Handmade Holidays 2016

It just doesn't feel like the holidays without a few last-minute projects. Narrowing down gift ideas brought me to several smallish projects, and one large quilt. Having some larger than expected work projects kept me busy late in the month.

Microwave bowls - made from cotton batting and fabric, using an excellent tutorial written by my local quilt group's leader. I had missed a retreat where she gave a demo, but had seen some of the completed projects. The bowls are used under dishware to act as a hotpad when removing the heated food. I made three sets, each with a larger, flatter bowl and a slightly smaller, deeper bowl. I plan to make a set for us and also for a friend who saw them and thought they looked useful.

Deep stash - Patrick Lose

My Sister placed the large bowl on her head...had to explain what it was

Pattern weights - to accompany some sewing notions. Many of the online tutorials made larger weights, and used squares. I used a single rectangle cut 6.5" x 3.5".

Pattern weight pyramids

The largest project was finished today - a quilt for my nephew. He is quilt-worthy, as he told me how much he enjoys the graduation quilt I made him (which his parents told him was "too nice" to take to school.) On Christmas Eve he opened a box containing some of the blocks, but I kept the overall design a secret. The Fractured design is from Making Quilts by Kathy Doughty. The sub-block has been around a long time, and I have several templates cut from plexiglass in different sizes. I did mirror some of the shapes as in Kathy's quilt, though I drew it up for sizing with all blocks (except the center column) the same orientation. I pulled the colors from the backing, Animal Spirits by Robert Kaufman (I was gifted just under 5 yards of it.) Some batiks, some hand-dyes, Fossil Ferns and others, all from stash.

Fractured, 82" x 69"

Fractured backing

Two other finishes include the quilting and binding on Flight Path, and a small Homespun Scraps chair seat cover (a utility quilt.) This uses the same block as the Pink Jelly Roll Scraps quilt, not yet quilted.

Homespun Scraps, 30" x 30"

Flight Path quilting - spirals

I would really like to play with the Christmas Sweater block that I purchased from xxx, but have several clothing repair projects and some serious sewing room cleaning first.

I've completed five knitted charity hats in the past two months, and have the 6th on the needles.

Jelly Roll Scraps

Jelly Roll Scraps are blocks made from leftover 2.5" strips. I tend to group scraps by color, and also have a small stack of 2.5" strips that are full width of fabric. Pulling one busy yellow paisley fabric with pink, green, orange and white in it gave me a color palette. In a scrappy quilt the more the merrier, and there were several pinks and yellows that gave some pop. Soft greens fit too, and a cream with a sage green print gave some light to the mix.

Block layout step 1

Initially planning on 16 10" blocks for a small charity quilt, I stacked up 16 piles of strips to spread out the colors. Each stack was sewn end-to-end with a straight seam, pressed then cut into 10.5" strips. Rather than trying to sew sets of 5 strips together, I started with 4 strips, sewed the pairs, then each pair together, and pulled a 5th strip. When chain piecing it's much easier with even numbers.

There were enough for 20 blocks. After pressing the blocks it was apparent that some of my strips had not been a full 2.5" wide, so the blocks were trimmed down to 10.25" so they were square. Every other block was rotated in the layout to give a bit of a woven effect.

Jelly Roll Scraps top ready to quilt

This was another fun and satisfying project. It's great to work on casual, fun sewing. Pink flannel is ready for the backing, and it will probably be quilted with a butterfly pattern.

I've pulled fabrics already for a small chair cover for the living room with this block, using up a collection of brown, blue and red homey fabrics.

Project Leap Frog

New quilt projects always want to be at the top of the project list. Lately I've been dividing other projects into segments to trade off with working on new things.

The Flight Path blocks are an example. The trimmings from the flip-and-trim flying geese in these blocks became more interesting than these somewhat fussy blocks. Working on small blocks is just so fun and addictive! Plus I found a box of narrow Christmas print strips that really wanted to be used with the small pinwheels.

Christmas Pinwheel block layout

The border is going to be a red print, so the green blocks are in the center and outer ring.

Flight Path top

The Flight Path top is finally ready to be quilted. My stash yielded a pale green crosshatch that will fit for a backing when pieced with a diagonal seam (John Flynn's method.) None of the fabrics are actually Christmas prints.

Finishes, Part 2

Bento Box/Jelly Roll Rescue

This project came to me in a large bag of fabric, gifted to me by a quilter. It was an abandoned jelly roll project, some pieces cut, a few sewn together, all wadded up in a small produce bag. It is not fabric that I would have purchased, still I took the time to take the pieces apart, iron everything and store in a box. The Bento Box pattern seemed like a good option, as many of the cut pieces were already 2.5" squares. I had a lot of fun with this pattern last year (3 Christmas quilts.)

This is not really Christmas fabric, but the colors do read that way. It sat for a long while, the blocks finally came together, and the layout & assembly was worked on at my last quilt retreat. The real bonus was finding the border - in my stash, leftover from a quilt made several years ago, and it is the same print in some of the center's fabric, in red instead of green or white. This photo shows the solid red binding sewn to the top but not yet turned. Again--sunny and dry today so the quilt stand went outside for photos.

Size is 69" x 57" The backing is a Windham soft gold from my studio, and the quilting pattern is "Plain Paisley", which fit since many of the prints are paisleys, including the border. This will be a gift quilt.

It's Sunny, Time for Photos

Many Trips - 100" x 100"

Close up, 2.5" finished squares

 

Backing and Spilled Ink quilt pattern

My largest quilt in a long while is a variation on Bonnie Hunter's "Many Trips" pattern. The goal was to work with my favorite fabrics--the ones that I've been saving. Some are even less than a year old.  The start was a bundle of Da Gama indigo prints that had been purchased from Reproduction Fabrics at least 10 years ago, already pre-washed and treated with Retayne. They became the strong diagonal through the blocks.

 

Playing with layouts in EQ7, I discovered that with 5 strips instead of 6, I could make rectangular designs rather than square. This is most visible looking at the light squares. The other bonus was that all the blocks have the same color order, and the rotation alone created the effect. 3" cut strips show just a bit more of some of the patterns.

 

The backing fabric was the only new purchase for this quilt. It is Luxe Vine Maze by Michael Miller. It has a nice soft hand, and I like that the background is not white. It shrank a lot - 6" in width, plenty of length was purchased fortunately.

 

It was very fun to work with favorite fabrics! The light grey in each block is Aboriginal Dots by Kaffe Fassett, and there was just enough in stash for the quilt.

 

 

Blue Woven is a small charity quilt made from strings. I devised a cardboard template that allowed me to wrap the strings around it and cut many at once. The strong patterned strips were distributed among the 36 blocks. Borders and binding are scrappy too, the backing is a light blue flannel star. Quilting is "Stars and Loops", and it's 39" square.

 



Friday Finishes

Two finished quilts are heading off to new homes today!

Red Fans, 56" square, 8/2016

Red Fans came to me as mostly finished fans that needed to be squared up.  My Sister probably pieced them in the 70's. After a false start with different background fabrics, it languished. The blocks were brought to quilt group and no one wanted them. Finally my stash was searched, and a single background fabric was found (cream with a blue motif.)

I drew up the fans in EQ7 to draft a background piece and finally cut them out and stitched up the blocks in the same day. Backing fabric (already pieced, the right size) also found in the stash, recycled from a quilt that was un-quilted and finished with a different backing. The finished quilt is going back to my Sister.

Fishy Strips, 44" x 34.5", 8/2016

Fishy Strips came from my collection of batik strings. The sets were made from similar colors, the bodies at an angle and the tailfin horizontal. Cut with a melon die, appliqued with triple zig-zag. Without fusible, the triple zig-zag required a tear-away interfacing to keep from puckering. It has a stronger look than the regular zig-zag stitch (which didn't need interfacing in the sample.) The quilt is being donated to charity.

My Many Trips quilt is well underway. I'm using Bonnie Hunter's technique, using 5 3" strips with 5 consistant colors: indigo, grey, cobalt blue, white with black and teal. This is my "use the good fabrics" quilt, a controlled scrappy quilt for my bed. The strip sets are sewn and some tubes are sewn and sliced for re-assembly.

Another charity string quilt is in the planning/starting phase, Blue Strings Shaded, with 7" strips to be sewn in light, medium and dark mixes. The blue strings seem to multiply faster than others.

Happy Learning Quilt

This quilt was a lot of fun to make, mainly because the quilt police in my head were told that it would be a learning quilt. Several different techniques were tried out and change of design was allowed. It makes me smile, and that was the goal. 

Garden Party, 63" x 63"

The quilting was completed in three steps - the background quilting was done on the longarm, including the sashing. The spaces between the appliques are small, so the pebble design was also small. Stitch in the ditch was done on my small machine, as there is much better control. I left the quilt un-trimmed, and headed out of town for a vacation

Close up of quilting

Since the quilt hadn't been trimmed, it was easy to re-load it on the longarm to quilt the appliques. The batting used was puffy but stable (Soft & Brite), and the pebble quilting looked good, but I was wary about quilting the appliques applied with fusible. It was the lightest fusible I could find, and with the interfacing on the background fabric they seemed rather stiff. The quilting went fine, and really brought the quilt to life. The pattern is by Laura Heine of Fiberworks.

Friday Finishes

This is an accumulation of finished quilts from the last couple of months. The Garden Party quilt is being bound and I'll photograph when finished, and a fish quilt of my own design is in progress.

Pink Charity Strings, 47” x 37”, quilted with Orange Peel

Blue Charity Strings, 47” x 37”, quilted with freeform waves

 

Ducky strips,   43” x 43”, quilted with clamshells

Chevron tablerunner,   32” x 12.25”, quilted with Christmas Holly

 

Double Square Star,   38.5” x 38.5”, quilted with freeform waves

 

Yellow/orange/cream charity,   40.5” x 40.5”, quilted with plain paisley

 

 

 

Petal Progress

Best laid plans...finally posting about my progress on Garden Party, uploaded the new photo, and found the previous, in-progress photo that hadn't been posted. Most of the fabrics used were sample sizes, smaller than a fat quarter, and my process was to fuse the fusible to the pieces, then trace the patterns onto them. There was actually very little waste, though I did discover that after carefully washing all of the pieces, when extras were needed I missed that step, and the fusible did not adhere to the non-washed pieces, requiring pins.

Petal sets

This morning I finally found the hang-up with my Photoshop program not launching without a restart (it has two listings in Task Manager that need to be deleted), so now editing my photos will be less frustrating.

It’s been quite a few years since I’ve done a fusible applique quilt. I’m taking a learner’s attitude, not worrying that each block is done exactly the same. A few of the petals were accidentally reversed (learning point #1 – use an opaque label on clear plastic templates rather than a pen to label so letters & numbers aren’t reversed), but if they fit on the block I kept them as-is.

I did some practice with my machine’s stitch regulator, using it for the first time, and stitched down the 36 tiny hearts on each block before doing any other stitching, so as not to lose any of them. If I were making the blocks again, I would probably just spiral stitch over the whole areas of them, rather than stitching a heart shape in each one. The rayon thread is a light variegated color and gives them some shimmer.

Scraps were used to test different stitches, and I still ended up changing some of them. The scalloped satin stitch with a point, mirrored, gives the petals a soft edge. Matching bobbin thread helps keep the colors clear, and I’ve limited the variegated threads because of this too (learning point #2.)  My machine’s tie-off works differently with each type of stitch, so I’ve learned to tie-off by just moving the block around to stitch in the same place. Most threads are brought to the back and tied before trimming. Though I do love the satin stitches, they are slow to stitch out compared to buttonhole stitch.

I worked one thread color at a time on all nine blocks. With the many trips through my machine the fabric edges kept fraying, partially because the interfacing used was 1/2" narrower than the 20 1/2" background fabrics, and eventually I zig-zagged all of the edges (learning point #3.)

Garden Party blocks

A light brown-grey border/sashing fabric is on order, the only piece (other than fusibles and interfacing) purchased for this project, and a couple of backing options have been pulled from the stash too.

 

Finish - A - Long

Congratulations to all the Finish-a-Long winners. I completed several of my goals, and then did not do a tally post, since it felt like a failure not to complete all of them. The reality for me is that external goals do not motivate me to create. Since my weekly work sometimes includes quilting on challenging quilts for others, my personal projects need to have a specific purpose or just be fun to work on. The completed projects not on my list during the time period were both satisfying and made me feel guilty. Sewing needs to be fun.

I'm working on a large applique wall hanging that is at times fun and challenging. I'm using Jane Sassaman's technique of interfacing the back of each block and machine stitching the fused pieces down. I used lightweight fusibles for both. I'm getting a bit of distortion as the large 20.5" blocks are stuffed into a small opening, but not as much as without the interfaced backgrounds. I did some testing of stitches on scraps but am being relaxed enough to make changes as I go.

I used my BSR - Bernina Stitch Regulator for the first time on the tiny hearts on each block - 36 dime-sized hearts per block. I did them first as they were more likely to fall off than the larger pieces. The stitching is messy, but they are secured. I explained it to my husband as being similar to learning to write with my left hand - pushing the fabric around as opposed to moving a longarm machine.

Jelly Roll Race, 50" x 63", quilted with butterflies


The Jelly Roll Race quilt is finished. I used a solid red for the binding, one of my go-to options when coordinating prints are not in my stash. Kona solids made a nice firm binding.

Ducky strips still needs binding and will be dark blue.

Two small string quilts are in the works, one blues and one pinks. I'm using some aged sew-in interfacing as foundations, as it gives strength to charity quilts. I'm stitching rectangles that will have solid strips at each side to square them up and also minimize bulk when sewing them together.

Learning about my UFO’s and the in-between projects

I’ve been trying to analyze how my UFO’s develop. Some are just a bundle of fabrics that need to become a project. Some have been started and I’ve hit a stumbling point. Some of them are inherited UFO’s. If there is a goal for a project – a gift or charity quilt, they are more likely to get finished.

Two inherited projects are on their way out the door, to someone who wants them. I spent 5 years hand piecing an EPP diamond star queen-sized quilt with fabrics that I didn’t love (a gifted UFO), and relating that to why this project has been sitting for several years is clear.

One of my FAL goal projects, the chevron tablerunner, has all the blocks finished. This project did teach me about chain cutting. With a large cutting mat it works to lay out a bunch of pieces to cut apart and then move the ruler from place to place. Saves wear on the cutting mat by not being in the same spot.

One in-between project is a small charity quilt with oranges and yellows. This used up some small leftover pieces, and some larger coordinates. There are 8” squares, 4” squares and 4” four-patches.

The portable design wall is done. I found inexpensive wide tablecloth vinyl with a flannel backing, squared it up and hemmed.

Double Square Star

Another in-between is a Double Square Star quilt. I divided a bundle of 8 Sunprint FQs into two groups of four colors. They’re a quirky print. Four FQs plus some white 2 ½” strips will give a 36-block small quilt. The white sashing has two stich and flip triangles. If I make a quilt from the other four FQs I might use a 3” strip instead so the points at the edges have a bit more breathing room.

Knitting and crocheting has been ongoing. I’m knitting on my third charity hat using yarn purchased online that turned out to be rather drab, mainly grey (good color for men.) Also finished is another crochet scarf.  As I make my way through my yarn stash, I’m staying away from yarn sales and resolve to make purchases in person.

A new project in the works is Garden Party by Laura Heine, an applique flower and butterfly quilt. I saw it at the Sew Expo but didn't buy it while there. It was gifted to me for my birthday (early), and a small collection of bright fabrics is coming together.

Over the Top Finish

This quilt is just crazypants, but it was a fun learning quilt. Besides making the crazy-pieced blocks (nine at once) in Katie Pedersen's class, I learned to re-check the block size before cutting sashings, used the Sashing Stars ruler set from Marti Michell for the first time, and found that basting spray really is the way to go with spiral quilting. I played with the points in EQ, and decided  to place only one star point on the interior sashings.

Over The Top, 38" Square, 2016

Angular spiral quilting - starting from a square in the center - is a bit different than the round variety, but this quilt was asking for more angles. I love how the dense quilting feels - sturdy and soft at the same time.

For 2016 I'm trying to keep the mindset of "Stay Teachable", as there is always something to learn.

Disappearing Pinwheel

The disappointing Disappearing Pinwheel (albeit somewhat redeemed as a finished project) has been tracked down and photographed on the new design wall in my sewing room.

It is quilted with the pattern "Circle of Life" in bright blue, the binding is my favorite diagonal print black and white stripe, and the back is pieced with the remaining pinwheel block. It measures just under 38" square.

One project always leads to another - after installing the light grey flannel design wall behind my old green and white ironing mat cover, it's time an upgrade. The original mat cover was from June Tailor, but the layers came apart and it was recovered with canvas ticking that was on hand. It stretches over a piece of plywood and is hard to remove, so the new cover will either have a drawstring or elastic so it can be washed without struggle. It needs to be something dark enough to hide the green and white stripes.

FAL #4 Complete - Pinwheels

Last week my work quilts were smaller, giving me a window to quilt my Pinwheels Quilt. It is only 57" square, and after quilting a client's quilt that was about the same size with the pattern Spilled Ink, I knew it was do-able. I think this is my new favorite spiral pattern - even coverage, slightly oval, a bit quirky. Pinwheels and spirals were a fun combination.

Spilled Ink pattern, 3.5" across

The pinwheels started out as a Disappearing Pinwheel quilt - that didn't quite work. It came together in the year that I did not blog. I found the pattern on a blog somewhere, cut a test block using 5" squares, made the pinwheel, re-cut into 9 pieces easily. The block went together nicely - a Churndash with a pinwheel in the center.

Where things got tricky was trying to recreate those blocks using Summersville charms with pinked edges.  The semi-solid colors are a weave texture (Timeless?) After sewing all of the pinwheels, I started slicing up the blue and black pinwheels, and made some of the new blocks. The pinwheel blocks were a bit smaller than the test block, and the cutting and sewing was challenging. In a couple of places the seams were so scant, Steam a Seam was needed to add just a bit more fabric. A small quilt was finished with those blocks, and I'll have to track it down and take a photo.

The remaining blocks weren't quite enough on their own, but luckily I had bought some fq's of Summersville and had almost enough of the solids to make the smaller, floating pinwheels. I had to toss in another similar weave print to supplement the blue. This could also be called Perseverance #2, as it took me a bit to get over the disappointment of the original project.

The binding finishes about 3/4", and it was cut from leftover backing fabric, a Jinny Beyer sponge-print blender. I like slightly wider bindings on quilts without borders.

Over the Top

In late January I spent a fun day taking an Improv Piecing class from Katie Pedersen. My quilting space has a large number of fabric collections - leftovers from projects, fabrics that want to be together, project idea stacks. Learning a new technique sounded like fun, and it was.

Here are the nine blocks completed in class. It was a fabric sampler that had some pretty wild prints, plus the blue solid, chartreuse dot and black and white dots thrown in for contrast.

 

My goal was to make a small quilt, and just use stash. I though the solid blue would make a good sashing. They looked a bit lonesome floating on their own, so I used a specialty ruler to add star points, after having played with layouts in EQ. Not enough solid blue for the cornerstones, so they were sashed too.

 

It looks rather crazy now, but in a good way. I'm calling it "Over the Top", and keeping fingers crossed that I can get all the small pieces stitched together before the cat decides to pull pins out (the design boards sit on the floor.) Being in Katie's studio inspired me to make a new wall-mounted design wall for my sewing room, coming soon.

Finish-A-Long #3

My 2016 Finish-A-Long project #3 is completed - the Churndash Table Runner. This came to me as a partially sewn project in a bag; the seam allowances had issues and all were taken out. Turned out the pieces were not cut accurately and had to be trimmed as well. There were enough pieces for three Churndash blocks, and I chose to make a scrappy pieced backing from some of the other pieces. Fabric for the binding was short as well, so had to piece some muslin to the binding to make it stretch. I liked the fabrics, but perhaps the next recycled project will be passed along.

Quilting was stitch in the ditch, crosses in the center and echo along the triangle edges.

Last Sunday I made nine improv blocks in a class with Katie Pedersen last Sunday, and I've been playing with layout ideas in EQ. My goal is to make a small quilt or wall-hanging out of them.

Also started is the Bird Nest quilt, using a bird batik and some hand-dye batiks in sherbet colors. I'm using the Hex 'n More ruler and strips around the outside, still in the test piecing stage.

Weekend Finishes

After finishing my work quilting for the week, I was able to load the Colorblock 16-Patch Charity quilt on the longarm Wednesday evening. I used the last large piece of floofy Hobbs poly batting, so chose a quilting design that would work well with it - Butterflies. The backing is pale yellow floral. By mid-day Friday, it was off the machine, trimmed, and edges zig-zagged for Jennifer to bind. She had chosen the layout and headed up the group of four of us that put it together.  It finished at 80" x 70".



The Scrappy Flannel Charity quilt was on my design wall, and since I'd found a coordinating backing it was next to be quilted. It also has the floofy batting, which really shrunk into the flannel top, making it rather cozy. I played with freehand designs in the different fabrics. It was finished by Friday afternoon, and Saturday I found time after chores to assemble a scrappy binding from the leftovers box and finish it with a hem stitch, turning the binding to the top. Next time I'll use a different sewing machine as I like the buttonhole stitch better. Finished size 36" x 30".
 
Two of my eight 2016 Finish-A-Long projects done!






Today I made a lot of progress on the Churndash tablerunner, a "rescued" project that a quilter gave me. These must have been leftovers from a larger project. There were enough pieces for 3 churndash blocks, but it took some sorting as many of the rectangle pieces were too small. After putting the blocks together, I decided to use the leftover squares and strips to make a scrappy backing. I'll need to make a split binding to make use of a strip of the dark red for the binding.

I'm finding the Finish-A-Long helpful with keeping me focused on one project at a time, rather than getting side-tracked. I'm still looking at other fabrics and drawing blocks and quilts, as that is so much fun! Next week I'll be taking a 5-hour class on Improv Piecing which I'm very much looking forward to.

2016 Finish-A-Long List, First Quarter Goals

Oh my, how to choose. After pulling out about fifteen projects I had to scale back.

Clockwise from upper left:

Color block 16 Patch Charity quilt - quilt it, backing is ready, someone else will bind it.

Jelly Roll Race - top made last fall, needs quilting and binding. Backing ready.

Pinwheels quilt, top finished in 2015, needs quilting and binding. Aqua backing is on its way. 

Churn Dash Runner - rescue project, took apart problem blocks.

Scrappy Flannel - top finished January 9th, needs quilting and binding. Backing ready.

Stitch together a Bento Box quilt from a rescued jelly roll "gift" that was partially cut, sewn, wadded up and stuffed in in small bag. I un-stitched, pressed and cut sets already.
Christmas Chevron Table runner - cut, piece and quilt it.

Finish the remaining 4" pastel and bright basket blocks. I believe 100 sets were cut out several years ago. 40 are already finished, and the rest are in sets, with the basket handles already stitched down.

Friday Finishes

Small finishes this week - the second of two crochet charity scarves, several sets of quilt row pins, and four linen dish towels. After looking for reasonably-priced nice dish towels, some pretty linen/cotton blend at Fabric Depot caught my eye and I waited for a sale. The first towel convinced me that marking the mitre at the corners was worth the effort, and the next three were much quicker.

Thinking my new hem guide would keep me from burning my fingers, I found it was too small to be useful. My trusty Dritz metallic hem guide was more practical, and with the steam off made the first press, then pressed again with steam and without the guide for a crisp edge.

The quilt row pins were inspired by a photo on Pinterest. I tracked down reasonably priced floral pins at JoAnn's, and found number beads online. I did not pay attention to the fact that the "numbers" page did not include any zeros (they were on the "alphabet" page), and had to make a second order to be able to make a "ten" pin. It helped that both the pins and beads were discounted too. To fill out the order I have more snowflake frames.

The first few sets were fun, the next few not quite as much. I've learned to use a heavy hand with the glue, and check each pin before putting the sets into packages. Haven't used mine yet and gave a few sets away, so will see how successful they are. The beads came in varying quantities and I will make as many sets as I can. My other row markers are small squares of felt with machine embroidered numbers on them.

My goal this weekend is to make a list for the 2016 Finish-A-Long hosted by Debbie at A Quilter's Table and other bloggers. After looking at several other quilter's lists, I really like the idea of just focusing on goals for the first quarter of 2016, rather than listing all of my UFO's and PIM's.

Year End Finishes and Charity Sew-In

New Year's Eve found me finishing up two quilts, both with purple bindings.

Top before quilting

The largest was a queen Trip Around the World variation for my nephew and his wife. The design started with Bonnie Hunter's "Many Trips" block, and morphed into two simple blocks, and then just sewing it row by row instead of blocks.

It consists of 961 4" squares. I laid out all the blocks on my long studio table plus an ironing board, stacked each row up with a row label (31 rows each with 31 squares).  After stitching each row I checked each  against the printout and was pleased not to have any mistakes. 

All batiks for the top, all from my stash. The backing was also from my stash.  Finished size is 108" x 108".  Almost 20 yards of fabric used in this quilt!

Close up after quilting

 

The second finish was a One Block Wonder quilt. I had been gifted the fabric, and wasn't sure how to use it. I started looking at layouts on Pinterest and liked the swirling types of designs. This is a 60" x 60" quilt made from 3 yards of fabric. With more yardage a stronger spiraling design could have been achieved. My alignment of the repeats is off a bit, though the designs are small so there still is a somewhat symmetrical effect. It was fun to make and I have purchased a large floral design in blues and greens for another design.



 


Fabric before cutting



Finished Top
 

 

Close-up of quilting

Quilting was in the ditch and parallel to each side of the triangles, basted on the longarm and quilted on a Janome sewing machine. My walking foot guide wasn't quite wide enough to get to the center. The backing was a piece of fabric given to me by the same person.

Yesterday I attended my local group's Charity Sew-In, and I mostly worked on finishing up some of my charity projects. The binding for this little charity quilt was done by machine (also purple!), several burp cloths were finished, and a backing pieced for the 16-patch colorblock quilt the group had assembled at our last sew-in. I also worked on assembling blocks into rows for a 16-patch and Hourglass quilt.

Little Labels Charity Quilt