Sew What--Vicki's Quilting Blog

Sunday, August 24, 2014

Memory Quilt Pieced Border

I have all the sashing and cornerstones on, and the first border around. Now I am working on the pieced border. Here's are the pieces all laid out, ready to sew.

The quilt so far measures 84" x 84". I wanted 2" squares going around, made up of framing fabric and/or "memory" fabrics. But 84 inches means 42 squares, some of which will be colored, and some of which will be cream. However, if I need a colored square in each corner (and I do!), I need an odd number of squares, either 43 or 45. PROBLEM!! I'm going to be either either 2 inches too wide or 2 in. too short.

Here's how I solved it. I decided to go with 45 squares (2 in wider.) This 2 inches needs to be "absorbed" over the course of 84 inches, and 44 squares. Mathematically, each of the 44 squares only needs to be 2/44ths smaller, or reducing that, 1/22nd. That's less than 1/16th of an inch! If I make each square's seam allowance slightly (like a HAIR) wider, that 2 inches would be eased into the length of the whole side. I'm not THAT accurate of a sewer, that I can judge and sew 1/16th of an inch each time, so I just decide to go for it, sew the seams a hair wider, and adjust everything at the end of the row (either stretch it a little if it's too short, or resew a couple seams a bit wider if it's too long). I sewed my squares together, and placed my strip along the top and pinned it. It fit PERFECTLY! I still have to sew it onto the quilt, so I'll let you know how that goes next time! (can you stand the suspense that long!?)

Sunday, August 17, 2014

Memory Quilt

My daughter-in-law, Maggie, asked me to make her a quilt in memory of her Mom, Kay Eicher, who passed away in May. I said I would. Maggie brought over a box of Kay's clothes for me to cut up and re-use the fabric to make quilt blocks.

There was a variety of fabrics in the box, not all of them usable. I can use the tee-shirt fabrics, and the cottons of course, but rayon and polyesters? I think not. I bought some fuseable interfacing to iron onto the knit fabrics so they won't stretch and got started. There were not enough different fabrics, so I had to have some duplicates. Maggie wanted a queen sized quilt, so I started looking for a pattern that would showcase her mom's fabrics. I think I found the PERFECT pattern!

The perfect pattern is called "Bird Watching," and it features larger, 12" blocks. I framed each of my blocks with a one inch framing strip all around, thus deviating from the pattern a WEE BIT! My blocks turned out to be 14". The nice thing about this pattern, is that it has large pieces: one 9" square, one 3" square and two 9x3 rectangles, which helps to show off the fabric design. I tried to pick some color in the fabric to match for the framing strips. The clothes in the boxes tended to be on the paler side, and I think the framing strips I added help jazz up some of the more muted fabrics and set them off. I will be adding sashing and cornerstones, and a pieced 6" border.

I have 25 blocks completed, and estimate my finished quilt will be @ 90 x 90". I arranged the blocks in a 5x5 grid, and set to work trying to balance darks/lights, solids/prints etc. With no particular color scheme in mind when I started, I noticed a sort of "rainbow" emerging, and was inspired by that. Here is the result.

I debated about what kind of sashing strips to use. Originally, I was thinking a solid cream color, somewhat neutral, because the blocks are all sorts of colors. Then I went to the fabric store, and auditioned the blocks against different cream colored fabrics. Nothing struck my fancy at all. I auditioned the blocks against a solid black on a whim, and BINGO! This is it! I loved it! However, Maggie is more traditional in her tastes, and so I decided to get her opinion first. Maggie was not totally in favor of solid black, but was very diplomatic and said anything I did would be fine. My husband was also not in favor of it, saying that it would make the quilt look like a funeral shroud, and a memory quilt should evoke happy memories. He didn't think black would do that. So, back to square 1. (Or square 2? I did find a pattern I liked.)

In the meantime, I had ordered some fabric for a different project, and that fabric arrived in the mail. I tried auditioned this new fabric against my blocks, and actually liked the results. There are two possibilities:

Black with white dots or Cream with Rainbow dots

Knowing Maggie's preference, I have opted to use the Cream with Rainbow dots. (Especially now that there is a sort of rainbow in the quilt!) The cornerstones stand out better, and so will the pieces in the pieced border when I get that far. I am satisfied with my choices, now to cut the fabric and sew the quilt!

Saturday, July 19, 2014

Catching Up

I have been very negligent on keeping up on my blog, but I HAVE been sewing/quilting almost every day. I will try to bring you up to date on my activity.

Taking up most of my time this past month has been the finishing of Doug and Gina's Four Winds quilt. The piecing of this beautiful quilt has been done for a year or more, but I just haven't had the heart to finish it. But I've decided it's time to GET ON WITH IT! So I started to work on it again.

Here is the backing fabric. A blue/purple leafy batik. Perfect. It is one solid piece of fabric. I ironed it before I made the sandwich. This is the first time I ever ironed a backing fabric, and I will continue to do this in the future. It really made a big difference in the smoothness of the quilt back.

The "Pinning"! This quilt measures 80" x 80" so it fit nicely on my kitchen floor. Pinning is my least favorite part of the quilt-making process. Hard on the knees, so I use a kneeling pad, which helps a lot. I always feel this the next day in my muscles too. Lots of stretching. Pinning a quilt is good exercise!

This turned out to be a very heavily quilted quilt. I didn't actually mean for it to be that way, but once I got started, it just seemed to NEED to be that way. I have spirals meandered in, merged in with free motion swirls to show wind. This quilt needs some wind (it's called The Four Winds after all!) to clear the air and blow away any negativity. I have "clouds" free motioned in with echoed "hops". I like the way this quilt turned out. Here is some detail of the quilting:

I have it totally quilted and bound now. The binding fabric is a deep blue/purple batik, I think it goes perfectly with both sides of the quilt. I have taken this quilt to my Quilt Guild meeting as a show and tell. It got a lot of oooohs and ahhhhhhs! Take a look at the finished quilt:

Doug and Gina are gonna LOVE this! (I hope.)

Thursday, June 12, 2014

Indigo and Lace is Finished!

Well, it took a long time, but it was worth it. My Indigo and Lace quilt, 98 x 98, is finished. This is a HUGE quilt, my goodness! The picture below shows it on my California King bed, and it still hangs over the edge!

The pictures don't show the quilting too well, it shows up better on the backside. There is a lot of work in this quilt! Now, only 3 more quilts to sandwich and quilt!

Monday, May 26, 2014

Highway Quilt

I have been working on quilts, just not posting. I'm almost done with the Indigo and Lace quilting. There is a LOT more quilting on this than most of my other quilts, and way more than I had originally planned! But I had to take a time out on it because I have another baby shower coming up, and my reputation precedes me. A baby quilt was necessary!

So, I know this baby will be a boy. Great! Off I went to the fabric store for baby fabric (i.e. something blue.) But it occurred to me that babies are babies for such a short while, and I wanted a quilt that wouldn't just be packed away after the baby turns 1! So I came up with this:

Front

Back

This quilt measures 42 x 53, so it is a nice size, bigger than a "baby" quilt but not too big. It fit nicely on my design wall, so I was able to use spray adhesive to do the sandwich. First time I ever did a quilt that way that actually worked! (I tried it once before on a very large quilt and ended up pinning it anyway.) I used a piece of the Polyester batting (UGH!) too, it stayed put because of the spray adhesive. So, no pinning necessary! Yay! The front is a solid piece of fabric, so no piecing was necessary! SUPER EASY!! Then I just quilted the outlines of the roads and signs/objects. Put a binding on. Done is less than 2 days! The back is fleece, super soft. This quilt can be a blanket or a play mat. I can envision hot wheel cars zooming along these roadways. I'm very happy with it.

Sunday, March 30, 2014

Decisions, Decisions!

I have started quilting the Indigo and Lace quilt. The quilt has been stabilized by stitching in the ditch on both sides of all the sashing. For the decorative part, for most of the quilt, I know what I want to do: This!

Sew on the arches and triangles that are there on the front. MAYBE outline the "fluer de lis" in the corner. (I tried it out on one square just to see if I'd like it, and I do.) I'll be free motion quilting this quilt. Easy. But for those big empty areas in the center and the corners.... I'm stymied! It's such a big big area of nothingness! I've been looking at it for days, searching other quilts on the Internet to see what I could do. I took the pins out, picked up my chalk pencil and started sketching some ideas, right on the fabric:

I kept washing it off, and trying again. Finally, I just had to STOP! I started sketching on paper instead!

I know that I want to keep the corner-to-corner arch. That ties it in with the rest of the quilt. I've been studying how to sew feathers, but I don't want to use feathers here. I don't want the center to be all cluttered up either. Something simple. I want some triangles too.. maybe around the edges? I'm still in the thinking stage here, but the quilt won't get done till I figure it out. I can't even get it started!! Talk about Brain Freeze!

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Summary of Quilts

I thought I'd like to have a post to put the pictures of all the quilts I've done so far. So here they are, my quilts (or finished quilt tops) in chronological order: