Charmed to Pieces

I finished this quilt last Summer and never got around to photographing it and adding it to my completed quilts list over on the sidebar.  It’s one of my all-time favorites though! 





I wrote a short post about the back of the quilt way back in July of 2010, and I talked a little about how this was designed, but I never showed the completed quilt.  I had (and still HAVE) intentions of writing it up as a tutorial.  It was fairly simple, and quick to piece together.  It uses two charm packs (hence the name of the quilt) and some 2.5” strips of solid white. 





See the shoes?  Ya, that’s me.  I had my 10 year old take these photos while I held up the quilt (my favorite quilt-holder is still at work.) 

The finished quilt measures 60” x 67”  (that’s after washing and drying)

So why is this one of my favorite quilts?  Several reasons.  First of all, it was the first time I ever did anything somewhat creative with a charm pack. Secondly, I tried a new machine quilting design for the first time on this quilt:




Can you see the little flower?  Not perfect, but I loved doing something other than the usual meandering quilting.  Among the flowers I did do some meandering and I added some small loops here and there as well.  Love the result.  See – it pays to be brave and try new things!


The third reason I love this quilt is the back.  Once I got the quilt top completed, I went back and forth between a few ideas for the back.




In the end I settled on these 12.5” squares.  I really do consider this quilt to be reversible.  I use the “back” as the “front” about 50% of the time. 

There you have it – the completed “Charmed to Pieces" --  Now back to writing this:

Boy is this one taking me a LONG time!

also linking to Fabric Tuesday at Quilt Story and WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced

Now and Later

I was doing some blog-cleaning and realized that this little quilt never made an appearance here.  I’m calling it “Now and Later” because I first used the fabrics on this  zig-zag quilt and then later they became part of this square-in-square quilt. 





The quilt measures 34” x 34” which is the size I love for baby quilts.  Sometimes quilts get too big and bulky to actually use with a baby – they drag all over the place and are just too big to fold up and take with you. 


The quilting for this quilt is all straight-line quilting.  I love the look of it, but it’s not my favorite thing to actually DO.   





I do love how the quilting creates a secondary pattern on the back!





Now and Later is in the shop!   (quilt has been sold)




linking up:

Map of the States

This quilt has been finished (and in use) for quite some time, but I never did write a post about it.  (I did show two photos of the unquilted top here.)


Many moons (okay about a year) ago I was a member of the A Piece of Work quilting bee.  For my month I chose to do a quilt using the Map of the States block tutorial written by Elizabeth - who blogs over at Oh Fransson.  (Cool blog.  You should go and visit.)






I loved the look of the greens and grays that she chose to use in the tutorial.  I went a similar route, but also added a bit of orange just to keep things interesting. (Aren’t I edgy?)






I asked the group members to make me any size of block, rectangle or square, and then frame them in a thin black strip.  After I received the blocks I sashed them all with some Kona Ash.


For the backing I used this gorgeous green and gray print from Kate Spain.  I believe it is from her Verna line.


 



The quilt is quilted in your basic meandering pattern.  I thought about doing some straight line quilting, but I felt that all of the angular lines of the blocks needed some softening.  I love the end result.  You know, it never ceases to amaze me what the quilting step of quilt construction can do for the overall look of a quilt. 


Binding can also have an impact and it does in this quilt.  For some of my projects I prefer to have the binding visually melt into the quilt top.  For this one, I wanted a nice black frame for my quilt – to compete with the frames that are around each block.  The fabric I used for the binding is from the Haunted Mansion line by Sanae.





The finished quilt measures 58” x 67”  and it is currently folded over the back of my favorite reading chair.  A big thank you goes out to all of the women of the APOWA Bee that helped create one of my favorite quilts!

Nerdy Inspiration

A few months ago I found this cute dinosaur print and thought that it would make a great set of baby bibs. Once the bibs were made, I paired what was left of the dino fabric with some fabrics from my closet and decided to write a new pattern.

I arranged and rearranged the fabrics, made sketches on some graph paper and never really liked the result. Then one night I was watching an episode of Nova (about fractals) and saw the solution!  It looked something like this:

I loved the look of the larger squares surrounded by the smaller squares.  I quickly grabbed a paper and drew up the idea.  Then I finished watching the show (not sure I understood a whole lot of it).  The next day I worked with the idea a little in illustrator and then started on the actual quilt.

 The finished quilt is a large crib size / lap size:  51" x 51"

I love the large dot fabric I found for the backing.  It's from the All Star 2 line by Riley Blake.  The dinosaur fabric is Dino Dudes from Michael Miller, the cute orange ABC fabric is AlphaBuddies from Andover Fabrics, and the brown dotty binding is Riley Blake (I think from the original All Star line.)

The quilt is for sale in the shop [sold]  
The pattern for this quilt is now available!

I'm linking up:

A Whole Lotta Pink

 

I don’t sew with pink often.  We’re more of a blue/green/brown house (it’s inevitable - with two sons and 21 nephews…go figure!)  So when I do get to sew with pink, it’s a delight!



When I began this quilt, I called it “baby brellas”  because it uses that cute umbrella fabric by Riley Blake.  However, I quickly realized that because of the size of the stripes, you couldn’t actually SEE the umbrellas.  So I changed it to “baby stripes” and I’m saving “baby brellas” for my next project.  I have enough of the umbrella fabric (from the Rainy Days and Mondays line) leftover to do another baby sized quilt – this time I’ll fussy cut some umbrellas and feature them inside some wonky blocks.

  

The finished quilt measures 44” x 44” and is machine quilted in a meandering pattern.  I added a few loopies here and there throughout the quilting – to make it just a bit more girly.  (Like the pink doesn’t already add enough, right?)



I love just the touch of gray with all of the cute pinks.  For the back I used a kona solid (I think it’s Petal) and I had three little blocks leftover from the front – they found a home on the back.



The binding I went back and forth on.   I originally had another print chosen – one with some gray in it.  But it just didn’t have the pop of this stripe fabric.  This cute stripe is another Riley Blake fabric (can you tell what section of the quilt shop I am drawn to?) and it frames the quilt up so nicely!



“Baby Stripes” is now listed in my shop!

I’m linking up:

Two for Romania

 
  I just came across some photos that ended up on my flickr account but not here on my blog.
 
This summer the ladies from one of my online quilting bees helped to make two quilts to send to Romania with Green Fairy Quilts.  We used the tutorial from Film In The Fridge, called a Modified Bento Box.  We chose to do two quilts: red/yellow/orange and blue/green.  Each person (who wanted to) used their own fabrics and made as many blocks as they wanted.  I collected them, quartered them and pieced them back together.
 
It was so fun to get each block, cut it and then arrange and rearrange (and rearrange, and rearrange…) the top to see the fun combinations! 
I still can’t decide if I like the reds or the blues better!
 

Lincoln’s Wheels

When I first spotted this line of fabric (from Riley Blake) I fell in love. I wanted to find a reason to sew something with it, so I was delighted when my sister chose these fabrics for her new baby’s nursery. I quickly volunteered to make a quilt for my new nephew.
Earlier this Spring I saw a quilt made from fake hexagons (I really wish I could remember where I spotted it!) and wanted to try it out. Since finishing this quilt I’ve had a lot of questions about how it was assembled, so I’ve written a tutorial for fakie-hexagons (I’ll post it tomorrow).
{edited to add link to tutorial}


The finished quilt size is 45” x 58”. Most of the fabrics in the quilt come from the Wheels line; I think the only exception is the solid green fabric that I added.

The back is pieced using more of the solid green, bits leftover from the hexagons, and a piece of that great cars fabric. This quilt just screams “boy” to me!

I'm linking this up to Sew & Tell Fridays over at amylouwho. I love visiting each Friday to see what others around the sewing universe have completed each week.

Zig Zag for Davis

A few years ago I was pregnant with our second son and began the search for the fabric that would dictate the colors of the baby's room. I knew I wanted green and aqua so when I spotted these fabrics I quickly snatched them up. As they sat in the empty crib however I decided they weren't quite what I wanted. They seemed too grown up somehow. So into the closet they went; I knew I would find a use for them eventually.


Cue 2010. A few months ago I discovered the small stack of fabric on the bottom shelf of my closet and immediately thought of my nephew Davis. He lives far away from us in a beautiful part of Oregon. We don't know each other well, but I recently got to spend some time with him at a family reunion. Davis has got to be the coolest 4 year old I know.

As luck (or bad-luck) would have it, my quilt arrived at his house last week, shortly before he fell and broke his arm. I hear that when he got home he wrapped himself in the quilt and took a little rest. Davis, I do the same thing when I'm not feeling well. (oh and by the way... did you notice the little butterflies in the fabric? They're hiding!)


Finished quilt size: 50x65

Basement Blocks

Months ago I visited one of our local libraries and checked out a very tall stack of quilting books. One of them (I wish I could remember which one!) was all about the stack n' whack method of quilting. Since the cutting process of quilt-making is my least favorite part, I thought I'd give it a try. I went for simple the first time around - squares in squares.

The verdict? Love stack n' whack. Love aqua & brown together. Love the look of straight line quilting (takes forever though). Love having someone tall around to hold up my quilts for photographing!

The fabric is from the Blush line by Moda. It's a perfect match for our basement - this is a photo from last year that shows the color of our basement walls:

I did simple pieced back, using up some of the scraps leftover from the front. The brown fabric is one of the Grunge Basics, and I have to say that I'm not a fan of that grunge look.

The quilt is meant to be a tv-watching quilt for our downstairs tv room (hence the quilt's name: Basement Blocks) and measures 51x67.

Jeans and T Shirt

My oldest son has never showed much of an interest in the quilts I’m making while they’re in the piecing stage. Once I lay them out for basting though, he comes right over to see. After making a few comments or maybe asking a question or two about it, he inevitably asks when I’m going to make HIM a quilt. I put it off thinking he was just being nice, but then I got a great idea for a quilt that would fit my boy to a T.

I called it “Jeans and Tshirt.” In my stash I had a big stack of blue scraps that were given to me from my MIL and when paired with white, they reminded me of jeans and a nice clean white tshirt. (my boy’s favorite school-day outfit.)
I added just a touch of red to add a little bit of unexpectedness…

…my son chose a nice soft fleece for the backing….

…and I added a scrappy binding (using up the last bits of blues from that same stack from my MIL.)

The blocks were made using some fairly simple paper piecing and then sashed in white with just a bit of wonkiness. I have more photos of how I made the blocks and I’ll post a pseudo-tutorial on that tomorrow.

I must say that I was pleasantly surprised by the fleece back. I really thought it would pucker as I quilted it, but it worked beautifully! I did use my usual batting as well as the fleece. I basted it as normal and quilted it as I usually do. Really the only difference was just in how much more bulk there was to work around as I quilted.
The finished quilt is only 55x72 (my son has a loft bed with a railing so his quilts can’t “hang” too much.) and he absolutely loves it. The biggest complement to me was not so much the words he said, but the fact that he carries it downstairs to watch cartoons in the morning!