Purple Cross Storm at Sea Quilt

One of my co-workers recently retired. It is not often that I make a specific quilt for a specific person but this time I felt compelled to do so. Take note world. If the words "I want to make you a quilt" ever fall from my mouth, you are a super special awesome person. She retired on relatively short notice so there wasn't time to make anything to give her on her last day at work.

Instead, I told her to go check out my Pinterest page and see if any of those quilts appealed to her. So she did, and she mentioned two of them. One she said lots of things about so I knew this is the one she really wanted, but she was nice and mentioned a second one as a backup plan. So, I went and looked at the one she chose and in my head I'm thinking...wait, you can choose any quilt BUT THIS ONE. Because this one looks HARD.

So I slept on the idea and woke up thinking, "Why not?" I pinned that quilt because I liked it and I'm smart enough and can figure this out. Bring it on! The first step was to pull fabric. For a purple quilt. From my stash. That has hardly any purple in it.

After studying the picture of the quilt for a while, I determined that six different purples were needed. For some of those purples, I had to go scrappy in order to have enough fabric. It was tight getting all the pieces cut, meaning I spent some portion of time digging through the trash for what I thought were throw away scraps but had to be salvaged and pieced with other scraps to make it through. There were a few brow sweating moments during the cutting stage.

Then, I had to ponder the construction. The link from Pinterest goes to this tutorial. Based on the tutorial I could paper piece the blocks or make templates for them. I wasn't happy with either of those choices and then I remembered my handy TriRecs ruler. That is how I decided to construct this quilt.

I worked on it a little each day and took a picture every day to show my progress. I need to find some sort of time lapse software because this would be really cool to see that way. Instead, just scroll through the pictures quickly and maybe it will be a similar affect. Ahem. Maybe.

First Block

Day One

Day Two

Day Three

Day Four

Day Five

Day Six

Day Seven

Day Eight

Day Nine

Day Ten

Day Eleven

The top is finished. I think. I am still pondering a border. And how to quilt it. I do love how the top turned out. This one is going to be set aside for a short time while I think about where to go next with it.

There are a couple of other simple finishes waiting for me on the side line. They are starting to glare at me just a bit from across the room. I'll give them some attention then come back to this one with a well thought out plan. I can't wait to finish this and send it off to its recipient. I think she's going to love it.

A Few Quilted Flowers

This quilt top waited quite a while to make it's way back under the machine to be finished. I knew I wanted to do some sort of motif in each block and these flowers ended up being just the right thing.

Rather than use the same thread color for the entire quilt, each block is quilted in coordinating, or sometimes contrasting thread.

The blocks in this quilt top were made by the quilters and stitchers of the do. Good Stitches Believe Circle. They sent their blocks to me...ahem...last December. It's all good now though.

The back is three long panels of purple. Pay no attention to those feet. They usually get cropped out. Must have forgotten to do that on this picture.

 The flowers show up nicely on the back too, especially on the darker purple.

Just added a label this morning.

This quilt has already been washed and dried to give it that soft crinkly look and feel. It will be sent off to My Very Own Blanket next week.

Believe Circle Halfway Through The Year

I was enjoying looking back through the blocks that have been made for the Believe Circle in the first half of good ol' 2014 and thought it would be fun to share them all in one post. So, here's half a year plus one month in review.

In January, Sarah, from {no} hats in the house, set us up with these paper pieced blocks that turn into beautiful feathers when combined with other blocks.

In February, Allison chose blue and low volume half square triangles. Allison was quick with her finish. I love seeing how the blocks transform once they are all put together in a quilt. Check out Allison's Flickr page to see the finished project.

March brought us some Greek Cross blocks by Vanessa in red and yellow.

Nicole asked us to make these awesome scottie dog blocks. She just finished putting the top together so check that out on her Flickr page.

It was my turn in May. I asked everyone to make some improv stripe blocks. You can see how it turned out here.

We started circling back through the group again in June, and Sarah designed these fun LOVE blocks for us to make.

Laura was up for the first time in July and she picked a scrappy square in a square block in a fabulous color scheme.

In addition to a devoted group of quilters who are responsible for stitching blocks every month along with the design and completion of a quilt two or three times a year, some of our group focuses on stitching up blocks each month. Our stitchers are Lisa, Ben, Jennifer, and Meg.

I've had the privilege of hanging out with this great group of quilters for a little over a year now. They are all absolutely inspiring and I am thankful to be able to share quilt making with them. Our finished quilts are sent to My Very Own Blanket, an organization that makes sure each quilt is given to a foster child in need of something special.

Can't wait to see what the second half of 2014 brings.

If you are interested in joining one of the circles of do. Good Stitches, learn more about it and sign up here.

Believe Circle Finished Quilt for May

This is a very happy quilt to add to the finished list. Even though I love yellow, it has never been my go to color for a quilt border. Until now.

The blocks for this quilt were made by the awesome stitchers that are part of the Believe Circle for do. Good Stitches. They made the blocks based on instructions I shared with them here. They did a great job and I had fun arranging and rearranging the blocks. I could never get quite happy with a full quilt of five by four blocks. So I turned it into a four by four quilt and incorporated the rest of the blocks on the back.

I've started this trend for myself of making an up sized version of whatever block is on the front of the quilt to go on the back. Sometimes it is perfect and sometimes it is a little tacky. The good news is that this quilt is going to a child and kids are very accepting of a little bit of tacky.

Originally, I thought I would stitch down either side of the stripes, then fill the negative space with some squiggly lines. Once I finished the stitching around the stripes, I decided it was enough. That it would get too busy if I kept going.

A happy quilt made by a happy quilter that will hopefully give a special child just a little something to smile about.