Kawaii Kitten

My daughter loves to draw.  It's a normal part of her every day.  When she showed me this simple kitten it just made sense to make it into a wall hanging.

We started by scanning and blowing up her original sketch.  The Small One chose fabric and I went to town using a combination of reverse applique and whole-cloth applique

After the major details were down my daughter drew all the smaller features back onto the face and I followed her lines with thread.

I like using a darning foot with a zig zag stitch while stitching left to right to make thick lines easily.

We are both very pleased with the result.

I'm linking up with Confessions of a Fabric Addict and Busy Hands Quilts

The Husband's Space Shuttle

Many years ago, after I made the Day Lilies, I said "never again" to complicated paper piecing.  Then my husband saw me browsing a Quilts with Style magazine and asked me to make him the shuttle he saw.  

How am I supposed to say no to that??

So I started the poor shuttle in 2014 and finally finished it last week. 

I chose to double the size of the pattern (it finishes at 48 x 48 now) so that I wouldn't be dealing with tiny bitty little pieces.

It hangs opposite his desk.

I'm linking with Finished or Not Friday and Crazy Mom Quilts

River in the Sky

A friend happened to be at my house while I was sandwiching this quilt.  She helpfully said "This looks like a river in the sky" and thus, the quilt has a better name than Blue Squirrel.

The same helpful quilt namer also suggested the quilt patterns.

This is a finish for #2017FAL - My original post is here.
This is also a finish for One Monthly Goal, my original post is here.

I'm linking up with One Monthly Goal, Crazy Mom Quilts and Finish-A-Long

Welcome to the Geek Side

Finally, a finish!  This has been something I've been working on mentally for a while, figuring out the logistics of it without having to piece or use loads of fusible or applique by hand. 

I had practice doing this quilt on another project that I can't post quite yet.  It involves lots of starch and a prepared sandwich.

First I quilted the entire sandwich.  With Star Wars quotes, don'tcha know?  I cut out pieces, folded them under a quarter inch (sometimes using a fabric glue stick) and ironed them to give me a nice crisp edge.

Then the applique pieces were layout on top, pinned ruthlessly and quilted to the sandwich using both a darning foot and a walking foot (depending on piece size).  Some of the more complicated bits were sewn together first (like the grey eye) and then sewing onto the quilt.

As the newest Star Wars movie just happened to come out, it was easy to find flannel backing that continued the geek theme.  Really, though - I would have preferred something "A New Hope" themed.  Ah well.

Little Boy Blue

This quilt was made as part of a Craftsy.com class on modern quilting.  The quilt is about 40 x 50.

The top came together quickly and was put away as I pondered quilting possibilities.  When I settled on what I wanted to do, I put the quilt away for even longer because I knew I wouldn't particularly enjoy making said design.  I'm not huge on marking . . .

I'm so glad I finally did it though.  I'm very pleased with how it turned out.  Negative space is really beginning to grow on me as is quilting with a walking foot.  There is a Craftsy class on dot to dot quilting that I think I should take next.

I'm Blue

Pattern:  Jelly Roll Race

Size:  Queen - This size doesn't work naturally for the Jelly Roll Race pattern so I used these instructions to get it right.

Reason:  My husband asked me to make a quilt for a friend's birthday.  

Thoughts:  I used a new quilt pattern.  Paisley  It was very enjoyable to stitch.  I loved the patterns the built up thread made.  So pretty!!  Must do again.

The quilt was named named for a silly song that the recipient likes.

Fabrics:  I scrounged the city for the right colours.  MCC, Marshall's, my stash and Fabricland all figured in.  I got some really good deals.

The Eighties Called

Size:  46 x 54

Reason:  This is a quilt that I pieced together from blocks borrowed from MCC back in 2014.  I couldn't understand the layout of the blocks the original piecer was intending so many were ripped apart and resewn so that I could create something that made sense to me.

The lighter blue and the pink sashings were included with the project when it was first donated.

Fabric:  My MIL gave me a gorgeous cream sheet a while ago.  It was perfect for the back of this quilt. The leftover bits made the back fun.  The binding was bought for another project but ended up not working.  I'm pleased that it fits in so well here.

Thoughts:  I'm glad this is done.  I'm not a fan of pink and blue.  It's time to give the eighties back its colour scheme.  Other have told me they really like it so clearly it's not as bad as I think it is.

Mostly I quilted this from the back.  I wanted to mark the lines.  They showed better on the cream.  I put on my big girl panties and used a dark coloured thread that *gasp* shows.  Mistakes show up must faster when using contrasting thread.

Back to MCC it goes.  I'm not sure but this might be the last UFO that I borrowed from MCC.  I should ask for more.

Wonky Crosses

Date:  January - April 2015

Pattern:  www.craftsy.com  Inspired Modern Quilts

Reason:  I love modern quilts.  I wanted to know more about their construction, thus the course.

Best Buys / Special Fabrics:  All from my scrap drawers. 

Lessons Learned:  It is better to trim down a little more and create a bit of waste than to have a finished cross that is too small!!

Thoughts:  The husband asked me to finish this one for the baby of a friend of his.  I think I need to make another.  It was fun.

Zen for Dad

Date:  May 2012 - March 2013

Pattern:  McCalls Quick Quilts March 2008 (severely modified)

Reason:  I liked the pattern and I wanted to use some blocks Grandma gave me.

Special Fabrics / Best Buys:  Many of the blocks including the 4 in the centre were given to me by Grandma.  My Aunt who works at a fabric store let me know when the perfect navy came in to the store.

Thoughts:  Gave to Dad for his 60th birthday.  I hand quilted this one.  It's been a really long time since I've done that.

Scrappy Lattice Garden

Date: 2011 - Feb 2014

Pattern:

Size:  86 x 86

Reason:  My Grandmother has given me hundreds of HSTs.  I'm always looking for good HST patterns.

Fabrics:  Half the HSTs are from my grandmother, the other half from my scraps.  The sashings are from fabric a friend gave me. 

Lessons Learned:  Hand stitching through batik is painful.  Just FYI

Thoughts:  My sister's MIL wanted practice tops to break in her new long arm.  I wish I had had more tops available for her when she asked :)

This quilt is on my bed.  It makes me so happy.  Who knew I love scrappy quilts so much . . .

PCC 1 of 6

Date:  January 2014

Reason:  6 baby quilts in January for the Pregnancy Care Centre

Fabrics:  A pillow case my grandmother made for me was picked apart and repurposed.  My sister gave the me fleece which I used on the back.  The binding was from two binding scraps that friends gave to me.

Thoughts:  This was both quilted in free motion and with a walking foot.  I tried to use different patterns of free motion quilting for each piece of the centre panel.

Fleece causes great amounts of excess fluff when cut.  Yay for a lint roller.

Craftsy BOM 2012

Date:  June 2013

Inspiration:  www.craftsy.com  - I found their 2012 Block of the Month and loved it from the first month.  I did the whole top in two weeks.

Fabrics:  This was all done with scrap.  My drawers do not look any less empty.

Thoughts:  I gave this to my Mum for her birthday

Nancy Pauls in Manitoba quilted it for me.

I should have done it on point - it would have looked so much more interesting.  I am considering doing another just to see what it would look like.

Easy Placemats

This was my prototype.

Then I had some fun.

Start with strips of fabric that are about 4½" x 11½".  They're placemats.  The size isn't critical.  Sew the strips together with a quarter inch seam.

Cut backing fabric to be slightly larger than the front.  That'll make it maybe 18 x 12 or so.

Cut binding and bias strips.  The bias strips should be approximately 1¼" wide.  You'll need a strip about 40" wide (the length of your fabric) for one placemat.  I cut my binding at 2½"  Each placemat used about a 60" long strip.

Piece your binding strips together and iron them in half.  Create bias tape by ironing your edges under.

Fast bias - just pull it under your iron.

Lay your backing fabric pretty side down and smooth out.

Layer fill and your topside down, smoothing everything out.

Pin your bias down.  Do straight lines, curvy, whatever, but try to keep the bias over your seam lines.

Choose a stitch and sew down your bias.  The beauty of this project is - you just quilted it too!

Square up the mat.

If you plan to hand bind the mats, go ahead and attach your binding on the front as usual.  Because I'm going to machine stitch mine down, I'm going to attach it from the back so the pretty stitching is perfect on the front.

Voila.  I did my placemats individually when I had minutes and found they took about 35 minutes each.  If you had the time to do each step once for the entire quantity of mats you need, I bet the time per each would be cut down substantially.

  

Polar Fleece for Streets Alive

Date:  November 2012

Reason:  I found some forgotten about polar fleece that would be easy to get out of my house by making it into a quilt!

Thoughts:  This quilt will be donated to Streets Alive.

Baby Blue

Date:  April 2012

Fabrics:  Ann gave me some extra blocks that were already sewed into 4-patches.  The blues were from my scraps.

Thoughts:  This is the first quilt I ever tied to machine quilt and I am so excited by it.  For a first attempt, I was completely stoked.  I knew I'd be doing it again!

This went to Christian, a baby at our church.

Bunkhouse on Point

Date:  December 2010

Reason:  Mum and Dad painted their bunkhouse and made it so pretty inside.  I wanted to contribute to it so I made this for them for Christmas.  I chose these colours to match the bedding.

Best deals:  This was made entirely from scraps.  My friend Gloria gave me a bag of leftovers.  The border is from that bag.

Thoughts:  I didn't use a pattern for this and it was the first time I did anything "on point" it's far from perfect.

I started making 6½" squares when my scrap drawers got too full.  I also used blocks like this in The Colour Garden.

It was a ton of fun to use blue and yellow DMC floss to stitch around the seams.  I tried my best to use a different stitch for every line.  It was very challenging and required some research.

Mother thought this was too nice to put in the bunkhouse :)