Rainbow Scrappy String Quilt Top

I'm linking up this quilt top over at Rachel at Stitched in Color's Festival of Strings.  Be sure to amble on over there, and look at all the pretty things!

ETA: I put Rachel's "String Fever" button on the right sidebar, too, if you want to click over and check out all her great posts on string quilt making!!

Blogger's Quilt Festival Spring 2013

Welcome visitors, to my woodland kingdom in the forest, among the lakes and rivers of Canada! I am queen in my realm, and my subjects are a worthy brood of handsome princes, a cat, a dog and several fish. My king has carved out from these wilds a home and castle most suitable for the raising of princes and the traditional pastimes of the queen who plies the needle and thread, making quilts to brighten and warm the cold winters in the deep woods.

My entry to this Spring's Blogger's Quilt Festival at Amy's Creative Side will count as just one quilt, since they are identical (think of it as a king size in two pieces!) and they simply go together. These were made last spring, and I call them Water and Woods. As these are for my two eldest princes, er, sons, who were 14 and 16 years of age at the time, I began with the most masculine fabric I could find. (Or maybe the fabric was first and said to me "make me into quilts!!")

Either way, I looked no further than the amazing Parson Gray. Totally hip, totally cool, totally masculine, and perfect for my very design conscious young men. (To see just how design-y THEY really are, check out their very trendy and popular You-Tube channel where they ply their artistic trade.)

The fabric line is Curious Nature, and the pattern is from the ultra talented Jeni at In Color Order. The binding is Kona Cotton Solid in Pepper. The backing is a charcoal and gray scrolly print from my LQS. The batting is Warm & Natural, and I used Aurifil 50 wt in a neutral 2325 to quilt straight lines 1/4 inch away on either side of each seam.

I am really very, very fond of these quilts and am eagerly anticipating Parson Gray's next line, World Tour, as I have several more princes to quilt for!  Here is also the link for my original post about these quilts!

Quilt Stats: 

Size: 67" by 90" 

Fabric: Curious Nature by Parson Gray for FreeSpirit fabrics 

Binding: Kona Pepper 

Backing: Charcoal 108" wide flannel from LQS 

Thread: Aurifil 50 wt in colour 2325

Previous Blogger's Quilt Festival Entries:     FALL 2012

Little Quilt on the Prairie

Here is a little quilt I am in love with! I felt like I was channelling Ma Ingalls when I made it, with the hand stitching, yellow calico-y print, and old fashioned 9 patches! I was a big fan of the books and the show growing up.  True confession, it was MA Ingalls I wanted to be from Little House on the Prairie! She was so elegant and beautiful and capable. And didn't go blind. I was decidedly not a Laura type, I was and still am, happy to sit inside and sew (or read)!

Anyways, back to the quilt. I used a charm pack of Urban Chik's line Urban Cowgirl, plus yardage of the same line for the front. The back is more Urban Cowgirl squares and some yardage from Hometown by Sweetwater. I bound it with Painter's Canvas in brown. It reminded me of the side of a barn, so I felt it was a good match!

The quilting was done in straight lines with my favorite Aurifil 50 wt in colour number 2000. I added some embellishing hand stitches to each square on the front using DMC perle cotton in colours 725 (yellow) and 712 (cream).

Finished dimensions are 32.5" by 40.5"!

 
PS.  This quilt was completely inspired by this quilt by Jolene at Blue Elephant Stitches.  I pretty much adore ALL her quilts!!

Pretty in Pink Quilt (Oh So Original, I Know!)

I finished this sweet baby girl quilt today!  Could you get any more feminine and pretty than this?  I suppose I could have added ruffles....

My favourite feature is the decorative embroidery stitches I used for some of the quilting lines.  These were made with stitch number 301 on my Bernina.  I used a variegated thread in pale pink, yellow and cream from Sulky.  The rest of the quilting was done with my standby Aurifil 50 wt in ivory.

The fabrics are all from different 3 Sisters for Moda lines, Aviary, Shangri-La, Astor Manor and Paris Flea Market!  And the finished size is 34.5" by 39".

 

Folksy Blocksy Handsy Quiltsy

I finished stitching up this little lovely today, whilst sitting out on the deck! First day of outside stitching this year! Yahoo! As I said in the previous post, I decided to try a little hand quilting. I'm always so inspired with what Anna Maria Horner does with those pretty perle cottons and a needle, so as this quilt is with her lovely, old world inspired, rich and Bohemian fabrics, this lended itself well to that kind of stitching in my opinion!

I used some no. 8 perle cotton from DMC in colour 725, a golden yellow, and just went at it! It was so much fun! I am not a thimble wearer, so my middle finger is not agreeing with me at this point, but I think she just needs to toughen up!

But backing up (no pun intended)... I had been longing to try backing a quilt in voile! What a pain to stabilize that back and make it stay put so I could baste, it's sooo slippery! I ended up borrowing some heavy duty clamps from my husbands workshop and clamped that slip of a thing to my dining room table. In hindsight, maybe I just should have flipped the quilt and taped down the top, and added the batting and voile on top of that? Oh well, I'll try that next time.

I even had some voile to use for the binding. That was lovely to sew on and those mitre points were so neat and sharp with that delicate material! And such a soft, flexible and trim binding too!

  Anyways, I am very happy with mah little quilt, and wanted to share it with you! Thanks for looking!

 
PS.  I wanted to add that I was inspired to make this quilt by Rachel at Stitched in Color and her Color Brick Quilt Tutorial here!