Bloom Where You Are Planted

Just a little baby quilt to share with you today.  My cousin recently had a little boy so I made this for him.  His middle name is Bloom so I thought the gardening fabric was a perfect match.  The backing fabric inspired my front chevron colors along with Kona Bone.  I used Crazy Mom Quilt's tutorial for piecing the top.

The more I quilt the more I find that the actual quilting ends up being a huge part of whether or not I'm pleased with the end product.  When I first started quilting nearly all my quilts were tied, but in a loose grid.  They're still wonderful and soft squishy quilts but I'm really liking the machine sewn denser quilting that provides the extra texture to make the quilt come alive. The crinklier the better for me :)

Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilt's Finish It Up Friday.

Blushing Bride

When my friends get married I try hard to make them a lap quilt using their wedding colors.  My friend that's getting married next month is having an outdoor  "country chic" wedding at a winery.  Her main colors are neutrals-- beiges, whites, creams, grays-- and blush pinks with citrus accents.  So I pulled fabric from my stash and decided on a jelly roll race quilt so that I could truly let go of planning the color layout.  I love the surprise of seeing how a jelly roll race quilt turns out.

I cut the strips 2.75" wide though so that the quilt would end up 72" long, and did around 48 strips WOF so the quilt ended up being more around 65" wide.   I found a beige and pink tulip print for the back.  The couple loves to bike ride, so I was happy to have 3 different bicycle prints that worked in their color palate.  Ever since my Penny Patch quilt I have become obsessed with cross-hatch quilting, these lines are 4" apart which is nice, but I think I prefer 2" spacing.  I still need to embroider a label on the back but that shouldn't take too long!  

The Royal Rumble… aka Scrap Vomit

Have you ever seen a quilt and then dreamt about it because you wanted to make it so badly?!  Well that's what happened to me when I saw the scrap vomit quilt over on  Katy's blog.  I poured over the tutorial and started cutting my scraps into many 2.5" squares.  

So I began sewing the blocks and soon realized this was going to take a long time if I was going to be so choosey about which print went where.  I have a problem that even when I make a scrappy or improve quilt I can't quite let go completely.  What appears as randomness is actually quite thought out. So this quilt was a good lesson in letting go if I ever planned to finish this thing in a timely manner.  I think I started this quilt around June 2012 :)

The quilt measures 98" square and everything is scrappy with the exception of the solid black in the diamonds and the backing.  I ran out of gray for inside the diamonds so I used up a solid blue from my stash, and luckily it created a good secondary design element!  I gave myself a break with the back and ordered 108" wide red polkadot fabric.  I quilted on the diagonal in one direction through every square since there are so many seams. 

When I explained to my husband that it was all out of scraps from previous projects he proclaimed "So it's like a royal rumble… you better keep this one." So that's how it got named and how it's now on our guest bed :)  

This was a labor of love and to be honest, I'm still shocked it's finished!  

Linking up with Finish It Up Friday and Making For Me.

Nearly 1000 Triangles Quilt

It's been slow going on the quilting front so far this year.  I am really trying to stick to my guns and not start anything new and attack my giant pile of WIP's.  I have been making many cross blocks for my husband's soon to be quilt (item #3 in my  FAL 2013 Q4 project list) and am now waiting to receive what I hope is the correct Kona gray that I need as I ran out and have no idea what it was named (yikes!)

So in the meantime I thought I'd share some other 2013 finishes that never made it here.  Up first is my Nearly 1000 Triangles quilt.  My youngest sister was due for a new quilt.  I let her pick out the pattern as I wanted to make sure it'd be a quilt she'd really like to use in her dorm room.  Since starting quilting nearly 12 years ago (agh I feel old) I have always wanted to make a 1000 Pyramid quilt, so when she picked it amongst many I was thrilled!  That is, until I started to cut and sew up all the triangles.  Plus isosceles triangles aren't that straight forward to sew, which meant commence much seam ripping!

When I started this I consciously thought "no true greens" but the more I laid out the triangles the more I realized the colors were too flat.  I threw in a solid lime green and a few others greens from my scraps and it made a huge difference and really gave this quilt some pizzazz!

But anyway... The end result is wonderful and I am really happy with how this one turned out.  My sister says people pass by her room and always poke their heads in and say how much they like her quilt, which is lovely to hear :)  But I think it'll be awhile before I revisit these anytime soon!

I followed these instructions for cutting out the triangles from strips of fabric.

A Penny Patch Finish

Here is my finished Penny Patch quilt!  I finished it mid December, but am only now getting the chance to share photos.  I fell hard in love with this one.  So much so I've decided to keep it for myself :)

I highly recommend the tutorial/quilt-along by Rachel over at Stitched in Color.  Such a fun quilt to think about colors, and its easy to put together.  The part that drove me the craziest was how long it took to quilt.  I first only quilted a single "X" through each 6" finished block, but the quilting done by Jolene of Blue Elephant Stitches on her Penny Patch quilt pushed me to do the denser grid.  I am so glad I spent the time doing it!  It adds such a wonderful dense texture to the quilt.  I know I chickened out on my original plan to do dogwood quilting, but I feel I want to first try that on a smaller project.

I had a really hard time deciding on a backing fabric for this quilt.  Use a dark plum? Or a bright pink?  Or a creamy low-volume print!?  In the end I am so thrilled with my choice, a Juliana Horner print from JoAnns.  I love that the creamy background of the roses seems to change colors in different light, sometimes looking more white or more pink.

I couldn't help including that last picture with my toddler's horse.  They were both helping with the photo shoot!  When my son saw this finished quilt he happily exclaimed "Oooh mama do that?!" That boy sure knows how to melt this mama's heart.

Linking up with all the finished Penny Patch Quilts...

Penny Patch Update

My original fabric pull... although I ended up going more scrappy.

Sewing the penny patches.

Up on the design wall. All ready to be sewn into a top!

Citrus Bars

I made this quilt for a friend of mine who got married this summer.  The wedding had a modern theme with yellow and orange for colors.  I added in some blacks for contrast and whites, creams, and grays for softness, as well as a hint of blue since it was an accent color on their Save The Date card.  It's a large lap quilt, finishing at roughly 70" square.

I wanted a modern design that didn't mean "solids only, lots of negative space, and unbalanced." While that style would have fit this couple well, those three elements aren't really my forte.  I was inspired by this quilt, but while cutting all the pieces I kept having lots of left over scrap pieces.  Not wanting to waste them (or in actuality add them to my already overflowing scrap bins), I remembered this quilt/tutorial and was able to incorporate a few pieced rectangles throughout the quilt.  I used up even more scraps by using the longer 2.5" cut pieces for the binding.

I couldn't help but put a little heart with their initials and wedding date on the back.  I straight line quilted it every 3" using my walking foot and quilting bar.  The back is one side of a queen sized duvet cover from Ikea.  Not having to piece the back was a nice treat for me!

I was able to give this gift in person to my dear friend of 20 years, which always makes it that much more special.