Evening in the Garden Quilts

Adventures in Fabric Art

Category Archives: Finishes


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Two Finishes

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Finished the bright “Elephant” baby quilt this morning, and the light was good for taking pictures of both of this month’s baby quilts, so here they are.

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This is “Daughter of Sultry”, made from those scraps, a little green, and lots of Kona Snow.

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The back is a whole piece of a slightly different Sultry print, very effective (I think), and no piecing, for once.

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This turned out pretty cuddly and yummy.  Very sweet, tho.  Probably heading to my Etsy shop.

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This is “Elephant”, and I love it!  I may not be able to put it in the shop.  It may have to go to the new great-nephew.  Of course, every newest quilt is usually my favorite, so it could change before August.

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I did decide to sash this with Kona Khaki.  I kept the circle theme going in the quilting with the rows of circles/dots in the sashing, and the circles around the elephants.  The border is all stars.  All of that is stitched with Superior Bottom Line thread in a khaki shade.

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The elephants and spirals are done with “Art Studio” and “New Brytes”.  The scrappy binding was a no-brainer, and turned out great.  It required one extra two-inch strip to make up for all the piecing.  The whole quilt is like some kind of ode to Robert Kauffman, since the elephant print is Kauffman “Urban Circus”, and then there’s all the Kona.  Purely coincidence.

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The batik for the back is covered with the perfect size dots to go with the bright dots, which I pieced in.

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So, I’m making great progress on my April “Getting it Done” goals.  Trouble is now I want to pull some fabrics for a girl quilt that would kind of coordinate with Elephants…  Hmmm.  Take care!


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Getting It Done for March and April

Yah for March!  All that bad weather let me sew and finish all my goals for March.  I thought I would even get a head start on April, but I petered out at the end of the month.  Oh, well.  Having the list really helped me stay on track.

March Goals

1.  Quilt navy, brown, and orange donation quilt.

2  Finish and quilt “Sultry” quilt.

3.  Finish and quilt pink and gray donation quilt.

4.  Finish queen quilt top for my bed.

 

April Goals

1. Make 4-5 spring wall hangings for Etsy shop

2. Quilt and bind queen bed quilt

3. Make floral baby quilt

4. Make primary baby quilt

How did you do on your goals?

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I’m linking up to Getting It Done on Patchwork Times.


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Finish It Up Friday: Pink and Gray Donation Quilt

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With the 4 x 4 pink, gray, and white blocks completed, this quilt went together quickly, and the solid gray offered a good place for some fun quilting.

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It’s all from stash, and a lot of 2 1/2″ scraps from many previous projects that were fun to revisit.  I made the blocks back in December or January when I was unfocused and needed some mindless piecing to keep me moving forward.

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I knew the fuscia hand dyed fabric was the right design choice for the binding, but I was pretty nervous about it bleeding, even though it had been prewashed.  I used three Color Catchers when I washed it, but didn’t have a bit of bleeding, so that was a relief.   (Reused those C C s later to prewash newly arrived fabric, and they picked up some dye there.)  It’s actually two different pieces of hand dye, but we won’t tell, will we?  This binding was a lot easier to photograph than the one on my last quilt, so I took photos as I did it for the machine binding tutorial.

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This quilt has no current destination.  I wanted, for once, to have a quilt ready made for the next quilt drive or disaster, so now I do.

I’m linking up to Finish It Up Friday on Crazy Mom Quilts.  (Check this out, I’ve met a lot of fun people over there!)


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Finish it up Friday: Sultry

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The “Sultry” fabric quilt is finished, and it sure is girly-girl!  Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it’s a little different for me.  This quilt turned out light and bright and pink and lime, and perfect for a girl of any age, I think.  It doesn’t have an intended recipient, so it will be available in my Etsy shop.

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48″ x 72″

Made almost entirely, front and back from Moda’s Basic Grey “Sultry”, with just a few stash additions, including the aquas, which I think perk it up and save it from being too sweet.  This is an old fabric line.  I said 2010 before, but now I’m thinking 2009.  I didn’t quite manage to use up my stash of it, so it may be popping up again.  Some of the prints are really pretty.

Quilted with a diagonal grid on the body of the quilt, and hearts in the border triangles.

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What have you finished?

I’m linking up to Finish it up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts.


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Finish it up Friday: Deep, dark donation quilt

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This is one of those quilts that is hard to photograph because of the contrast in the colors, but up close those rich, dark boxes are really very interesting, something someone can look at for a while.

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Some of the darks are brown and navy prints from the “Japan” line by Robert Kaufman.  I love them, but they never went with anything else.  The one with the gold overprinting is “Cultivated Cottons” from Andover.  There’s some “Madrona Road” orange in there, and a couple of In the Beginning fabrics I forgot to check before I cut up

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I’m happy with the way the back came out.  It’s very warm looking, with all those browns, but also very interesting.

IMG_1526IMG_1525The quilting…  I like what it did, but I wish it were a little more accurate.  It does give a lot of texture.  It also brings the aqua back into it and brightens it up.  I guess I am just used to using very fine, blending thread, so this looks pretty bold to me, but there it is.  All in all I’m happy with it.

I’m sending this off to Luanna’s 5000 quilts for Hurricane Sandy campaign.  I know it’s almost spring, but there’s still a lot of cold weather, and they keep running out of quilts.

I’m linking up to Finish it up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts.


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Finished the Pink “Quiet Quilt”

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This week I finished up the second (last) baby quilt in my “almost low volume”  experiment.  I have wanted to use the black and white print of little girls with umbrellas for a long time, and I still have some left for a future project.

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I used some pink Kona solid, some random stash stuff, and some pieces from a broken layer cake of Basic Grey “Sultry” that’s been lying around for way to0 long.  I cut up the rest of that, and have some four and nine patch blocks made for another quilt.

 

 

IMG_1507This is a disappearing four patch, made with 5 1/2 ” patches.  The backing is a great pink and gray houndstooth stretch cordoroy that is SO soft.  I bound it with a sweet gray with pink rosebuds fabric.

 

 

IMG_1505I quilted a 1/4″ from all the seams, so it took awhile, but I think it looks great.

 

 

It washed up nice and soft, in spite of all the quilting.  This quilt did turn out very pastel and feminine, and I’m happy with it.

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What have you been finishing?

Linking up with Finish It Up Friday on Crazy Mom Quilts.


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Finish It Up Friday (Saturday Edition, again…)

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Yes, I finished these Friday, but it never quit snowing all day!   It’s been flurying a lot today, too, but I’m the crazy lady who’s been out there with the camera.

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These pretty pillow covers are now lending a touch of spring to my livingroom.  The colors match one of my chairs and the Spring Strings quilt.  As always, I used tons of stings and can’t tell any difference in my containers.  If I never bought fabric again, I could make quilts for quite a while…

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I used the hidden zipper technique from Sew Mama Sew.  I’m getting pretty good at it.

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After I had changed out the pillow covers, I washed the Christmas ones.  Now, I had pre-washed those fabrics, and washed them when they were first finished, AND I used Color Catchers again yesterday, and I still had some bleeding from the green fabric.  I don’t think it ruins them.  I guess it will wash out over the years.  Hmmm.

Linking up with Finish It Up Friday on Crazy Mom Quilts.


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Two Finishes

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This week I finished the purple and gray floral throw quilt.  It is 54″ x 72″.

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It’s made with 9″ blocks to show off those luscious florals, and I’m very happy with the way the quilting turned out.

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I want it for myself, but I can’t keep them all.

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Last week I finished this bright baby quilt, but the weather just warmed enough to let me get pictures of it.

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I’m very happy with this, front and back.  It measures 36″ x 45″.

Both of these quilts are listed in my Etsy shop.

I’m linking up with Finish It Up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts.


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Friday Finish: This one will go to a veteran!

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Here is the blue and green quilt I made completely from stash to replace the first one that I started at the New Years Day Sew In.  Finally gave up on the weather and took these pictures inside, so they are what they are.

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This was Judy’s Quilt of Valor design, but I had a little trouble cutting.  I was a bit feverish one evening and cut all the 2 1/2″ inch bars for the center blocks at 2″, creating some cussing and  a “design opportunity”.  I got out my strings to pull coordinates, and I think it does add interest.

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I quilted between all the blocks, and 1/4″ inside all the frames.  In the centers, I alternated between using straight lines and a design of four leaves.  The leaves do echo some of the fabrics, but I think I just made them because I can, and it seemed too easy to use straight lines everywhere.  Next time I think I will follow my instincts.  Alternating vertical and horizontal lines would have looked great.  This is fine, though.

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I also used straight lines in the border triangles, and stippled over the print background.  It all took awhile, but it finished with a lot of texture, and I like it.

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What did you finish this week?

I’m linking up with Finish It Up Friday on Crazy Mom Quilts.


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January Goals Completed!

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I hope you all found the four goals for the month as motivating as I did. I found that they really did focus me, eliminating that “when I get around to it” mentality I often have. I know that my January goals were not that ambitious, but that was intentional. I’ve been moving in slow motion for a while, and doing a lot of procrastinating, so I just wanted to spell out a few concrete goals. In addition, I did make an extra quilt on the way to the Quilt of Valor, so not too bad. You’ll see I’m doing much the same for February.

GOALS FOR JANUARY

1.  Construct Quilt of Valor top during New Year’s Day Sit and Sew (also #NDSI on Twitter).

2.  Quilt/finish said QOV quilt.
3.  Create and post tutorial about binding a quilt with blanket binding
4.  Create a fun, new quilt of my choice using stash fabric, inspired by playing with said fabric.

February Goals

1.  Make a primary or bright baby quilt for Etsy shop.
2. Pillow covers for living room pillows.
3. Make a floral quilt for Etsy shop.
4. Mail or deliver the QOV and my ConKerr Cancer pillowcases

I’m linking up to Getting It Done on Patchwork Times.