A bedrunner

In 2011, I made my mom this king size quilt. My mother, and her mother before her, love to re-decorate so it was time for something new!  After talking with her during a recent visit, we decided a bed-runner was the way to go. Here's the final quilt in her beautiful Florida room.

The pattern is "Pair of Pillows" from Angela Pingel's A Quilter's Mixology. Which I have to say - I love this book. If you like curves, definitely check it out. She's got lots of creative patterns in there. I took a few more pictures before it was sent to it's new home.

All the quilting was done my me on my domestic machine.  The narrow width of this made it so much easier to work with!

The backing is  pieced scraps.

Quilt stats:

Size: approx 40" x 90" (I forgot to measure before sending away)

Pattern: Pair of Pillows, Angela Pingel

Fabrics: Scraps and KonaWhite

Quilted: me

Finished: 4/18

Nautical Octagon quilt

You'll notice this quilt looks a lot like the last quilt that I posted. That's because when I made the last quilt, I let the kids cut a bunch of triangles with my AccuQuilt Go without doing any math. This quilt is the result of having way too many triangles!!

What I love about this quilt is that at first it looks like random triangles. But as you get closer you can see they are actually octagons!

I did free motion and ruler work quilting on this one and I'm quite proud of how it turned out. I really wanted to set those octagons off with the quilting because they are so "low volume". 

The binding is fabrics from within the octagons.

And the back is more of the same.

I'm quite proud of this quilt in general because it was the first time I developed my own pattern. I had these triangles and wanted to make an octagon without doing any Y seams. It was quite an interesting process, but it came together well!! 

You can find this quilt for sale on my etsy shop.

Quilt stats:

Quilt name: Nautical Octagon baby quilt

Pattern: none - my own

Fabrics: stash

Finished size: 37"x37"

Finished: 3.2017

Second Alphabet Quilt

When I made my last alphabet quilt, I made two at one time. I never showed photos of the second one. Recently we had an unusually warm day, so I set up my photo equipment and took some photos of this adorable quilt.

I used primary colors for this quilt so it will work for a boy or girl, or even an adult! The original quilt was meant as a gift for a teacher which I think is a great idea.

It's tough to see unless you enlarge these photos, but the quilting is detailed and custom and really makes an impact in person.

And yes, the "HI" was done in a different color so it stands out deliberately. Cute right!?

This quilt is currently for sale in my Etsy shop right here.

Quilt stats:

Quilt name: Alphabet Mini Quilt

Pattern: Mini Alphabet

Fabrics: stash

Finished size: 42"x 42"

Finished: 6/2015

Boomerang quilt

I have another boomerang quilt to share. This one's pattern is from Jaybird Quilts. I loved her take in only solids so I decided to do all solids as well. I used Moda Blueberry Thicket bunch for this and added navy for the outside.

Once the quilt top was put together un-quilted, I realized it need custom quilting or the pattern was going to disappear.

So I took my knowledge of ruler work on a domestic which I've learned from Amy Johnson and got to work!

Some of these boomerangs were done free motion and some were straight lined.

This was definitely an exercise in patience! It took me a few weeks on my little Bernina, but I had Orange is the New Black to keep me entertained. I think I'm one of the last people to have watched that show! Haha!

But I'm glad I did it, and am thrilled with the results. And - my quilting skills definitely improved throughout the top! The back is one big wideback. It needed to be simple after the detail on the front!

I took this to the park for a photoshoot and the kids ran around like crazy while I took photos...

This one is definitely staying with me for the time being. It's going to be a while before I'm ready to part with this I think!

Quilt stats:

Quilt name: Blueberry Boomerang

Pattern: Boomerang by JayBird Quilts

Fabrics: Blueberry Thicket Moda Bundle
Finished size: 56" by 72"

Finished: September 2016

Prism quilt and a free motion experiment

 

My most recent quilt finish is one that has been waiting in my sewing room for a few years. I very rarely remake a quilt that someone else has made, but this one caught my eye and for some reason I really wanted to make it just like the sample. This is the Prism quilt by Zen Chic which uses her fabric line Prism as well. 

The piecing was all done by paper-piecing which was actually quite fun. And satisfying since all the points lined up so nicely.  But when I was done, I was totally stumped on how to quilt all that white space. My generous friend Denise agreed to let me use her long arm for this one. So I started marking out the lines I wanted to quilt on this.

 Here it is in progress on the longarm.

I did a combination of ruler work and free motion within the lines. It's in no way perfect, but as it's my first attempt at this kind of work, I'm pretty proud of the results.

I deliberately chose a variegated thread that blended with the background fabric just in case my quilting was atrocious! But that made it really hard to photograph the actual quilting.

It was really fun to work this way and of course not be shoving this through my 5" throat space on my Bernina!

I used the fun dotty print from the line for the binding.

And the back is a solid piece of fabric that I got from my LQS that matched well. I don't remember the name of it, but it has a subtle pattern on it (again, to mask the quilting if it turned out terrible!). I have since added my label.

Overall, I'm so happy with how this turned out and I hope to get to do more of this work in the future!

 

 

 

Quilt stats:

Quilt name: Prism

Pattern:Prism

Fabrics: Zen Chic, Kona Cotton
Finished size: 73" by 73"

Finished: April 2016

Anchor and Waves

Warning, this will be a picture heavy post because I just love this little quilt. This is my own design and I'm really happy with how it turned out. My sister in Florida asked me to make a quilt for her girlfriend who is having a baby this winter. She's doing a nautical room and my sister requested the coral and navy combo.

 
The fabrics are almost all Michael Millers "the Littles" line (which I see they have now expanded beyond nautical!!) and they are all nautical related. Whales, life preservers, boats and anchors. There are two other prints that weren't from that line that I snuck in, but I don't remember the names. One are little crabs that say "crabby" and the other is a boat print.

I did the clamshells with my AccuQuilt Go clamshell die and sorted them by color so it would mimic waves at the top of the ocean.

 

The white fabric is actually a tone on tone that looks like a nautical rope.

 

I free motion quilted the whole thing with swirls so it gave a watery effect. I used navy thread on the bottom, a coral in the middle and white on the top and only coral on the back.

 

The anchor I had designed previously with my Silhoutte Studio software for a past quilt. I printed it and then traced and cut the fabric by hand. I probably could have cut with the Silhoutte, but mine is pretty old and limping along. Sometimes it just eats my fabric at this point! I blanket stitched it to the quilt with my machine.

 

Label is pieced into the back per usual. Almost time to order more - do I redesign!?

 

And the binding is a gorgeous coral stripe from The Littles line by Michael Miller which I think sets off the quilt perfectly.

 

And now it's on it's way to Florida for a baby shower next week! I hope the mom loves it as much as I do.

Quilt stats:

Quilt name: Anchor and Waves

Pattern: none, self designed

Fabrics: The Littles plus stash
Finished size: ? forgot to measure!

Finished: January 2016