Evening in the Garden Quilts

June 30, 2013
by Valerie 5 Comments

Sunday Stash Report: 6/30/13

Good morning! Yes, some fabric was purchased, five yards from Scizzors on Etsy. They have a great selection of novelty prints. This is earmarked for a Christmas project, so it will come back off the rolls, hopefully in the next few months.

I used three yards to back the commissioned quilt and pillow cover.

This week: +5 yards, -3 yards
YTD: +97.5 yards, -163.5
Net stash use in 2013: -66 yards

How are you doing with destashing? It’s freeing, isn’t it?

I’m linking up Sunday Stash Report at Patchwork Times.

June 28, 2013
by Valerie 8 Comments

Commission Items are Finished

These turned out so well that I wanted to share them. I made them from a box of baby and toddler clothes that the customer sent me. It was an interesting and fun project that went very quickly. The hardest part was waiting for the clothes, and then the backing fabric to arrive. I backed all of the (knit) fabrics with sheer fusible interfacing, and it worked very well. Pellon brand worked much better than the store brand.

I guess I was expecting frilly, pastel clothes, but these were in strong colors with a number of batiked dresses, so that set the tone for the quilt.

I found a great batik fabric for the backings and bindings. It took almost all of the three yards I ordered. The quilt is 45″ x 63″, and the pillow cover is 18″ square.

The pillow cover is my favorite. I did finish it with a couple more tiny gold glitter hearts after this picture was taken, right where the quilting is. I finished it with a zipper, inserted per a Sew Mama Sew tutorial.

I quilted around all of the motifs, and added stars, hearts, and flowers in all the plain areas. I cut stars and hearts from Sulky Sticky stabilizer, and moved them around the quilt and pillow as I worked. I didn’t worry about making anything too perfect. I just tried to keep it free and fun, and it was fun to quilt.

Can’t wait to see what you finished this week! I’m linking up with Finish It Up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts.

June 23, 2013
by Valerie 6 Comments

Sunday Stash Report: 6/23/13

The year is halfway done, and I’m happy with where I am in regards to my goal of using 100 yards from stash. I bought nine yards of batiks this week, for backing this quilt and to flesh out my greens. I used 3.5 yards for the Nautical baby quilt. As the warm weather intensifies, and as we travel, I expect the usage will slow down, but that’s fine.

This week: +9 yards, -3.5 yards
YTD: +92.5 yards, -160.5
Net stash use in 2013: -68 yards

How are you coming with your destashing?

I’m linking up to Sunday Stash Report at Patchwork Times.

June 21, 2013
by Valerie 6 Comments

A Finish on the Nautical Baby Quilt

Here is the finished Nautical baby quilt. I just love using my shed for photos, I think it looks so artsy. The light is good there, too, as long as I don’t let the morning get away from me.

I wish I had water around here for photographing. I considered taking it over to our little reservoir and draping it over someone’s sailboat, but I refrained.

Thank you to my friends who commented as I was working on this! Sometimes I just don’t get back to you, but those are the times when I especially appreciate the encouragement. This community is so great for that. Yes, this was freeing and fun to work on, and I’m so glad to know it evokes sailing when you see it. Here is another little quilt on the same theme that I really love. It’s a wall hanging by Kat of Kat and Cat Quilts. Wouldn’t both of these look great in the same nursery?

The backing is an ABC print with the letters made from rope!

I quilted it with Bottom Line (60 wt.) between all the blocks, then went back and did a grid of lines in bright yellow Sew Fine (30 wt.). I liked the yellow thread. It doesn’t have any sheen, which seemed appropriate for this quilt.

I wanted something “ropey” for the binding, but didn’t come up with anything, so I used more of the blue canvas print, and I’m happy with it.

As always, I had plenty of help with both the quilting and the photography.

See more finishes at Finish It Up Friday on Crazy Mom Quilts.

June 19, 2013
by Valerie 1 Comment

WIP Wednesday: Baby Memories

My design wall is full of patches cut from baby clothes. I have a commission for a throw quilt and a pillow top. It’s very odd and interesting to go through the clothes of a child you’ve never met. I’m the mom of one son, so these girly clothes were pretty foreign to me. One problem was that someone had already begun to trace and cut patches from these clothes before turning them over to me.

Nearly all of these are knit fabrics, so I backed them all with fusible interfacing before I cut, the way one does for T shirt quilts. I worked mostly with Pellon sheer weight fusible, which cut, pressed, handled very well. When I ran out, I used a bargain, packaged, store brand interfacing to finish. Not so good. It was difficult to tell which side was fusible. Even when I got that right, it wanted to deform and melt with the hot iron and kind of stick to it. Yuck. I muddled through. Unfortunately, once the fabrics were interfaced, they completely refused to stick to my design wall, so they are all pinned and hanging off.

A number of these dresses were handcrafted batiks, so I tried to make the most of them. I’ve ordered some batik yardage for the backing, and I think it will look great.

Here’s the finished top for the pillow cover. I soaked poor Winnie in Oxiclean, but he’s still a little grungy. If he doesn’t come cleaner when I wash these, I’m going to add a few extra gold glitter hearts to cover up the spots.

What are you working on?

I’m linking up to Wednesday WIP at Freshly Pieced.

June 16, 2013
by Valerie 4 Comments

Design Wall Monday: A Nautical Feel

Here is the baby quilt top I worked on over the weekend. I had previously made a nautical baby quilt and really enjoyed it. I purposely did not look back at pictures of the last one. I took the tiny bit of leftover stripe fabric I had, put it with some red and blue canvas print, yellow, clouds, and really old (1996!) water print. I just started cutting 4 1/2″ squares and 4 7/8″ squares to make into HSTs, and used the tiny scraps to make some four patches. I like all the strong diagonal lines. This measures 36″ x 44″ and uses 99 blocks.

And here is the one I made last year. Turns out I used 180 3 1/2″ blocks for it. Also, I included lots of white, so it has a lighter look. I like them both.

Have you been playing with fabric?

I’m linking up to Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times.

June 16, 2013
by Valerie Leave a comment

Sunday Stash Report: 6/16/13

Happy Father’s Day! I did skip last week’s report, because I hadn’t added any fabric or used any (I don’t count till I have a finish.) Also, I am dismally behind on all of your blogs and podcasts, so that would be why you aren’t receiving any comments or encouragement from me. I’m with you all in spirit!

This was a good week, because the Tulip Quilt used 10.5 yards, and I used 2 more for a pair of pillowcases. All that tulip fabric is very nearly gone, but there are strings… Hmm. Log cabin? Sometimes it seems as though we never use it all up.

This week: +0 yards, -12.5 yards

YTD: =83.5 yards, -157 yards

Net stash used in 2013: -72.5 yards

How are you coming with your stash reduction?

I have a new project coming up as I will soon receive a package of baby clothes to use in a commission quilt and pillow cover. Do any of you have any experience doing a quilt like this? Know any links to nice memory projects like this? The client and I have communicated about the design, but I’d like to see lots of ideas.

I’m linking up with Sunday Stash Report at Patchwork Times.

June 14, 2013
by Valerie 6 Comments

The Tulips are Finished!

All done! And successful. I have to say that this is one of those quilts that I saw in my mind’s eye and was able to create the vision from fabric. Yes, I got tired of looking at the pink, but it was the right choice. I did use my design wall a lot, really changing around the position of the blocks, and enlisting input from the Twilters, but in the end I think it became a rich and inviting quilt.

I think the two tulip prints worked together because they are the same scale and use different values of the same colors.

The extra blocks and the rest of the lighter tulip fabric went on the back. I did a really good job using up all of these two fabrics but for a few scraps. My stash feels lighter.

This is quilted in all the ditches with Bottom Line thread. I did do the accent quilting with pale green King Tut, but I decided to mark it with wavy lines through every row of squares and quilt those lines with the walking foot. I have two of these June Tailor rulers for various sizes of curves and scallops, and I use them a lot.

Are you aware of how many shades of green fabric do not match this quilt? I have two drawers of green fabric, and almost none of it was suitable for the binding. I finally combined two pieces that look very similar, one darker than the other. It doesn’t really look scrappy, just shaded.

I used a label cut with a little extra space at the bottom to write a message when I donate this quilt. (Note to Universe: no new disasters are needed just because I have a new quilt ready to donate.)

What did you finish this week?

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

June 12, 2013
by Valerie 2 Comments

WIP Wednesday: Still Tulips

I thought I was at the point of auditioning thread for some accent quilting on this garden of tulips, but not so. The quilt insists that I stitch in every ditch, so I’m going back to do that. Straight line quilting may be fairly easy, but does it ever take time! When I do get the ditch quilting finished, I think I will use this light green King Tut (40 wt.). It’s tempting to try something special on the plain green Grunge areas, but everything else is the busy prints and it would be wasted. So, more straight lines. Someone said that they tape their seam guide in place on their walking foot to keep it from moving around (and to keep from having to mark all those lines!), so I think I’ll try that.

This quilt is 60″ x 84″ , which is at the outside of my zone for really enjoying machine quilting. It’s a bit heavy on the shoulders, and more than a bit warm in this lovely summer weather in my upstairs studio.

Verdict on the fabrics: I still love both tulip prints and the Grunge. I really can’t stand the pink at this point, but it still plays well with the others, so…

Back to work. I’m linking up with WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.

June 7, 2013
by Valerie 6 Comments

Gray and Orange Strings are Finished!

Here is the result of the 40 six-inch string blocks I pieced last week. I really like the way it came out.

The back is the end of a bolt of a kind of Japanese feel taupey gray circle print. I just barely had enough, and it is perfect on the back.

Dark gray would have worked for the binding, but was a little hard to coordinate with the backing. The soft orange hand dye looks good to me.

I’m very happy with the quilting. First I stabilized it by stitching in the ditch on all the vertical and horizontal seams with Bottom Line. I almost always start like this. It isn’t very noticable in the finished quilt, but it really does keeps things from going askew.

Then I quilted randomly placed leaves all over the top. I cut an 8 1/2″ template and traced about 60 of them (they are so random they are hard to count). I used two strands of light gray Sulky rayon thread to do the stitching. There are also two “special” leaves where I tried using a silver metallic or a dark gray thread. I didn’t stick with either, but I left the two experiments to be surprises to discover.

This did start as a donation quilt, but it is only 48″ x 72″. I like that size for a throw, but quilt drives often prefer larger ones, so it’s going in my Etsy shop soon.

What have you finished?

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

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