A Quilty Look Back...

...at some of the things I made in 2013.  This is by far only a fraction of the beauty and happiness that was a part of my 2013.  But since this is just a quilt blog, here are the quilty bits of my year at a glance!

Hope you have a lovely holiday celebration this winter and a beautiful new year. Thanks for visiting my blog and for all the kindness and prettiness you have added to my year!

A Jelly Roll Quilt!

I finally finished off this quilt what's been hanging around for a year or so!

I love Lauren and Jessi Jung, the pair that designed this fabric line (called Flora) for Moda. One of my all time favourite lines of theirs is Hideaway, it's so cute. Here is a quilt I made with a bunch from that line last year (don't you love those little swiss houses?):

This one I just finished is made with a jelly roll in a very simple pattern that goes together fast. I just sewed groups of 4 jelly roll strips together, cut those strip sets into squares, arranged, and sewed together with the two borders. The quilting took me the longest (no, that's not right...just deciding what to do with the jelly roll first, and deciding how to quilt it came in a close second for longest stage!)

I decided on an all over free motion swirly, whirly... umm... loopy design. I did feel a little out of control at times, not quite sure which way I was going, and do I now swirl right...or left?? Oh well, I love it anyways. And it turned out much softer than I expected, even with the stitches crossing over themselves so many times. I do love a drape-y quilt.

The backing is half of an Ikea duvet cover I ripped apart. I bound it in some more Flora, a lovely binding print with all those little leaves. As usual, I pieced and quilted it all with Aurifil in a 50 wt., this time in an Ivory.

The final dimensions are 56" by 71", a great size from just one jelly roll plus about a yard and a half for the borders.

Maybe you even have time to whip one up for a Christmas gift!  Here is one I made from this same pattern, last year at Christmas, in a Reunion from Sweetwater jelly roll:

 

Christmas Dresden Plate Pillow

Overcome with the urge to create something Christmassy, and quilty... (because frankly, much of thinking about other aspects of Christmas is far too overwhelming right now)... this Dresden Plate Pillow was created.

 

I used up a bunch of scraps from making the quilt you see behind the pillow a couple of years ago, and some table runners for family members last year. The scraps are pretty much all from Basic Grey's lines Blitzen and Fruitcake.

I hand quilted it with my favourite Aurifil thread in a nice heavy 12 wt. A thoroughly enjoyable experience, as always.



After it has a little wash, I'm sure it will fit the pillow form nicely, right?

So.... are you Christmas quilting?

Giveaway Winner!

My first giveaway is now over, so I got to figure out how to make one of these nifty random number generators for the first time.  It tells me that comment number 55 is the winner of the Les Amis fat quarter bundle!

So the winner is Angela Smith!!  I will be contacting Angela and getting her bundle to her from Double Decker Fabric.  Thanks everyone for entering and for visiting Double Decker Fabric online!

A Little Triangle Baby Quilt

I had some trouble with photographing this today...it's minus 30 Celsius outside, so the one photo I got that is actually in focus is angled.  I promise, the quilt is square!  Oh well, I was feeling the need to share so this is what you get!

I made this with a variety of triangles, obviously, and varying shades of aqua, Kona solids as a background. Clever observers may recognize this quilt as being inspired by an Anthropologie quilt that made the rounds in blogland a bit ago.

I really do want to be original some day. But for now, as I said above, this is what you get!  The binding, since we are looking at it, is an Anna Maria Horner print...

The backing is my favourite! Anna Maria Horner VOILE! It is so very, very soft and snuggly. And so pretty too!

I quilted it in straight lines on my machine with pale gray Aurifil in 50 wt.  It finishes at about 35" by 41" and the batting is Warm & Natural.

So there it is! Have to run and put another log in the woodstove!  And wrap up in a quilt.  And make some tea... hope it's warmer where you are, but maybe not.  It *is* rather cozy in here :)