ambitious quilt start

I did this color chart of fabric a while ago. Sunday night I finally started the quilt! It feels a little bit like a great journey has started. There were a few activation barriers I had to get over to get going. First, was wrapping my head around all the fabrics and how they mapped onto what was in the pattern. That I accomplished in February by making myself a little chart using snips of each fabric and some glue. 

Second was the fact that I am kind of intimidated by the very large cut of background fabric I have. The thought of cutting it into tiny pieces is not the best because that seems like an awful lot of work! Thankfully the instructions pretty clearly help you stage this process by the type of block and corresponding size of quilt you are making. When I realized I could do that by block design and not have to do it all at once, that was a much smaller problem. So I went ahead and got started on one of the simpler blocks. There are two stages of cuts - one for larger pieces and the second to subcut the individual pieces for each block. These are my piles of first stage cuts for the nine aloe blocks.  

I chose the aloe first because it seems like the simplest. It also has just two colors in it, so I felt like I could keep track without needing to label anything. The cutting is indeed detailed - some of the strips were different by just a quarter of an inch! And this will take precise piecing. This first aloe turned out a little bit less wide than it was supposed to even though I thought I was using a scant seam. Thankfully the width was easily remedied with some elbow grease and the iron. Still, go scanter. 

It will be interesting to see how this goes. I'm certain it will be slow. I'm also certain to learn a lot in the process about myself, my sewing tendencies, and my preferences. Avanti!
 

springy table topper

Last weekend I had a hankering to play with some more scrap sewing. I am really enjoying the stash of “precuts” I made for myself and squirreled away (this reminds me I should do it again with the growing stash of scraps from recent projects). I wanted to make something to grace my dining room table for spring/March so I pulled a quantity of greens and found myself a neutral linen (not surprising for me) to cut to match for patchwork improvising. 

 

I wanted to make simple four patches and combine them to make a sparkly patchwork panel. It was a lot of fun on my design wall moving things around for a couple of days. I bordered it with a great plaid that I think just takes it over the top straight to St. Patrick’s Day. That gave me a goal, to finish it before the holiday today. 

I used this pretty linen-ish garden print for the back and, as has been my habit lately, decided to hand stitch the binding down to the back. It took me a little bit longer, but I finished it by Friday the 13th! I’ve actually been enjoying the slower approach to binding. The hand stitching without need for a pattern or planning is meditative. 

I chose to do crosshatch quilting, in the light gray thread that was already on my machine. It was quick and simple, pretty much the same as the patchwork. This is not an overthinking project. 

It took me a few days to actually “style” the table so it looks festive, but here’s my springtime table scape! Shopping around the decor and things I recently organized was satisfying and fun. I love how it turned out, and I am really pleased with how the handmade items I’ve been pulling out and creating new have made my home cozy and full of personality. 

girly quilt for a colleague

A coworker is expecting, and I know her well enough to feel comfortable asking if she would a) enjoy having a small quilt from a coworker and b) if girly colors and patterns were ok to use. Happily she said yes to both so I got to have a lot of fun putting this piece together. Pulling fabrics was, of course, the best part. I started out thinking I was going to use an entirely different cat fabric with bright colors, but as I pulled both from my bag of scraps I've precut into charms plus some of the pinks and floral fabrics in my stash, I gravitated more towards the softer palette here with purples, yellows, soft pinks, and neutrals. 

I knew I wanted to make something relatively simple because I didn't have much time (said coworker was going to be in town for just a week). Some creative googling led me to a tutorial on the Diamond Chain pattern at Missouri Star and followed that (loosely) to make the center panel. It looks the same, but I didn't follow the specific sewing instructions since I wasn't starting from the precuts that were shown. 

Despite including lots of yellows and purples, it was still feeling VERY neutral and kind of washed out, so I played around with some of the prints and decided to add stripes at the top and bottom. That really changed the character of the whole quilt. The purples popped much better and the yellows sparkle around the pattern instead of blending in. Very pleased with that decision!

I had exactly enough of this wonderful ric-rac stripe print for the binding. If that's not the universe saying "great choice!" I don't know what is. Aaaand it's pretty perfect. I'm finding that working with fabric collections is fun, but my real joy is in these types of projects where I can assemble something cohesive from different fabrics I've collected over time, even better if I use scraps! Some of these are offcuts from trimming quilts after quilting, one is a blender my mom sent from her stash (so quite vintage!), and of course because it's me there's some unconventional texture in there in the form of flannel. Usually it's linen, but here there be flannel kitties. 

The backing is just a couple of large leftovers of a couple of the prints that are pieced together. I quilted it with gray thread and a simple cross hatch in the center panel and "in the ditch" along the stripe seams on the top and bottom. It ended up being 32" x 44". It was a gorgeous morning today, so I snapped a couple pictures outside before heading to work with quilt in tow. I'm pleased to report that it was well received. 

a crafty day off

Monday was a day off for me, and I spent quite a bit of it letting the creative juices flow. Before they really got going, though, I felt the need to address a couple of knitted objects that have been sitting around waiting for their final steps. On the left is my Shift cowl which needed blocking before seaming up and weaving in ends. On the right is the sweater I have been mad at since January and unsure how to address it. What I decided to do was block the entire thing to see if it improves the fit and to examine how much I need to address the neckline. I have my notes from the first one I made, so if I need to I can just try the same adjustments I made there. Here's hoping! 

Another BIG project I have wanted to tackle since last year is a new quilt. This is going to be a complex undertaking that I'm hoping I can chip away at month by month this year. I might not finish the top by the end of the year but I hope to at least make a dent. My first order or business was to get my fabrics out and remember what I have collected. Most of these are from Back Porch Fabrics in Pacific Grove, purchased years ago along with the pattern, and some are from the stash to augment the color families where I could. 

This is Elizabeth Hartman's Desert Animals Quilt, and the way she has written the pattern, knowing which fabric of mine corresponds to the letters of hers is going to be necessary to keep everything straight. To help my sanity, I snipped little pieces of each fabric and used a glue stick to stick them on a piece of cardboard in the same kind of grid that exists in the pattern booklet. I think this is going to be a huge favor to my future self. I'm looking forward to diving into that one sometime soon. 

The last thing I did was make another Firefly Tote. I cut the canvas pieces out when I cut out the pieces for Mom's tote, and I had all of the accent fabrics chosen and piled up. It had all been sitting on the side because I wanted to make the bigger one for myself first. I was in a clean-it-up mood, so I decided that the best thing to do would be to just make the bag instead of moving the pile again!  

 

It turned out looking great. Mom and Dad bought me these fabrics on our most recent trip to Pacific Grove. I remember Mom really wanted to get us some butterfly fabric to mark the trip. This Charley Harper print is beautiful. The lining fabric is a zinnia print from Anna Maria Parry that pairs so well with that neon geometric. I'm thrilled with how this one turned out. This took me late into the night and I went to sleep pretty satisfied with the progress, planning, and clean up I got done on a relaxing day off. 

bohemian ponies, finished

I made 10 yards of binding for this quilt. That is a lot! Though, I am amazed that 10 yards of binding can come from less than a yard of fabric. Magic. Or math. You know, same same. I was so motivated to finish this up that I spent a late evening sewing the binding on. I debated doing my usual zig zag to tack it down, but two things: 1) I was running out of bobbin and 2) I think I'm starting to prefer hand stitched binding. 

The sheer number of linear inches around the quilt did give me pause, of course, but once I started it zipped along pretty quickly. I even managed to enjoy it. Basically it's pre-snuggling under your quilt, right? I'm so glad I had enough of the border print to do the whole binding. It's not my usual approach, but I do like that it blends in on the front, and the back is framed nicely. 

Speaking of the back - that is an eye wateringly bright print from Anna Maria Perry's Welcome Home collection called London. I happened upon it online when I was cruising around Missouri Star's sales and I am grateful for the serendipity and the risk I took. It's bright and bohemian hip in a similar way to the front just like I thought it might be. I really enjoyed it while I was tacking down the binding. 

As I mentioned when I finished the top last January, the mix of fabrics was collected over time and worked out feeling very "me" with flowers, horses, and some of my favorite colors. I am most pleased about that, to be honest. Some of the fabrics come from the same collection (the mustangs and arrows) but otherwise they are all me-curated. I can't actually believe the luck that so many of the prints have the exact shade of mustardy greenish gold. It nicely ties everything together and it's a really unusual shade that I quite like. How lucky. 

I will say, it was totally worth having someone else quilt something as big as this. I am STILL working on hand quilting a queen sized quilt (and questioning my life choices) and even if I did quilt it myself in my machine, I would have put it off so long it would be another year before it was done. It was a real treat to be able to drop it off and pick up such a wonderful thing a month later. I'm sharing another closeup of the rather perfect quilting pattern. As I was piecing the top I remember feeling like the vibe was very tribal and geometric, plus horses and this quilt pattern captures that completely. 

As predicted, it did not take me long to get this finished after picking it up. I was so looking forward to sleeping under it as soon as possible! I am really proud of how this one turned out and tickled that it turned out to be the perfect fit for my room. 

it's back!

OMG. I got to pick up my quilt from the quilt shop this weekend, and I have to say it turned out even better than I imagined. The quilting pattern they helped me pick is pretty much perfect! This little cave painting horse motif gallops along and isn't too small, as I was fearing in my worst moments. To be fair, I had no idea from the drawing in the book how big or small it would be. I wonder if they adjust it based on how they think it will look? Either way, it's awesome. 

It took only about 4 weeks from drop off to text notification that it was done. I put off going to pick up until yesterday just because of logistics. The price was also not as high as I thought it would be. I don't need to longarm quilt all of my quilts, but - 5 stars, would do again. Especially for a large one!

I am really excited to have this finished up, hopefully this week. I just trimmed all of the extra batting and backing off and have measured around the edge to see how much binding I will need (lots). I also found my extra bit of the floral border fabric and, if my late evening math is correct, confirmed that I have enough to make the binding for it with a bit to spare. How lucky is that! Cannot wait. More to come. 

a thousand pokes

Last night I picked up this quilt again and got back to hand quilting. It's not going to finish itself! It has been draped across the end of this couch for the whole winter not because it was being used, but to remind me that I have to work on it. I had one row of blocks quilted and last night I finished another row and a half. 

Today my forearm hurts a bit presumably from the many many times I gripped and yanked on the needle. I stayed up waaaaay too late working on it, but the progress is fun to see! I have 9 rows to get done, so I'll need to pace myself while still keeping some momentum going. My goal is to be done with this in 2026!

quilts at the ready

When I sat down to sew today I wanted to make little things, but felt like I had a couple of *ahem* larger projects staring at me from across the room. I finished a queen sized quilt top this time last year and sometime mid year purchased this bright floral fabric for the back. It has sat. So today I picked up the backing and started piecing some long seams. I have decided to have it quilted for me because I would like to use it on my bed this year, I am already hand quilting a queen sized quilt, and it makes me tired to contemplate quilting this on my machine. 

I need 3-6 inches of extra backing on all sides for the long arm folks according to their website, so this presented a bit of a puzzle for me with the 6 yards of fabric I had. I ended up adding a strip of another print down one side just to have plenty of extra wiggle room. I ironed the top again since it’s been folded for a while, and pressed seams open and ironed the entire pieced backing. Getting all of that fabric flat made me really appreciate my decision to have it quilted - so much fabric! I still have a bunch of batting on a roll, so I cut some of that too and all of the pieces are hung up and ready to go to the shop. They take walk ins, so I am hoping I can get it in this weekend or next and have it by February or March. 

The other project hanging around (literally, on my project wall) was this scrappy improv project. I’ve decided to make it into a wall hanging which made it possible to piece a couple of batting scraps together and pick a backing fabric today. I got it all quilted with just very simple vertical lines in the sashing and it is trimmed up. I haven’t bound it yet because I don’t know what I will use, maybe some scrappy strips? That black fabric was really fiddly linen so I think I would hate binding with that. I am also considering tying the middle of each square with some coordinating yarn. Stay tuned!

summer wall hanging, finished

Last night was a big night - I finished this wall hanging. I really love the colors I managed to pull together for this one and how they work perfectly with the beautiful print I used for the backing. It's a little bit late for summer, I had hoped to have it done by August 1, but it will look great on the wall for the remainder of what may be a steamy September before my pumpkin wall hanging appears in October. 

I had the top completed around the holidays, I sandwiched it up this spring, and it sat around for a while while I decided how I wanted to quilt it. The challenge I have many times is that when I have a lot of negative space I don't know what to do that will look good. This particular time I also paused because of thread color choices. I really did not want to use white thread on the saturated color but I didn't want anything to show on the white. And I was even more reticent to stitch over that amazing appliqué corner! In the end a simple crosshatch seemed like the way to go to just get it done, and I do like the way it works with the geometry of the blocks. I used a light gray on the front and had a bright magenta bobbin wound up near the machine, so I went with that for the back.

  

This was a Natalie design from a Missouri Star Quilt Co "triple play" day tutorial video, my favorites to watch. The theme of the episode was the rail fence block. The whole design has so much movement despite the simplicity and very traditional blocks, and I had a great time playing with the prints and choosing the motifs to feature in the appliqué. That zen pair of scissors just does it for me. I have just a small precious scrap of that print left. I ended up using every last square inch of the floral print for the back as well as the remainder of my ochre trees for the binding. I had just inches to spare! The thing that tickled me in particular about that print is that I have two projects where this unique color was the perfect thing to augment a stack of prints that I had assembled. Who would think? 

I hung it up in its spot this morning and it's going to make me smile every time I walk by! It's gorgeous. 

a hand quilting adventure

Yesterday felt like the day to start hand quilting this quilt. Watching a recent video from Pin, Cut, Sew on YouTube got me over the activation barrier and back to thinking "how hard can it be to freehand Baptist fans, anyway?" She does make it look so easy. This may take a while, but I think it will be fun and that I will like the end result a lot more than I would have liked any kind of machine quilting, especially any that I would have been able to attempt on my machine given how large this thing is. 

Pretty tickled that I found a hand quilting thread color that so closely coordinates with the colors. I hesitated a bit thinking the bright blue would be distracting across all the purple sections, but that fear was misplaced. The thread is thin enough that it really doesn't 'pop' the same way pearl cotton would. I'm not doing tiny tiny stitches, but they are close enough together that the pleasant pucker of hand quilting shows up. I am also taking advantage of the structure of the blocks to help me gauge my arcs in a semi-regular manner. Each arc is the width of that HST in the bottom right corner of the churn dash block. Those blocks have geometry where it's easy to see the next arc, and for the other blocks I have fashioned a marking tool using a compass and a knitting needle. The knitting needle marks the fabric with grooves, more like a Hera marker would, and it fits nicely in the pencil holder fixture on the compass. For the wider arcs it's a bit of an imperfect science because the compass is actually too small to open wide enough from the "origin" corner, but I have figured out a work around and the tool does the job much nicer than my eyeballing would. 

So far I am happy with this decision and confident it will look good. Will see in a few weeks if I still feel the same way! It would be nice to have this done by the end of the year, but I won't hold myself to it. I am very pleased to have this stage started, though. 

half birthday eve finish

Last night I put the last hand stitch in the binding of the friendship braid quilt that's taken a very long time to come into being. Better pictures to come in not-evening light, but suffice to say that it's really gratifying to have this one checked off the to-do list. And just in time for my half birthday! 

using what I've got

I'm feeling like I'm winning at quilting this month. I'm pretty jazzed about this latest milestone because it took no time at all. Except it did. A lot of time. These French braid blocks have been around since before I moved to this house. That's at least 5 years, probably longer, languishing in a "to be dealt with later when inspiration strikes" box. I can remember making them with no particular plan in mind, just wanting to play with the braid pattern to see how it works.

Well, since the flurry of making with my mom in November I pulled these out and threw them on my wall. Then they sat, and I wasn't inspired. Again. Still. I thought about adding a bunch of negative space in navy, some blocks with cute appliqué mushrooms, make a big big quilt. Then I realized I didn't want this one to be a big quilt; it doesn't rise to the level of "I want it on a bed" for me. And then I realized I didn't have any fabric on hand that would match to make any mushrooms out of - not a scrap of these to be seen. And then I realized what was feeling really good lately was being able to use what I had on hand to make things, without going out and getting more stuff. So. They got put away again, and I made a whole different quilt top. 

Directly after finishing that project, I realized I had hit the jackpot. The jelly roll jackpot. Similar to how easy it was to sash the stacks of bricks, it could be just as easy to do that here. What an elegant solution. I debated cutting strips of gray instead, but the gray I have on hand clashes with the gray end pieces I added on (a continued design regret since I did it, but one I am choosing not to remedy). It took a little bit of finessing because the bias edges had all stretched to different degrees over the years, but I managed and it took just an afternoon to get this albatross taken care of. 

 

Now of course, there is the question of backing the thing, but the decision of what to do with the braids has been made, and it will end up being a fun summery throw quilt. 

happy new year, a quick quilt top

[Note, I will be back filling this blog with posts "written" at the time the projects were actually done, I will be writing now but my sensibilities are much more satisfied with backdating them. There's been a few things since 2021, but not a whole lot to catch up on until quite a bit this past year, so I think it's not too crazy to do this. For now, I am actually starting to write real-time again in January 2025 because I have found the mental space to miss it.]

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I can't quite believe how happy I am with this project. The fact that so many of my quilts-in-waiting are now finished (minus one) has really lifted weight off my mind and allowed my creative juices to start swirling around big projects again. 

I have had most of the fabrics I used for this quilt sitting together in a stack for a long time. I knew I wanted to use them together, I just did not know how. Those mustang prints from Melody Miller are large scale and I have struggled to imagine cutting into them and losing most of the "fun" I get from the pattern. I like that they are horses running together - having a random ear or head in a half square triangle block or something like that just wouldn't do it for me. There's also a great print from Sarah Watts called Horseback which, appropriately, has sketches of horses with bright saddle pads on the perfect greenish blue. Note for the interested, it's the Honeymoon line for Cotton + Steel (just in case it ever gets re-released, I'll remember what it is from this note). Regardless, a special collection over time for sure. I had a hankering to play with these fabrics now that my table and mind are clear, and so I just started laying them out and adding a few more leftovers of prints that I thought might play nicely. 

I was binging on some Missouri Star Quilt Co. tutorials on YouTube while all of this was going on, and one of the projects that came up was a slant rhyme to a coin quilt. While coin quilts are usually smaller strips, this Simple Stacks quilt was stacks of 5"x10" cuts of fabric, ideal for large prints. I didn't buy the pattern, but the great thing about those videos is it gives you the gist of the pattern well enough for a person who has quilted a bunch to be able to do it on your own. I did watch the tutorial a few times to absorb what was going on, and then I committed to cutting out some big bricks of fabric. I adjusted the size to be more amenable to the fat quarter and half yard cuts I had, and away I went. 

It didn't take long, maybe a couple of evenings, to get all of the fabric cut. I used as much of my stack of curated fabrics as I could and then augmented with some Anna Maria Horner scraps and one mustard tree fabric that I don't remember the origins of. It matches those mustard mustangs pretty perfectly. I was doing math on the fly to see how many bricks I would need and about how large the quilt would end up being. My goals were to have something that would use up fabric and be proportional, so I was pretty much making it up as I went along. In terms of fabric placement, I resisted the usual impulse I have to be deliberate. I made myself improvise a bit and just try not to put things near each other that were too similar. And guess what? I didn't die. And it looks great.

In digging through my cabinet for fabric to use for sashing, I found leftovers from an all-white jelly roll that was hiding in the back. What. A. Gift. It was so easy to just piece a bunch together and go to town on sashing the thing. By the time I was done, it was tempting to leave it without more of a border, which is what I usually do. The "modern" look of no borders is generally appealing to me. But. I laid it out on my bed and it was so close to being the perfect size to drape nicely over the sides of my mattress that I decided to go for it. The teal linen was leftover from my shot cotton quilt and I found a floral print that I remember buying yardage of thinking "I'll use this as a quilt back, or something. It's on sale and it's pretty.". I debated adding the more 'traditional' looking fabric with the more tribal/geometric mix I had, but it actually worked out pretty great since there were a few florals thrown in there anyway. Mixing the two also makes it feel a bit more bohemian to me, which I like. 

I'm really proud of how it all works together without having been a designer's collection. How did I have all of these great things in my stash?? The top measures 84"x96" and it's going to be epic. I'm pretty sure I will finish it on my machine with the wavy preset stitch pattern. I'm not sure what thread color to use yet, but I have some time to mull it over because I don't have a great backing fabric at the moment. It took me just under a week to work this up, and it feels like a great way to start this year's creative adventures. 

hydrangea quilt finished

I am continuing to successfully work my way through the stack of quilts! I started this quilt in May of this year. I had recently finished my Kodachrome quilt and felt like getting one of my wips done was a great reason to start another. (Ha!) A stash dive unearthed a charm pack of batiks in gorgeous purples, magentas and teals as well as a large cut of a peachy solid I could use for the background. Having recently seen a Jacob's ladder tutorial on Missouri Star's YouTube channel, I decided to give it a go. The middles of half of the blocks are a purple floral flannel I had leftover from my huge purple and turquoise quilt top (another one that's in the stack to be quilted!). Sitting in the evenings trimming half square triangles and chain piecing all of these blocks was very meditative and relaxing, and I finished the top in June. 

Now for the quilting. I chose to do horizontal lines in a set of colors that ranged from light blue to magenta to purple as you progress across the quilt. It isn't incredibly noticeable unless you are sitting with it, but I like that detail. It is backed with a beautiful floral print I had in my stash and bound with a purple I went out to get at the shop here in town. I'm really happy with how it turned out, and I'm calling it Hydrangea because, well, just look at the way my hydrangea turned out this summer. It's gorgeous and has just about all of the shades in this quilt. The jacaranda bloom in the second photo is quite nice too! 

    

Halloween quilt finish

I started this quilt Sept 2023 right after the baby quilt for my cousin, trying to keep the momentum going from having actually made something. I didn't get it done by Halloween but did finish the top by mid December. After that, of course, it hung around in the closet like the rest of the quilt tops. I saw something similar floating around on Pinterest, thought I had a good idea of how it was done, and decided I could try it out. I had a layer cake of gray fabrics and a long-collected stash of Halloween prints. The inspiration quilt certainly had blocks larger than layer cake size, but the convenience of having the precuts in my stash outweighed any inclination to try to get it exactly the same.

I sprinkled some khaki corduroy into the gray solid mix for some fun texture in the x blocks, and picked out my most moody prints to feature in the alternating blocks. For a Halloween quilt, it's quite subdued! In contrast, the back is bright and wild. I was laying things out on the floor just continuing to add scraps and shapes together (in columns, can you tell?) until it was about the right size. 

To brighten things up a bit on front, I added a bright orange damask print binding. It's kind of "gothic mansion" in flavor and frames the whole thing very nicely. I hand stitched the binding down instead of my usual machined zigzag. 

I am very pleased to have the first of my stack of sandwiched quilts completed, and even in time for this year's spooky season.