Loosey Goosey Quilting

I finished quilting my Tea Towel Challenge project today! 

Because of the linen towel in the center, the whole project is pretty, for lack of a better word, loose. Basically, the hemmed edges of the towel were tighter than the center of the towel, so there are some spots that are almost baggy. (I'm really making this sound appealing, aren't I?!). 

Which just meant that when I quilted it, it still felt loose. Happily, it hangs pretty straight. 

As several people suggested, I quilted wavy lines below each line of text. I quilted along the outer edges of the towel, and then I did a few rounds of large zigzag quilting in the brown and and outer border, trying not to compete with all the piecing. I like it!

Linking up with Confessions of a Fabric Addict's Can I get a whoop whoop! and Crazy Mom Quilts' Finish It Up Friday.

Shades of Gray Update

I've been surrounded by green and gray! My quilt will have 120 blocks in it; each block now looks like this:

Are you wondering what the heck I'm doing? It's not just a green corner on each block; instead, I'm doing Cathedral Window-style corners. So I've folded each 3-1/2" green square diagonally in half and then basted the raw edges to a corner of a gray square.

My shortcut? Since I cut the green squares in pairs from a strip, I kept them doubled up and pressed two squares on the diagonal at a time. Not as sharp of a fold line, sure, but not a problem and definitely a time saver!

I like my original diagonal layout, but I played with a few others as well--you never know what you might end up liking!

Here's the original (though all the blocks are done now; apparently I just didn't take a photo?)

A (blurry) flying geese layout:

I was thinking if I did this one that I'd put green strips between each column of geese.

And a two-block layout:

I am now folding back the green folded edge and topstitching it on each block. I contemplated waiting to do that until after I'd assembled the quilt but ultimately decided against it because I didn't want to deal with the starts and stops. I'm just being cognizant of where each curve ends so it doesn't get cut off in the seam allowance when I join the blocks. We'll see how it works...

Oh, and my mom, who participated in the Shades of Gray swap as well, is using this same technique with teal solids. I'll share photos of hers as well--it'll be fun to see a different color scheme!

May Lovely Year of Finishes Goal: Shades of Gray Quilt!

Last August I hosted a Shades of Gray Charm Square Swap. Which means that since last September, I've had a pile of lovely gray 5" squares sitting patiently in my studio, joined by four green solids shortly afterward.

Not anymore! Finishing this quilt top is my May goal for the Lovely Year of Finishes challenge. I'll share more about the process in future posts.

Had these two projects next to each other on the design wall--talk about going from super bright to a much more controlled color palette!

Joseph and the Technicolor Dream Coat meets an Irish blessing

And if that's not the most unusual blog header I've ever written, I don't know what is!

Back in January, Victoria over at 15 Minutes Play put out a Tea Towel Challenge.

I bought this tea towel, which spend the next 4 months sitting in my studio, gazing woefully at me.

My husband's family is Irish, and I've always liked this blessing, and I had the vague notion of creating made fabric in various shades of green and thens sewing Drunkard's Path blocks that would frame the tea towel and represent the rolling hills of Ireland.

I got this far and it just wasn't working for me.

I think I may have been "greened out" after the Emerald Challenge. I was also struggling with adding brown and green so close to the brown and green border on the towel itself. 

So I decided to go bright instead. I pulled solids and wanna-be solids and (loosely) grouped them in warm and cool color combos.

I tried to do some wavy piecing of some of the strips--something I always admire and can't quite seem to make happen myself.

Building the border:

And more:

And more:

 I had planned on an inner brown border, but again it was too close to the border on the tea towel, so I created a tiny pieced border first out of the scraps from the outer border.

Seeing these tiny bright scraps chain pieced together just made me happy!

And the result:

Now you understand the title of this blog post--it's very bright and technicolor-y!

I am unsure about quilting this one--specifically the tea towel part, as it's a bit loose and stretchy, and I don't want to distract from the words. I'd welcome any suggestions!

April's Goal: Complete!

My April Lovely Year of Finishes Goal was to finish piecing the quilt top for my newest nephew (who was born since my last post about his quilt!). It looks like I'll get to meet him in about a month, and I can't wait! Not sure the quilt will be quilted by then...we'll see!

 It was a bit breezy while I was photographing it:

And then breezy turned to gusty:

But in between gusts, I caught this relatively flat shot:

I will happily admit that I love how this turned out! 

The original pattern from Kim Schaefer's Cozy Modern Quilts included an outer border slightly wider than the sashing, but I think I'm going to leave it off.  I'm not usually a fan of square quilts, but I think that for a baby/toddler quilt, it's just fine--I usually prefer rectangle quilts so that both my feet and my chest/shoulders can be covered, but that shouldn't be an issue for a little guy for a while!

And since you really can't see the sashing print in the full quilt pictures, I took a few close-ups.

It's not from the same line as the majority of the fabrics, which are Marcia Derse, but I think it works. And no, it's not barbed wire. :) More of a loopy scribble. It's from Michele D'Amore's Urbanicity collection for Benartex. It is directional, so I cut the sashing strips with that in mind. And I only sewed one strip on upside down!

I admit my ulterior motive at these close-up photos--the quilt colors looked great on a 13-year-old piece of Ikea furniture that I repainted this weekend. Goodbye, dull, pale gray; hello, beautiful teal! 

Now to decide on my May goal!

p.s. Linking up with A Year of Lovely Finishes and Quilt Story's Fabric Tuesday.

2 Blocks and I'm in!

I joined a really fun group of southwest Michigan quilters back in January to form the Great Lakes Modern Quilt Guild. So far, we've had 3 meetings, and I've made it to one. Clearly I'm campaigning for Member of the Year! :)

However, our April meeting is a virtual one, so it was hard to miss! Each member was invited to make one (or more) Converging Corners blocks by Ashley at Film in the Fridge.

Here are my two:

I definitely over-thought the process while sewing, but even so, I enjoyed making the blocks. Each block made counts as an entry in the drawing to win all the blocks. Wouldn't that be fun?!?

I'd love to make a few more, but apparently I'm out of Kona White (which was requested as part of the Challenge), so I'd better go shopping!

You can see the other members' blocks here and follow our new guild here.

Guess what I did this weekend?!

 I got to play on a long arm! It was so much fun!

One of my best friends growing up bought a long arm quilting machine with her mom (I'm just a little bit envious!). They both live near where I grew up, but I no longer do, so I hadn't gotten to see it or try it yet. My family is in town for the week, so I asked if I could try out the long arm. They said yes!

This is my friend, Rachel. She tells me that I did her a favor in asking, because she had a quilt loaded and half done that she had put off finishing, and my "need" to use the long arm spurred her into action. The machine lives in her mom's basement, and I only had my camera phone, so the pictures are not great, but you get the idea!

Loading the machine took a long time, but we figured it out. I really think it helped to have two of us working on it, because we could talk through the right side up and upside down direction of everything, as well as the zipper positioning.

Once we loaded it, I started in with a loop-de-loop, as I call it. Great beginner stuff because it doesn't matter if you cross over existing lines.

I chose to take my son's Caterpillar construction quilt because I knew a 4-year-old wouldn't be picky about the quilting--seemed like a perfect quilt to practice on! I finished about one third of it and will go back over the next few days to complete it. I had brought a second quilt along, but I'm not sure if I'm brave enough to try loading it myself!