A Finish--Shocking but True!

Well, finally I am finished with my heart quilt. I refuse to go back in my blog and see when I started it. It underwent many changes as I worked on it, going from a rail fence to a heart, then a heart with a red center. I also did my first long-arming on this quilt. Had to rip some out because I had railroad tracks on the back, then do my own FMQ on my domestic machine. I think it looks fine after washing though. So, I guess you can say this is my first true, not practice, FMQ.

Today was the first sunny day in awhile, but a cold, cold wind was blowing as we took these photos.

Tallulah came over to investigate...actually to see Yud who is just to the left of this photo, but I couldn't resist including this photo even though the wind was really not helping me with my photo. If you ever meet my husband, don't tell him you saw his bald spot. He is trying to pretend it doesn't exist.

In this photo of the back, you can really see how the wind was blowing and more of the bald spot. :-)

Mondrian Riff Mini-Quilt Tutorial

I am not quite sure this is a tutorial. I think it is more of a "this is how I did it" explanation. If you have questions, just let me know.

This is an easy quilt, so beginners who know how to rotary cut and sew 1/4" seams will have no problems with this quilt, especially if you like to stitch in the ditch. If you do not know how to stitch in the ditch, check out this video from Quilty with Mary Fons. Of course, depending upon your color selection and patience with burying threads, you might choose to do another type of stitching when you are ready to quilt your pieced top.

I used a design-as-you go approach for this design, starting with color selection - bright, bold solid colors. I went with red, yellow, orange, blue, and green to begin.

Use your design wall or a dining room table and start by laying out two1.5 inch black strips. Size doesn't matter at this stage. Choose something bigger than your expected finished quilt top. I chose strips that were  1.5 x. 27.5 and 1.5 x 43.

I like asymmetrical, so started with the off-center cross below. My design wall is just a cheap plastic table cloth turned backwards and tacked to my sewing/office room wall so that the flannel backing is on top.

Now just start cutting your fabrics. I tend to choose 5", 4", and 2.5" strips because I can easily use the leftovers in other projects. When I get to a random spot that needs color, I measure the area I need filled and cut a strip to match.

 I also pull strips off the design wall and use them to measure for cutting too. This is where design-as-you-go really comes into its own. By putting the blue rectangle on top of the green I wanted to add, it was easy to see know where to cut the green.

Once I add a few pieces, I back up, take a photo and decide if I like the pattern or if I need to change something.

For me, this is too square and does not have any white. I may need another black strip somewhere too. So off to cut some white strips/blocks and we will see what we have. I think I am going to build this "sideways" and then turn it later. I am going to add more rows/strips to the left of the long vertical black strip.

Still a little square, but more white. I also do not like the white strips that are parallel to each other in the same locations.

This is the rectangle I am looking for, so I am pleased with that. I have one more piece to add in (see the design wall peaking through under the lavender). I think I want another red piece or even a random different color. If I go red, I am probably going to have to move a few pieces around to make that work.

Notice that I do not care about the uneven ends. They will be easy to even up with I am finished sewing the sections - the areas between the black strips - together.

Piecing is easy. Just section off the areas around the black stripes and use a 1/4" seam. Once you have a set either horizontally or vertically completed, you can begin to add in the black stripes. On this mini-quilt, I added the strips horizontally first, then cut so that I could add the longer vertical strip.

I just used gray on the back (Kona Pewter) and used straight line quilting to quilt. Quilting is still my weakest area. My goal for 2015 is to improve my quilting and become less afraid of FMQ.

Because I was in a rush to finish my Secret Santa gift (and this was it), I have no photos of the back of the quilt. I do have one with the binding. I used a 2.5" black double fold binding and machine stitched it. For machine stitching, stitch the binding to the back first, then fold over and iron and stitch close to the edge on the front. 

The only finished photo I have is from our guild Secret Santa swap and is not great, but at least you can see it with binding and after washing/drying. Using color catchers in the wash meant I had no problems with the bright colors bleeding at all!

If you look back at the design I decided would work, you will see that this is different. I also think I have the colors of the Irish/Ivory Coast flags in the top right corner. 

Mondrian Riff Mini-Quilt/Wall Hanging

So, if you know Piet Mondrian's work (above) and you quilt, you have likely had the same idea - ohhh, I could make a quilt like that. This weekend, after thinking about it for awhile, I decided to give it a try. Below is my first attempt. 

I chose colors and then created the design on my design wall (a reversed plastic table cloth). I like it a lot, but learned one VERY important lesson. Do NOT, I repeat do NOT steam press a light-colored square without first removing all the black thread remnants. I do not pre-wash my fabrics and the black just melded with the yellow in one tiny, irritating spot. ARRGGHHH!!

I was making this as a Christmas swap gift, so back to the drawing board. The tiny black dot that would not bother me if I were making this for myself is just too irksome as a swap gift.

I am making a tutorial for my next Mondrian. Stay tuned.

Heart Quilt Photo

So here is the front of the heart quilt finally pieced. I have to say that it was sort of a pain to make the seams match, but at least after all of this I am getting better at it. The last three long rows I had to glue AND pin. The blue squares are from a chain-pieced jelly roll. I was going to just make a random square quilt of the blues in 10-inch squares, but my husband said it was "not the best quilt you have ever made," so I changed to the heart, which I like much better. This is a gift for friends who recently got married. I'm late with my gift - per norm if it is a quilt.

I pieced it in squares and then sewed the squares together. The final seams were the long vertical ones - with pinning and glue basting. Took me awhile to match seams.

Here is Jaspyrr who watched the entire photo shoot with absolute distain! Love my Jaspyrr. Yes, we know the deck needs to be stained again. It is just too hot to do it right now.

Quilted Cat Pads

While I realize it may be a little strange to title a post "quilted cat pads," I have made a cat pad with leftover cutouts from another project. I made the cat pad because one of my cats, Willow, loves to sit with me while I quilt. The problem is that she sits ON whatever it is I am quilting. If you know anything about cats, you will see that Willow is NOT happy about me nudging her off the quilt.

Talk about tiny stitches when you are trying to quilt with an 11-pound cat on your quilt. Because she is normally a very sweet cat, I decided to make her a cat pad. It had to be quilted because she only sits on the quilted parts--a picky cat.

At first, she didn't seem that enthused about her own quilt, but seems to have warmed up to it. I will really see if it is going to work when I quilt another largish quilt on my machine and stretch it out across the table.  Below are two photos, unfortunately on a cloudy day, of the cat pad--based on monochromatic napkins designed by Rachel of Stitched on Color for her color theory class. I learned a lot in that class! I love these colors and have to get back to my LQS to buy some more fabric before it is gone. Once I buy more, I will post the fabric information.

Jaspyrr just totally ignored the quilt, so it is a good thing I didn't make him one! Please ignore the weeds in the photo. I really have to get out there and plant some catnip or something prettier.

Tallulah, on the other hand, wanted to make the quilt her own. I guess she gets the next quilted cat pad.

Modern Quilt 2

Finished up my second "modern" quilt on Friday. The quotes around modern are because I ended up adding borders to make the quilt a little bigger. Elizabeth Hartman in her Inspired Modern Quilting class on Craftsy said that modern quilts often don't have borders, so .... I have failed.

The colors are BRIGHT, but I really liked the bold pink fabric with glasses because my brother and his wife like an afternoon cocktail. It just seemed right. The orange border, also a little strange, worked because my brother is a big UT fan. Go Big Orange!

As you can also see, I got lazy with my applique and quilted right over it. Please don't judge! This was a Christmas present and here it is the end of January. I do like the applique I found and made from a Google image file. A little creativity on my part I thought...really caught my brother and sister-in-law. Drinking and golfing, what a life!!

 

You can also see that while I have gotten better with machine binding, my corners are still a mess! I miss the edge, and my mitered corners are puckered. I swear to you on my grandmother's grave that I took my time and used my thread ripper to try to keep the fabric in place and even PINNED! This from a woman who hates to pin. Still a mess. I am getting better, but I have a long, long way to go.

Hoot, Hoot: An Owl Quilt

The pattern is from a 2013 special issue from Better Homes and Gardens --  makeitModern. Great patterns in the book, but I don't think it is in stores now. I did find a copy online if you are interested.

For my quilt, I chose different colors because I "sort of" never like to do exactly what is in a pattern. I love the colors in this quilt and how the ovals look a little like feathers on the owl's wings. If you look closely at the wings, you will see that I didn't cut properly, but this is not a show quilt, but one made with love for a little 3-year old girl. I'm pretty sure that show quilts are NOT in my future.

Getting better at appliqué, but my corners are NOT good and I still stray a little too far from the edges on occasion, but I am getting better. I also forgot to mention that I was sooo careful to make sure the bottom edge, which was supposed to be the wider edge, was in place, then STILL appliqued topsy-turvy--though I guess if I hadn't told you that, you wouldn't know it. Still get slightly irritated at myself when I look at it. I am consoling myself with the thought that the windowsill is low enough for a little girl to lean out and look for real owls. I know that makes no sense, but it is what it is.

Still have about 9,750 hours to reach the magic 10,000 hour expert status. 

Scattered Squares

After being snowed in DC for an extra two days, I am seriously behind on my Christmas presents. I managed to get three rows of my scattered squares quilt done before work, but that was it. Curses!

However, that is not going to be enough! I like the pattern, but in the photo notice that my green element is definitely not a huge part of the top three rows. Hmmm...I used my design wall to set it up. Thank you for the tips from the Craftsy class (Inspired Modern Quilts) on using a vinyl tablecloth with a cotton backing! I will get better, but for now, I am happy.