Something Blue

I couldn't wait to get started on my new  Christmas quilt kit, Something Blue.  I cut ALL the fabric already, which is something I don't normally do. But since this is a paper piecing quilt, and the directions were so detailed, I went ahead and did it.  I labeled all the sections and put them in zip lock baggies, and it's all neatly organized.  I am going to a quilt retreat on Saturday, and I will take this project along with me to work on it for 10 hours!!  I hope to get a lot accomplished.  However, since it was all cut out and just ... sitting there in a box... I just HAD to make one of the blocks!  I HAD to!

 

And once that first block was finished, I was hooked...  I continued making arches:

Not to worry, I need like 60 of them, and 12 more stars, so there will be plenty to do on Saturday! And if perchance I finish all of that, I still have to assemble the blocks, add the sashing and cornerstones, etc, etc.  I won't finish on Saturday!!!  

Gallery of Quilts

Here are all the quilts that I have made, in chronological order (more or less.)

Bob's Cowboy Quilt  (Winter, 2012)

Linda's Sampler Quilt, (Spring, 2012)

Jeff's Star Quilt, July 2012

Snowball Quilt (April, 2012)

Alayna's Rosebud Quilt (All the fabrics had roses in them)
(Winter, 2012)

Kaylyn's Hexagon Kaleidoscope Quilt (Summer, 2012)

Mya's Pink Strip Quilt (Fall, 2012)

Joe and Braden's  "X Marks the Spot " Wedding Quilt
(Summer, 2012)

Brady's Dinosaur Quilt  (Summer, 2012)

Luke's Flannel Deer Quilt  (Fall, 2012)

Kathy's Around the World Quilt (Summer, 2012)

Dianne's Moon Glow Quilt (Winter, 2012)

Anna's Painted Lady Quilt (Spring, 2013)

The Prize-Winning Harry Potter Bookcase Quilt
(Summer, 2013)

 

Baby Quilts for the Baker Twins (Fall, 2013)

Callie's Graduation Quilt (Spring, 2014)

Erin's Road Map Baby Quilt (Spring, 2014)

Jen's Indigo and Lace Quilt  (Summer 2014)

Doug and Gina's Four Winds Quilt (Fall, 2014))

Maggie's Mom's Memory Quilt (Fall, 2014)

Becky's  Mom's Memory Quilt (Fall, 2014)

Bailey's Deer Quilt (Winter, 2014)

Audrey's Baby Quilt (Spring, 2015)

My Bottled Rainbow Quilt (Summer, 2015)

My Kaleidoscope Star Quilt (Summer, 2015)

Andy's Bucky Badger Quilt (Fall, 2015)

Elly's Medallion Sampler Quilt (Winter, 2015)

Ryan's Turkey Feathers Quilt (Winter 2015)

Isaac's Baby Quilt (Jan., 2016)

Drew's Asteroid Quilt (Spring, 2016)

The "Mystery" Quilt (Spring, 2015)

My Rainbow Medallion (Spring, 2016)

Georgia's Baby Quilt (Fall, 2016)

Author Quilt (Summer, 2016)

Aidan's Argyle quilt (Winter, 2016)

New Year's Agenda

Happy 2017!  As with any New Year, we are always making "resolutions" to make ourselves better in the upcoming year.  So  I made this list of things I'd like to accomplish in 2017, as far as quilting is concerned.

1.  Finish the Gravity quilt.
     This quilt has all the quilt blocks sewn together and half of the blocks are sewn into "rows."  (wedges, actually.)  So it is half finished in the assembly department.  The quilting will be the highlight of this quilt, I think, as all the fabrics are solids.  It's pretty as it is, but fancy quilting will really be showcased in this quilt.  I have decided to do half the quilt at a time, so as not to have so much quilt "stuffed" through the machine.  It'll be easier to free motion this way.  I might use this to make a free-motion stitching sampler.  This is a UFO I'd like to finish in 2017.  Best of all, by September, because there is a quilt show again this year.

2.  Finish the Whirligig quilt.
     The Whirligig quilt is finished, pinned, and ready to quilt.  It's just a matter of getting "around-to-it."

3.  The Something Blue quilt.
     This is the beautiful quilt Bob got me for Christmas as a kit.  So pretty!!  I can't wait for the "first cut"!  That's always scary though!

4.  The Fan quilt.
     The Fan quilt is a quilt that will be done in collaboration with Dianne. We wanted to do a quilt together, and found this Fan quilt which we both liked.

We will each make some of the blocks.  I made a block paper-pieced pattern in EQ7, and I have made 4 fans so far.  I still have to mail the pattern to Dianne so she can make some too.

5.  The Three-Dudes quilt.

     This will be (hopefully) a Christmas present for Max.  He has been asking for a quilt for a few years now.  Aidan got his quilt this year at Christmas, and we had this joke about what color underwear he wanted for Christmas (so I could get an idea of colors he might like in his quilt.)  He actually opened a present with blue and red boxers in it and he was so confused (disappointed?) because he was so sure he was getting a blue and red quilt!  It was great!  Anyway, after that, he DID open a box with his quilt in it.   There was a discussion about who would get the next "Christmas quilt."  Max promptly told me that he would like Blue-and-Magenta "underwear" next Christmas!!  I chose the 3-Dudes quilt  pattern for Max  because I think it is a beautiful pattern, and have wanted to make it for awhile now.  I had chosen this pattern for Aidan, originally.  But then found the Argyle pattern, which seemed to suit Aidan better.  So the 3-Dudes quilt went back into the "think-tank" and I will persue this quilt pattern later on this year for Max. In blues and "magenta" which Max said was a deep dark purple.  So, blues and purples!  Two of my favorite colors!

This should keep me busy for the upcoming year.  If I finish all these projects, there is still the Brilliant Beauties of Joy quilt kit in the drawer, as well as the Jenny Beyer "Shenandoah Baskets" quilt kit.  And no doubt, the Quilt Guild will come up with some yearly project, as usual, AND since I was on the quilt committee for the donated raffle quilt for the last quilt show a couple years ago, I will probably be on that same committee again.  So there will be some divergences from my list, I'm afraid.  Next December, we'll revisit this list and see how much actually got done!

Vicki's Gallery of Quilts

Merry Christmas

I received a marvelous present from my husband.  It's a Something Blue quilt kit! I can't wait to dig into this one!  Here's what it will look like:

I already have a couple of quilt kits waiting for me to do, but I think I will tackle this one next. It's not as complicated as Beauties of Joy, but still a lot of paper-piecing and directions to follow.  I think it looks way more complicated than it is.  I haven't done this many curves yet, but I can sew sleeves, and collars and necklines, and those are curves too, so it can't be any more complicated than those!

I have a few things to finish up before I start, but it's always exciting to get new quilt kits and fabrics!

Quilting Drew's Asteroid Quilt.

As of late, I have been working on getting the Asteroid quilt quilted.  It has been going together so easily, I'm not sure if it's because Dianne is such an excellent pinner (which she is!) or if it has to do with the fact that I am getting so much better at quilting (which I am!) or if it is because of the fusible batting I am using.

I never had Dianne pin a quilt for me before, and I learned a few things from watching her,  She uses a LOT of tape.  She totally smooths out each and every layer so not a single wrinkle is in sight.  She also tapes the batting to the floor, not just backing.  The quilt sandwich stayed put for the entire pinning session, and I was most impressed.  I will be following these steps in the future!

The batting used for this quilt is FUSIBLE batting, Hobbs 80/20 Heirloom.  I never used fusible batting before.  No, I take that back!  I used the batting scraps from the Asteroid in the Kitty baby quilt I just made.  It was smaller, so I sewed the strips together that we had trimmed off from The Asteroid quilt after it was pinned.  I actually ironed that batting to the baby quilt top and bottom, and I was not impressed with how it looked.  I decided I would never use it again!  However, Drew's Asteroid quilt was NOT ironed.  The batting felt a bit "tacky" and was stuck together when we unrolled it to lay it out for pinning.  I thought something was wrong with that batting.  I don't recall ordering "fusible" batting (it came in the mail from Connecting Threads.)  That unironed fusible tacky batting must keep the batting and top/bottom from sliding around.  The more I quilted it, the more I liked it!!  I'll have to re-think that "never again" part...

I have been stitching in the ditch around the stars and shapes in the pattern quilt top.  I may or may not do some decorative quilting when I am through with the "stabelizing" phase of the quilt.  We'll see how it looks and how much time I have.  Here's how the quilting looks:

 

Emergency Baby Quilt

Monday night when I got home from a  Quilt Guild meeting, my Hunny reminded me of a Baptism we need to attend on Sunday, which was only 5 days away.)  Yes, I remembered.  Oh, and by the way, "do you think you could whip up a baby quilt that we can give as a gift?"  ARGHHHHH!

But I can do it.  I have an idea for a cool baby quilt from a picture I saved from the web. Since this is for a girl baby, my cats will all be pink be pink.  It will look something like this:

.

It said on the web that this quilt will finish off at 41".  That's all I had to go by, I do not have a pattern.  Just the name of the quilt (Cat Nap), it's finished size, and this picture.  So I started doing the math. Trial and error in the beginning, but then REAL math for the corner triangles.  Starting with a 25" center square on point, add a 2.5" border, so it is now 29".  The formula for corner triangles, is finished block size divided by 1.414 plus 7/8" for seam allowances (round up to the nearest 1/8"), which will equal the size of the square you need to cut in half on the diagonal for 2 corners.  SO! 29 divided by 1.414 is about 20.5", plus 7/8"would = 21 3/8".  I used  a 22" square just to be on the safe side, yes, it was a little larger than necessary, but I could easily trim it to size and leave that quarter inch seam allowance for sewing on the final border.  The head is a 7.5" square, the shoulders is a 3.5" square cut in half on the diagonal, and the ears are 60 degree triangles cut at 2.5" tall.  Paws are 3" x 5", rounded off on one end and appliqued on after the border was sewn.  There, that's my pattern!

I went off to the fabric store to get some fleece for the backing, and decided against an outer border.  I whipped up this quilt from start to finish in just 4 days.  Here is my version of Cat Nap, front and back!

  

The original quilt had claws on the cat too, which I decided to leave off.  Claws on kitties make them mean or mad, which is cute, but not for a baby.  (my opinion).  I also used circles of a reddish pink batik for the eyes, and added black pupils in the circles.  I think it's very cute!

Cute eyes

I basically did this the same as I did the seasonal Skinnies, applique the pieces, and stitch all around.  I added more quilting then on a skinnie though.  Also, I free-motioned the  whiskers and mouth before I added that square to the quilt so black thread wouldn't show on the back of the quilt.  I didn't want to use the applique stitch for the eyes and noses, the curves are pretty tight.  So I did a very small zigzag around them, and that worked perfectly.  All done in less than 4 days.  I'm pretty proud of myself!