Baby Blue Quilt

The last post on here was 2021.  I have lots of drafts I didn't post so I get to see them but no one else and I am very glad about that.  Over the years I have felt very inspired by posts from others that show their projects both in progress and finished.  Nothing fancy, just looking at real photos that aren't over-staged.  That is what I intend to do from now on.  Maybe someone will be inspired and motivated to start a project or work on a WIP.  

This is a baby quilt we (a group of us that meet at our church) have been working on for the pastor's first grandchild.  

These are 4 1/2" half square triangles made 2 at a time and then sewn into flying geese.  

This is the layout we were thinking of but then...

...I laid it out like this and now I don't know.

Scrappy Hearts

First off, I've been working on lots of quilts this year.  I've finished several tops recently. Finished a few whole quilts including backing and binding.  The stack above is all my finished quilts from the last several months.  They are all baby or lap sized.  These were the easy finishes.  Most of them can be found on my quilt gallery page.

This stack here, nestled in amongst all my office supplies, still needs finishing.  These are the bigger quilts.  Eleven in all.  In there is also my La Passacaglia that I finally finished this year (only took 6 years).  

One of the quilts I'm working on now is my scrappy hearts quilt.  I was intrigued by Youtube videos of "making your own fabric" with scraps.  I have so many scraps that my bins were spilling everywhere.  

The thing I find most curious with scraps is how slow they go down when you start working with them.  I've made loads of "fabric sheets" and still my scrap bins seem to be at the same level as when I started.  I just randomly sew together any and every bit of scraps, no rhyme or reason to it.  I love doing it when I need to destress and get my mind off of something.  

I'm using all low volume fabrics for the background.  I didn't want to make the whole quilt with heart blocks just because I was getting bored of making them so I decided to use low volume 9 patches in-between.  Who knows I may change my mind about these 9 patches but I do like the all over scrappiness and think it will look really cool once I get all the blocks together.  Buuutt looking at it through the photo it almost seems too much and detracts from the hearts.  We'll see where it goes.  

I'm making 21 heart blocks and the same number of 9 patches.  Each block is 12" finished.  The overall quilt should measure about 72" x 84".  I don't have any plans for it yet - just enjoying the process.

I'm debating if I should add some dark stitches to the edge of the heart like I did here.  Some of the blocks ended up having lighter fabrics on the edges so I thought this would help distinguish the edges a little better.  Or maybe doing the darker stitches on the outside of the heart instead once all the layers are together and I'm doing the final quilting.  Either way I feel like this quilt should have some pretty dense quilting.  This sort of sums up my quilting process...start with and idea, work on it, ponder it, work on it, change it, decide to live with it,  eventually we get there.

Weekend Quilting

We have a wedding in the family next month.  It's for my husbands aunt and I thought that she deserved a quilt.  I don't think one of my modern bright colored quilts would fit into her house so I dug through my stash and my small box of civil war prints.  I was able to pull out the 30 fat quarters worth to make a queen sized Yellow Brick Road.  I haven't made this quilt in years.  Actually this was the first quilt pattern that I ever made all the way back in 2006 and it kicked off my whole sewing obsession.

I love the Yellow Brick Road pattern.  It's fun to cut the strips, sew them together, cut again and before I knew it I had 100 blocks done!   I chose this pattern because I knew it was fast and I didn't have any big pieces of fabric so this was perfect.

This is the first time I have put up a piecing wall.  You really need to have something to lay this quilt out on because of the randomness of the blocks.   It's easy to put 2 fabrics together and then it would drive me crazy.  In my house there's not one wall that I can leave a piecing wall up.  As it is you can tell there's a door behind this and it's a little too close to my wood stove which is running constantly from about Oct to April.  I'm using batting for a king sized quilt.   This winter my cat found the bin I kept it in tucked away under a table and unbeknownst to me had made it her bed.  It got a little hairy and gross.  I was planning on salvaging it for a smaller quilt but I think I will keep it for a piecing wall.

For pinning all the rows together my ring pincushion came in really handy.  I made this one way back when I owned my fabric shop.  But here's a tutorial on how to make one.  Here's another tutorial too with a very cute idea instead of using rickrack.

I pinned all the rows together starting at the bottom and labeling each row.  I wrote with permanent pen on the flower head pins the row number so I would know which row I was working on.  I pulled each block off the wall and pinned it to the next.

I also wrote on the pattern which row was which number.  I forget really quickly so this will help me remember I started with #1 at the bottom of the quilt.  I've sewn 2 rows together and am hoping today I can get the rest completed.  I've got less than a month to wrap this up so I'm trying to work on it as much as possible and not stress myself out at the last minute.


SaveSave

La Passacaglia update

I am just finishing up my last (9th) of Rosette No. 4.  I have been working on this for almost 2 years now.  I last shared about my work here.  After that post it went on hold for awhile.  Then I discovered a video how Sue Daley uses a glue pen with her paper pieces instead of thread basting them and I had to give it a try.  Watching her whip through basting those pieces I was like... Wait. What?!  I don't know what rock I had been living under.  How did I not know about this before now?

Through some more exploring I came upon this site by The DIY Addict.  Her videos helped me figure out how to get my work to lay flatter when I used paper pieces.  You can see in the photo above the one on the left was what a start of a rosette looked like before and the right one was how much flatter some of her tips helped me get them.

So once I got through all the new information I bought myself a glue pen.  Then printed out some fresh new paper pieces.  I use these in addition to my Millefiori Quilts book.  Well worth the cost since you have the patterns ready to print forever and can even print them directly on fabric.  Although I prefer printing on card stock and cutting them out myself.

Here are my rosettes up until now.  Some of these I posted before but now they are all in one place.

You might notice that some of these are done with papers and some just stitched together.  I went back and forth but now that I am armed with some new techniques I hands down choose the paper piecing.

A little trick for quilt binding

My biggest challenge in binding a quilt was to have it fold over easily and keep the binding edge looking sharp and straight.  I thought I would share how I like to bind a quilt.  Not saying it's the best way just the way that works best for me.

I always use a french fold binding, which means that I simply fold the 2 1/2" wide strip in half with raw edges meeting and press.  This will gives me 2 layers of fabric over my quilt edge and is a heck of a lot easier and faster, in my opinion, to fold it in half rather than use a bias tape maker or try to fold without a bias tape maker.

If I can I will machine stitch on instead of handsewing.  Usually by the binding stage I'm ready to be done with a quilt and want to get it over with.  But when I do decide to handstitch I end up finding a mental place and just enjoy the process.

So here is my quilt with the binding already sewn on.  I'm machine sewing this binding on so I first attached it to the back of the quilt.  There's a ton of tutorials and instructions out there leading up to this process so I won't bore you with that.  But I will say I always join my strips together on the diagonal and I do not use bias binding unless something has a curved edge.

Next and here's my "big trick"!  Get ready....

I press the binding away from the quilt.  A good steamy press and it always lays flat.  Now I use cotton batting so I'm not sure how too much steam or heat would affect a poly batting but I'll let you be the judge.

Once I've pressed it away from the quilt all the way around then I flip the quilt over and fold the binding over just as it will be sewn onto the quilt and press again.  This is definitely a pressing step vs. an ironing step and your fingers might get a little toasty but I get a rhythm and I can usually do it without burning too bad.

I pay special attention to the corners and get them to miter as perfectly as possible so I don't have to fiddle with it later.

Very often I do not even have to pin or clip the binding down to sew although when I do I end up taking the time to do it I am usually glad I did especially when I am handsewing.

This binding method usually takes me under and hour to complete if I am machine sewing.  I like how it takes away the wonkyness that I used to get before I pressed. 

Quilted Star Quilt

These stars started as an experiment...me figuring out how to make the quilted star - fast!  I love to quilt but get bored with the monotony of making block after block.  Thank goodness for modern quilting!

All four blocks were made simultaneously.  If you look close you can tell I used triangles, 12 quarter square triangles to be exact.  I think the original size (before cutting the quarters) was 10".   This would be a perfect project for a layer cake. 

The binding was made with leftover scraps.   This gives you a good look at the quilting as well.  I did it on my domestic machine.  I love, love, love my Viking Mega Quilter with it's 9" throat space perfect for fitting in large quilts.

For the backing I just grabbed whatever fabric I had the most of.  I've never been a one-fabric-backing kinda girl.  I really didn't have a particular color theme in mind for any part of this quilt except for the grey background.  All the fabrics I just pulled from my stash or scraps with only the idea of keeping it bright and bold.

The final home for this quilt is supposed to be my home since I rarely make anything and keep it.  Until then it will hang in my shop.  I can't wait to get it back.  My quilts are made to be used and loved by everyone, young, old, 2 or 4 legged.