Evening in the Garden | Evening in the Garden Quilts

March 20, 2015
by Valerie 4 Comments

Finished: Baby Geese 3

This week I finished the last (hopefully!) of the Flying Geese baby quilts. This was a completely unplanned series, started when I was looking for a pattern to use up some 6 1/2″ little boy scraps. Then I used some bits of yardage to make the pink quilt where the geese change directions. Finally, I made this to use this cotton lawn yardage and 3 1/2″ pink scraps (cut to 3 1/4″ for the 5 1/2 ” blocks) and some 6 1/2″ flowered squares.

This one is not as graphic as the others, but it’s my favorite. I love the variety of pinks, and I like the way the black and white looks against them. It’s quilted with three rows of large, curvy free-motion feathers (in Superior’s pink Bottom Line, top and bottom) that were quick and fun to do. I used an irregular black and white stripe to bind it.

The lawn fabric (the geese, and both prints on the back) had intimidated me for a while. (I think I bought it online without noticing that it wasn’t quilting cotton.) Once I starched it up and pressed it, it behaved very well. There’s a little stretch to it, but the starch helped. It’s also a bit transparent, but I pressed seams away from it, and everything looks good.

One problem was that the smaller flowers are printed very crooked, and they look a little funky on the back. I used every last bit of these fabrics, so there wasn’t much I could do, and it’s okay. The cat helps hide them, anyway.

Which one is your favorite? I like them all, but I really like the last one, just in time for Spring. Now that I’ve completed this fun exploration of Flying Geese, I need to return to my March goals. I’m working on Clue 3 for Scrap in a Box. I’ll show you that later.

Good luck on all your finishes. I’m linking up to WIPs Be Gone at A Quilting Reader’s Garden. Not that this has been in-progress very long, but Angie likes me to share! And to Let’s Make Baby Quilts! at Michelle’s Romantic Tangle.

March 15, 2015
by Valerie 4 Comments

Finish: Baby Geese 2

Yesterday I finished up another take on the geese, and I like it a lot. You can see the Flea Market Fancy in it, but I also used up lots of old pinks from my stash, including a pink Jinny Beyer check that might be from the early nineties.

Since I was cutting yardage, sometimes small bits, I made these blocks 6″ finished, easy to cut and sew and calculate. The quilt finishes at 36″ x 42″.

I used the walking foot with pale yellow Bottom Line by Superior to stitch between all the blocks to keep it square. Then I switched to free motion and did a small stipple over all the background triangles. I was worried that dense quilting might make it stiff, but its not at all, and the unquilted geese are especially soft and nice. Warm and White batting.

I am in love with the rose batik I used for the back.

Stay tuned for version 3, which may be the last of the series!

Go to WIPs Be Gone at A Quilting Reader’s Garden to see more finishes.

March 15, 2015
by Valerie 1 Comment

Sunday Stash Report: 3/15/15

The weather here is much improved, and I took pictures of this completed quilt this morning. There will be a post about it later. It used three and a half yards, and I didn’t buy any. That can’t last long. I’m beginning to spot thin places in the stash.

This week: + 0 yards, – 3.5 yards
This year: + 26.5 yards, – 49.25 yards
Net fabric destashed in 2015: 22.75 yards

What I did buy was a new sewing chair! I had put this off because I really liked the looks of my old one (an unusual pink/red color), but it really didn’t like my back. Office Max has lots of it’s chairs on sale, and this is a mid-price one, rated for 6-8 hours at a time. Sounds about right, hmmm? I haven’t used it for that long yet, but after a few hours I’m very happy with it. The height adjusts, and the (short) arms flip up. It also is much heavier and has broader legs than my old one, so maybe it won’t flip out from under me when I reach for something!

Take care of yourselves, and keep using that stash! I’m linking up to Patchwork Times.

March 8, 2015
by Valerie 5 Comments

Sunday Stash Report: 3/8/15

This post is brought to you by Yuri, who says every quilter needs an attractive paper weight. Actually, he had a strong belief last evening that it was time to feed the cats, and was hoping that if he sat on something important enough I would have to stop my work. Or that he could stare me into submission. I had already yelled him for trying to remove pins from my piecing. I did make him wait till I finished my block. So there.

No fabric bought, and I used 3 1/2 yards for the Geese baby quilt.

This week: + 0 yards, – 3.5 yards
This year: + 26.5 yards, – 45.75 yards
Net fabric destashed in 2015: 19.25 yards

Hope all of you are moving your stash in the right direction! I’m linking up to Patchwork Times.

March 6, 2015
by Valerie 7 Comments

Geese Finish

I finished the Geese baby quilt (38″ x 44″) made with Kona Ash and the bright “boy” scraps. I am really happy with the way it turned out. I took these photos in the bright sun just to show the quilting.

The quilting is all done with gray Bottom Line by Superior. I wanted it to just be texture and shadows, no additional color. The horizontal and vertical lines are all done with the walking foot, then I did the diagonals and the echo quilting in free motion. It was a little hard to distinguish the geese that are flying horizontally, so I echo quilted inside of them, and I like the result.

The scraps include whales, construction trucks, baseball equipment, and Mickey Mouse. I was cleaning out my 6 1/2″ squares, so I made 51/2″finished blocks to make the most of the fabric. I used the two-squares-and-a-rectangle method, and this very handy chart to calculate sizes.

This is only the second Flying Geese quilt I’ve ever made, and the other was long ago. I loved how easily and precisely the blocks went together using this method. Now I’m going to do another, busier one using pinks!

Can’t wait to see your finishes! I’m linking up to Whoop Whoop Friday at Confessions of a Fabric Addict.

March 4, 2015
by Valerie 6 Comments

WIP Wednesday: Geese

Just a quick one to show you what I’m doing (instead of any of my goals!). I put together a scrappy Flying Geese quilt, and now I’m marking geese in the solid areas to quilt. So far, so good.

While I pieced this and my last two projects, I’ve been working on this (my first) leaders and enders project, and am starting to see some progress. I like doing it, and it eliminates lots of threads, but I don’t promise I’ll always be organized enough to do it. I recently did some cleaning in the studio, which makes it possible to locate the basket when I get ready to piece. (Someday this will be a “Frilly” quilt like Pam made.

Hope all of you are making progress! I’m linking up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.

February 28, 2015
by Valerie 4 Comments

Turning Down the Volume

Here’s a quilt that’s a bit different for me, since I do like bright color.

I purchased this fat quarter bundle on a whim this fall. The colors spoke to me. The gray is pretty, but it overpowers the lights. I added Kona Azure, but that was also very strong. I knew I wanted to cut these up as little as possible, so I made 6″ HSTs with them. I wanted to arrange them in a random design across the quilt, but it looked terrible.

I finally added some more Azure and made this star.

And (surprise!) I quilted it with feathers. I used aqua Bottom Line for all the quilting, top and bottom. It is very restful and soothing, and I was sad when I had no more areas to quilt.

I backed this with an aqua cloud print. A very successful little quilt. 38″ square.

The snow makes a beautiful backdrop for quilt photos, but enough is enough. Four to six more inches tonight… Stay warm and sew, everyone!

February 21, 2015
by Valerie 6 Comments

Fireplace Screen Cover Finished

Greetings from the frozen and snowy lands. Our snow is only up to Yuri’s belly (calling him Yuri Zhivago as he prowls around the Siberian landscape), but we have had some extreme cold. t’s better today. My upstairs studio is a place of relatively warm refuge. Please remind me of this when I complain in July.

Several years ago my DH and I bought this beautiful fireplace screen. We live in the woods, and have leaf motifs on rugs, wallpaper, etc., so we thought it would look good most of the year. Au contraire, ma soeur! It looks great September through November, and ~~stupid~~ out of place the rest of the year. After Pam (Hip to be a Square) made a hanging for her fireplace, I resolved to make a cover for our screen.

Here is the winter side. Kind of a whimsical and batik-y fire. I backed the base fabric with Pellon fusible fleece.

I cut all the fabrics freehand and glue-sticked them in place. I edge-stitched and quilted the logs with various black and brown Sulky threads. I quilted the flames densely with Superior’s Rainbows in flame tones, and also used my new Fabric Mate markers. (Question: have any of you had success at permanently bonding the fleece to cotton fabric? I have used it a few times, and only get a temporary bond with much effort. Any suggestions?)

The summer side could very loosely be called broderie perse, something I’ve loved since I was young. There are no laboriously turned edges here, though.

I cut these flowers from home dec fabric and edge-stitched them with invisible thread, and did just a little accent stitching with decorative thread. I think it’s fresh and fun. Working on it was a good antidote to the endless white outside!

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

February 15, 2015
by Valerie 4 Comments

Sunday Stash Report: 2/15/15

Brrr! Writing this wearing a wool sweater, with a quilt on my lap. I know I’m not in the coldest or anywhere near the snowiest part of North America, but Spring will still be very welcome!

This week I completed these two quilts, and didn’t buy any fabric.

This week: + 0 yards, – 13.75 yards
This year: + 26 yards, – 36.5 yards
Net fabric destashed in 2015: 10.5 yards

Finally heading in the right direction! Hope you are, too, but the year is still young.

I’m linking up to Patchwork Times.

February 13, 2015
by Valerie 7 Comments

Finishes: Disappearing Four Patch and Baby Rail Fence

This week I finished the D4P, and then made the scraps into a fun baby quilt. Read more about the construction here. I made this (these) to use some small pieces of fabrics. I won an eclectic bundle back in August. It had some quarter yards, some fat quarters, some were “Wee Wanders” by Sarah Jane. I also had some floral remnants left from bundles I had purchased. All were pretty small pieces. I knew I wanted to do a color fade. I looked at a few patterns, including Robbing Peter to Pay Paul, but I came back to the D4P. I added some Phillip Jacobs prints, some delicious coral batik, and some dark coral grunge.

I stitched in the ditch between blocks, then quilted large roses and stylized flowers all over, using Bottom Line in Blush.

For the baby quilt, I left out the darker fabrics, and paired it with a yummy Martha Negley strawberry, raspberry, meringue print.

I liked the spirograph-style flowers so well that I put them all over this quilt, as well as wavy lines, using a variegated pink Sulky thread. I ran all the stitching edge to edge, so there were no slippery ends to bury.