Evening in the Garden Quilts

Adventures in Fabric Art

Tag Archives: rail fence


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Cool Colored Finish

2016-02-23 17.36.32Yuri and I finished up this rail fence quilt yesterday.  Here he is admiring some of our wavy quilting lines.

IMG_2579And this is what the whole thing looks like.  It’s 63″ x 81″, and the rail blocks are nine inches square.

IMG_2582It’s all from stash, and the colors were completely inspired by this backing fabric I had on hand.

IMG_2581I sort of quilted this backwards.  Visually, I wanted minimal quilting, so I started out using the walking foot for a serpentine stitch in variegated thread down each bar of fabric.  Then I decided that it needed more quilting to withstand use on a bed, so I went back and quilted in all the ditches with invisible thread.  It made it a little wonky, but the result is fine.  A myriad of troubles disappear when a quilt is washed!

IMG_2584This quilt will stay with me.  I was checking out bedding in case some of DS’s friends came home with him, and discovered that I didn’t have a spare twin quilt.  Now I do.

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Rail Fence and Ribbon Candy

IMG_2424Today I finished this quilt, destined for donation.

IMG_2428I 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.

IMG_2425I 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.

IMG_2427There 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.


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Green Rail Fence Finish

IMG_2204This morning I finally put the binding on the chartreuse rail fence quilt.  I chose a medium blue (Kona, Candy Blue, I think) to bring out the blue in the prints.  I always use a 2″ binding, sewn to the back with a 1/4″ foot, then sewn to the front with a blind stitch. (Tutorial here. Yuri helps!)

IMG_2201bIMG_2203bIt washed up nice and cuddly, but I will need to lint roll it for a few pills.  I discuss quilting it here.  Again, yeah, Yuri helps.  What would I do without that cat?

IMG_2202bMy 20 year old DS (home from college) likes to lounge in my studio and offer opinions, and he was very positive about the colors in these donation quilts.  He often faults me for not using bright enough colors, and he thought these were great.  With any luck they will be as appreciated by the kids who receive them.

IMG_2200bFor me, this quilt takes me over the hundred yards net use of fabric mark, and it clears my stash of fabrics that have overstayed their welcome.  Win, win!

And I’m on to one final Christmas project, a t-shirt quilt for DH, with a fleece backing, so it won’t affect the numbers (I currently don’t expect to use fabric, there are so many shirts), but should be fun to sew on these days leading up to Christmas.

Hope you’re finishing everything you wish!  I’m linking up to Finish it up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts.


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Design Wall Monday: 6/16/14

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These are not exactly “on the wall”; more like works in progress.  I assembled all the blocks from the cowboy fabric into a Rail Fence top for the Scrap Basket Quilt Along, and made a back.  I included extra rail blocks and a few orphan blocks.

 

Christmas gift bags from a couple of years ago.

Christmas gift bags from a couple of years ago.

I also started making shopping bags from the pile of bird seed sacks in the corner of my studio.  I made some of these a couple of years ago as gifts, and have been saving bags ever since.  My reusable shopping bags are getting a little tattered, so I can use some new ones, but mostly I just want to get rid of some of these bags.  I looked on Etsy to see what others are doing, and found quite a few using these bags.  My favorite is Julia, of One Woman Studio.  Her design sense and color and bag choices really resonate with me.  I also stole a few of her construction techniques.  I’m not going to sell mine (probably).  These are just for my own use, and to keep the pretty bags out of the landfill.

This week's bag

This week’s bag

Nylon web is really the right material for handles, but I’m trying not to buy anything, so my handles are denim cut from old jeans.  Very comfortable for carrying groceries.  I measured my favorite cloth grocery bag to get an idea of size, and cut the front and back 20″ square (from two bags that are too small to use on their own for grocery sacks).  I used a strong poly quilting thread that I have a lot of in a lavender color that I don’t use often.  I tried out some of the stitches on my machine that I usually neglect.  I tried to take advantage of the unique properties of the bags, their body and resistance to fraying, instead of the garment sewing techniques I had used previously.  Lots of flat construction and zigzag-like stitching.  The next will be better, and faster.

I’m also interested in other ideas for using these bags.  Do you have any?

 

What are you trying this week?

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


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Design Wall Monday: 6/9/14

Apologies in advance for these photos, done in low light with a phone.  Oh, well.

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Last night I finished the top to the Slow Quilt, and I’m happy with it.  It’s big:  70″ square.  It’s going away for a while, until I can get the right batting and find some inspiration for the quilting.

All that careful piecing wore me out.  While catching up on blog reading, I spotted this post from Amanda Jean at Crazy Mom Quilts.  It’s a quilt along for charity (Margaret’s Hope Chest) using the Rail Fence design (talk about Zen piecing!).  She also mentions that they really need boys” quilts.  This started working in my brain and I couldn’t wait to get to it.  Of course I have overflowing scrap bins, but the “boy” thing made me remember that I had a whole stack of plaid yardage left from a long ago quilt (he’s 31, it was his HS graduation…).  In the same drawer I found all my cowboy yardage/scraps.  (What, you don’t have a plaid/cowboy drawer in your fabric closet?  Well, maybe I won’t, either, when these are finished!).

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I am jumping the gun on this.  Amanda doesn’t look like she’s even going to start cutting for a few weeks, so there’s plenty of time.  But I had the house to myself on a rainy Sunday, so I started to play.

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I started to realize that all those plaids were going to be chaotic and horrible a little busy jammed together in a Rail Fence, so I added khaki Kona.  (Now that I look at it, I think maybe the reason these plaids are left over is that they do have khaki stripes and threads through them, and I used the more white ones in the other project…)  So, I think this is working, don’t you?  I did actually cut the strips pretty straight, I just have them crooked on the wall.

So that’s what I’m doin today, blissfully piecing strips and whacking them into blocks.  Check out Amanda’s post and join me.

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