Pollyanna Swap with Philly MQG

At this month's meeting, we had our Pollyanna swap with the members. We use a site called Elfster to organize it and I highly recommend it if you'd like to set up something like this. The individuals sign up, create wish lists and the site matches up the partners. It allows you to ask anonymous questions of your parter too! 

Anyway, I got my good friend Cathy who asked for a table runner 32" in length. She requested neutrals with a pop of red. I've been in her house before so it helped me know what to make for her! I had a mini charm pack  of Circa 1934 which had the perfect colors.  The size of mini-charms are perfect for english paper piece hexagons and I have the plastic templates for them so they technically aren't paper pieced!   These hexies are all sewn together by hand and then machine appliqued down to the cream fabric.

 

I did all the free motion quilting on my domestic machine and am pretty happy with how it turned out.

 

The back is a solid piece of the typewriter print from this line.

 

It looked pretty good on my coffee table I must say. I almost kept it! I know Cathy loved it though and I'll be sure to visit it sometime!

Quilt stats:

Quilt name: Table Runner

Pattern: none, self designed

Fabrics: Circa 1934, Cosmo Cricket
Finished size: Approx 32" by 20"

Finished: December 2015

 

 

Modern Dahlia

I don't think I ever blogged about this little quilt finish.

 

This was for a swap that the Philly Modern Quilt Guild did at the Fall Retreat.  The challenge was for everyone to take a traditional block and 'make it modern'.

 

The pattern is Dahlia by April Rosenthal. And I was be honest, it's not for beginners. It uses templates, or she sells acrylic templates. There is a lot of hand prep before piecing. I was already working on a number of these for myself so I had a bit of practice before doing this one!

 

The back shows the quilting which I am most proud of! I basically followed the curves of the front and extended them off the quilt and it made this awesome pattern.

We did our swap at the retreat by pulling numbers from a hat and Nicole got my quilt. I'll take some pictures and post the amazing mini that I relieved later!

Quilt stats:

Quilt name:Modern Dahlia

Pattern: Dahlia

Fabrics: scrappy mix
Finished size: 25" x25"

Finished: November 2015

Ocean Waves bee finish

This quilt began in May 2014 when I asked my bee mates from the We Bee With It Bee to make me blocks for an Ocean Waves quilt.

 

They came through with great blocks but I wanted to make more so it would be larger.  Needless to say, that mean that it sat for a bit before I was able to get to it!

 

A year a half later and here it is!  Philly MQG had our fall retreat which I was lucky enough to attend. I knew it was a perfect opportunity to get this quilt finished. I pieced it in advance and had the top ready to go for the retreat.

 

At the retreat I was able to baste it and start working on the quilting. (yay for high working tables at the hotel - saved my back the basting ache!)  The quilting was done on my domestic machine with a walking foot technique from Jacquie Ghering's Next Steps in Walking Foot Quilting.   I used my quick curve ruler to mark the curves on this and I'm so happy with the results. I think this next picture of the back shows it off the best.

 

I'm always amazed when bee quilts work so well. When I made my color requests, I asked for any shade of blue or blue green and look how fun these scrappy blocks are!

 

A huge thank you to the girls of the We Bee With It group. Sorry it took me so long to put these beautiful blocks together!!  

 

This quilt has already been sent to my sister who loves blue. I will admit I gave it to her a bit selfishly so I know that I can go visit it! The binding is a scrappy mix of blues that I had on hand.

 

 

Quilt stats:

Quilt name: Ocean Waves

Pattern: none, used HSTs of the same size

Fabrics: scrappy mix
Finished size: 72"x 60"

Finished: November 2015