Are you a Straight-Liner?

How do you decide on your quilting pattern? Do you default to a certain method? Maybe you are a stippler, or a straight-liner or even a grid-er.

My default is anything I can do on my machine with a walking foot.

I have to admit, I am intimidated by free-motion quilting. I think that will be my new year’s resolution: learn to free motion quilt and don’t be afraid.

I digress. Here is a mini version of “Hexies-in-a-Hurry” and I decided to embrace its small size and try out some more detailed quilting. As you can see, I am using a concentric hexagon echo pattern. At first, I did each hexagon separately, which means burying the starts and stops of your thread. That was a huge pain in my “you know where.”

So I changed tactics. Think of a snail’s shell. Got it? That kind of spiral has one start and one stop, but it still looks like concentric circles. That is how I approached my hexagon quilting and it sure made the process more enjoyable. And that is what quilting is all about, right? Enjoying your time as you create.

Do you have a favorite quilting method? Why?

Happy Halloween...a little late

We had a great Halloween at the our house.  Early in the day his Mommy and Auntie got a hold of Max and dressed him in a "cutie-pie" pumpkin costume.

However,  my husband felt that his baby needed to be something strong and tough, so his "official" costume was the indredible hulk ;-)

Which costume rules?  You be the judge.

Starla

It's Baby Season! Our good friend's Beth and Ryan are expecting a little girl around Christmas time. It is about time that someone started having girls, because I sure have a lot of cute pink fabrics ;-)

When I heard "its a girl" I thought of this quilt, show above, that I have been working on for ages...see it here. It was my first foray into wonky-star piecing and I had so a blast making each block. It was so much fun that I made about 10 extra blocks that didn't end up fitting into the quilt (more on that later).  

 

Inspired by Ann, I decided that wonky stars would be a great project for practicing my hand quilting. Though I find the sewing really rewarding, hot summers and hand quilting warm quilts just don't mix. That means it has been several months and only 1/3 of my hand quilting is done.

I thought “here is the perfect excuse to get the quilt back out and finish the hand stitching,” Right? Wrong! For three weeks I have been walking by my pink stars and about 10 times a day thinking “I’ll start it tonight.” I bet you can guess how much progress I have made…zip.

That brings me to Plan B (which turned out to be an A+++ idea)

Instead of putting myself under a hand-quilting deadline I turned to my extra blocks.

Voila! Insta-baby quilt. Except a 3x3 quilt with 9" blocks is only about 36" even with the binding. Having a little tyke myself, I know how nice it is getting under that quilt WITH the baby for midnight-nursing. In my opinion, a baby quilt is perfectly sized at 45-50."

There are three ways to make a quilt bigger 1. More Blocks (not going to happen) 2. Sashing 3. Borders. I had a lot of ground to make up (about 10-15" in each direction) so I set out to sash and border my 9 blocks.

I felt a little torn about the borders. Though they frame a quilt nicely, I think they take a little of the modern edge off of a quilt. That said, Beth is a traditionalist, so I think she'll like the more "trady" feel of this little star.

 

While piecing the back with this cozy flannel, I used some of the scrap for a quickie side project: Burpies! This was a matter of measuring the center panel of the cloth and adding a 1/2" seam allowance on each side. Fold each edge under 1/2", press and then top stitch to the cloth. Total time from start to finish: 5 minutes for two burpies.

This is the first time I have machine quilted using a contrasting thread.  Though by no means am I an expert, I am starting to feel a little bit better about the quality of my quilting.  I straight line quilted a grid 1/4" from each of the blocks and then echo quilted around each of the stars. 

Before the quilting, I felt that the stars blended into the light pink background just a little too much.  With the quilting, there is just the right "pop."  The border is a poka-dot with cream, pale-pink and blue dots.

Hope little baby girl loves snuggling with her "Starla" quilt.

Blogger's Quilt Festival

Coloring Outside of the Lines  Originally Blogged Here


This is my entry in the Blogger's Quilt Festival

 

This is my first modern quilt. 
This is my FAVORITE modern quilt. 
This is the quilt that inspired my new passion of creating asymmetrical, non-matching eye-catching quilts. 

With the birth of my son Max, came the unavoidable nesting phase.  Except I had no desire to mop and organize…I just wanted to create.  Build, form, bring together…sewing a baby blanket satisfied my emotional need to MAKE something that matters. 

Inspired by the beautiful work of Denyse Schmidt, I began this quilt dreaming of the little baby who one day snuggle under its colors.  In my mind he would lie peacefully in his crib, sucking his thumb and smiling gratefully at is uber-talented mother while caressing the quilt.


Then reality sunk in.  Max does LOVE his quilt, but not for snuggling.  This baby gets dragged around the kitchen floor...

shared with the dog...

 

 acts as a launch pad for his latest gymnastics...

and is perfect for playing trucks and for chasing the sock monkey.

A Few Friends

 

My best friend is having a birthday bash for her 1 year-old daughter and her 3-year old son. These great kids are like family to me, so I wanted to do something special for them. Most of all, they want to continue swimming lessons at the local pool. So we gave them a couple months of lessons.

But what kid likes opening a gift card? What a downer, to be all excited about your birthday and to get a piece of paper. So...I found this precious pattern for stuffed toys here and got to work.

I'd like to introduce you to Geoffrey the giraffe and Dottie the dachshund…ta-dah!

  

These cuties were a lot of fun to make. My favorite part by far is Geoff’s neck tie. What a great use for this scrap of Katie Jump Rope plaid. Little Dottie is looking sporty with her flea market fancy accents and a scarf made from some fabric I found at a real flea market.

Check out the buttons that hold together the arms and legs (no buttons on Dottie, because her new owner is too young for those small parts).

 This project was a fun change from quilt making, and the little guys just loved them.

Double Rainbow All the Way

Ok, First go and watch this... my husband almost peed his pants when he showed me this video a few months ago, he was laughing so hard.

Now look at what we saw a few weeks ago in our back yard.  Really???

This double rainbow made my month. While standing on our back patio, looking up the hill we could see the complete arch from one side to the other. 

I should mention that I live in San Diego.  It NEVER rains in San Diego, but this October evening we got a true gift.  When was the last time you saw a rainbow?

Tic-Tac-Toe

Whew!  What a busy month.  The good news is that I have been sewing.  The bad news is that I haven't been blogging it as much as I would like.  So now let,s get down to business.

Here is a really fun baby quilt that I made for my neighbor's little boy.  His shower is this weekend, so I got it done just in time.  The nursery is blues and greens with an elephant theme. I couldn't resist adding in those green Japanese elephants.

I'm calling this quilt Tic-Tac-Toe.  I followed Elizabeth's instructions for a crazy nine-patch lattice quilt and used an Ikea grey sheet for the alternating solid blocks.  That part was a little risky in my mind, but I love how it turned out. 

When I was working on the back, I hesitated about adding in the orange fabrics.  It was quite a departure from the greens on the front.  However, when I picked the birdie fabric out of my stash for the border, I was sold.  The green and orange and blue birds tie both the front and back together.  I love how it makes the blue hints on the front pop out even more. 

So baby to be, I hope you like your little Tic-Tac-Toe quilt.