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

My christmas quilt - a bee quilt with lessons

Last year I joined the Bee Hive quilting bee run by Blossom Heart Quilts and got put in a wonderful hive of women. We got along so great last year we decided to keep going this year!  More about that later though. My month to bee queen was August and I decided to make a Christmas quilt since I still don't have one. I chose the Ripples Block in red, green and black.  And I'm so thrilled with how this came out! Though it wasn't without drama.

I decided since this was a quilt I would bring out once a year that I wanted to so some special quilting on it. I have also been taking  Amy Johnson's Craftsy class "Quilting With Rulers on a Home Machine" and wanted to try out my new skills. By the way, the class is wonderful! I loved it so much I'm taking her 2nd class. And here are the results!

I even used a sparkly thread for those stars. It was very finicky to work with, but the sparkle it adds was totally worth it. It was very hard to photograph and capture it, but I tried...

The drama came in when I washed it. When the quilt came out, it had bled ALL over. This was despite having about 6 Color Catchers in the wash with it.

 This is one small area, but the entire thing looked like this. I literally stood in my laundry room and cried! All the work my bee mates and put into it and all the work I had done quilting and it was a MESS! Then I hit up the internet.  People recommended a product called Synthropol which is apparently sold in quilt shops. However, it was Sunday evening so that wasn't going to happen.  A friend from my guild told me that Blue Dawn has the same chemical make up as Synthropol and what it does is keep the dies in the water from adhering to your fabric.  So I got out a big plastic bin and filled it with water, Dawn, my quilt and a bunch of color catchers. I let it soak overnight and in the morning, dumped out the pink water and pulled out the color catchers which were dark pink.   I soaked it again all day and this time the water ran clear.  I let the quilt line dry and to my immense relief it looks SO much better!

There are a couple of small spots, but for the most part, you'd have to be looking for them to see them.  And the lesson I've learned going forward... add 1 cup of white vinegar to your wash load with a fresh quilt. It will also keep the dyes from sticking to your quilt!

So back to the photos. Here are some more close ups of my quilting...

 The back still needs its label (i have it ready!)

And the binding is a fun polka dot.

Many thanks to the ladies in my bee hive. They did tremendous work! I almost hate to put it away until Christmas!!

Quilt stats:

Quilt name: Christmas Ripple

Pattern: Ripple Block

Fabrics: scrappy
Finished size: 48" x 60"

Finished: April 2016

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

Must love purple again....

I have another quilt to share, but it looks very much like something I've made before!

 Yup, my Must Love Purple quilt that I showed at Bloggers Quilt Fest 2012. I was contacted by someone who wanted me to recreate this for her and I was happy to do it. After all, I love purple!

Most of the fabrics came from my stash, but she did provide several and I tried to tailor the color palate to what she sent me. I had taken this to a retreat to quilt it and was asked where I got all the purple. I realized that I have just been collecting it! When I find it, I buy a little bit here and there!

The tutorial for this block can be found here at Nittany Block Party.

I kept the quilting deliberately loose (as in, not densely quilted) so the quilt will be nice and snuggly. I only quilted along the scrappy stripes and then around the borders. I used a variegated thread (didn't get a great shot of that).

This is ONE BIG QUILT! Because I stink at quilt math, she asked for 80" x90" and I wound up at 90" x 100"! LOL  To give you a sense of the size, one of the 4 parts that makes up the square is 6.75".

You can see the quilting a little better on the back of the quilt. All of the greens and the blue back here are extras of what the client sent me.

I made the binding scrappy too. I always love a scrappy binding. Now to send this off to it's new home!

Quilt stats:

Size: 90" x 100"

Pattern: X String Block

Fabrics: Mix of scraps and stash

Quilted by: Myself

Finished: 11/14/2014