Finishes | Evening in the Garden Quilts

January 11, 2016
by Valerie 3 Comments

Two Baby Quilt Finishes: Elephants and Sports

Last week I made two baby quilts that are very different from each other. While waiting for the sports fabric to arrive, I found this elephant fabric in my stash.

I rooted around and found the lavender and rick rack and lace fabrics, as well as the pink.

The backing fabric I pieced in is lavender with a large crocheted pattern.

And, in case it wasn’t sweet enough, I bound it with pink rainbow stripe.

2016-01-09 08.55.46 The second quilt was for a shower for a friend’s first baby. My information about the nursery was “navy blue and sports”, so I worked from there. 2016-01-09 08.56.06 Mom is a champion softball player and Dad has played and coached lots of sports and is currently into golf, so all those made an appearance, along with the nice graphic prints. I decided on a Disappearing Four Patch design. First, I cut all the 5.5″ patched and sewed them into four-patches. I really liked the quilt just like that, but the squares were awfully large and didn’t really look very crafted or intentional. Still, the prints were very busy, so I decided to only “disappear” half of them. I really like the result.

2016-01-09 08.56.29 And I love the sporty sock monkeys on the backing.

2016-01-09 08.55.55 I quilted it with a variegated navy and white thread. I’m not sure if I really like it, but it’s okay. I think the thread would look better in a stipple.

2016-01-09 08.58.05 I was also pleased by how the quilt matched many of the other items they received at the shower. I know it will be used.

2016-01-09 08.57.28

So, those are my two latest finishes. The sports quilt has gone home with the parents, and the pink elephants will be in my Etsy shop.

Hope you all are finishing things!

November 18, 2015
by Valerie 5 Comments

The Baseball Quilt

Yuri and I are here to show you the finished Baseball Quilt. This is for a sick friend who may need a little extra hug to get through till pitchers and catchers report.

The back has a Mets theme, if you can’t see it.

The big 8″ Drunkard’s Path blocks (I made templates from a cereal box!) went together very quickly. Then came the quilting. I used dark gray Bottom Line on the top and bottom for most of it. I stitched in the ditch between all the blocks first, mostly to make sure the baseballs were anchored down. Then I stippled all the background pieces, and outlined the baseballs. Finally, I used one of my machine’s decorative stitches (Bernina #23) with red 30 wt. thread to make the stitching lines. I had to stitch each line twice, once normally, then once in the mirror image. They’re not as even as I would like, but I think they work.

And here’s Yuri to demonstrate the resulting snugglebility of the finished quilt.

Thanks for stopping by!

November 2, 2015
by Valerie 3 Comments

Star Wars Scrap Quilt

I haven’t yet made any blocks for the Droid Quilt Along at The Stitch TV Show, but I got all excited before the directions came out and made the back for it. That left me with just a few scraps that I had to make into another baby quilt, just because.

This was my first time making the wonky stars. They are easy enough, but not as quick as I thought. I like them, though. They are made entirely from pieces from my 2 1/2″ and 3 1/2″ bins. The different grays give some dimension.

I quilted all the plain blocks with wonky stars. I was set to use decorative thread, but then decided that I wanted the shadows to do all the work, so the whole thing is quilted, top and bottom, with Superior’s Bottom Line in white.

The back is made from some multi-tone chevron fabric that wasn’t wide enough. I made the zig zag insert using blocks I had miss-cut on those other elephant/SW quilts.

This is headed to my Etsy shop. If you haven’t seen all the Star Wars baby stuff on Etsy, go look.

October 16, 2015
by Valerie 9 Comments

Turquoise and Gold Quilt Finished!

Here it is, on a sunny morning on the fallen leaves. The colors fit right in for fall, don’t they?

This was one of my few UFOs, but it was an old one. I’m guessing six years it sat in my cupboard, but I can’t really date it for sure. It started as a wall hanging. I pulled it out earlier this year and asked the Twilters if they saw any potential in it, and they were enthusiastic. This doesn’t look like anything I’m doing now, does it? Playing with color and value, looks like I spent lots of time with it on the design wall.

The center had some already cut borders and binding with it, as well as a couple yards of backing fabric. I still wasn’t feeling the wall hanging, so I decided that all that fabric should become a quilt. Notice I worked with much bigger triangles. After I sewed that bottom section on right side up it didn’t look too bad.

I quilted it with lots of feathers, some stippling, and some orange peel. The mid-tone areas are done with Superior’s So Fine in a variegated mustard/navy color. I tried that on some of the lighter areas, but it did not look good, and I don’t ever want to rip out feathers again. Ugh. I know that, forced to decide, I always prefer the thread to be lighter than the background instead of darker. I know this. I just need to believe it and practice it.

I replaced that stitching with a golden Living Colors thread on the yellow and light gray areas, and used a Sulky dark gray on the dark gray to black spaces. The bobbin thread is Bottom Line in a medium gray.

I really love the back. This was narrowish JoAnn fabric, so I had a chance to piece lots of scraps into it. I think it pops.

When I was trimming this quilt to bind, it suddenly told me it wanted to have wavy edges to match the half feathers I had quilted into the narrow border. I told it no, though. After days of stitch picking, I was ready to finish it up quickly, and I already had all the straight grain binding cut. So it has straight edges.

I managed to use up almost all of the fabric, except for some of the turquoise, which I am eyeing for an upcoming project.

I’m linking up to Whoop Whoop Friday and WIPs Be Gone.

October 6, 2015
by Valerie 2 Comments

Boxes of Elephants is Finished

This fun little quilt was commissioned, based on a quilt I made in January. It makes up very quickly and is super simple sewing.

I can no longer find the original elephant fabric to purchase, so we agreed on this one, in which the light and dark is reversed (cuter print, too, I think!). That necessitated a little redesign so the colors would look good together. The elephant print is on home dec fabric, so it makes an interesting combination of textures with the soft Konas and prints.

I quilted this entirely with the walking foot. I first stitched in the ditch between all the blocks with silver Bottom Line on top and a teal Masterpiece (because I didn’t have teal BL) on the bottom. Then I switched to a variegated Coats and Clarks that I used to sew a serpentine stitch along all the seam lines, crossing through the plain blocks. I finished with nine inches of thread left from that spool!

I used a few inches of large-scale chevrons for the binding. This quilt is now winging it’s way to Texas.

I’m linking up to Michelle’s Let’s Make Baby Quilts.

September 7, 2015
by Valerie 6 Comments

Finished Baby Quilt

This quilt began with rummaging though my 6.5″ scrap bin. I pulled together these pretty florals and semi-solids. Some were more recent, but some were OLD and needed to go. It is nice and square, even though it didn’t want to hang flat for the photo.

Yes, I cut the four-patches different widths. That was a… design choice! I kind of like it. I was originally going to use all twelve Disappearing Four Patch blocks for the top, quilt it, bind it, and be finished. No matter how I turned the blocks on the design wall, they looked like…well, not good.

Sashing was in order. The #Twilters and I looked at a number of choices. The deeper ones were appealing, but not soft for a baby quilt. In the end, I went with a soft blue dot for sashing and a two-tone green for borders.

Quilting was lots of vines and flowers, with minimal marking. The largel-scale quilting left it nice and soft. I used a variegated So Fine by Superior for all the quilting. It shows up, but echos the soft colors.

A special thank you to my photography asisstant, Yuri.

This is headed for Project Linus.

Linking to Michelle’s Let’s Make Baby Quilts and Free Motion Maverics at Lizzie Lenard’s.

September 5, 2015
by Valerie 5 Comments

Prince Edward Island Art Quilt

Early this week I finished the little art quilt I’ve been thinking about for a long time, and working on sporadically for the last few months. This was taken from a photo I took of traps (lobster? crab?) on P.E.I. when we visited a few years ago.

I used a photo-transfer process from an article by Liz Kettle in Quilting Arts, Issue 48. It involved making an ink jet print on water-soluble stabilizer (Paper Solvy by Sulky) and transfering it to the fabric (Kona Snow) using matte gel medium.

The process was messy and didn’t go flawlessly, as you can see in this picture. It is forgiving, though, and I was able to straighten out and adhere most of the image, and to wash off the remaining paper. Next time, I would apply medium to the fabric only, not the print. For the bits that were missing, I worked back into it with fabric markers. I have a print-making background, and was excited about the transfer process. I did find myself wondering what was the advantage of this method over simply printing on ink jet fabric. Do you have any thoughts on this?

I used a number of variegated and solid threads to add dimension and definition, especially to the traps, which had gotten a little muddy. I liked the random effect of the variegated So Fine from Superior. I did not like that when I shaded in the side of a white float, it became flat from the close stitching. I have a lot to learn about working with thread.

I’m very happy with the fabrics I found to use for the borders and the way I quilted them. You can see it better from the back.

I think this was pretty successful. It has some personal meaning to me, so I may keep it and make another version to sell. We’ll see.

I’m linking up to WIPs Be Gone at A Quilting Reader’s Garden.

September 1, 2015
by Valerie 2 Comments

That’s No Moon!

A long time ago… no, I won’t go there. But this is the saga of the baby quilt commission that occupied a lot of August for me.

The order was fine. It took a number of emails back and forth to work out the design and fabrics, but that was no problem. Neither was the construction. I had made the basic design three times before, so all went well. Then I washed it.

I always prewash my fabrics, with Color Catchers. I always wash the finished quilts with Color Catchers. I so seldom have a bleed… I checked the front to be sure that all my Crayola Washable markings had come out. I forgot to check the back, and I dried it. Big mistake.

I tried Shout and two different approaches with Oxi Clean. I never made it to the blue Dawn, because the Oxi took all the color out of my silver light saber. Sigh. I’m ready to do the bleach-on-a-Qtip thing before donating it, but I’m just leaving it sit for a while. Sigh.

So, I remade it with different blue fabric, different silvery fabric, and no blue ink jet ink on the applique sheet. Whatever it was, it didn’t happen this time. And the finished quilt has reached it’s destination. Whew.

I will say that my quilting improved on this last one (#5 of this design!). And I like how the trimmings of the chevron backing fabric made a striped binding.

Anyway, stay safe out there, and watch your backs.

July 25, 2015
by Valerie 2 Comments

Rail Fence and Ribbon Candy

Today I finished this quilt, destined for donation.

I made it to use this backing, which I like a lot but for which I have never found a use. I also wanted it to be in “boys” colors, since I have plenty of florals to donate.

I quilted it with wavy lines, but I didn’t think they were enough, so I added these flowing lines between each set of vertical waves. I knew they had a name, and my friends supplied it: ribbon candy! Even more fun than quilting them. I used Superior’s So Fine thread in a variegated light green.

There are two different blocks, one with three patches, and one with four, just because I wanted to mix it up a bit. I still think that has potential, though it isn’t great here. Doing this again, I would use the same fabrics (yum!), but mix up the values more.

I still like it, and I hope the recipient will, too.

July 17, 2015
by Valerie 7 Comments

Adventures in Cuteness (a finish)

This week I made a quick baby quilt from a panel and it turned out awfully sweet. There is no applique on this, it’s all printed.

I started with this panel. I don’t remember where it came from, but I must have felt sorry for it and took it home. I added two rows of patchwork (from my scrap bins) to make it wider, put a Kona Ash border around it, then bound it with a two-tone charcoal binding.

There is an extra layer of cotton batting under the center to make it a little poofy. I quilted on the printed lines, and added a few extra details.

To quilt the background, I drew in bunches of leaves using my new “Leaves Galore” ruler (Sue Pelland), that I bought last month. It’s meant for cutting leaf shapes, but I traced along the curves, moved it, and traced again to form continuous leaves that were easy to quilt. That’s how I drew the leaves in the border, too.

The back is pieced from my stash.

This was fun to make. Now it’s headed for my Etsy shop, unless I can convince someone to decorate their nursery in a woodland theme…

I’m linking up to Whoop Whoop Friday at Confessions of a Fabric Addict, and WIPs Be Gone at A Quilting Reader’s Garden.

Evening in the Garden Quilts

Adventures in Fabric Art

Category Archives: Finishes

Two Baby Quilt Finishes: Elephants and Sports

The Baseball Quilt

Star Wars Scrap Quilt

Turquoise and Gold Quilt Finished!

Boxes of Elephants is Finished

Finished Baby Quilt

Prince Edward Island Art Quilt

That’s No Moon!

Rail Fence and Ribbon Candy

Adventures in Cuteness (a finish)

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