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.

Teddy Bear-topia

This quilt was designed by my seven year old daughter.  She just assumes that whatever she dreams up I can do (insert super hero costume here).  The very first bit of piecing was a Curved Seam.  I've had very poor success with curved seams so to keep my sanity with this one, I cut the curve from the blue, ironed it under a ¼ inch and used a decorative stitch to sew it to the green.  Then I trimmed away extra green from the seam allowance under the blue.  It worked for me, but I doubt that's how they teach it :)

We used a graphics program to draw the bear then print it, cut it out and piece it back together.  The paper pieces served as our templates.

Note to self:  My background brown was not a whole lot larger than the lighter brown going on top of it - sometimes my satin stitches on the top and bottom layers overlapped.  Either design the background bigger or the foreground smaller. 

I didn't use a iron-on bond product for the larger pieces when I attached them to the background, but I did use interfacing - for the most part that went really well.  The smaller things such as eyes were glued on before they were stitched.

I used interfacing

Another note to self:  Cut background to size AFTER the applique has been sewn on.

Also - tractors are never green in my family's world.  Just sayin'

My daughter also picked all the fabrics and all the thread.  The red inner border was the last thing she picked.  I think it's fantastic.

The Small One also had me do trapunto.  She doesn't even know what that is, but the bear and the clouds have extra layers of fill - the belly has an extra layer again.  I used YouTube videos to teach me the ins and outs.

The whole reason for this quilt was the tie - here it is - the last piece of the puzzle.  Her cousin is due in September.  I hope s/he enjoys the teddy bear.

Date:  May / June 2014

Size:  36 x 40ish

Fabrics / Best Buys:  All these fabrics were from my stash.  The four patches were made from a Hoffman Bali Snap that I was given for Christmas.

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.

Tipsy Topsy

Date:  July 2012

Reason:  I needed a test quilt for new fill I am trying out.  A baby-sized quilt seemed the way to go.  Also, I saw Leah Day's modern quilt technique and thought it would be fun to put a "twist" on these traditional 4-patches (haha).

Special Fabrics:  Five of the blocks are from dozens and dozens that my grandmother has given me over the years.

Lessons Learned:  Finally, I think it's been established WHY I had such wavy edges.  Leah cautioned against putting too much strain on the edges and I've realized that I practically play tug-of-war to bind my quilts because I'm so close to done I can taste it.  When you add the fact that two of my waviest quilts had double machine sewn bindings, it's no wonder they looked rippled.

Tipsy Topsy looks much better.  Thanks so much, Leah!

Thoughts:  Although I didn't do the fabulous quilting method that Leah is teaching for this quilt, I definitely want to try it out because it looks amazing.

I'm already getting bored of the straight stipple so I need to think about how I can incorporate an all over quilt method to enhance the blocks, not just stitch over them randomly.

Also, I think a larger stipple would have looked better on this quilt.

Thank You Table Runner

Date:  December 2008

Pattern:  This was adapted from Australian Country Threads Pg 42 - 1st Edition Collector's Edition.

Reason:  A thank you gift for being care group leaders for five years.  They were dairy farmers so I knew a cow theme was in order.

Lessons Learned:  Stuff cut on the bias is stretchy.  My Aunt taught me some triangle logic.

Thoughts:  A class in triangles would be a good thing.  Learning how to keep a decent deadline:  Also a good thing.  This took almost two years to complete.

Pink Baby

Date:  June 2012

Size:  30 x 30

Reason:  I took some pretty pinks from the blocks my grandma gave me because I knew they would make a cute baby quilt.

Fabrics:  Scraps from my stash, my grandma's blocks and a baby blanket of my daughter's.

Lessons:  My machine quilting is getting better!  Although I'm not doing Leah Day's tutorials per se, most of my quilting information comes from her blog:  http://freemotionquilting.blogspot.com.  She has oodles of videos.  My opinion of machine quilting went from "pshh, not happening" when I saw her first video to "I could try it once" to "wheeeeee" after my first quilt.

On the half square triangle centre, I did a loopy style of stippling to hopefully emulate the flight of the butterflies that are appliqued in the centre.

Thoughts:  I still need to learn what I am doing wrong or how to fix my wavy edges.  Is it a quilting issue?  Am I a bad measurer?  Do I need to square my quilts better?  Probably it's all of the above.

I used a baby blanket we no longer needed.  I kept the 'satin' binding from the blanket to use on the quilt.

I traded this to a co-worker for some NuCerity.

Dominic in the Dell

Date:  May 2012

Reason:  I have collected a lot of eye spy fabrics.  I wanted to put a little boy's quilt together.  I was also secretly hoping it would tickle the fancy of my friend who has a little boy.

Fabric:  I've been collecting fabrics from so many sources for so long.  Many of them have been precut to 4" squares for ease of use later on.

Lessons:   This is only the second piece that I've machine quilted using a darning foot.  I need to remember to keep the needle in the down position when shifting the quilt and to hold the quilt firmly in place when starting again to make sure it doesn't move.  There are a lot of little jaggedy lines that I'm sure will go away with practice!

Thoughts:  I love machine quilting!!  Must do more!!