Modern Geometric Landscape Quilt Finish

My son has a back to nature sort of room. His bed and night stand were made by his dad from reclaimed wood. He has plants under his windowsill, and collections of shells and rocks displayed from places we have visited. He asked me to make him a landscape quilt to add some color and continue his nature theme.

I expected him to want a small raw edge applique wall hanging, only because that is what I think of first when I think about landscape quilts. Our go to resource for design ideas is Pinterest, and that is where he found this pattern. The pattern is Welcome to Colorful Colorado by Katie Larson. I purchased it when it was available on Craftsy and see that she now has it available in her Etsy shop, The Crafting Shell. I love the design, colors, quilting, and really, everything about the quilt. So I made one as close to hers as I could.

I'm normally a use what you have kind of quilt maker but in this case I invested in the solid fabrics required for the quilt. It is great to add the leftovers to my stash, too. The quilting was a bit challenging in the middle section since I used a close to matching thread for each triangle. I didn't think I would ever finish burying all those threads once the quilting was finished! It was worth it.

The back is made from two yards of text fabric surrounded by solid scraps.

Here's a closer look at the text print.

Rather than bind the quilt, it is faced. This is the first time I have made a facing for a quilt, and I like both the process and the result. I need to work on my mitered corners a little more but other than that, it worked well.

I knew this was going to hang on a wall so I had a little fun with the facing fabric. This is a Charley Harper print. Those owls are so cute. I also tried out a new hand stitch to finish off the facing. I had always used a slip stitch when hand stitching binding but because the facing is so much thinner and flatter than binding, I tried out the ladder stitch. I will definitely use it again. It makes those stitches practically invisible.

Here it is hanging in its new home. It adds so much color to his room. He is happy to have it and I am happy it is finished!

Inspired by a Painting - A Quilt Gift

Sometimes a quilt takes time to evolve. This is one of those. Last year, we went to visit my son and his girlfriend. This was the first time I had met her. She is an artist and had a painting on the wall in their living room that I was really drawn to.

This was from a college class where the assignment was to paint something using only circles. I wanted to use the colors in this painting to make a quilt for them. The mixture of colors in the painting made me think about batik fabrics first, so a stash busting I went. In my head, I was going to do a literal translation with the color placement.

I did not have enough in my stash for that to work out and for some reason, I was sticking closely to the darkest of colors in the painting.

The next iteration had a few more medium tones added in and then came the experiment with pops of color. I had to look at this one a few days and finally figured out that it was because there were too many short scraps and no continuity of color anywhere. This was just too chaotic.

Then I finally got around to adding some lighter colors (honestly, the critique of my family is what it took to convince me to add the lighter colors), took out anything that was too floral or leafy, and continued to debate about whether or not to add the pops of color. There were other sewing projects mixed in to this process, but I bet this had been on the design wall for a month or more at this point. We went out of town for a few days.

This is what I came home to. I think our cat had a little bit of fun while we were away. It was time to start sewing or else this project was never going to be finished.

It wasn't until I started looking at this quilt vertically rather than horizontally that I thought maybe it was going to turn out okay. Maybe I would like it a little. To help it along even more, I decided to back it with a plush minky in navy. This was a first for me so I was nervous about quilting with a thick fuzzy backing.

I did a bit of reading for tips and learned that extra basting and using a larger size needle were essential to successful quilting. I use 505 basting spray for layering quilts and I was extra generous for this project. Both tips were very helpful. I kept the quilt design simple, using a large meander and then a rough outline of each triangle.

I knew there was no way I could accurately stitch around the outside of each triangle so intentionally went wonky with them. You can see a tiny bit of fuzz coming through on the lightest of the fabrics. That all but disappeared after the quilt was washed.

Here's another peak at the quilting.

The quilting shows up nicely on the back, too. I love the plush coziness of that backing.

The binding is machine stitched and is a lovely midnight blue batik. The girlfriend of a year ago is now a soon to be daughter-in-law. They were engaged last month and are planning a small spring wedding. I love my growing family.

The weather has been dreadfully wet and gray so I never got any great pictures of this quilt. It is now all wrapped up under the tree for them to open when they pass through on their way to visit other family this holiday season.

While this quilt is not at all what I pictured in my head when I first started making it, it evolved into a warm and cozy gift that will always remind me of the first time I met my soon to be daughter-in-law.

Two Memory Quilts - Simple and Special

I've been on a bit of a sewing break, focusing more on time with my family and taking care of my health. But when this project came my way, I was ready to get back to it. Many months ago, a coworker had asked if I would be willing to make a quilt from her brother's shirts. I told her I would be happy to, but had pretty much forgotten until she showed up with shirts in October.

Eight shirts, four cool color, four warm color, all in excellent condition. We looked at quilts on Pinterest and she determined quickly what she did and did not want. She wanted simple throw quilts. Two, similar but different. She really liked meandering for the quilting. I like all those squiggly lines is how she put it.

I made this one first. Thirty simple blocks that are 6 1/2" x 10 1/2" shirt squares with a 2 1/2" x 10 1/2" strip of background fabric stitched on each long side. The resulting 10 1/2" block is rotated in the layout of 30 blocks. It took a little bit of finagling to get a layout where the color and pattern was nicely distributed, and I love the result. There is a 2 1/2" border of background to frame out the quilt.

For the second quilt, the blocks are the same style but smaller. Three borders, all cut 2", finish this version. I love the checkerboard border.

This picture makes it easier to see the difference in block size between the two quilts.

Here's a closer look at the meander quilting before the quilts were washed. This free motion quilting design goes super fast.

Sometimes a little too fast. Can you see the light colored thread poking through the back? That is what happens when I go too fast. I had to really pay attention to my speed to limit this result. Slow and steady wins the race, right? The good news is that this picture is before washing. After washing there is just enough crinkle going on to hide the light thread on the back.

The backing fabric is the same for both quilts, a navy flannel. I prewashed the flannel since I knew it was likely to shrink more than the other fabrics. The labels are two pictures. She did not want any words. I used binding scraps to frame out each one. They are hand stitched in place, although in this picture they are just pinned in place.

The binding is scrappy, and includes all of the shirts.

These quilts are being delivered today. One of my favorite parts is seeing the reaction of the quilt owners when they get a first look at the quilts. Some want to see progress photos all along but others, like this customer, want to see the quilts for the first time in person when they were completely finished.

One of the quilts will be gifted to the mother and the other will go to the wife of the man who wore these shirts. There are so many reasons to love quilting, but bringing joy and comfort to others is right up there at the top.

Purple Baby Heart Quilt - First 2018 Quilt Finish

This sweet quilt was not even on my list of quilty goals for the year, yet here it is. Two of my coworkers are expecting babies this Spring. One of them is having an early baby shower since a super big work deadline is approaching for her team and time for baby showers will become scarce. I don't know her that well so I asked some of her closer work buddies what she might like. Without skipping a beat, I learned that "she really likes purple". That is all I needed to know.

My purple stash is not large so I pulled all of them and sorted them into blue purples and red purples, then I asked my teen design expert which set I should use. He told me to go with the red purples as they were brighter and more fun for babies. Originally, this newsprint fabric was going to be the background but I changed my mind once I decided on a design.

As often happens, there was a quilt on Pinterest I liked. It was all half square triangles and four-patches so it would be easy to scale to a good baby quilt size. Each half square triangle finishes at four inches. There are 114 half square triangles in this quilt so there was lots of squaring up going on.

Once the squaring up job was complete, I played around with the layout for the heart. All those trimmings were loosely tied into two bundles and hung from trees in the backyard. The birds like them for nest building and they will certainly be weathered and soft by the time the birds are ready for them.

Here's the full layout of the quilt. The color placement is random and there was enough variety among the purples that hardly any rearranging was required.

This was so much fun to quilt. I think I say that about every quilt I make and it is so true. There is a cross hatch grid on the heart, straight lines to echo the purple rows, and swirls in all the white space.

I was even brave and used a lilac thread for the swirls. It shows just a little more than a matching thread would show. In fact, I ran out of the lilac thread and had to quilt the top and bottom triangles with cream thread. It is not noticeable in the finished quilt.

This quilt is made entirely from stash. The fabric for the front and back, the batting, the thread, and the binding are all stash. I was very excited about that.

I love the heart. It is a perfect welcome for a new baby.

The pieced backing was a surprise as I originally thought I had enough in one piece of fabric. I wasn't sure I was going to be able to pull it off, but I found the darker purple pieces on a late round of stash hunting.

For the first time this year, I am tracking my time in the sewing room. Sometimes, I think it is best not to know exactly how much time I am spending there or how long it takes to make a specific project, but decided it was worth the experiment for a year. So, here are the stats:

Start date: January 3, 2018
Finish date: January 15, 2018
Finished size: 40 inches x 48 inches
Time invested: 17 hours
Purchases to complete: None. All stash and all supplies were on hand.

The combination of the heart and the purple rows make me think of a heart beat, especially the ones that touch either side of the heart. I'm looking forward to gifting this quilt to a special purple loving mama.

Linking up to Finish It Up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts.

A Quilt Specially Made For Mom

My mom wanted a quilt for Christmas. Not a quilt I had made and decided after the fact to give to her. She wanted one that was made especially for her, with thoughts of her filling every inch of fabric. It took two attempts for me to get it right. At first I thought, sure mom, I can do that. And I thought about a design I had wanted to try (the pineapple block) and how great it would be as a scrap busting quilt. So off I went, and I loved it. About four blocks in I realized I was making and loving that quilt for ME. Not for mom.

So, it was back to the drawing board. Mom likes things to match. She likes symmetrical, and she isn't super big on florals. First, I found a fabric collection that would work. This is Authentic by Sweetwater for Moda. Her sofa is gray. Her chairs are cream. One of her kitchen walls is in this family of green. The pattern is from the Moda Bake Shop. It is called Etchings Quilt, which is named for the fabric collection from the original quilt. Mom has a throw pillow in her living room with a very similar design to this quilt. With those decisiions made, I was finally on the road to making a quilt that was truly for mom.

I love how you can actually see some of the pineapple block work on the messy table in front of the design wall. It took a bit of playing to get the blocks an a pleasing arrangement without too much of any one color in any given area of the quilt.

Once the blocks were assembled, it was out to the garage to layer it up.

This is a great picture of the dueling hobbies. My husband was working on a new bed as a Christmas gift for one of the teenagers. That reclaimed wood is so beautiful.

The quilting is wavy vertical lines using my walking foot. Each finished strip is two inches wide and there are three lines of quilting in each one.

When the pineapple quilt was in play, I had ordered a few different green fabrics to use for the centers of each block. One of those went very nicely with this quilt so it became the binding.

It rarely snows here in Georgia, and it is even rarer for that to occur in December. I am often envious of my fellow quilters who capture awesome photographs of their quilts in a snowy white background. This is as good as it gets here. All that was white was completely gone in a couple of hours. At least you can see there were some pretty flakes during the brief flurry.

Here are my teenage quilt holders on our second attempt at pictures. They are such good sports about holding quilts for me.

The quilt back is this fun news print. I purchased enough so that mom's quilt and my pineapple quilt can have the same backing.

And love. We should just add that to everything we say and write.

Of course a special quilt deserves a special label so I quilted a message along the edge of the quilt.

The finished size is 72 inches by 84 inches.

I think mom likes it. She asked me to come over and help her arrange it so that it looks nice and shows some of the front and the back while draped on her sofa. We'll do that next week.

I'm happy to have learned what it meant to really make a quilt just for mom.

Linking up to Finish It Up Friday over at Crazy Mom Quilts.