably the sewer!).  Using Rita’s tutorial, I now add my binding on the front, pin it to the back, and then stitch in the ditch along the front.  I have a few change ups for next time to use 2.25″ binding and to pin evenly to not exceed the ditch by varying lengths.  Overall, the outcome was great!  I won’t be going back to my old ways of machine binding.

Here is a snapshot of the quilt that I finished this week.  I will post more details about the quilt tomorrow!

I am linking up with TNT (Trying New Things) with the Happy Quilting Blog.

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Posted in Binding

Determing the Quilt Background Fabric

Posted on August 8, 2012 | 3 Comments

My current theme is repeating projects.  I jut finished my second Twister Quilt {post from earlier this week} and I am now working on my second Pickle Dish quilt and Underground Railroad quilt.  Repeating projects with different colorways really makes the project totally different from the first.

Another week goes by and I am still working on my second Pickle Dish quilt {previous Pickle Dish quilt}.  With 72 curves, it is a very time consuming quilt.  I finished all of the curves, trimmed them down, and removed the paper foundation.  I now need to reevaluate my background fabric.  Originally, I thought a dark purple would be perfect and I bought all of the fabric.  Now that I finished all of the curves, I am not so sure about the purple.  I placed the curves against some scraps and a brighter color is in order.  Now to determine the background color, which will result in a shopping trip!  Do you have any suggestions?

Also, I am half way through making the blocks for another Underground Railroad quilt {previous Underground Railroad Quilt}.  This time I am using Civil War fabrics and colors.  Again, using different colorways makes the project totally different.

Lee from Freshly Pieced Blog is hosting the Work-In-Progress Wednesday Link-Up.

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Posted in Projects in the Works

QuiltCon Block

Posted on August 7, 2012 | 1 Comment

The Modern Quilt Guild is having their first quilt conference and show, called QuiltCon.  It us February 21-24, 2013 in Austin, TX.  Although I won’t be attending QuiltCon, I still participated in their block challenge, where guild members created a block using the colors of the QuiltCon logo.  Twenty of the blocks will be assembled into a quilt that will be raffled off at QuiltCon.  The remaining blocks will be used to make quilts for Austin Children’s Shelter.

My block for QuiltCon is finished!  I love the color combination.  I used organic piecing to add gentle curves.  I learned this method back in February when the Philly Modern Quilt Guild had a Sewing Summit with a workshop was with Sujata Shah.  With this block challenge, I was finally able to explore using this method.

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Posted in Charity, Philly Modern Quilt Guild