Collections

I rarely ever use the fabrics from only one collection in a quilt.  Even for the fabrics I love, I usually manage to sneak one or two other pieces into the mix.  Now, one of the reasons for that is that I am a scrounger.  I really can't afford to pay full price for fabric. So I get some at the thrift stores, I break into my inherited stash and I shop the remnant table.

I really like the remnant table at Hancock's of Paducah.  I get there a few times a year.  I save up for the trip.  I can usually find some pretty large pieces from fabric lines I have admired.  They usually end up on that table at the end of their run.  Meaning these are probably some of the last of these fabrics available.  That isn't entirely the case with the fabrics in this quilt but some of them seem to be missing from the collections available on-line.

Regardless, the story of this quilt is that I found a collection of pink and green fabrics on the remnant table.  I bought some.  Left some behind.  Some were from Moda's Paris Flea Market by Three Sisters.  Some were big florals and there was one pretty pink from the collections for a cause line.

I knew I was going to make a random sized block quilt from them.  So I started out with the beautiful green rosebuds and the tiny pink cause fabric.  I quickly decided I wasn't going to use the large florals.  Gorgeous as the are, and as well as they blend, they just didn't fit the vibe of this picnic quilt.  So I made 4 and 9 patches out of the flea market fabrics.  I laid it all out on the design floor and was appalled.  Even though the pink was a perfect match for the colors in the rest of the quilt it stood out like a sore thumb.  Horrible.

I pulled out all of those blocks and started trying to re-figure what I could do.  I had started with remnants that were 1/2 - 1 yard pieces.  I didn't have a lot.  No matter how I cut, pieced and salvaged, I was one block short.  I could make a smaller size but it just didn't fit my plan.  I set the whole thing aside.

Shortly thereafter, I was able to make another trip to Paducah.  I searched the entire remnant table and found two pieces from the collection.  One was the pretty pink roses on the cream background.  The other was more of the green paisley.  Except that when I got home I discovered it had the yellow-y olive background instead of the blue-r green in the blocks I'd already made.  It didn't matter.  I set that one aside, used more the cream roses and finished it off this week to a 60 x 60 inches picnic blanket.  

This is another quilt in my recent projects that absolutely required a printed backing.  I'm not all that into fancy backings.  At least I haven't been up until now.  But this year, every quilt I've finished has a printed backing.  Hmmmm.   For this one, I found a nice creamy 108 backing at my LQS.  What a joy to not have to piece it.  And even better, my dear Mother-in-law got it for me.  I really am trying very hard to finish WIPS and PIPS and use only stash.  I am allowing myself to buy backing fabric as I don't have a lot of those in my stash.

Oh, the orphan blocks became part of a smaller tea party quilt so they didn't go to waste.  I have a few scraps and that one small piece of olive paisley left.  Perhaps I will make some sort of table runner out of them. 

The details:  60 x 60 inch quilt.  Made from the Paris Flea Market collection of quilter's cotton.  Backed with quilter's cotton.  It has a dense poly batting.  It is quilted with a large loopy meander.  The binding is slightly scrappy, machine stitched and hand finished. 

Snail's Trail. Project Quilting Season 5 Challenge 1

The first challenge for Project Quilting Season 5 was "String Along with Me".  We were to make a quilt in one week using only strings no bigger than 2.5 inches.

My initial plan for this season was to make bigger quilts.  Last year I made a lot of small wall hangings and art quilts.  I worked on precision.  This year I wanted to make things that would be more useful.  That meant larger sizes.  I also want to work on my FMQ this season.   Given the challenges I've had this week, I think I was a bit too ambitious. 

 Things were looking pretty grim around here for most of the week.  Still do for that matter.  There are strings in that bag that go back almost 20 years.  This project has pieces from many of the quilts I've made in that time.  I always saved the strings knowing that someday I would use them.  Every time I cleaned the stash, I was tempted to pitch them.  But...  Here they are and now look at them. 

I started out without much of a plan, ripping notebook paper in half and paper piecing onto it.  I was going to make something big enough for a couch quilt.  I didn't quite get that big.  By Saturday afternoon, I had to stop and piece together what I had finished.

This is the pieced Flimsy before making the sandwich.

I had some help with making the sandwich.  Spud one took care of that process for me.  (No way could I stand over the quilt like that even if I didn't have  bad knee!)

And here is the finished quilt.  

 It took a while to find the FMQ groove on this one.  Once I got it going smoothly about the best description of the pattern is a snail hauling a double-wide.  (I wanted to call it Snailer Park Trash but that seemed a bit extreme!) 

You can just see the meander stitch I used to machine bind it at the very bottom of the picture.  That was a first for me.  Not sure it would work for every project but worked well for this one.

 

 This is a glimpse of the backing.  It is a large print purchased at IKEA a few years ago.  I try to buy some of their fabric whenever I get to the store.  The fabrics are 60 inches wide, perfect for most  of the quilts I manage to make, and less piecing for a large one.  Plus they have some great graphics.  I wasn't sure what I would do with this fabric, but I think it matches the crazy of this quilt perfectly.  

 

 

The details:  Snail's Trail.  46 x 48 inches.  Made entirely of strings and some white quilter's cotton.  synthetic batting and cotton backing from IKEA.  FMQ and machine bound. 

Now if some one would just clean up the paper scraps... It is a good thing that we have a week until the next challenge is published.  It is going to take me that long to clean up the mess!

Project Quilting the brain child of Kim Lapachek who gets her mother-in-law to dream up 6 challenges.  Participants are asked to make a quilt that addresses the challenge in one week.  WaggonsWest is proud to be an official sponsor of Season 5. 

Early Bird PQ 4:6

 

A very quick post to get this on-line before the noon deadline tomorrow.  I will add more details and a better picture tomorrow.  

This is the final Project Quilting Challenge: Hurray Spring.  Think outside the block.  It was a challenge just to finish something this week.  My friend Bev gave me the final push by telling me to make a worm and add a robin.  

 

This quilt was made from quilter's cottons.  It is fused, raw-edge applique.  The checkerboard is pieces.  The grass is paper pieced.  It is quilted with an assortment of embroidery and cotton thread.  The piece measures 12 x 13 inches.  

The new thing for me on this quilt is the swirly, spirally FMQ. 

Go to the Project Quilting Flickr page   and check out all of the other really amazing projects! 

Page 28

From This

To this..

Making progress on my page 28 project.  Not there yet, but I have hope of finishing by noon on Sunday.  

Pink Ribbon Quilt

A very special person I know is a very impressive lady with amazing skills who is always showing me new things and teaching me stuff.   She also happens to be a breast cancer survivor.  I admire her immensely.

She is not, however, a big pink ribbon kind of girl.  So when I went to make her a  prayer quilt, I needed to find a way to have it represent a pink ribbon without being pink and ribbony.  When I saw this pattern by Ryan Walsh, I knew it was the right thing.  It took a while to find the right fabric.  I stalled out completely on trimming the blocks until I found the right ruler.  It took a while to figure out how to set the finished center and to add the borders.  I spent a fair amount of time looking for the right fabric to mix in with it. 
 

The next really long stall was quilting.  I wanted to do it myself.  I needed it to be pretty and set off the quilt.  I needed it to be something I could manage.  I came up with  a strategy and did a lot of measuring and marking.  I traced around a pattern I created and then stitched away. 

Here you can see some of the very simple design I did in the blocks.  I should have made this more swirly. 

 

Here you can see more of the quilting and the binding from the back.  I also should have scalloped the sides.  The rounded corners almost make up for it.

 One more look at it... blowing in the wind. 

More FMQ

Here is a quick look at another quilt that is almost finished.  It was my first attempt at following a design with FMQ.  As with my Square Roots quilt, I made a cardboard template and traced around it with water soluble marker. 

PQ1: FMQ

I decided to do it the old fashioned way.  Made a cardboard pattern and traced it with water soluble marker.  Now I can say I have quilted feathers!  It seems appropriate somehow given the source of the fabric.

A little corner detail.  I didn't go over my stitches too many times.

And the whole thing.  I should probably add something to the space between the squares but I don't know what.  Now it is on to the binding.  Either my old stand by tiny black and white checks or a more daring use of some vintage yardage.

New Plan Needed

 I saw this great plan for marking your quilts for FMQ.  Trace the design on Press and Seal using a Sharpie.  Stick the plastic to the top and stitch away.  As long as the sewing isn't too dense it will tear away nicely.  Probably one of the biggest advantages is that you can really see the quilting pattern on the top without having to erase your mistakes.  The plastic can easily be moved around to make sure the placement is good.  

So, that is what I did for my project quilting piece.  I drew out my feathers.  I traced them forward and backward onto the press and seal.  I placed it on the top.  I like what I have come up with so far.  I am all ready to quilt. 

Fortunately, I am not at all confident in my skills so I did a test piece.  Worked like a charm.  The film didn't interfere with the sewing.  It didn't shift around.  Except for some tension problems I was able to follow the pattern without making too many mistakes.  Even better, it came right off after I was finished sewing.  Well all but the color left behind on the thread. 

You can see it even better in this image I've altered to have greater contrast.  A lovely orange smear on much of the thread.  This was NOT a design element I want to include in my project. Now I need to come up with a different marking plan, perhaps the wide orange sharpie was too much ink.  Perhaps it would be better if it dried longer.  Perhaps a very fine sharpie or a prisma color would bleed less. 

 I tried some free hand feathers on the side.  Perhaps I can manage to do a few guidelines with the watersoluble marker and go from there.  I'm not sure.  Any suggestions?  Any experience with using Press and Seal.  I would really like to make that functional.  It is an easy way to do things as long as it won't ruin my projects. 

Yes Virginia, Santa is Wearing Leopard This Year

So my little quilt that grew was going to be a lap robe for the holiday season.  Except that it grew and now graces my bed as a spread for the holiday season. Leaving me without a lap robe for the couch. 

So I totally have to machine quilt a gift that is long over due and must be ready to catch a ride to its destination next week.  And I am completely out of practice for FMQ.  It is almost like starting over and the gift quilt is too important to screw up.

So, I found this Santa fabric I loved on sale at Hobby Lobby.  The only flannel that matched was brown.  but the pine cone fabric with the gold bling matched them both.   Thus a practice whole cloth quilt to make a lap robe for couch for the holidays.  Yay!

And to make it even better faster I stitched the binding on by machine!  Let's just say I learned a lot working on this quick project. 

The Details...  This is a whole cloth quilt approximately 54 x 40 inches.  It is quilters cotton for the top and binding and flannel for the back.  It is machine quilted and has a polyester batting. 

The Story...  My husband's Great Aunt Virginia was a free spirit and a very independent lady.  Well in to her 80's she traveled with the Good Sam's or some such travel trailer group.  Her 'trailer' was a seventies conversion van.  Tricked out in leopard print.  I can't see leopard print without thinking of her.  Thus, the running title for this quilt has been Yes Virginia, Santa is Wearing Leopard This Year. 

The Little Quilt that Grew

Here is a picture of the quilt monster, otherwise known as Spud Three, rounding the corner of the deck at the end of our photo shoot.  And below is the story of how one tiny little project grew and grew and grew.

 Checking my in-box one day, I found this tutorial from the Missouri Star Quilt Company: Big Star Quilt.  I watched the video and decided that I could probably manage to make a star quilt following those directions.  I was a bit concerned, as the size of one block was larger than my usual finished projects.  However, I decided to pull out some of my random (and to be perfectly honest, not particularly high quality) Christmas fabrics to try it out. This was going to be a quick, one evening project and then I could get back to my other obligations. 

I made a couple stars.  It is a simple technique.  I threw them together and I did not take the time to trim my blocks.  (After all, I was singing the second verse to my famous quilting anthem "Corners Don't Match".  You know, the one that goes "Points cut off and I don't care".)  I was playing with inexpensive materials just to see what would turn up.  Besides, this is a one month a year quilt.  The blocks are huge.  There will be plenty of room to adjust things later.... right?

 

A short delay and I happened upon a sale and the local fabric store for a REALLY good deal on Christmas fabric.  I bought a couple more prints and some binding.  I made some more stars.  By the time I had 5 1/2, I figured I would stitch them together into a quick throw for the holidays.  No biggie. 

The only problem was that the stars really needed to have some space between them; well that and the fact that I'd boofed on the final 1/2 star and didn't feel like ripping it out.  I laid out a random spacing, still within the operational definition of a lap robe.  Then Spud One jumped into the mix and laid it out as a nine patch.  We into the bed quilt zone now but still manageable.  Then he said it needed the half star at the top.  Once said, it could not be undone and I had to cut more fabric to fit that in. 

I was getting ready to sew it together and contemplating a border when he popped up again.  Once he suggested that the bottom star absolutely HAD to be pulled out to the edge there was no other way to do it.  That one took me a day to figure out my measurements and wait to review them.  But again, not too difficult.  Not too difficult until you realize how big it was getting to be.  

By this time the wee quick quilt had eaten the design floor and Spud Three was called in to move some furniture and approve the placement of the colors. When you are making a simple nine patch, there aren't very many seams.  When the blocks are 26 inches (give or take) on a side, the seams take a bit longer to sew.   (That is Spud Three laying it out on the lawn so I could take a picture from the deck.  I swear it looked MUCH bigger in my sewing machine!)

Yay!  The flimsy was finished.  Now for the backing.  You may have seen a few posts about the quilt that ate my stash.  I had a couple pieces of Christmas fabric that would work.  However, the quilt really needed to have the white backing.  That meant a trip to the fabric store on (cue music of doom now) Black Friday.  And no, I am not one of those people who can stand to wait in ginormous lines for a bargain.  I just wanted to get the fabric I needed to finish the quilt and move on (Dearie!).  It was always clear to me that the quilt was going to have a scrappy binding and that the binding was only going to be on three sides.  I was going to have to figure out how to do the knife edge on the top row.  

I kept looking at that boofed 1/2 star.  It really wanted to be part of the quilt.  The only place for it was the back.  It had to fold over onto the back.  Yet more time, measuring and thinking to make sure I could get it to work.  Spuds One and Three were very helpful in getting laid out, making the first seam at the top and then helping to smooth things as I ironed the batting in place.  Yes, there I was crawling around on the design floor with my iron!  Thank goodness Mr-of-course-I-support-your-quilting-what-on-Earth-are-you-doing-now was out-of-town for that little project. 

I'd never used iron on batting.  It was really the only way to go for this project.  I did discover why the professional quilters dread the phrase "you can just quilt it out".  All of those untrimmed blocks resulted in a corner that would not quilt out no matter what.  Another verse!  "Won't quilt out and I don't care."   Much as I love it, having used inexpensive materials and having some piecing issues, there was no way I was going to pay for subject a professional to quilting this piece.  I just started shoving it through my little machine.  (Which almost immediately there after decided it needed another visit to the repair shop for a little R and R!)

 The quilting is squiggly lines, which my LQS guru assures me was a smart choice because then there would be no expectation of them being straight.  As if!  The binding is scrappy.  The bottom corners are rounded and the top edge is finished without a binding.  The whole thing measures about 87 inches by 93 inches.  That is almost dead on for Queen size.  (I swear it was bigger on my sewing machine!)  The fabrics are cotton and cotton muslin.  The batting is polyester. 

And that is the story of how my one evening, one block project ended up taking over the whole house, the better part of a week and exhausted my machine.  

(I swear it looked bigger in my machine!)

We All Live...

 The St Louis Modern Quilting Guild issued a summer challenge in May.  The rules were simple.  Use one of the four inspiration themes provided and make a quilt.  It had to be at least 24 inches on a side.  There was a Matisse painting, a picture of a volkswagon beetle in a field of lavender, the book Alice in Wonderland and the song Yellow Submarine. 

I spent the ENTIRE summer trying to figure out how to make an Alice in Wonderland quilt. I LOVE Alice.  I had Alice curtains when I was small.  I have some snippets of Alice fabric.  I have several different Alice embroidery patterns.  I knew that I was going to make an Alice quilt.

And yet... nothing ever gelled.  I pulled out my Alice fabrics. I pulled scraps that matched.  I found new Alice fabric in the store.  I bought the rest of the Alice embroidery designs.... nothing.   Not a thing.  No inspiration anywhere.  

 

In desperation, I stopped in the local quilt shop near my Mother-in-Law's house last Saturday.  I saw some great Alice fabric.  But it didn't speak to me.  No beautiful Alice quilt image formed in my head.  While looking around, I saw a sea weedy blue fabric.  I liked the colors.  I didn't buy anything. 
For the rest of the weekend I kept seeing that sea weedy fabric surrounded by a yellow porthole. 

Fortunately, the shop was open on Monday for a few hours.  Unfortunately, they didn't have any other fish/seaweed/ocean fabric.  No more bright colors.  No star fish.  Nothing.  But there were a couple of coordinating prints.  One that looked like waves and one that looked kind of like bubbles.  I grabbed them and a bright yellow polka dot figuring it would work out some how.

Unfortunately, I was in Michigan without any of my quilting tools but a few hand sewing items.  Even more unfortunately, I had to spend a couple days, packing, driving and then unpacking.  It was Thursday before I could get started on my little project.

My little project that was due on Saturday.  I was going to do raw edge applique.  Well, actually, I did raw edge applique.  But I didn't have enough fusible web of the appropriate size.  So I tried spray glue.  Remember my post of a few days ago?  It would have been better to go to the store and get some fusible web!  Either that, or use a LOT more spray glue than I did.  Things.  Slipped and slopped and then stuck tight just when I needed to try and separate them enough to trim them.  Ugh. 

The worst thing was, that as time was running out the silly quilt kept needing more.  It needed the blanket stitching.  It needed the pieced ends.  It absolutely did not want the periscope/tower part of the submarine.   And worst of all it needed tedious machine quilting that had to stop and start at the portholes.  Fortunately the rounded corners it needed made it easier to stitch the binding.  Unfortunately, the 18 inch width for the table runner, didn't quite meet the 24 inch requirement.  (Which I didn't discover until I checked the challenge rules again at midnight after I finished.)  Fortunately no one was there with a tape measure and some had projects that were even smaller. 

 

So here it is.  The We All Live quilt.  

The Details:  Made of quilter's cotton.  Machine pieced and quilted.  Binding hand sewn.  Raw edge applique.  Muslin backing.  approximately 18 x 50 inches long.