Friday, May 30, 2014

May ALYOF: A quilted quilt!

I'm happy to say that I finished my May A Lovely Year of Finishes goal...and even a few days early! I enjoy machine quilting smaller quilts better--they are easier to manhandle and they go more quickly! 
This quilt is a baby gift for my newest niece, born last August. I just need to bind it and then send it to her! You can read more about the design/fabric choices here, and see my beginning of the month May goal here.


I did a little wavy freeform quilting in the background of each pennant section (including under the pennants that flap!) and then tried an orange peel design in the fourpatches. I really like the concept of the orange peel quilting, but I definitely need a little practice on it. 

The side texture shot:

Now to decide what my June goal will be...

Thursday, May 22, 2014

My Small Study: Blogger's Quilt Festival Miniature Quilt Entry

Here's my second entry for the Blogger's Quilt Festival at Amy's Creative Side, this one for the miniature category. (You can read about my first entry, in the scrap quilt category, here.)

I made this mini (measuring approximately 45" in perimeter) at a "Small Studies" workshop with Gwen Marston back in April--what a great day!


I chose to use several of sea-colored solids for my small study, along with olive green, two creams, and a tiny check. Since I don't actually live by the sea, photographing this piece outside with some plant life seemed like a good second choice!

The workshop was fantastic, as was Gwen herself. She demonstrated how to make different types of "parts" and then figure out which ones would go together to create a small study.

A close-up of some of my favorite parts:

Me with Gwen at the end of the workshop:

I used a single fold binding to finish it off--I love how quickly binding goes on such a small piece!

Thanks for stopping by!


Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Improv Herringbone: my Blogger's Quilt Festival Scrap Quilt Entry

After in-person show-and-tells in the last five days at my two guilds, I'm thrilled to be doing a virtual show-and-tell today of my (finally finished) improv herringbone quilt, as well as entering it in the Scrappy Quilt category of the Blogger's Quilt Festival over at Amy's Creative Side.


These blocks were made by members of the Great Lakes Modern Quilt Guild as part of our online challenge last fall. I had fallen in love with this block from this tutorial by Amy from 13 Spools. I suggested it to our guild and we had the 16 blocks you see here in our September raffle (I made two, hoping to increase my chances of winning!). You can probably guess what happened next--I won the raffle for the blocks! Woo hoo! I finally assembled the quilt in April and then quilted it over the last few weeks. It measures approximately 56" square. 





At first glance, the quilting looks like it's just plain diagonal lines, and it almost is--I stitched a big "X" from corner to corner and then quilted "V"s out in all four directions. A subtle difference, but I like it, and it simply provides texture--I don't think it takes away from all that piecing on the front!

 What a great way to use up scraps! Thanks, fellow guild members, for sewing such fantastic blocks!

Thanks for stopping by! Check out the post about my second entry (in the miniature category) here.


Wednesday, May 7, 2014

May ALYOF Goal

My May A Lovely Year of Finishes goal is to machine quilt this top I made for my niece. I have zigzag stitched all the pennants down to the background (they had been fused already), and I have backing fabric. Now it's time to get quilting! 

I'm going to quilt wavy lines in the pennant row backgrounds and either do orange peels or diagonal lines in the checkerboard. 
Here's to finishing the quilting!


Friday, May 2, 2014

Ahhh...a finish

So satisfying!!!

Back in February I started a quilt for a friend of mine recovering from a stroke. Finishing piecing the top was my March ALYOF goal, and I did that, and even got it basted and started quilting before the month ended. I'm happy to say it's done and with its new owner!

Here's a photo before washing: I did 3 lines of straight quilting per yellow zigzag row, and then I did a zigzag-wide up and down squiggle in the batik rows. I used the leftover backing fabric as the binding. It was that or a pieced yellow solid binding, and I let my 5-year-old choose. :) 


Here's a close-up after washing. Definitely some crinkles, which help to hide the quilting imperfections. I'm enjoying imagining my friend snuggled up under this quilt with her husband or kids--my way of sending a long distance hug to her.