This is one of those projects that was satisfying to me, if to no one else. I saw a quilt on Pinterest that had orange fabrics against a gray color, and I loved the combination. I had collected a bunch of orange batiks and then I somehow got some clay colored linen, and boom! Making the squares was easy; laying out the squares was tricky, especially when I decided to add a row to the side and the bottom. I found a great batik fabric to use for the binding with all different orange colors in it. The back is a pale peach fleece. It's big, too -- 54" x 72". I might keep this one. This is a baby blanket made from a charm pack of had-to-have fabric, Garden Life by Tilda. The solids were charms from Connecting Threads. I love, love, love the Tilda fabrics. I did find it a bit challenging to come up with good backing and binding fabrics. I used a soft fuzzy fleece in cream for the backing. I had considered using pink but didn't want it to be too girly (like it was girly enough, all florals and soft bright colors). With the binding, not one color I considered went well with everything. The green didn't work with the mint, the blue didn't go with the turquoise, etc. Finally I went with gold, which worked well enough with the front and the back. Next time I will think ahead about binding and backing before jumping in and making the quilt top. Sure I will.
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Okay, the first one has long been waiting for a finish. I credit my Delphi Quilting Forum buddies for pushing us to get old projects finished. I embroidered these blocks as part of the Life of Hazel Ilene blog quilt along. I highly recommend it; the blogger, Shelly Pagliai, shared her mother's diary and provided a window into life during another time. It was not easy deciding how to put these blocks into a quilt, because they are pretty big. I went with this soft pink pattern, and I was going to use a dark gray binding to match the gray in the pattern, but it all looked too blah. Once I added the black and white binding, though, everything came together -- the binding pulled the black and white of the embroidered squares into view. I think it will make a sweet blanket for a little girl. Probably too big for a baby blanket.
The last pic in reds is a blanket I made with fabrics I got from the last time Craftsy shut its doors. I had always wanted to try that pattern where the blocks look like rectangles but the thin borders actually make them squares. Not sure I really captured the effect, but oh well, it's done and out of my system. It's going to Project Linus, too, although I'm not sure it's really right for a kid. Maybe for a kid who likes red! I saw a couple of gorgeous quilts made with this pattern, although mine is a variation. Usually the patterned fabric in the middle runs vertically down the quilt, but I only had a yard and a half of the ombre fabric, so I had to change it up. The blanket is 42" x 50", backed with bright yellow fleece. This is a blanket that will wake you up in the morning -- definitely cheery!
Here is my Irish Chain. It almost feels like I cheated, because I used this very cool ombre fabric, giving me scrappiness without using scraps. I had just enough fabric left to use for binding. I'm not in a hurry to make another one, but this was a satisfying experience. Thanks to my Delphi Forum quilting friends who got this quiltalong going!
On one of my quilting forums (literally, The Quilting Forum, on Delphi), we've started a thread called the 2021 Dirty Dozen List o Shame. We've all listed twelve abandoned projects that we want to finish this year. This thread has really lit a fire under me, and I've finished four of mine, with another close to done. First up is my Anna Maria Horner whole cloth quilt, which is a grand name for something pretty simple. I love her patterns, but whenever I buy her fabric I hold onto it forever and never want to cut into it. I've been trying to avoid that mindset (I feel the same way about Kaffe Fassett). So for this quilt, I bought one yard of backing fabric, 36" x 108". I simply cut it in half and stitched the two pieces together to get 54" x 72", roughly. I then embroidered around all of the big flowers and added the binding. I worked on both of those parts simultaneously, taking turns, so that I wouldn't lose interest in either part and abandon the project again and also to prevent muscle strain in my shoulder. I had never attempted any kind of hand quilting like this so it was a learn as you go type of thing. I used embroidery thread that completely matched the fleece backing, so while you can see the stitches if you look, you won't see them if you don't. Next, I finally finished a baby blanket using some embroidered blocks I did a long time ago. It was my first (and only) attempt at doing reverse embroidery. Unfortunately, I got tired of it so I had more white blocks than red blocks. It took a long time to figure out a layout that would turn these blocks into something useful. I thought it looked a little holiday-ish, but all in all in turned out okay. I'm glad to have it done. My last one for today isn't done yet, but I am showing a pic anyway. I was musing over a pattern on Pinterest that was on the Moda Bakeshop website, except it was no longer there (hate it when that happens). I did some internet sleuthing and finally found the tutorial, but it's not readily available anymore. It was designed by Stephanie Palmer of Late Night Quilter. She used a pink ombre fabric (I was searching for ombre ideas) and came up with one using hearts. Since I had blue fabric, I switched it up and made stars. It was actually kind of fun to figure out how to cut the fabric to make the most of it and to use the most similar shade to use around the star. I accidentally miscut a strip, so I probably could have made a bigger blanket with just a yard of the ombre, but that's okay. I am happy with this, although I'm not sure if I am happy with that checkerboard fabric for a backing.
Sometimes (often) I see a pattern and spend a lot of time thinking about how to recreate it. Honestly, that's probably my favorite part of quilting. Here are two I saw and then made. Turned out to be a bit more time consuming than I anticipated, but it's all good. One went to Project Linus and the other went to a baby soon to arrive. In both cases, I used up a lot of scraps, which makes me happy.
I thought this was a good way to flesh out a panel. I will try this again some day with more variety -- maybe more fabric above and below. I was working with scraps on this one so I was kind of limited. Not gonna lie, I was kinda proud of this one. The fabric came in a bundle of coordinating fat quarters, and I was able to use just about every inch of every piece, plus a scrap of loud orange that didn't go with anything else. It tuned out better than I expected. Sigh, this is the second blanket I made with these colors and cat prints. I love cats, but I do not love these colors and I think I will be done with them for a long time. These two blankets were also made from two fat quarters that were super cute but not enough to make a blanket. I saw this pattern using colors going from dark to light and it looked really cool, so I did it with these fabrics and I ended up liking them. The pink binding and the black binding both have polka dots. I used white Minky for the backings. This pattern is the Santorini Quilt from Alderwood Studio. I took the liberty of adding a little extra above and below to make a rectangular quilt instead of a square. This blanket also used a bunch of coordinating fabrics I inherited. I had been saving them for just the right project, and this was definitely it.
I got on a quilting roll and finished some quilts. Actually, now that I get ready to post a few pics, I think there were a few more that I forgot to mention. Well, that happens, I guess. I like to keep track of quilts I make on my blog so that I can remember them, but I'm okay with having made more quilts than I can recall.
First is a baby blanket (the first of three) that went to Project Linus today. I find I feel compelled to use small floral prints to make simple blankets, and they are often my favorites. I meant to do a simple four patch and got carried away with a design idea, but that happens sometimes. I had to keep these blankets to a maximum width of 36 inches because I had a bolt of white Minky that had been cut to 36 inches to use as backing. I try to keep baby blankets small and then go nuts and make them bigger, so this kept me in line. There's a close-up showing the backing and the pretty floral print. The second blanket is made from a super pretty fabric that I could not envision using in any pattern, so I used it as a sort of whole cloth quilt. I liked it, and I hope it's cheery for some small child. The third I made from a bunch of donated 3.5 inch squares, and I do mean a bunch. The squares that made that blanket barely made a dent in the overall stash of squares. Fortunately I moved the box of squares along to another quilter, so I can move on as well. So this blanket came about through an interesting process. I saw a very cool table runner in Beverlys', a wonderful crafts store that carries brand name quilting fabrics at good prices (a chain in California -- check it out if you get a chance). The table runner used this fabric but in another color way. The lines actually run straight, so the fabric was cut diagonally. That was much more difficult for me than I anticipated. The table runner was very long and narrow, and I wanted to make a blanket, so I opted to use the varied lengths to get the width. My son helped me draw diagonal lines and cut them, which is a whole other story (he said to me, it doesn't matter if it isn't perfectly straight. Hello? This is quilting! It totally matters if it isn't perfectly straight!). Anyway, after taking several steps that did not work at all as planned, I finished it. I was hoping for a beachy feel (hence the sand colored fabric around the border), but I feel like I ended up with a desert kind of feel. Still, good is done, and working with stripes and turning them into diagonals is definitely done! This is a quilt pattern I loved so much I went right out and bought it. Probably could have figured it out myself, but I felt like the designer deserved my money for such a great creation. Check out other quilts HERE. I had a little trouble with the mountains, getting the angles right, so I made two blankets at the same time. The better of the two went as a baby gift to one of my son's professors, and the second went to Project Linus. I had fun hand embroidering the sun rays, as well as white caps in the waves, clouds in the sky, and trees on the mountains. It was an enjoyable project, and my son assures me the blanket was very well received by the professorial parents. Win win.
I managed to hand off three blankets to Project Linus last month. I had a fourth almost done, and do you know, it's still almost done. The first one is not very kid like, but I saw this as an art quilt and I had a hankering to make it. I drew lines to make the diamonds, and everything matched up perfectly (funny how that works). The red plaid flannel on the back worked well, and it was a donation scrap. I love when things like that work out. Next, I made a blanket using a piece of fabric called "Fiestaware." It was definitely older, dated fabric, but I thought it would work well for the pattern I was using, the original of which used different colored squares of fabric sewn together. Using this fabric eliminated a lot of sewing. Honestly, I did not care for this fabric, but it was created by a quilter/designer well-known back in the day, so I felt like I owed it to her to make something with it. I do have a lot left over, but I'm moving that along at the next fabric swap. Even though I keep wanting to use some of my newer fabric, I get waylaid by older fabric. I had these three prints that I wanted to use together for awhile, so I decided to throw them together. I tied them off with buttons, which I know makes people worry in case kids swallow them, but this is for a bigger kid and I decided I was just going to go for it.
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How did I come up with this name for my blog?I will never be recruited into the Quilting Police – I am not a perfectionist when it comes to quilting. I prefer my quilts done (not that I don't have plenty that are only partly done and many many more in the dream stages). I also like to get a deal on fabric, and I like to use up my fabric efficiently. I created this blog to show the method of my madness... Some of my favorite sites:
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