Two Small Finishes

Two small quilts have been finished this week:  Rail Fence with flannel centers, quilted with straight line angles through each strip.

Rail Fence, Flannel Center Strips 50" x 40.5"

Half Squares, quilted with the lycra stitch, a curving zig-zag. Some of the fabrics have a lace print and this stitch gives a soft look.

Half Squares 48.5" x 39"

Kira Quilt and Virtual Sew-in

I finished assembling the Kira quilt top on Thursday. I’m happy with the finished result, though cutting and piecing was a bit of a struggle. The hand-dyed fat quarters used were not all 18" x 22", and mistakes were made during cutting. I had down-sized the quilt block to be able to use FQs, thinking I could cut four 9” squares to start, as the pattern calls for 10” squares (and also gives the option of cutting from yardage.) I’m glad that I measured the FQs after ironing, but when stacking them for cutting didn’t double-check that they had straight edges.

It felt like an episode of WHEN QUILTING ATTACKS! – a shout out to one of the segments of The Knitmore Girls Podcast. It is really encouraging to know that even seasoned knitters have problems—and how they overcome them. The same holds true for quilting – it’s not quite like pointing out the flaws in a quilt, just acknowledging that it isn’t always smooth going, and there are ways to work through challenges.

The background fabric is an Island Batik with 3” birds in different colors from several years ago. It will look a bit brighter with white batting behind it, rather than a dark blue curtain. While assembling the blocks, I did try to match a bit of color in the birds to the semi solids. The pattern does not have a lot of matching points, and has very clear cutting and pressing directions.

My West Seattle quilt group had scheduled a quilting retreat for this past weekend, and the unusual amount of snow caused it to be cancelled. We held a Virtual Retreat instead, sharing photos and projects in progress. It was fun to re-connect, as I wouldn't have been able to attend in person. I basted two small quilts, and quilted one (Rail Fence baby), photo to come after binding.

Four and Counting

While I’ve mentioned duet quilts – pairs of quilts, where the second is made from scraps from the first, I’ve now finished the fourth top from a set of fat quarters. It took me some time to remember the first project made from Jan Mullen’s “Dotz & Stripez” fabric, then realized it was a stars quilt that waited a few years after completion to find a home with one of my great-nephews:

Star Dance layout, twin, 2012

The second project is Boxes with a tiny black & white check as background/alternate. The fat quarters had had a set of 2 ½” strips cut off the stack, which guided my pattern choice:

Boxes top

 The third project is the Stacked quilt, with a dull blue woven background:

And now the fourth project is Quarter Logs with a variety of whites as background:

Simple is not always fast, but I wanted white in between the bright colors (harking back to the stars quilt.) This type of piecing with different scrap sizes let me use up a lot of white scraps, and there were enough long strips to border the two sides without white.

At some point in my hunter-gathering of fabric, I thought of a fat quarter set as ONE quilt. Well, if it’s 10 yards of fabric, unless I’m piecing backings, it goes a lot further than that.

The remaining pieces are going to go into the strings sorted by color. Project box empty!

Two Tops

Top 1: A half-improv quilt top: started with a group of almost-triangle shaped cream pieces and print skinny triangles leftover from cutting a one-piece wonder. The print triangles are all from a full width border print – grey on one edge, dark purple on the other with pink in the middle.

Pulled the purple, then pink, and then gray pieces to make pairs. Stitched and pressed, then figured out the largest common size, and trimmed to 3” x 5” rectangles. When sewn in pairs, this gave me a finished block size of 4.5” x 5”. The layout used 62 triangles (31 sets). Centers of stars finished at 5” and background squares 4.5”. Only 1 leftover cream piece.

The half-rectangle pairs sit in the sashing positions in EQ8; the star centers were 5" finished and the background pale lavender 4.5". The straight-of-grain squares helped minimize stretch with the bias edge cream triangles.

With a border cut 2.5”, the top came out to 46" x 37.5". There’s a piece of purple paisley for the backing and possibly the binding.

Half Rectangles Top

Top 2: A knit top. I've been re-learning how to sew garments with a serger, challenged somewhat by 1/4" seam allowances on the pattern. The last top was finished a couple of years ago. The one trick I learned is to baste seams with a straight stitch, and then serging is much more accurate. 

Knit Top

Project organization

Having a smaller work space for sewing is forcing me to stick to task on projects, organize the drawers, tubs and boxes, and re-group project ideas that can be combined with similar colors/sizes/goals. I’ve gone through the sewing room, the large closet, and the two cabinets still sitting in the garage and listed each box/bag or pile by description. There are many more projects than remembered! 

I’ve finished two sets of “duet” quilt tops – making one small quilt, then using the leftovers to make a second quilt. It really helps to use up fabrics already grouped by color. The first duet was this finished peach/cream quilt, Bowtwist pattern:

 

Bowtwist, 64" x 40"

The second top used up the overcuts of half-square triangles:  I saw a similar quilt layout online, and played in EQ with the medium/light values.  I like this top better than the Bowtwist.

The second duet is a small flannel blue and green quilt top and pieced flannel back, the second top is a rail fence with flannel centers, using a grey-blue as background.  Rail fence blocks with flannel in only the center rail is an easy way to reduce bulk, but still add some softness to a quilt. I made an earlier quilt with this design.

Duet #3 is in progress: a “Boxes” twin top has been finished, and a “stacked” scrappy twin quilt is planned with the scraps. This is the "Boxes" EQ coloring layout:

Quilts Flying Out the Door

Packing our house for a move prompted me to document ALL of the finished quilts stored in various places. I tagged the ones that wanted new homes and talked to friends, relatives and neighbors.

Six quilts given away on one day felt great! My friend Patty loves and uses my quilts, and took some as gifts: Aqua Tumblers, Flower Baskets (a group quilt, red flowers), Love All Around, Purple/Blue Hourglass (pattern test), Diabolical Jane and Purple 1-Patch Wonder.

A young neighbor was offered Cake Stand, a quilt made from 1930's reproductions in 2000, or at least it was quilted then. It had never been used. She spied a smaller lap quilt - the Jelly Roll Race and took that too.

Another neighbor chose Scrap Vortex, a recent finish: twelve 12" blocks from a great tutorial at Crazymomquilts.blogspot.com. She also took Diamond Box - all blues and greys with spiral quilting - she is from Alaska and it does make you think of glaciers.

Scrap Vortex, 48" x 36"

A cousin took Ocean Waves, another group quilt with various blue and blue-green blocks and pale blue kona as the background, and Hourglass , with blue, green and light yellow blocks with curved quilting in each hourglass. One of the fabrics had little recycle symbols on it.

Red Charity Strings,quilted with wavy lines, binding finished by a friend this summer. Layout wasn't the original plan, lesson learned. It's still cozy and includes a piece backing of 6 1/2" strips - full WOF + half WOF . And yet, the red fabric bin is still STUFFED.

Red Charity Strings, 80" x 60"

E's Purple Quilt, quilted with Square Spirals, made this summer for a family member..

Purple Log Cabin, 85" x 72"

2018 Finishes to Date

Projects have been chugging along the last many months, and I'm trying to find a way to 

track them that is most useful to me. I've made a board on Pinterest, photo and project 

notes together is great.

I keep a Word document going with projects in progress, waiting to start, UFO's sitting 

and the finishes too.

Here are the projects finished since the cute Petit Four Baskets (which get a lot of use):

   

Improv batiks baby (quarter log cabin)

Flannel center rails  40” x 40”

Double-square star charity twin red/tan/gold reproductions

Modern Puzzle, “pie making day” fabrics + grey chevron charity twin

Recycled quilt dog blanket - fabric purchased for a jacket covering a quilt made with recycled fabrics - too ugly to even donate. The puppy loves it.

Jagger Unicorn wall hanging

Strip Scrap baby quilt – pie making day leftovers

Great Granny baby quilt

Bricks charity twin - using up a quilt kit in a very simple design

Leather chair seat cover

E’s purple twin quilt, log cabin on point

Red strings squared charity twin

Scrap Vortex wall/baby

Diabolical Jane - a fun construction

Hourglass + garden print - charity twin

Jagger

Modern Puzzle

Flannel Center Rails Baby

Bricks Rainbow

Diabolical Jane

My sewing room and quilt studio are being organized and combined, as I'm closing my quilting business and moving to a new house soon.