Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Another finished quilt!

Hurray, I finally get to show you my charm pack quilt along quilt!

This was a quilt of firsts for me. It was my first quilt-along, my first quilt out of Eva(Though probably not my last!), and the first time I did this kind of quilting!


Usually I try to go minimalistic on my quilting, because I like a nice soft quilt, but this quilt shouted at me to quilt it just like I did! And it looks SO COOL! And surprisingly, it's still pretty soft, so I'm happy :)


I also decided against giving this one away(or selling it!). I haven't kept a quilt in a while, and I decided that I had to keep this one. And it's a good thing too, because Zoey keeps taking it down to sit on!



Alright, this is now my most favoritest quilt back ever! In fact, I have a quilt TOP very similar to this in my head now!


Amy Butler's Midwest Modern happens to match Eva perfectly, and I had this honeycomb laying around that I knew would be awesome for the back, but I only had a yard. Combine that with my leftover dark charms, and some Eva yardage and you get this! Pictures don't even do it justice.


I went with this dark purple for the binding, mostly because I knew it would look awesome framing the back(and the front...), but also because I had it :) And the little dots on the binding are so cute!




The quilt along had borders on the quilt, which would have looked really good, but I decided against adding them. I didn't want or need to make a bigger quilt. When I started on this, I had just finished my ginourmous bed quilts(that I still need to post, eek!), and was soooo done with big quilts! So, this one is 49"x49", and just right for my toddler to toddle around with :)




Whew! Can't believe I finished 3 quilts all right at the same time! It was fun, but now I'm taking it slower again; that burned me out just a little. don't worry, I have something up on the design wall right now(yeah, I made myself a design wall yesterday!), but it is progressing slowly. Maybe I will share tomorrow ;)

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Finished Coin Quilt

I know I said I was going to post yesterday, but well, I didn't :)
Today I get to show off this lovely quilt! I have had the strips cut out to make this for months and months, and I finally put them together!



I didn't know quite what was going to turn out when I started sewing; all I knew is that I wanted strips of pinks and oranges and strips of blues and greens. Well, that's what I got!



I quilted double lines diagonally, and since I went corner to corner, it made a super cool diamond pattern.



I have made at least 3 quilts out of this line, and I am STILL in love with it! Which is good, cause I still have a stack of fabric...


I had an extra strip of both colorways after completing the top, so I split them and worked them into the back. Choosing the other fabrics to use for backing and binding was super hard! But I love how it turned out.


While I was sewing the binding, Zoey kept pointing out the birds and the flowers :)


And I love the leaf dots fabric for binding, I think it looks so cool!



Overall, this was a super easy, fast, and fun quilt to make! I have listed this one in my shop.

For inquiring minds:
finished size 39"x48"
fabric is Park Slope by Erin McMorris
white fabric is Kona white

Stay tuned for my finished Charm Pack Quilt Along quilt! I will try really hard to get it posted tomorrow :)

Friday, September 24, 2010

Cupcake Power!

In the last month or so, I've had a ton of quilts pop into my head that had to be made. And they have mostly been girly. And in this case, little girly. But I thought hey, I have a few expecting friends right now, at least one of them has to have a girl to gift these quilts to!(Though let's be honest...I would probably end up making one specifically for them...but well, I have to have some justification somewhere!) And in the last month or so, I found out that all those friends are expecting BOYS! And while that is awesome and wonderful, now I need to get my brain to switch gears and think boy!

Anyways, this quilt was one that was beating around in my head and had to be made, and is now done!



I had the cupcake prints, and knew I wanted a bit of randomness around them, so I made a disappearing 9 patch. Love this pattern, it's so fun and easy!


As I basted, I looked at the top, and couldn't figure out HOW to quilt it! I didn't want stitching going through the fun cupcakes, so I decided to outline the squares with stitching. But then what? Luckily my hubs was home for lunch right then, and suggested outlining the rest of the bigger squares. Perfect! Just enough quilting for sturdiness, but not a ton, so this quilt is still super soft!


I went for a pieced back on this one. I'm trying really hard to use what I have instead of going and buying more!! And guess what? This quilt was TOTALLY from stash! Hurray!! I think I will go buy some fabric tomorrow to celebrate :)



Choosing a binding was difficult for this one too. There is just so much going on in this quilt that any color I thought of just seemed wrong! So, I finally settled on this cute little pink flower print. I like it a lot more now that it's done that I did in the beginning!

Finished size ended up at 40"x48". And since I have nobody to gift this to, and I am already keeping one of the THREE quilts I just finished (that's right, 3! Check back Monday to see another one!), I have listed this one in the shop.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

I want you, I need you,

oh baby, oh baby! This little(or big...) stack of fabric makes me drool!!! Why oh why do we have to wait 'til JANUARY for this gorgeousness to come out???



ps- 10 points if you can name the movie my title came from!



Monday, September 20, 2010

I have to remember to title my posts...

So, I have been working on this quilt for a while now, but I couldn't post anything about it until now because the recipient reads this blog!
One of my good friends is having a little boy(hopefully next month, right Kristin? :) ), and her baby shower was on Saturday, where she recieved this!


I went for fun, bright primary colors this time (as you can see...), and most of the prints are from Cosmo Cricket's Snorkel line. Can I say I love this line? It is so fun! 


I quilted vertical lines about 2 1/2" apart in white thread. I wanted more quilting on this one than most I do since I have a feeling this will get used pretty hard :)


The back. Ok, so originally the front was going to be bigger, but once I got the blocks layed out, it looked big enough without this last row. Now it lives on the back! Let me tell you, basting this was a little tricky, since the front and the back were EXACTLY the same width. Lots and lots and lots of pins went into this baby! And guess what? Totally matched up! And didn't shift!


I wrestled with what binding to use on this quilt, and finally settled on Kona Turquoise (partly because it looked good and partly because I had it!)


This one finished at 45"x45". Oh, and the solids are all Kona cottons- cardinal, royal blue, kiwi, and either tangerine or orange...I have both of those shades of orange and now I can't remember which was which!


Now these last two pictures are courtesy of Spencer. He was laughing at me for the crazy setup I have to do to get halfway decent pictures in our apartment and stole the camera to document my madness.



See, it takes a big mirror, my laptop(very important to the setup!), a lamp, and something to prop the lamp on(in this case, my gypsy gripper). Pretty crazy, but hey, you gotta do what you gotta do! And please ignore the disaster area that is my house in the background!

Thursday, September 16, 2010

What do you do...

...when you have 3 quilt tops and backs ready for basting? Start a new quilt, of course!  This one is now ready for piecing, but that will have to wait for tomorrow.


And in my defense, I only have enough batting for one of my other quilts, and I spent the last two days at the DMV(oh joy...), so no time to get over to the store. Oh, and I DID get one of the quilts mostly basted on Monday, just to notice that the backing had shifted...Soooo, that is sitting waiting for me to take the pins back out and haul it to my mom's to get taped to the kitchen floor. Someday I will have a floor big enough to baste my quilts at home. I will, I will!!!

Anyways, that's what's going on around here. Oh, and Grandma, I have these sitting at my house now!! Realized after I made the girly one that I don't think you knew about the second one yet...but it's cute, and it will end up somewhere :)



Monday, September 13, 2010

Finished Pink Squares

I promised to show off something that is actually completed, and I have managed to follow through! You might remember this quilt from my tutorial last month. Well, it's done! My naming skills still need work :)


And guess what? I like it! It is super girly, and bright and happy! I had a beast of a time quilting this little thing though. First, I was going to do a cute free motion flowery pattern, but when I started to try it, I was AWFUL!! So, out came the seam ripper. And then I was going to do my standard all over loopy design; I got a quarter of the way done and looked at the back....the tension was all off! Out came the seam ripper again! At that point, I was so annoyed that I put the quilt to the side for about a week. Then I totally switched gears and straight line quilted it 1/4" away from the block seams and double lines through the center of each block. Success!



Full quilt shot. I added in little scrappy bits occasionally on the blocks. I have been meaning to try this for months, and finally got a chance! Oh, and the block in the bottom right hand corner is my favorite :)


I went with an almost solid orange binding. I really like the way it looks against both the bright pink border (kona bright pink), and the Amy Butler print back.


The back is one solid piece of fabric. Hurray for small quilts!! It was so nice to not have to worry about the backing.

 Ok, so it might be just me, but I think it's funny that the backing print is "martini dots", and it's on a baby quilt. Yeah, I'm weird.


I got to use lots of my favorite fabrics in this one, it's cool to see them in the same place.  The quilt ended up being 35"x44". It was definitely a nice change to make a small quilt! (I just finished TWO 70"x90" quilts...still haven't taken pictures...)



And it's too bad my pregnant friends are all having BOYS, or this could have gone to one of them! But, since I don't know any brand new baby girls, this pretty little quilt is now in the shop.



Friday, September 10, 2010

Today's Project

This is sitting on my table right now. Backing and binding for 3 finished quilt tops. Of course I didn't have any large pieces of suitable fabric for any of them, so they all get to be pieced. But here they are, all cut out and begging to be sewn!


Just have to wait for this one to go to sleep!


I will have some FINISHED stuff to show next week, I promise!

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Here's what I'm working on today! I just have to stack up my rows of blocks, and I will be ready to finish this top during naptime! And then if there's time, I might get my quilt along squares sewn together too :)



Sorry for the wonky picture, you know how it is :)

ps- I have a finished quilt to show off as soon as I can get some decent pictures! I'm having issues with lighting...

Monday, September 6, 2010

Block Play


I was playing with different layouts for my quilt along blocks:


There are just too many choices!!


^ I don't like this one so much, it's kind of boring.



^ I really like this one, it's one of my top contenders




Spencer said to try to make a zig-zag throughout the entire thing, and I got this. And then I looked at the picture I had just taken and laughed, becuase if you look at it the other way, it looks like this:


The first thing I saw was a saguaro cactus. Then I saw a nifty dagger. Then Spencer, the ASU student that he is, said it was a Sun Devil quilt! Yeah, not using this layout...


And finally, this one. I really like this one too! How will I ever decide between all of these?? Any input?