Sawtooth Relay Quilt: Pre-Cut Patchwork Magazine Jan/Feb 2019

Finally a quilt to share! I know it's been a while, but I've been distracted with creating junk journals and printables.

But at long last, I can share the last quilt I finished. I actually made it in August 2018 for the debut issue of Pre-Cut Patchwork magazine, but needed to wait until it was out before sharing my quilt. The magazine is in stores now, or you can buy a copy (physical or digital) from The Quilting Company.

The quilt is made completely from 2-1/2 inch fabric strips, except for the border. Fabrics in the quilt shown are from the Dandi Annie collection by Robin Pickens and Bella Solids both for Moda Fabrics. Such a fun and easy quilt that lends itself to lots of fabric options.

Enjoy!

Fifteenth Quilt Finish of 2018

Yes, that's 15 finished quilts so far this year! But, in this case the quilt top was already finished. 

In fact, I finished the top back in 2011. The design is called Antietam and the horrible battle of Antietam and is by Clothesline Quilts. I received the fabrics as part of a block of the month program, but didn't even start the quilt until I had received all of the monthly kits.

I attended Handi Quilter Academy at the beginning of June with the goal of learning how to do more than just edge-to-edge quilting. My last class was with Megan Best where she taught some basic custom quilting techniques with Pro-Stitcher. This was the perfect quilt to try out something new to me.

So instead of just doing an overall edge-to-edge quilting motif, I put a different motif in the large triangles that point down, and another motif in the sections that are oriented upward. Nothing fancy, but it was a first step.

It took about twice as long to quilt compared to just doing an overall edge-to-edge, and in reality, the scrappy quilt didn't really warrant doing something semi-custom since it really doesn't show up. However, that also means that my boo-boos also don't show up.

But like I always say, "finished is better than perfect".

My Seven Shades of Gray Quilt in Fons and Porter Quilting Quickly

One more quilt to share that was in a July/August issue of a quilting magazine -- Fons and Porter Quilting Quickly.

I designed this quilt back in May 2013 and blogged about it HERE. I had wanted to make a quilt that combined the ROYGBIV (red-orange-yellow-green-blue-indigo-violet) rainbow spectrum colors with a gray ombre progression. This was the result.

I never got around to quilting it, but always liked the design. Late last year, the acquisitions editor of one of the quilt magazine publishers reached out to me. She was looking for quilts made with precuts. I submitted this design because it uses only 2-1/2-inch strips to make the quilt. It was accepted, but I needed to make it again, using fabrics they supplied.

You'll notice that my original quilt used printed ROYGBIV fabrics, but the magazine version uses only solids.

The hardest part of my original quilt was finding the many shades of gray and the color scraps for the rainbow colors. By using solids, it was easy to use Kona cotton roll-ups (Kaufman's name for a roll of 2-1/2-inch strips). It requires one in rainbow colors, one with the shades of gray, and either black yardage or another roll-up.

I already had the perfect backing fabric in my stash, so I used it for the magazine version of the quilt:

I love the juxtaposition between the geometric quilt front and the curvy pattern of the backing. But now I need to once again find the perfect backing for my original quilt.

Triple Exposure -- July/August 2018 Quiltmaker Magazine

The first of four original quilts I designed and made this year for magazines is in the July/August 2018 issue of Quiltmaker Magazine.

This issue is now available online at The Quilting Company, and will be available in stores at the end of May.

The request that came from the magazine was to design a quilt that had some "hidden" surprises -- such as an alternate block that emerges where the blocks come together. In my case, I designed the quilt with three hidden surprises.

First, by using a white fabric with small black dots in the corners, in combination with a simple sashing and and black cornerstone, a shoo-fly block emerges where the blocks come together.

Second, by using three values of fabrics in each block and a somewhat busy quilting pattern, it almost seems to me that the pinwheels are spinning.

And, third, if you look closely, the center of each block also has a small pinwheel in the same black and white pin-dot fabric.

This was a fun project that is paper foundation pieced. When it is all said and done, each block has 57 pieces -- 14 paper-pieced pieces in each quadrant of the block, and a black square appliqued to the center of the block. It wasn't difficult, but it probably took longer than any other quilt I've made in recent years.

A tip is to avoid using a large-scale print in the blocks. Since the the pinwheel sections are broken up due to paper piecing, you need fabrics that don't emphasize the fact that they are made from smaller pieces sewn together to look like a triangle.

Enjoy!

Better Late Than Never: Finish #14 in 2018

Not quite a baby quilt since the recipient, Temple, is nearly 2-1/2 years old.

 

He was so eager to be born that he arrived three months sooner than expected, weighing less than three pounds.

I've always thought this photo was so amazing since it shows his dad's wedding ring on his little wrist like a bracelet.

But here he is now: healthy and strong, and a typical two-year old.

I actually made a different quilt for him originally, but then realized the quilt needed to feature a train since his dad works for the railroad. I started with the train, and it kind of evolved from there. And this was the result:

And except for the lime green minkey on the back, all of the other fabrics came from my stash and scraps.

Poster Child for Make-do Scrappy Quilts

Finish #13 for 2018. And only seven years in the making.

In 2011 I did a block swap for Bonnie Hunter's (Quiltville) Chunky Churn Dash block. I blogged about it here on March 1, 2011. I decided to set it with alternate blocks inspired by a Kim Diehl quilt. I've had the top made (except for the outer piano-key border) since April 2011.

In fact, I had misplaced the top and found it a week or so ago while sorting through a pile in my sewing room.

I decided it needed something more than the two inner borders, and remembered that I had lots of 4 to 5-inch long strip sets from my checkerboard quilt (blogged about here). I only had to make six extra segments and I had enough for the complete outer border. How's that for making do and using up scraps.

Each of the alternate blocks is made from prints that don't appear anywhere else in the blocks. None of the fabrics in the piano keys appear in the center of the quilt (although they are repeated in the border). 

To add to the scrappiness, about 60% of the chunky churn dash blocks came from the block swap and use fabrics I don't have in my stash. 

I estimate that there are between 130 and 150 different fabrics in this quilt! I think that's a record, even for me.

Finish Number 11 for 2018

Last week as I tried to organize my sewing room and fabric stash, I ran across a stack of Jovial Christmas fabric by Basic Grey for Moda. As I took stock of the fabric, I realized I had 15 yards of it! Yikes! I must have had something specific in mind for the fabric, but I don't have any idea what my plans were.

According to the Moda United Notions website, this fabric came out in June 2011, which means it's been waiting to be put into a quilt for nearly seven years!

Since I've never made a Christmas quilt, and I'm focused on using fabrics I already have, it was time to get busy. After looking at Christmas quilts on Pinterest, I found a free pattern called Pinwheels and Patchwork, by Andy Knowlton, at abrightcorner.com. 

In the original pattern, the pinwheel blocks finish at 12 inches, but I decided to make blocks that finish at eight inches instead. Since I have the AccuQuilt die for the triangle-in-a-square unit in the pinwheel block, I made it easy on myself and cut the fabrics with my AccuQuilt Go! Baby rather than buy a Tri-Recs ruler.

This quilt is truly "a quilt in a day". I got it all done (except for the outer borders and quilting) in one day.

I did buy some black Minky for the backing rather than piece the backing. I had plenty of Jovial yardage, but most of it was 1-yard cuts.

I made a small dent in my Jovial fabric, but still have enough fabric for a couple more wall quilts. I'll probably make this same pattern again for a gift, and then use whatever remains for a different Christmas quilt.

I quilted it using a digital design from Wasatch Quilting called Waves and Pearls. Since I loaded the quilt sideways on my frame, the waves quilted out vertically -- a look I quite like for this quilt.

Year-to-date finishes -- 11 quilts and one quilt top

• UFOs: 1 
• Flimsies into quilts: 3 
• Other quilts (started and finished in 2018): 7 (includes three quilts for magazines not blogged about yet)

• Finished quilt tops: 1

Another Quick Stash Buster Quilt

Still on my mission to use my scraps and fabric stash.

I have a huge pile of Woolies Flannels by Maywood Studios and Wool and Needle Flannel by Moda. I've made three quilts using these thick and cushy flannels. As a result, I have plenty of scraps and even decent pieces of yardage left over from backing and borders.

While looking through a Keepsake Quilting catalog, I noticed a quilt designed by Villa Rosa Designs using Woolies Flannels. I decided to draft my own version of the quilt and hopefully make a dent in my flannel scraps. Here's the result:

It's a throw that's about 56 inches by 68 inches. I even had enough flannel in my stash to use for the backing. 

I love it when I'm able to make a quilt from start to finish without having to buy any additional fabric.

I still have a stack of these flannels, so I'll be on the search for another quick design that will be appropriate for these cozy fabrics.

I quilted it using a digital design from Wasatch Quilting called "Square Pegs in Round Holes".

So here's the update on 2018 projects:

Year-to-date finishes -- ten quilts and one quilt top

• UFOs: 1 
• Flimsies into quilts: 3 
• Other quilts (started and finished in 2018): 6 (includes three quilts for magazines not blogged about yet)

I also completed a quilt top for a wedding quilt that I'm not showing yet and needs to be quilted. So I'll add another category to my finishes.

• Finished quilt tops: 1

Oxford Star

I am making my version of a quilt my grandmother made. It is the Texas Star quilt -- a six-pointed star with a hexagon center. I've named it Oxford Star because my grandmother was born and lived her whole life in the town of Oxford, Idaho. This is one of the six quilts she gave to my mother.

Here's my grandma's quilt (made probably in the 1950s). 

She machine pieced the stars and hand quilted the quilt. 

I am making my version using Lollies fabric by Jen Kingwell for Moda. The fabrics I chose have eight prints in the width of fabric that all coordinate with each other and that are separated by the gray stripe. So it looks like I've combined multiple fabrics in each star -- but it is kind of a "cheater cloth". 

Some of the blocks use the same fabrics for all six points:

Some blocks use two fabric selections for the star points:

Like my grandmother, I'm also machine piecing the stars. I've completed 25 of the 46 full star blocks. There will also be six half-size blocks. I will be setting the stars with charcoal gray diamonds. 

Lots of Y-seams, but they have been pretty easy to do. I'll be an expert at them by the time this quilt is done.

My blocks are about an inch smaller than my grandma's stars, but that was because I'm using Perfect Patchwork Templates set H by Marti Michell to cut the hexagons, diamonds, and star points.

Over the past year or so this has been a popular quilt made using English Paper Piecing techniques. You can see a fabulous example at Red Pepper Quilts; her quilt is named Daisy Chain. Her finished stars are a bit smaller than mine.

My goal is to have this quilt finished, quilted, and bound by our family reunion at the beginning of July. 

Quilt Finish: Pinwheels for Caroline

Another long forgotten quilt top is finally quilted and bound. 

I finished the top in June 2011, blogged about it HERE, and am glad to move this from the UFO list to the DONE list. It has 930 pieces to make a quilt that is 51 X 60 inches. It was designed by Lori Smith (From My Heart to Your Hands) and is named Pinwheels for Caroline.

This is a great quilt to use up scraps. I used a variety of methods for making all of the half-square triangle units, depending on the size of my scraps. If I had strips, I used the Easy Angle HST ruler. If I had miscellaneous square scraps, I used triangle paper. You can read about the methods HERE.

Gotta love scrappy quilts! And quilting them with an all-over, edge-to-edge design is the perfect way to complete them. (Good thing, since that's really all I do!)

Enjoy!

My Version of the Gardenvale Quilt

Just finished the top for my version of the Gardenvale quilt...although technically it should be called the Lollies quilt since mine uses Lollies by Jen Kingwell rather than her Gardenvale fabric line.

Unlike the original, I used the new double-wide Dresden plate ruler. So it has only 10 wedges rather than 20 -- which means it was much quicker to make. Just ordered backing, so not quilted yet.

I went to QuiltCon in Savannah. While I was in the Atlanta airport returning home on Monday, I checked Facebook and was excited to see this in my feed:

The quilt on the left is an original design I did for McCall's Quick Quilts for the June/July issue. They are running a contest/survey to decide which quilt to put on the cover. I'm hoping that my cover wins so I can be a "cover girl". After all, I'm already a "calendar girl" when one of my quilts was in the 2015 That Patchwork Place calendar. 

Here are some better photos of the quilt (which I named "Log Chain") but that McCall's Quick Qults named "Wizard's Chess".. 

Spent the day quilting my Pony Express Quilt. I'll do a separate blog post about it -- and explain why it's called "Pony Express Stations".