Throwback Thursday - First Quilt

I've seen a few bloggers do this, so I am going to do it too!

When I was pregnant with my (long-awaited) son, I wanted to decorate his room in a woodland theme. I couldn't find bedding that would work, so deluded by pregnancy  hormones, I thought "How hard could it be to make something?"

So I googled easy baby quilt and found a strip quilt that looked simple, got my mom's old sewing machine that is as old as I am, and went off to Joann Fabrics. I wanted orange, blue and green.

I remember being very careful about the measurements of the strips so they were exactly what the tutorial said. Now, 35 quilts later, many of which are improvised or figured out as I go along, that makes me smile.

I straight line quilted it with my regular sewing machine foot, and did the binding that way, too. It took me several hours to finish over a few days.

It lives in my son's room still - more than three years after I made it. He has never really slept with it, but he carries it around sometimes, and uses it to play with. I am sometimes tempted to grab it and "fix" it, but I won't.

I do want to do a better photo shoot, though-- I took this right after I finished it.

New scrap-busting works in progress

I am not helping my UFO situation! One of my favorite things to do is combine fabrics and when I had a cute boy print left over from backing my Riley Blake quilt from February, I quickly realized it would look great with some bright yellows, oranges and reds from my scrap stash, with a few cool tones mixed in.

So I started cutting the scraps into 5 inch squares and here's where I am:

I think I'm going to take out the navy blocks and replace them with a lighter blue. I'm going to use a light gray for the sashing assuming I have enough left of the Moda Zen gray I used for a recent quilt. If not, I have a pale yellow that will work. 

In the process of mining my scraps, I found a piece of a cute cream, teal, yellow, green and blue dinosaur print and decided to cut coordinating charm squares for it:

I took these pictures late at night. I'll use a natural/cream sashing for this one. I have a ton in my stash. I also decided to pull a couple of prints from my swap bag because the colors worked and I'll use those for a pieced backing. 

I have made this pattern before--it's easy and fun and is using up scraps!

The hazard of having a boy is that I buy cute boy fabric whenever I see it and so I'm going to have about 5 stashed boy quilts on hand for baby gifts or to give to charity.

Riley Blake Modern Quilt Guild Challenge Quilt - 2014 Finish #2

The nice folks at Riley Blake fabrics set up a challenge with the Modern Quilt Guild. Rules were to use the fabrics given to you to make something quilted. You didn't need to use all of the fabrics, and you could add solids or Riley Blake prints.

So I started with a lot of fabrics that weren't necessarily what I would have chosen, but that's why they called it a challenge! I loved each of them individually, but together I was scratching my head. I know I didn't have to use them all together, but after seeing some great projects online, I decided to go for it.

When I hear Riley Blake Fabrics, I think chevrons, as their line of chevrons is extensive. I also have wanted to make a chevron quilt, but haven't tried it out yet. So the solution was obvious! I didn't have enough to make full rows, so I decided to stagger them for a fun look. I did order more of the charcoal solid to use as the background. I have recently moved away from using white as my backgrounds and four out of the last five quilts I've made have had colored backgrounds.

I ended up leaving this too late, and didn't have time (or extra fabric) to match patterns very well, so the stripes and chevrons aren't matchy. I also knew by the point I was finishing that I was not going to be a contender for the challenge, so I picked up my backing and binding fabric from JoAnn instead of ordering Riley Blake fabrics online and having to pay for shipping. I love the print I bought for the backing -- it makes this perfect for a little boy and the colors matched perfectly with the Riley Blake fabrics. The binding is a Denyse Schmidt for JoAnn bias print plaid and it's gorgeous and makes beautiful binding. It's fifth from the bottom in this picture.

I think I will hold onto this for the next boy baby who comes along and needs a quilt.

Linked to Finish It Up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts.

Work in Progress - February 19

I am working on a quilt "commission." I put that in quotes because my aunt requested it for my cousin Ian. She asked for robin's egg blue, yellow and brown. Trying to remain true to my fabric fast, I shopped my stash first, and was happy to find about a yard of a pretty blue, some brown left over from another project, and an assortment of blue and yellow squares from my scrap stash (I did cut a couple from yardage). I also was grateful to receive some yellow squares from some guild mates and quilting friends for my rainbow quilt, and the extra were perfect for this.

I am trying to be better about documenting my "process," so here are some pictures!

Here are the blocks as I was laying them out. I still needed to cut more blue strips for between the brown blocks on the bottom, and to measure for the brown side pieces for the brown rows. I think I also moved a few blocks around to balance the colors.

Laying out the rows.

While sewing rows together. I sew in our guest room, so the guest bed is an integral part of the process.You can see a few old quilts piled up in the background. I'm trying to figure out what to do with some of them -- it might be time for a big Project Linus donation.

Finished quilt top (and a nice view of my son's play toolbench)! I need to find a good backing fabric for this - I have a brown wood grain in mind that will make a nice binding. This was a pretty fast finish. It's based on the Chain Linked pattern by Amy Smart at Diary of a Quilter, but I kind of figured out the proportions on my own.

As I mentioned, this is for my cousin, so I will be trying to finish it up soon to get it shipped out to Ohio for him.

Linked up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced and Sew Fresh Quilts Let's Bee Social and to Fabric Frenzy Friday.

Back to the blog

I skipped a few weeks after getting sick and then busy with work. Sorry!

It has been really snowy here:

I took today off as a fun day and spent basically the whole day sewing! 

I quilted my Riley Blake challenge quilt and a layer cake baby quilt, and sewed together a wonky star baby quilt and pieced 23 framed squares for a chain-link quilt. 

I hope I can bind the two quilts and sew together the blocks over the rest of the weekend!

Linked up to:

Quilt finish #2 from 2011

This is the second quilt I ever made and I finished it in early 2011. I made it for my son

I followed this tutorial: http://www.cluckclucksew.com/2009/12/raw-edge-circle-quilt-tutorial.html?m=1

I was clearly a novice and hadn't accumulated a ton of scraps yet, but I actually like this still. It's small--about 30x30, maybe, but it was perfect for a stroller/car seat blanket.

There were a lot of things I tried with this--self binding, mitered corners on the borders in the backing and raw-edge appliqué. I used a double layer of batting to make it puffier and it has held up really well.

We still use this as a car blanket for my son and he definitely knows it's his quilt, made by Mommy :-)

Feeling a little blue

My quilt guild is doing a show at a local gallery. I submitted three quilts, all of which have absorbed a lot of time and energy, and none was chosen.

I knew two of them weren't likely to get picked because they're not really "artistic," just made with meaning to me. The third I thought might fit the aesthetic of the show, but I'm not willing to sell it--it was made for a friend going through a rough time. So since it's a gallery show and the gallery is making money off the sales, I doubt they'd waste space on something not for sale.

Still, I guess I wanted that external validation from the quilting community. My friends, who aren't quilters, say nice things about my creations, and I value that feedback. But getting kudos from those who understand the time and thought poured into what is really just a bunch of cut-up fabric sewed back together again is something else. 

Oh well, maybe next time.

And in the meantime I'll have virtual quilt shows here on this blog.