Finished Coins for Clara Quilt

I had another quilt-related marathon this weekend. I finished the Coins for Clara quilt. I wanted to try straight-line quilting on a larger scale - since I've only done a little bit on one quilt and a nametag - and I love how it turned out. I thought it would take way more time than it did (I think it was only about an hour and a half's worth of work).


I upped the stitch length to 7 and I think the longer stitches are the look I've been trying to get when I've attempted this in the past. I sewed two seams down each white sashing strips, about 3/4" apart, then turned the quilt and made a grid pattern that mostly outlined each coin section. I then added a few more lines to the middle sections.


I didn't worry about marking the quilt at all. I just let my lines be as straight as they wanted to be. It's a bit organic-looking and I love the non-rigidity of the not-perfectly-straight lines.


The quilting really accents the stacked coin design. Although I want to improve my free-motion skills, it's nice to have a quilt with quilting that looks decent.


In lieu of a separate label that I attached to the quilt back, I opted to write directly on the backing. But then I accidentally stitched right through my name. Oops.


I had some solid green in my stash and it happened to match the fabric collection perfectly so I used it with the brown print for the backing.


I tried a new binding method this time. (I've done the binding differently on every quilt I've made.) I've settled on the width that I like (3 inch strips), but haven't decided on the attaching method. This time, I tried Red Pepper Quilt's machine method. It made the front look pretty good, but I didn't catch the binding underneath a couple times so it looks a little funny. I guess if I had pinned the binding down I wouldn't have had that problem.

So far, I think the binding method I like the best is to attach the first part of the binding to the back of the quilt, then I fold it over to the front and topstitch it down. I've gotten pretty good results with even/straight stitches the last couple times I've used it so I think I'll stick with that method. I want to try hand stitching sometime, but my problem is that I'm too impatient. Even though I think hand stitching looks great, the thought of spending hours doing something by hand that I can do much quicker by machine makes me a little crazy. I'm making a doll quilt for my quilt group's color challenge so maybe I'll try hand sewing the binding on that small quilt.


The quilt measures about 43 inches square, before washing. My washing machine decided to go kaput this weekend and not spin the water out of the clothes. The new washer won't arrive until Friday. I love the washed look so I'm antsy for Friday to get here.

Do you wash your quilts after you've finished them, but before gifting them? There's a good discussion here that I'm totally on the same page with.

Make sure to check out Sew and Tell this week.

Coins for Clara Quilt Top

My SIL had a baby back in July. She's the first baby born in the family since I've started quilting so I thought it'd be fun to make her a quilt. I was going to give her this one originally, but I gave the mama a choice between Freebird and Tweet Tweet. My SIL wanted fabric that was a little more juvenile (this is her first girl after having three boys, after all), so she opted for Tweet Tweet. I had bought a couple charm packs a while back to make Crazy Mom Quilt's stacked coins quilt, but then opted to do something more similar to Oh Fransson's charm square baby quilt.

(As a side note, I folded the top up last night and really should have pressed it before taking pictures this morning, but I'm lazy and this will have to suffice. Just squint and try to pretend there are no wrinkles.)


I made six rows of the coins, separated by one Moda Bella Solids jelly roll strip. To frame the rows, I cut two jelly roll strips in half lengthwise and made a narrow border. Then I took some of the remaining half charms, sewed the short ends together and made a final outer border.

Thanks to my daughter for being such a good helper in her jammies. (She turned two last Friday and we chopped her hair Saturday. She looks so grown up now!)


I think if I were to make this quilt again, I would use fewer fabrics so it's not so busy. Or maybe I would just pick a charm pack that had better contrast throughout. A lot of these fabrics kind of run together and make the quilt a bit busy. But, it should be good visual stimulation for Baby Clara, right?

Patching Up Quilt Top

Back in August, I posted about this straight-edge whirligig/tessellation cross quilt that I was in the process of making. I pulled the blocks out a couple weeks ago and pieced them together into a baby quilt top. I needed some comfort.


Making this quilt top was so therapeutic for me. I know this is a tad personal, but since I know many of you understand how sewing and quilt making can have healing effects on you, I think it's okay to share here. A couple weeks ago I was thrilled to find out that my husband and I were expecting our third child. Sadly, I experienced a miscarriage shortly thereafter. While I was dealing with the grief that comes with a lost pregnancy, I finished this quilt top. I'm calling it Patching Up, an appropriate name for a quilt top that came together under these circumstances.


I may add an outer border to encase those blocks and give an edge for the binding so it doesn't cut off any of the blocks themselves. The back will have a strip of five blocks between two pieces of the same fabric. I figure I have plenty of time to finish this one, so it will likely be something I work on here and there for a while. I'll continue to post my progress as I work on it.

Straight-edge whirligig block

*If anyone knows what this block is called, please let me know.*

While piecing Jessica's Freebird Picnic quilt, I played around with different layouts for the 4.5 inch squares and decided to try a version of a whirligig block with straight edges.


I used two charm packs, one Freebird and one neutral. This would be an easy block to chain piece by alternating sewing a Freebird charm to a neutral charm. Once you have a strip of charms 84 pieces long, you can cut in half of each charm, giving you your 4.5 inch squares.


I sorted my new squares by pattern and then by color. For this quilt, I wanted each whirligig block to be mostly the same color, or same two colors. I tried to vary the pattern in each block, but with the same overall color(s).


When I pieced the blocks, I made sure to align my center points and worry about trimming the blocks down to about 8 inches before piecing the top.


The quilt will consist of 30 blocks, six rows by five columns. At around 40x46 inches, it'll be a nice baby quilt. My sister-in-law just had a baby girl a couple weeks ago, so this little quilt will be perfect for Baby Clara.


I've been pretty MIA this last week. I'm trying to finish up Jessica's quilt so I can get it to her next Sunday at our family dinner. I have the free motion quilting to finish (which looks pretty sad when you see the white thread against the brown backing - there's definitely room for improvement there). I'm also going to try a different quilting pattern on the border to give it a little more personality. Then I need to make the binding and attach the label. I'll post photos of the finished product before I hand it off next weekend.

Freebird Picnic Update 2

I used my four nights of sewing time this week to almost finish the Freebird Picnic quilt top. I still have to add a four-inch border in the Nest Ovals fabric, which will also be the backing.


This is probably the most time-intensive quilt that I've worked on so far, aside from my first quilt, but that was probably because I didn't have a clue what I was doing. I laid out the border fabric along the bottom edge of the quilt and that brown is going to make the rest of the quilt pop.


I've really liked how this one has come together. The design isn't quite as clear in mine as in the tutorial I used because of my fabric choice, but I think I like the subtlety.

*Image from Moda Bake Shop, Avignon Picnic Quilt

The binding will be made out of this Nest Eggs fabric from the line. Although the binding will be next to the brown backing, I think the white oval dots will give it a nice definition.

Freebird Picnic Update 1

I finished sewing the jelly roll strips, cutting the 4.5 inch sub-units, and pressing the seams for all 436 of these babies. Let me say that ironing for two hours straight is not my idea of a good time, although cutting before pressing was easier for me. (My sister teases me that I love ironing so much that I take time to iron my underwear. So not true. And even if I did love ironing that much, I certainly wouldn't after yesterday's lengthy stint.)


I thought I might get to piecing them last night, but it took me until 9:30 just to figure out the layout. Here's the start of it, and please excuse the poor lighting. I used my point-and-shoot camera because I was tired and lazy and wanted to get the blocks organized.


Although my SIL picked this design, it was fun to play around with different layout possibilities. It certainly got me thinking about future quilt designs.

Tonight I'll start piecing these units and see how far I can get. Cross your fingers that everything will match up for the most part.

Weihnachtsstollen (Christmas Fruitcake) Quilt Top

Not Quite Nutty as a Fruitcake is too long for a quilt name so I'm calling this quilt Weihnachtsstollen (pronounced "vy knocked shtolen"). I was thinking about the recipient and tried to find something that would fit her better. She loves Stollen, a traditional fruitcake in Germany. Since this is a Christmas gift, Weihnachten (or Christmas) seemed to fit.


I took the disappearing nine-patch blocks and separated them with Moda bella solids in milk as the sashing. I'm tempted to add another border in one of the Fruitcake prints, but I'm not sure yet.


The backing and binding will be an elegant diagonal stripe from the Fruitcake collection. This last year I made a goal to make most of my Christmas gifts. I want to do it again this year so even though I'm not quite in the mood for Christmas since it's July, it's nice to be getting a head start.

Head on over to Sew & Tell Fridays with AmyLouWho to see all the great finishes this week!

Starting Jessica's Freebird Picnic Quilt and Making Progress on Not Quite Nutty as a Fruitcake

Whoa, that was a lengthy title.

My sister-in-law commissioned me to make a quilt for her bed. She picked the design and the fabric and I set to work on it Wednesday night. The pattern requires a jelly roll of the desired fabric and a neutral jelly roll to yield a square quilt. Because I'm making a twin size quilt, I bought an additional charm pack of each type of fabric so I can add an extra row of the design. My SIL chose the fabric for the backing (also to be used as a 4 inch border around the perimeter of the design) and the binding fabric.

I started off cutting the Freebird charm pack in half, giving me ~80 2 1/2 x 5 inch rectangles.


I then took the Moda Bella Solids Snow charm pack and sewed a rectangle to either side of the charm square.


The next step will be cutting the new units down to two 4 1/2 inch squares. This will give me the subunits needed to start creating the layout. After that, I can follow the tutorial by sewing each Freebird jelly roll strip to a Snow strip along the long edge and then cutting the new pairs into 4 1/2 inch squares again.

I love when fabric looks even better in person than when you see it online. I liked Freebird when I first saw it, but some of the prints that I was only so-so on looked so cute in real life, like these butterflies...


and these grande dots.


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Since I like to work on multiple projects at a time, I'm making a disappearing nine-patch quilt to gift. I started this one back in May when I started Frolic Around the House and Peekaboo Blush. These blocks have been sitting around for a few weeks. I used three charm packs, sewn into 12 nine-patch blocks. I had enough charm squares to make 14 blocks, but I only want 12 for this quilt. After sewing the nine-patches, I cut them in half vertically and horizontally to get the start of the disapearring nine-patch.


I played around with layouts for a while, but settled on this symmetrical, formal design because I think it will suit the recipient the best. There will be 12 of these new blocks and they'll each be separated by sashing of Moda Bella Solids in Milk.


Since the last two quilts I made were done in a short timeframe, I'm hoping I can whip these babies out pretty fast as well. I guess we'll see. I feel obligated to get Jessica her quilt as soon as possible since it's not something just for me to use around the house. It all depends on the mister's work schedule since I usually sew on the nights when he's working late.

I'm also REALLY wanting to make new throw pillows for my living room. Kati brought two of her recent pillows to our quilt guild meeting last week and I seriously was drooling over them. One more thing to add to my to-do list.