Camera Quilt - A New Project For An Almost New Year

There was a plan. I was going to finish up my holiday sewing and then slow down with the quilt making for the first couple of months of the year. My sewing room is in an upstairs bonus room so I am away from the core activity of the household. I planned to sit by the fire and read and cross stitch and crochet and just relax and be more visible and available.

While this plan was being made other conversations happened and I found myself committed to five quilting projects for the upcoming year. I did not over commit at all. The first is not even on the horizon until late spring. But the seeds had been planted and I could not stop thinking about these new quilts just waiting to be born. The design for one had been set in my brain so why not pull some fabric for it?

And why not make a test block to see if the mind and the quilt were in alignment? After looking at this block for a day or two, I decided that more lens and less camera would look better, and I lengthened the rectangle on the top left just a little. I also narrowed the side and bottom borders to match the top border.

After all of that, I just had to make a few more blocks to get a better idea of how these blocks were going to look all together. The color of this quilt is supposed to come across as teal and in the beginning I was staying very true to that. It made for a boring quilt. There needed to be pops of other colors throughout to keep it interesting.

The camera lens is what brings life to these blocks. They are quite boring to me without it. At some point, I am going to have to do something about securing the lenses. They are fused on for now. I will probably zigzag or blanket stitch around them by machine. Still thinking about that.

I went back through my stash again to pull a wider range of colors. Then I grouped them. Each camera needs a body, lens, and background. I think I have about 50 fabric sets ready to go.

I am cutting them in groups, then piecing them three at a time. I can stitch together three blocks each morning before leaving for work.

As of this morning, I have 20 blocks pieced. The original plan was to do eight blocks across and ten blocks down, but I did not like eight across. Six seems better, so we will go with that for a while. Each block will finish at 10 inches x 7 1/2 inches.

What I thought was going to be a project for the spring, and one that was going to be worked on over time with a few blocks here and a few blocks there, seems to have taken on a life of its own. I'm okay with that. The new year isn't even here yet. There will be lots of time for fires and reading and relaxation, just as soon as I stitch up a few more camera blocks.

Evan's Guitar - A Finished Quilt

This quilt top has been around for more than five years waiting to be finished. It is named after my oldest son, who in his teenage years decided he was going to take up guitar. Electric bass guitar to be exact. Being one to encourage all musical endeavors, he received his very own guitar and amp for Christmas. He might have played it three times in total. His rock and roll fantasy was short lived. Even though he is grown and lives away from home, that guitar still sits in his closet. We will see if either of his younger brothers get the urge.

I loved making this quilt top. It was fast and best of all, this is my favorite color palette. I had it up on the design wall for a while, thinking about how quilt it.

At first, I was determined to quilt something in each block, going for the yin yang impression given by the blocks themselves. However, the fabric in each block emphasizes that enough so I went with an overall design. There are three rows of three squares set on point. Each square is three concentric squares. The squares overlap each other creating a plaid sort of design.

I also tried changing out the thread so that every other square is dark thread and the remaining ones are light thread. This was supposed to help each square stand out on it's own but with the fabrics being so busy, it didn't really work. The texture shows far more than the different thread colors.

The inner border is quilted with free motion circles and the outer border is free motioned in a dark brown thread meandering all around the guitars.

The backing is a print by Carla Miller. I have been saving it just for this quilt. The binding is a solid dark brown.

This quilt is a keeper and will be perfect for keeping us warm as the temperatures continue to cool this season. It is lap size measuring 53" x 46".

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

From Mystery Bag to Finished Quilt Top

 

 In the process of cleaning out and organizing, I found this bag of fabric...

It appeared to be one of those partially finished projects, probably originally destined as a sample to hang in the quilt shop many years ago. I liked the colors and fabrics so I decided to investigate a little further.

The pattern looked like it needed twelve blocks to make the quilt. As often is the case when making a sample, I would cut it down and make it smaller. I found eight of these cute little star blocks already finished in the bag (and no matter how hard I try, there is always at least one thread still dangling in the picture!).

After looking at the cut pieces and reading the instructions, I thought this would be a fun one to finish up.

So I made eight blocks. And then I got ready to lay out the top. Um, how do you make a quilt top with just eight blocks? Apparently, I wasn't thinking things through when I originally cut this one down. At first, I thought I would make a really small top with six blocks and have two bonus blocks for pillows. But it was just too small. I looked at the scrap pile from the bag and found this beauty. 

This is one of my all time favorite fabrics. I love modern bird prints. And teal and brown are quite a yummy combination. So I made one more block. Nine blocks makes a much more reasonable quilt top.

It is 37" square and ready to be finished. 

 This quilt top is available for sale here.