Leftovers

 

So what do you do with those leftover pieces from a quilt you just finished?  Pitch them like me or save them and be inspired to make a new quilt like Robin!   This quilt is made with the leftover strip set ends from when Robin made our Pedal to the Metal quilt that we used on our pattern cover.   Now you don’t end up with enough ends to make a whole quilt, only 28 – 5”pieces, but that was enough to get Robin thinking of making another quilt.  She purchased more fabric and pieced more strip sets to make this quilt.  She brought her end pieces to a guild meeting this summer and we played with different block layouts and helped her come up with this design.  It is 4 strip set ends pin-wheeled around a center square. It has an organized random look!

I used the panto Joust, a greenish beige So Fine Thread and Robin brought Hobbs batting.

I has been pretty windy this week and I had to abandon the idea of getting pictures of her quilt on Wednesday as this was all I could get!  Thursday was more successful and calmer day!   As I type this it is –32’c with a –45’c windchill this Friday morning!!

This was the original quilt that Robin made that we used on our pattern cover.

Paint Chip Challenge

 
One of the displays at our guild Quilt Show this spring will be a Paint Chip Challenge.  We had guild members pick a paint chip sample out of a bag, no peeking, and they have to make a quilted item using those colors.  We want this to be fun so just have the public vote for their favourites instead of judging.   So the quilt above is Lynn’s Paint Chip Challenge baby quilt.  As you can see she got a green paint sample and when I saw her sample card she did a great job matching the colors.   My paint chip I picked was brown and gold!  I have no clue what I’m going to make but I better figure it out soon as our show is at the end of April!  I’ve seen a lot of the members projects and they are fantastic so it will be a great display for the public.

I wanted to show you the before picture of this quilt as Lynn felt the quilting really transformed it.

Lynn wanted Dream Puff batting and light quilting so it stays soft and cuddly.  She came up with her own design for this quilt and after some discussion we came up with a quilting plan.  CC’s in the green fabrics, large swirls in the white.    I call this Fluffy Modern!   Most modern quilts use flat batting with simple or heavy quilting but I really like how this looks with some much soft texture, perfect for a baby quilt.  The backing is a white Minkie Dots so that ups the fluffy factor!

Here is a link to the tutorial on how to make this quilt pattern.  

Hope this inspires our guild members to get there Paint Chip Challenges done, it has inspired me!

Star Fling

 
This is one of our guild comfort quilt and the pattern is called Star Fling. * Unfortunately this pattern is no longer available for purchase or free online as it was in the past.*  We asked our members to make a block using a light beige background and a bright fabric for the stars.  It turned out great and I would highly recommend this pattern to any guild as it is very forgiving as the star points don’t reach the edge of the block.  So if you need to do a little trimming to get all the blocks the same size your not going to cut off any points! 


I used the Curlz panto, light beige So Fine thread and the guild gave me Hobbs batting.  The backing is a bright blue flannel so I will make a great comfort quilt for someone in need.

Still getting cold temperatures up here,  lows of –30’c at night and highs only reaching –18’c  if were lucky.   BRRR!

Autumn Table Runner

 

I don’t get a lot of small projects to quilt for others as I do encourage my local quilters to quilt those themselves to keep up their quilting skills.  But I won’t turn them away as they are fun to custom quilt and are quick to do!   This is Phyl’s Autumn table runner and she used a great colourful leaf print fabric as the focus.

I started by quilting the straight lines in the outer border and left the space in the center until the end.  I knew I wanted to match the design to what I used in the center but I had not decided what I was going to quilt in the background yet.  I then SID all the star blocks and found a few small stencils to use in the center of the stars and transferred the designs using my Pounce pad.   Then I CC’s the points in the stars to soften the design and tie it in with the curves in the stencil motifs.  I added the curl design in the back ground and then added that into the center of the outer border to finish that design.

I used So Fine beige thread on top and So Fine brown on the backing.

I’m glad Phyl chose a solid brown backing as it really shows off the quilting designs nicely.  It was also very windy out and the small quilt keep flipping over on me!

Fat Quarter Breeze Quilt

This is Robin’s Fat Quarter Breeze quilt and the pattern is from the Spring 2009 magazine Love of Quilting, the Easy Quilts edition.  She used beautiful teal and purple batiks and a purple Stonehenge backing.    The panto is Whirlygig and the batting is Dream Blend.

I thought I would put Robin to work this time so I could get a full shot of her quilt.   She and a few other quilting  friends were going to visit another one of our quilting friends, my neighbour Marg.   I’m lucky to have a lot of quilters in our little cottage community.   I told her I would drop the quilt off and take a few pictures of her quilt off Margs deck while I was there.    I was warned to bring ‘big boots’ and after my experience over at Phyls I knew I would be pushing snow to get out into the yard.   Worth the boots full of snow as it is nice to get a picture of the quilt with it’s maker.

My friends were having fun watching me blaze a trail in thigh deep snow and took pictures of me while I was taking picture of the quilt !   The husky is a neighbours dog and she was helping me pack the trail as it looked like fun to her.  She wanted to play but I didn’t want to stay out too long as it was chilly and my pants were covered in snow!   The things I do to get a good picture for my blog! 

 

Three Six Nine Quilt

 

Here is another one of Phyl’s quilts, this one is called Three Six Nine by The Quilt Company.  I don’t know the fabric line but the colors and prints have a South-western feel.    I chose Happy Times for the panto, a gold coloured So Fine thread and Dream Blend batting.

A few days ago I saw one of the neighbourhood dogs walking with a white rabbit in her mouth!  I haven’t noticed any rabbit trails in my yard since then so I think my bunny is gone!  :(    There has also been lots of activity along our shoreline, I think the dogs have been chasing another rabbit or marten.

Town Square #3

 

This is Phyl’s Town Square queen sized quilt and the third one I have quilted for clients.  She used chocolate brown and aqua coloured fabrics which is a beautiful combination.  I quilted it with the Fascination panto, used aqua So Fine thread and Dream Blend batting.

I thought this would look really nice draped over the brown railing on Phyl’s deck and since she is a friend and neighbour I took pictures over at her house.  Nice change of scenery and the sky was so blue today!  Only thing was I had to stand butt deep in snow to get these pictures!  :)

Hugs and Kisses with Pantograph Quilting

This is Sheri’s second Hugs and Kisses quilt that she has asked to me to quilt, you can see her first one that I custom quilted here.  We decided to use a panto on this one and I chose Popcorn.    Picking thread was tricky and my first though was to use a medium green but once I laid out a dark purple thread that matched the diamonds it became clear that was the way to go.   I used Purple So Fine thread on top and Beige Bottom Line on the back. 

Lug Nuts – Pattern Number 4!

Here it is….Highway 10 Designs fourth pattern and we are calling it Lug Nuts!   The PDF version is now in our Etsy shop and we hope to have the paper version within the month.    Lori and I decided to use the Little Black Dress 2 fabric collection for this one, I had shown this in a teaser post a few week ago.   We chose 3 ivory, 3 grey and 3 black fabrics for our quilt but you could choose any 9 fabric, 3 color combination you want.

Here is our cover and it took me a long time to get the right shot as it has been so cold and windy!  I had to go chasing the quilt a few times too!   Also trying to lay a quilt out in the snow and not mess up the snow or get snow all over the quilt was another challenge.  But I got it!   :)

These are super-sized hexagons, the quilt finishes 82” by 88” and the hexagon measures 20” across and 18” top to bottom.  We though we would jump on the hexagon band wagon and give it a try.  We came up with a way of making hexagons without any Y seams and uses simple construction techniques.

The only special tool you will need for this pattern is a 60 degree triangle ruler that is a minimum of 10”.  We used the Clearview Triangle Ruler but any brand this size should work.  I bet a lot of you have this type of ruler already and probably still in the original packaging!  Time to dust it off and give it a go!  :)

Lori came up with the idea to piece the backing with the leftover blocks and it adds to the modern feel.  I don’t usually like to piece my backing but have to admit I really like how this turned out and didn’t mind the extra work as it was my turn to make our sample !  Look at that, she might have just converted me!   Maybe I’ll make more of an effort to add interesting elements to my backing from now on! 
 

I quilted it using the Fascination pantograph, a light beige So Fine thread and Dream Blend batting.    It took some time to decide on the panto and since the scale of the hexagon are so large that helped in the final decision.  I chose Fascination because it is the largest scale panto I have and the simple swirls add a subtle texture.

You can see how large the hexagons are against the fence boards.  This quilt took me three days to piece and quilt, then two more days to bind so not a hard project if you have some quilting experience.  We also included detailed instructions and diagrams in our pattern on how to bind an irregular edge.

You will have to check out Lori’s post here.    She made a cute table runner using this pattern in beautiful blue batiks.  You’ll see it done in a different color combination and with beautiful custom quilting.