WIP Wed 8/13/14: The one with all the quilt top beginnings

Now that I'm back into the swing of sewing again, I want to try harder to blog. I have a tendency to post things to Instagram because it's so quick and easy, but I forget that my blog serves as a sewing journal so I can document all the things I make. Needless to say, these pics are all from my IG feed (@pitterputterstitch). 

Let's get on with the WIP part of this post, eh?

Flower Box

I bought this V & Co pattern, which I really love, and then pulled together a group of navy, teal, and peach fabrics. For the background, I picked this Moda Bella teak, and I'm not sure I love it. In fact, I think I may not like it. I'm debating between recutting my background fabric using a lighter neutral or just pushing through and finishing the blocks as is.

Arkansas Florence Crossroads

This was such a fast top to put together. I used Denyse Schmidt's Florence with coordinating solids for the main blocks and Le Creme dots for the background. I plan to make another one of these soon.

New Star

This paper pieced star is called the New Star and I got the pattern from Quilter's Cache. The Salt Lake Modern Quilt Guild is making a charity quilt using paper pieced stars and this color scheme. When I made this block, I forgot to use the designated solid background, so lucky me, I get to keep this one. It'll turn into a pillow eventually.

Neon Plus

In an effort to make a quilt for everyone in my family, I started on this neon plus quilt for my niece, Chamy. She's 19 and loves neon. When my dad was sick, she spent a lot of time at my parents' house tackling projects that needed to be done. She even refinished my parents' 11x40 foot deck! She's awesomesauce so I wanted to make her a quilt right away.

Wee Wander Pink and Orange

When Sarah Jane's Wee Wander line came out, I bought a fat quarter bundle of the whole line. This is such a sweet collection and I wanted to make coordinating quilts for my two girls. I played around with layouts and really liked this one, but The Middle has a mind of her own and convinced me to change it up. I'll post the final layout when I can take real pictures with my camera.

Wee Wander Blue and Green

For The Baby's quilt, I made a variety of patchwork blocks. I've since sashed them all in a cream solid and then I'll add a border around each block with green and blue solids.

Strips

I haven't made a small-strip striped quilt before. I pulled a focal fabric and then grabbed blues, reds, oranges, and greens to go with it. I pressed and trimmed all these blocks last night and settled on the final layout. I'll piece the top tonight. That'll put me at five quilt tops to baste, quilt, and bind. Not bad for a month's worth of sewing.

Finished Scrap EPP Flower Pillow

There are times when I'd rather hand sew than sit in front of my sewing machine. The downside to the flexibility of that is that I sometimes just end up with these random blocks that I don't have any use for. This is one of those blocks.

Earlier in the year, my friend, Marci, put together a fundraiser for her coworker so she could get a cochlear implant. I offered a prize for donations. Not only was this a good cause, but I wanted to get motivated to finish something.

The lucky winner was really patient with me because when she won the drawing, I was in the midst of finals for grad school. She was sweet enough to let me know I could take my time. Unfortunately, right after finals is when my dad had his stroke and then passed away. I didn't have a lot of sewing mojo for a while after he passed, but I finally finished this pillow the other night and got it sent off in the mail.



I had sewn the flower using English paper piecing and then appliqued it onto some crosshatch fabric. I needed to enlarge things a bit so it'd fit a 20" pillow form so I added a border using the same colors I used in the block.

For the backing, I chose some flannel pieces that were leftover from a previous project and pieced an orange stripe through one of the sets. I opted for no binding and no quilting on this one as well as an envelope style closure instead of a zipper.

Finished Garden Fence Quilt

A few years back, I gave my mom a bundle of fabric for Christmas. I had finished my dad's quilt, but hadn't gotten far (or done anything really) on my mom's quilt. Several years have passed and I finally got around to finishing up and gifting her the quilt.

I used Lost and Found by My Mind's Eye for Riley Blake and the original Garden Fence tutorial from Hyacinth Quilt Designs. (I used the revised Garden Fence block for my dad's quilt.) This quilt uses 35 blocks that finish at 12 inches. I then added to narrow borders in a red Moda grunge fabric and then added an ivory border to make the quilt a bit bigger.



The backing is a gray flat sheet from Target. I used a gray bias plaid binding.

My friend, Kayli, did the quilting for me. She used various floral motifs from the prints on the front.

I especially like the double flowers she free-handed.

In the thin red border, she quilted these swirls.

And the outer border is made up of piano key quilting. You can also see a bit of the binding in this pic.

In addition to the quilt, I made a few pillowcases using this awesome tutorial, which is my go-to for pillowcase-making.

It felt so good to finally finish this project. And I think my mom was happy to have something new to go in her newly remodeled bedroom.

Farewell, Dad...until we meet again.

Saying I've had a rough last month and a half would be an understatement. I lost my dad.

As a child, I scratched "Dad" into the surface of my dad's jewelry box.
I found it in a drawer on Sunday; I had all but forgotten about it.

He had a stroke on May 1, ironically the first day of stroke awareness month. After a few weeks of gradual decline, my dad's health turned critical and we knew he wouldn't be around much longer. He was placed on hospice and passed away early in the morning on June 8. I was able to be there and I'm so glad I got to spend these last few weeks with him.

As the weeks passed, it became increasingly more difficult for my dad to
talk, so he did a lot of hand-holding.

All six of us kids (I'm the baby), my mom, and my dad.

We buried him a week ago today.

While I had prepared myself for his passing, I didn't realize I would feel like this after his death. The ache I have for his loss is terribly poignant and strikes at odd moments throughout the day: in a work meeting, watching TV, reading a book to my daughter, singing bedtime songs. I miss my dad so much it hurts.

My parents would have celebrated their 52nd wedding anniversary in August. My dad would have turned 75 in September.

Despite the crushing weight of mourning for him, I know I will see my dad again. I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I'm a Mormon. Because of that, I know that life continues beyond the grave. That belief certainly doesn't take away or lessen the pain here and now of not having my dad physically on earth, but it is incredibly comforting to know death is not the end.

For his birthday last year, I made him this mini quilt. He always sung the Lionel Richie song when he called me on the phone. I took the mini quilt home last week and hung it on the wall by my bed. I will be turning it into a pillow so I can hold and squeeze it when I'm feeling low.

I sewed a little bit on Monday and it felt like the first time in a really long time. It's amazing how things you love drop down on the priority list when the things you love the most are in jeopardy. Sewing is therapeutic for me though so I hope to get back into the swing of things in the coming days and weeks.

Finished Nordika Tumbler Baby Quilt

After I finished my Nordika Scrappytrip quilt, I had a lot of leftover fabric strips, enough to make this baby quilt as well as a few Dresden wedges that I'll get around to showing one of these days.

One of my friends is having her third baby and this time, it's a girl so I thought this would be a great set of fabrics for her little one. I played around with cutting the pieces and settled on tumblers. Thus, the Nordika tumbler baby quilt:



I used a strip of the tumblers on the back along with some oval elements and one of my favorite Nordika prints.



Back in April, I did a little demo at the Salt Lake Modern Quilt Guild meeting on how I free-motion quilt. I then let anyone who wanted to try sit down with this quilt. So this one has a variety of quilting, including these cute little flowers.



I showed how I like to incorporate words into my quilting occasionally. This one has the words "love" and "family" FMQed into the edge of the quilt.



For the binding, I used the red floral print that dominates the quilt as well as the tartan plaid and a solid light gray.



My friend's baby is due in June so I'll be wrapping this one up and sending it her way soon.

#SLMQG May '14 Mini Quilt Swap

I missed out on our guild meeting last night, but I was able to virtually participate in our mini quilt swap via Instagram (thanks for posting, ladies!). Here's the mini I made (and that Barbie took to the meeting for me).

I had an orphan English paper pieced block (star blossom) sitting around that I just didn't know what to do with. I initially was planning on turning this into a pillow or bag,

but then I had this leftover block from a quilt I'm working on using my quick curve ruler that matched the color scheme and fabrics. I added a border from one-inch scraps and a section of patchwork below it.

Then I joined them together.

I've really been enjoying a fluid approach to quilting lately. I haven't been planning out quilting designs and instead have just been quilting a quilt however I want. If I change my mind during the process, I let my quilting change. This mini is no exception. I started hand quilting the black background half. I quilted a few Xs and just kind of went with it.

I quilted three rows around the star and then went willy nilly around other sections.

Since most of the fabrics on the front are from Denyse Schmidt, for the backing I used a piece from her Chicopee line, which I think goes really well with the fabrics on the front.

I used two blue/green solids for the binding, which I machine stitched to the front of the quilt and then hand-stitched to the back. I usually do my binding all by machine, but I wanted to sit in front of the TV instead of in front of my sewing machine to finish this one. And I'm happy to report that my hand-binding is getting better!

I don't know the exact measurements of this one. I think it's around 16"x22" or thereabouts.

Finished True Colors Chevron Quilt

I finished my fourth quilt for the year! And it's the fourth month. I didn't think I'd have four finished quilts at this point in the year with how busy I've been with school. But, I'm happy that I've finished my two main quilt goals for the year. In a couple weeks the semester will be over and I'll be able to spend more time quilting, hopefully.

Here she is in all her colorful glory. I'm really pleased with how everything came together for this quilt.

For the backing, I pieced half yard cuts of some of the True Colors prints with yard cuts of two of Anna Maria Horner's Dowry prints.

I did a variety of quilting on this quilt with no real rhyme or reason. I changed designs when I felt like it.

I also initially planned to bind this quilt by hand so I cut the binding at 2.5 inches, which is smaller than my typical 3-inch binding. After attaching the binding to the front of the quilt though, I just wasn't feeling the hand-binding thing and ended up finishing it by machine.

And just because he's cute, here's an photo outtake of the mister. Love his guts.

WIP Wednesday: AMH True Colors Chevron Quilt Top

I had a busy month of March. I finished this quilt top on March 9. I went to work on March 10 to find out that the company was doing a round of layoffs and my position was affected. So the last few weeks of the month were spent submitting my resume, interviewing for jobs, working on house projects, and not spending enough time sewing. I was blessed to get a new job just over two weeks later, and I started working again this week. So, the WIP I have going on right now is this quilt top.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I used Anna Maria Horner's True Colors line (two fat eighth bundles) that I picked up from Amanda's shop. I then pulled out my parallelogram die for my Accuquilt Go Baby fabric cutter, but you can easily cut this shape with your ruler and rotary cutter. I then pieced the parallelograms into this chevron design and used the leftover fabric to make half square triangles (HSTs) to use in the side borders.

I've since pieced the backing, basted the quilt, and started quilting it. I hope to finish it up soon so it can get some use at my house before mother nature turns up the heat.

Linking up with:

Accuquilt Pezzy Print Quilt

Disclaimer: I received the Accuquilt Go Baby Triangle in Square die as compensation for this post. However, all opinions are my own. 

Several months ago I started on this quilt using the Triangle in Square die from Accuquilt. I had a bunch of pezzy prints in multiple colors so I paired them with matching solids and set to work cutting.

Right away I could tell Accuquilt had made improvements to its dies. The other dies I have are an older generation and a few threads usually have to be clipped with each cut job. This die cut amazingly well; I didn't have to clip a single thread--and I cut through at least four layers each time.

Another great thing about cutting fabric this way is that the side pieces end in flat sections at the top and side rather than points. This really helps when aligning the fabric to sew each piece together.

I was really inspired by Barbie's quilt. So, after assembling all my sets, I started testing layouts. This was my first one.

I really liked that layout, but as I started sewing the pieces together, I came up with this pyramid layout that I wanted to use instead. 

I could have assembled the pieces more in a log cabin style, but since I had already pieced one of the sections, I had to add triangles to the ends of each row. To do that, I cut 5" charms.

Then I cut those charms in half diagonally.

After piecing the center square (which is comprised of a white triangle, black strip, and black and white print triangle), I pieced two sections of the pyramid, the other two sections of the pyramid, and then I pieced those two halves together. Here's the result.

The top at this point was more of a baby quilt size so I added a narrow border on both sides and a wider border on the ends.

I had intended to use this plush blanket for the backing, which is partly why I added the white border in the sizes that I did instead of making it bigger.

I quilted a large meandering stipple throughout the quilt and bound it in a multi-colored pezzy print.

I had a few pieces leftover so I pieced them like so.

And turned it into a little doll quilt, which I gave to my coworker for her daughter.

This die is pretty diverse. I can think of a few more quilts I'd like to make using this die. Now, I just need to find the time to make more.