Fire And Ice - A Believe Circle Quilt Finish

I am on a roll with the quilt finishes. This is the third one in a week. It was a bit of a motivator when it was pointed out to me that there are less than 40 days until Christmas, Yikes! This quilt is the September quilt for the Believe Circle of do. Good. Stitches. It did not have any sort of real deadline, but it was one I just wanted to finish. The head and the heart don't always agree.

The theme was fire and ice and each member was asked to provide three 6 1/2" blocks. One all ice, one all fire, and one a mix. The block could be any design they liked.

As the blocks arrived, I placed them on my design wall. I thought I was going to arrange them by color, with the ice in one corner, the fire in another, and the rest in between.

When I looked at them without color, I decided to go with light to dark, which sometimes meant that the colors mixed in differently than expected. It took quite a number of attempts to get this right (at least right to me). This is the final layout.

And here it is in color. At this point, it was looking more like sun and clouds than fire and ice.

One inch sashing strips were added to finish the top. Originally, the quilting was going to be one off set spiraling circle. After I did some rounds, I decided that it needed something more. First, I thought about doing rays out from the largest circle to make it look like a sun. Instead, I went with a second set of circles and let them overlap. The quilting lines are about one inch apart. I was not measuring specifically so it is far from perfect. I am happy with it as a whole.

You can see the quilting better from the back. I thought the quilting might get lost on the front so I chose a solid backing so it would really stand out.

From the right angle, the quilting shows up nicely on the front, too.

I love the variety of the blocks.

This was the first circle to be quilted.

And this was the second set of circles.

The binding is a bright orange. All this quilt needs is a label, which hopefully, will be hand sewn on tonight.

Thank you, Believe Circle members, for taking a concept and turning it into such an awesome quilt.

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

Brighten Up With Butterflies - A Quilt Finish

My sister-in-law asked if I would make a quilt for her to give to a special little girl in her life. She gave me some input on colors and favorites. I thought we would enter into a bit of back and forth while I sent suggestions and she responded with feedback. The first fabric collection I sent to start the conversation is Brighten Up! by Me and My Sister Designs for Moda fabric. I also sent along a pattern idea, Simply Style Stacked Squares from the Moda Bake Shop. Her response was an immediate YES.

This was a fun quilt to make. Since the pattern and fabric were so busy, I went with a simple two-inch grid for the quilting. I am surprised that it shows up as much as it does, although these pictures are after the quilt was washed, which tends to make the quilting stand out a little more.

When I started the quilting, I thought that the grid would mostly be in line with the seams. The strips around the squares are two-inches but the center squares themselves are not an even increment of two, which means the quilt lines can fall anywhere along those strips. I think it worked out just fine.

I love the backing fabric. All the butterflies. All the colors.

The binding is a blue dot fabric from the same collection.

I'll be passing this quilt on to my mother-in-law on Thanksgiving Day. My sister-in-law will pick it up from her. It was a joy to make this quilt for her.

Converse Shoe Quilt - The Perfect Gift For A Teenager

Is there a Converse shoe craze going on in your part of the world? Ours has been going on for several years now. I keep thinking it is a fad that is soon to fade away, but it doesn't seem to be slowing down. One of my teenage boys has two pair and wants two more. The other has one pair and says that is enough for him. They know kids at school who own every color. That's just crazy.

There is a special girl at school who is friends with my son, and, for a while she felt like an adopted daughter of sorts. We are all band nerds and while she plays trumpet in the marching band, she also plays flute. I play flute, too, so that was just one more thing for us to bond over. Her birthday is this week, and my son and I wanted to give her something unique, to show how special she is.

Isn't this the cutest mini-quilt! The pattern comes from Quiet Play and you can find it on Craftsy here. My son picked the colors.

I just happened to run across these letters while I was searching for a backing fabric and decided to incorporate them. It was originally going to be part of the back but looked so cute on the front that I changed the plan.

This was the most challenging part of the whole project. Those are some teeny tiny pieces in that star. I thought I had worked it out where the star would be solid black but one of those polka dots managed to sneak past and become part of the star.

Isn't this the perfect quilt back for a music lover? I was becoming frustrated with finding a backing, thinking I was going to have to piece something together. My son selected and approved this piece. I was very happy he helped me figure that out.

The quilting lines are about a quarter inch apart in a dark gray 50wt Aurifil thread. It is not too light for the background nor too dark for the shoes. The finished quilt is around sixteen inches square.

Happy birthday, Keely! You are a special girl and I am thankful to have you in my life. Keep on being smart, funny, and beautiful.

Girly Quilts in the Making

Recently, my sister-in-law asked me if I would make a quilt for a special little girl in her life. Of course I will, as long as there is no deadline for completing it. She was fine with that and said it could be for Christmas or a birthday or for any special day. To get started, I sent her a picture of the fabric collection Brighten Up by Me and My Sister for Moda Fabrics. I also sent a Moda Bake Shop pattern, Simply Style Stacked Squares. She immediately said YES!

I was a little nervous it was going to be too busy but I think it turned out great. The top is made. The quilt is layered.

This is the backing fabric. I love the colors. I love the butterflies. Perfect for a special little girl. I was about to get started on the quilting... until I got distracted by all the scraps left from this project. The pattern calls for two jelly rolls and a layer cake. All of the parts are needed, but there are so many leftovers.

Red Pepper Quilts posted one of her awesome quilts right before I created this scrap pile. I wanted to give it a try. And I did. The only fabric that had to be added was the white fabric.

This turned out just as I had imagined. So cute. This one is going to be finished up for a special little girl in my life. But first, I must finish the original quilt.

Believe it or not, there are enough scraps for a third quilt from this fabric. The third quilt will be made for a foster child. Looking forward to sharing three finished quilts soon.

Cardinal Blocks - More Sampler Block Shuffle

Four blocks were added to my cardinal sampler project this weekend. This project has been on the shelf for a while so it was fun to revisit all the blocks and add some new ones to the mix. There are 30 blocks in the Moda Sampler Block Shuffle. With the weekend additions, 19 have been made.

This is block #26 and was designed by Amy Ellis. This is the first time I have used this black Joel Dewberry print. It may be the last time, too, as I only had a small scrap to work with. I was holding out for a block that would show off this print. I like the result.

This is block #18 and was designed by Lella Boutique. I like the diagonal line of cardinals on this one. As I get near the end, it will be more and more challenging to place the cardinals, mostly because the pieces start getting smaller.

This is block #29 and was designed by French General. I only had a charm square of the red with white polka dots. I'm glad I found a way to work it into this project.

This is block #27 and was designed by Sweetwater. I intentionally wanted to add a dark block into the mix.

Nineteen blocks stitched; eleven blocks to go. This is a fun project to fit in between other projects. I'm starting to feel the finishing itch on this one though, now that I am well past the half way point. We will see just how quickly this project reaches the finish line. There is no hard deadline but I'm thinking it would be nice to finish it up for the winter season.

Shadow Block Mini Quilt Quilt Along Reveal Day

Why make one mini quilt when you can make six? It was fun adapting my Shadow Block Mini Quilt tutorial to make this set of colorful place mats for my kitchen. Janice, from Color, Creating and Quilting, and Jen, from A Dream and a Stitch hosted an awesome quilt along that wraps up today. Of course I had to join right in. But before I dive into the making of these, here are all the fun gals who participated in the quilt along. Click on over to their blogs to check out their Shadow Block mini quilt making:

Jen Rosin at A Dream and a Stitch

Janice Holton at Color, Creating and Quilting

Amanda Everest at Quiltologie

Susan Arnold at Quilt Fabrication

Bonnie Stapleton at Institches with Bonnie

Jennifer Fulton at Inquiring Quilter

Jennifer Strauser at Dizzy Quilter

Joanne Harris at Quilts by Joanne

Anja Clyke at Anja Quilts

Mary Schuberg at Needled Mom

At first, I planned to make just one mini quilt, using the tutorial exactly as it was written, but I'm not one to make the same project over and over, so I changed it up just a little so that it could become something useful and beautiful. For color, I decided to lean on trusty ROY G BIV. Do you remember learning the colors of the rainbow this way? And, since the original mini quilt was made using fabrics from Kaffe Fassett and friends, I pulled out my Kaffe stash and lined them up.

Choosing the fabric is what takes the most time for me. Cutting the squares took no time at all once I knew where this project was going.

I made one change to the assembly process from the original tutorial. The original mini quilt has twenty blocks. Each place mat has twelve blocks, but there are six place mats, which means there are 72 total blocks for this project. That was going to be a whole lot of tiny squares and rectangles to piece.

For the shadow fabric, I cut a 2 1/2 inch strip and a 3 inch strip. From the background, I cut two 1 inch strips. A background strip is stitched to the shadow strip, then 1 1/2 inch segments are cut to go on the two sides of each focus square. It went much faster this way.

It was fun to watch the design wall evolve with finished tops. And I am not great at secret projects so it was quite the challenge not to share all the progress as it was happening. The border on the right side is wider than the others, to add a little interest and make a special place to put your fork.

Each one is quilted differently. The red mini was done exactly as the quilting on the tutorial.

Orange was quilted with free motion circles in the shadow and a trio of straight lines on each sashing strip. The center line of each trio is in a darker thread to match the shadow. This was one of those happy accidents. I forgot to change the thread color after quilting the circles and just decided to go with it rather than having to pull out the trusty seam ripper.

Yellow is quilted with free motion circles in the sashing, and long lines of quilting in the shadow. My goal for quilting when it isn't an all over design is to quilt the shadow heavily and the background a little less so that the focus blocks, which have no quilting, pop up off the quilt, emphasizing the dimension and shadow.

Green. This one is my favorite. This is the first one where I ignored the blocks and went with an all over design. I love the big spiral in a variegated thread.

The quilting on the blue mini was done using a free motion loopy stitch in the sashing. It is hard to see the stitching on this one but it is not hard to see those lumps near the blocks. The pressed seam allowance kept bumping up against my free motion foot instead of going under it. I have not had that happen before. It was a little frustrating, but I persevered. The shadow is stitched with a decorative stitch on my Janome. That part was fun and reminded me that I need to experiment with some of those decorative stitches more often.

For the violet mini, I went with a wavy cross hatch. I didn't want the green mini to be the only one with an all over design, and, by this last one, I was ready to be finished, so I confess that the easy quilting on this one was intentional.

Here they are from the back, doing their best to pay respect for all the ROY G BIV going on on the front. They had to be cute enough to turn over, just in case there are any spills on the front. Each place mat finishes at 13 inches by 17 inches.

Don't they look fantastic on the kitchen table?! Thanks so much Janice and Jen for organizing this quilt along and encouraging me to revisit the Shadow Block Mini Quilt tutorial. I cannot wait to see what everyone else has made.