Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Rainbow Stars Baby Quilt

Ombre Rainbow Stars Baby Quilt


Ombre Rainbow Stars Baby Quilt


Ombre Rainbow Stars Baby Quilt


Ombre Rainbow Stars Baby Quilt

Just popping in to share a little baby quilt that I just had to make.  I wanted some pretty stars to quilt and I had: 
  1. A sweet little charm pack of Kona cottons in a "Sunrise" colorstory...
  2. Yardage of a fun and colourful print called "Birds of Norway" by Michael Miller which seemed to pick out lots of the shades in my little charm pack...
  3. Just enough Kona Oyster solid...
  4. And a drawerful of colourful perle and Aurifil threads to play with.

I used a tutorial found here but I did have to do some reducing as it calls for 5.5" squares as the centres of the stars and I used a 5" charm pack.  But it was very easy and this block is very forgiving as your points "float" and probably won't get cut off when you sew it to the other blocks, unless you do something very weird.

Then, as you can see, I hand quilted around each star and then machine quilted around each star.  I bound it with Kona Cerise (cut to 2" - my new normal) and it was done!

Ombre Rainbow Stars Baby Quilt

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Apple Autumn Quilt

Apple Autumn Quilt

Apple Autumn Quilt

Apple Autumn Quilt

Apple Autumn Quilt

Apple Autumn Quilt

Apple Autumn Quilt


For this pattern, I was inspired by Camille Roskelley's quilt "Coming Home" in her book Simplify - which I also used here, but with smaller corner pieces. The quilt is quite simply 5 inch charms with 2.25 inch white squares sewn to the corners. I just started pulling fabrics from my stash and was thrilled when I had everything I needed to finish this quilt in a weekend and get it to its recipient, a dear person in need of some comfort, as soon as I could. I even had backing (half of an Ikea duvet cover)! I never have backing!

Anyways, it finished at 56" by 65", it's quilted in an allover meander on my machine with Aurifil colour 2325 50 wt thread. I experimented with cutting my binding strips at 2" this time rather than 2.25" as I usually do. I love it! The binding is exactly the same width on both sides of the quilt! I will be doing the same from now on. I happen to be partial to a wood grain binding, not sure why, but I have bound about 5 quilts now with wood grain prints.

 Isn't it a great colour palette? My son helped me out and named it "Apple Autumn". I was thinking something like "Indian Summer" but I think "Apple Autumn" is just the right kind of juicy and sweet name.

 Ok, off to stitch a label and make a quilt delivery...

Saturday, November 8, 2014

Happy, Happy, Happy!

I received an email this afternoon from Amy Ellis at Amy's Creative Side, host of the Blogger's Quilt Festival!  My quilt was a winner in the Hand Quilted Category! Hooray! Thanks to any of my friends and blog followers out there who cast their little vote for me.


It was such a lovely surprise to come home to after a little getaway celebrating 20 years of marriage to my handsome fella. Our anniversary was on November 6.  Here we are on our 2 day date to Banff.


Friday, October 24, 2014

Blogger's Quilt Festival Fall 2014

Welcome to my blog and my entry into the Hand Quilted Category in the Fall 2014 Blogger's Quilt Festival at Amy's Creative Side.  I present to you my king size, hand quilted, Swoon quilt for your consideration, and hopefully your enjoyment....ta da!

DS Handquilted Swoon Quilt

If you follow me on Instagram or here on my blog, you will have seen this quilt before.  If you have been watching VERY closely, you will remember that I postponed washing this epic mass of quiltiness.  Not sure why I did that.  I premonition of evil, perhaps?*  Well, folks, I've washed (and dried) it.  And here is a close up of the results...

DS Handquilted Swoon Quilt

Well, nothing evil in *this* picture!  Just mounds of soft and squishy, beautiful fabrics, textures and stitches on my bed!  Would you believe my first experience touching with my own hands the exquisite smushiness all over hand quilting produces was with own hand quilted quilts?  I live in a virtual world, people.

DS Handquilted Swoon Quilt

Shall I tell you a little bit about this quilt?   I began with a well known pattern by Camille Roskelley called Swoon.   The blocks in the original pattern are 24" square each.  I reduced mine to about 16.75" square.  I used Essex Yarn Dyed Linen in Flax as background fabric, and used my little collection of Denyse Schmidt prints.

DS Handquilted Swoon Quilt

I've used prints from several Denyse Schmidt collections in the quilt.  You'll see one print from Katy Jump Rope, several from Flea Market Fancy, Shelburne Falls, and some from Hope Valley.  The binding is from Chicopee and the large scale blue peonies on the backing are from Greenfield Hill.

DS Handquilted Swoon Quilt

The final dimensions are 107" by 90" and it fits nicely on my king size bed.  I added the border of 3" square scraps to use up all that pretty goodness, and make the quilt larger. The border was not original to the pattern.  I do love a scrappy border.  

DS Handquilted Swoon

And as I mentioned above (um, a couple of times, I'm so proud) I hand quilted the whole quilt.  This wasn't the first quilt I've used hand quilting in.  There was this one.  It was a lap quilt and I quilted it very minimally with big perle cotton stitches in several straight lines.  And this one.  A baby quilt.   And just as an accent on a few others.  This Swoon quilt was a bit more of a challenge!

DS Handquilted Swoon Quilt

I learned quickly that hand quilting across seams is tricky. I had originally intended to quilt a line around each star and each outer ring...and...well, it wasn't a fully formed plan.  As you can see, I ended up quilting the inside of every piece of every block, except for the narrow points in the ring, where I did stitch across seams and "united" the two pieces (you can see in the block above, in those orange "points" in between the blue sections).

Hand Quilting Progress on the Swoon

This photo above was taken while quilting was in progress.  For thread, I used primarily Aurifil thread in a 12 wt.  This is a rather thick thread but not as thick as perle cotton which is an 8 wt (which I did use in a couple of blocks).  I used a variety of colours and just matched them to the block I was working on.  If you could look closely, you would see orange, aqua, stone, green, brown, blue, coral and white threads in the quilt.
DS Handquilted Swoon Quilt

Here is the back.  I didn't have enough of the lovely blueberry Greenfield Hills peony fabric, so inserted panels of a multi-floral from the Shelburne Falls line.  Can you see all the dots of the stitches showing on the back?  Don't look too close.  I also learned that it is hard to make the back look as pretty as the front does when hand quilting!  

Hand Quilted Swoon Quilt

This photo was taken this summer as soon as quilting and binding was done, and before washing and drying.  And if you want to know how long it took me to hand quilt it, I spent 6 months from start to finish.  I figure it was about a block per week, and then a couple of weeks to do the sashing and border.

DS Handquilted Swoon Quilt

Ok.  I think I've blathered on about this quilt long enough.  You probably could have scrolled straight to this section and have been done with it!  Here are the stats in a nutshell:


QUILT STATS


Pattern:  Swoon by Camille Roskelley for Thimble Blossoms (resized to my own dimensions)
Print Fabrics for Blocks: Various Denyse Schmidt lines, including Katy Jump Rope, Hope Valley, Shelburne Falls, and Flea Market Fancy.
Background Fabric for Blocks: Essex Yarn Dyed Linen in Flax
Binding: Chicopee Simple Plaid in Black by Denyse Schmidt
Backing: Greenfield Hill Preservation Peony in Blueberry and Multi Floral from Shelburne Falls by Denyse Schmidt
Piecing Thread: Aurifil 50 wt. in 2325
Quilting Thread: Aurifil 12 wt. in various colours, DMC perle cotton
Batting: Warm & Natural
Dimensions: 107" by 90"



LINKS TO MY PREVIOUS ENTRIES:





*Oh!  Now to the aforementioned premonition of evil.  Go look at the third photo above (the one of the whole quilt on the log wall).  See the block in the first column, third one down?  The one with the aqua star and orange print?  See the discoloured orange squares?  Go ahead, and look close, I'll wait....  Hmmmm, right?  It seems the navy backing nicely shared its excess dye with *some* of my pieces of orange/red medallion fabric and not some others.  (I bought that orange fabric from two separate suppliers, but I have no other explanation).  You can see problems elsewhere in the quilt.  One star that has the orange/red print (3rd column, second down) was entirely stained with the blue dye, one was entirely NOT stained (upper right corner).  There is more: the white flowers in the Katy Jump Rope fabric took blue dye, as did the checked Shelburne Falls print, and the multi- floral Shelburne Falls as well.  But the white flowers in the Flea Market Fancy print is as bright as ever!  So weird.  And yes, I did use colour catchers.  Four of them to be precise!  But no, I did not pre-wash any fabrics.  I have never done so before, and I have never had a problem before this quilt.  Anyways... I shared my woes on Instagram, as one does.  I received some great and hopeful advice of some product to try.  Well, life has been busy and I haven't tried it yet... and I might not even bother ordering it.  The little "flaws" are kind of growing on me... :)



Friday, August 15, 2014

Origins Quilt

Origins Quilt

Origins Quilt

Origins Quilt

Origins Quilt

Origins Quilt

Origins Quilt

I've noticed a couple of things as I'm teaching myself to hand quilt.  Like the appearance of my stitches.  In general, I am pleased as they are neat and even.  But when I look at pictures of antique quilts, the stitches appear (1) tinier and (2) smaller, hahaha!  Like just a dot!  The way my stitches look with this thinner hand quilting thread better suits perle cotton, I think, as the stitches look a little big to me (see the close up).

A question: how many stitches per inch do people generally get hand quilting?  Mine are about 9 stitches per inch in this quilt.  Which calculates out to..... about 27, 216 stitches!  (378 squares, 8 inches of stitching per square and 9 stitches per inch?  Correct me if I am wrong!)

Quilt Stats:

Print Fabrics: Origins by Basic Grey for Moda
Solid Fabric: Kona cotton solid in Ivory (?)
Thread: Gutermann Hand Quilting thread 100% cotton in Ivory
Batting: Warm & Natural
Backing: cut from a 100% cotton Ikea duvet cover
Dimensions: 50" by 58"

Thursday, August 14, 2014

S'more Love Camper Quilt

S'more Love Camper Quilt

S'more Love Camper Quilt

S'more Love Camper Quilt

S'more Love Camper Quilt

S'more Love Camper Quilt

Before one leaves on another an epic camping trip... one needs a new camper quilt for one's RV.  Naturally.

This simple, easy to piece, easy to quilt and "perfect to showcase a fun fabric" pattern, is what I made this year for our camper quilt.  It is called Easy Bricks, by Amy Smart at Diary of a Quilter, and can by found on the Moda Bake Shop site.

I used a layer cake of S'more Love by Cosmo Cricket for Moda.  I took out a lot of the lighter prints which ended up in this baby quilt:

S'More Love Baby Quilt

I replaced the lighter S'more Love prints with darker prints that coordinated from my collection.  (As Amy did in the pattern, using 2 layer cakes and reserving the light prints for a different project.)

I pieced it and quilted it up on my machine using a white Aurifil 50 wt. and it is ready to go for our annual September RV adventure!

Quilt Stats

Pattern: Easy Bricks by Amy Smart at Diary of a Quilter (found at Moda Bake Shop)
Print Fabrics: S'more Love, Cosmo Cricket for Moda (used for top, backing and binding) and other various prints
Background fabric: Kona cotton solid (in Oyster, I think?)
Thread: Aurifil 50 wt, white
Batting: Warm & Natural
Dimensions: 60" by 81"
Completed August 2014

Monday, August 4, 2014

The Lush Uptown Quilt

Lush Uptown Quilt

Lush Uptown Quilt

Lush Uptown Quilt

Lush Uptown Quilt

Lush Uptown Quilt

Lush Uptown Quilt

Lush Uptown Quilt

The first thing one realizes after getting sucked into the siren song of this super cool, modern and unique fabric line is how difficult it is to find a good quilt pattern to do it justice!

I think I found it in Thimbleblossoms' Red Velvet pattern.  The perfect pattern to let you show off those big beautiful deer and trees and chrysanthemums....but not too modern where you are just looking at giant squares, or squares in a square.  

I did leave out several prints (some smaller scale and the paint by number birds), as I want those large scale deer and the fall foliage to shine.  And I ended up going with a sampler bundle of shot cottons for the star points instead of what I originally imagined incorporating some of the smaller scale prints for.  I think the colours and the added depth of the shot cottons is spot on for this quilt.

I pieced it with my usual Aurifil 50 wt in 2325, and I also machine quilted it with the same threads, but used a light grey on the top thread and 2325 in the bobbin.

Oh, and you may have noticed I orientated the deer to be looking at you when the quilt is what you might consider horizontal, rather than vertical.  That's because it is going to hang on the back of my couch :).

Thanks for coming by to look!

Quilt Stats

Pattern: Red Velvet by Thimbleblossoms
Dimensions: 66" by 59"
Main fabric: Lush Uptown by Moda
Backing: Turquoise sheet from Ikea
Batting: Warm & Natural
Thread:  Aurifil 50 wt
Completed August 4, 2014

Monday, July 7, 2014

The Hand Quilted Swoon is Done!

Swoon Quilt

Hooray!  It's pieced, it's quilted, it's bound!  But it's not washed and dried yet!  Usually that is the first thing I do when I complete a quilt.  But I wanted to take some pictures before it crinkles, as I have never made such a large piece with hand quilting, and with linen....I just don't quite know how different it will look!  But I will let you know.

Swoon Quilt

Final dimensions (before shrinkage) are 107" by 90".  I have also resized these blocks, you might remember if you've been following me, to about 3/4 the size of the pattern.  So the original pattern has blocks that finish 24" and mine ended up at about 16.75" (please don't ask me to explain how that math works!  I have no memory how I arrived at the numbers I did, but it worked out.)

Swoon Quilt Detail

Piecing this one began in March 2013 and the top was finished in October.  I began hand quilting in January of 2014 and completed it at the end of June!  It works out to roughly about a block a week plus the borders and sashing in another 2 - 3 weeks. 

Swoon Quilt Backing

I love, love, love this backing I used which is a Denyse Schmidt print, from her line Greenfield Hill.  Unfortunately, as is usually the way things go, I did not have enough for a king size quilt and so I stuck in a panel down the middle of a Shelburne Falls floral print which I also love.  So yay!

Swoon Quilt Detail

What a joy to look at each of those stitches and feel a bit more connected to them, as each one constitutes a moment in my day, a precise movement of my own hands, a bit of my own concentration to make it just right, and so really... a piece of me!

Swoon Quilt

(The size of the quilt is ample enough for our king size bed, but I've pictured it on a queen size bed as it was easier to take pictures in this room.)

And finally all the details to sum it up:

Pattern:  Swoon by Camille Roskelley for Thimble Blossoms (resized to my own dimensions)
Print Fabrics for Blocks: Various Denyse Schmidt lines, including Katy Jump Rope, Hope Valley, Shelburne Falls, and Flea Market Fancy.
Background Fabric for Blocks: Essex Yarn Dyed Linen in Flax
Binding: Chicopee Simple Plaid in Black by Denyse Schmidt
Backing: Greenfield Hill Preservation Peony in Blueberry and Multi Floral from Shelburne Falls by Denyse Schmidt
Piecing Thread: Aurifil 50 wt. in 2325
Quilting Thread: Aurifil 12 wt. in various colours, DMC perle cotton
Batting: Warm & Natural
Dimensions: 107" by 90"
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