diamond string quilt

This one was pretty easy, and a lot of fun.  I love the colors.  I found the fabric used in the border on a trip to Florida (it's a Laurel Burch design).  Then, made the rest of the quilt to go with it.  I used silk batting, just to see how that would quilt.  My machine quilting was supposed to be smooth swirls, but it didn't come out all that smooth.  But it was good practice.

Here is the finished top before quilting:

After quilting:

After quilting:  

The back:

I gave this quilt to one of my brothers, who has a place at the beach.  I think it looks quite happy there:

Erin's quilt

Goddaughter Erin graduated from high school last week.  Hard to believe she's past that milestone already! I made this dragonfly/butterfly quilt for her to commemorate the occasion.  It took me about 3 weeks to decide on the basic fabrics.  After several trials with different materials, I finally found this dragonfly print that I could fussy-cut a dragonfly for each center square.  The quilt pattern is Tennessee Waltz, which is great for Erin as her mom went to school in Nashville and she and Erin often go back there to visit friends.

Lessons learned from this quilt:

• don't use white-on-white type fabric where the top layer isn't woven in... almost looks like it's painted on.  This fabric was not very forgiving; when you take stitches out, they still show in the "painted" part.
• I actually CAN do picture-type machine quilting!  I did dragonflies and butterflies in most of the white squares, and even did Erin's monogram in 4 corner white squares
• DO NOT leave an unfinished quilt sitting out in the workroom ... well, at least MY workroom.  I was almost done with the quilting, and a mouse decided it liked my quilt. It chewed a hole in the backing and shredded a section of batting. Fortunately, it didn't break thru to the front.  I stuck another piece of batting in, and patched the backing.  Once it was quilted over, it wasn't that noticeable.

Log Cabin Sampler

I've named this king-size quilt "Log Cabin Sampler" because it has

1. several ways to arrange log cabin blocks to create different patterns
2. many machine quilting techniques -- there is straightline stitching and stitch-in-the-ditch with a walking foot, free motion stippling, and a free motion pattern.  While I was in the process of making the log cabin squares, I took a free-motion class, and used the black sections of the quilt to try out different patterns.  They're all  angular (squares or triangles) to match the quilt ... and because I'm not too comfortable with curves yet!
3. quilt-as-you-go (the large sections are quilted separately, and then connected using sashing) as well as traditional block assembly (inside the large sections.)

Here's another view that shows how I did the corners: 

If you're interested in the details .......

                                                                                  

It took 186 of these log cabin squares.  These were combined with plain black sections to create 2 white diamond sections, 3 black diamond sections, 4 windmill sections, and 9 vee sections for the zig-zag around the edges

                                                    

Then I quilted each section.  I did straight-line quilting or stich-in-the-ditch for the log cabin blocks, because they are already busy enough, and I wasn't quite ready to try free-motion going over all those seams.  I practiced my stippling on the black sections.  Here's one example -- I used black thread on the black fabric, because I really did not want the quilting to be the focal point of the whole quilt.  The design created by the log cabin blocks was really my focus.  Anyway, I tried to get a picture of some of this stippling, but the black-on-black was kinda hard to photograph .... it looks a lot better in real life!

Finally, I came up with a free-motion pattern for the blocks in the corners, and also for the 3 "header" sections at the top of the quilt.  This pattern was actually a doodle that my grandfather's 2nd wife,  Mabel, taught me when I was a kid.  I didn't really know her that well or spend much time with her, but I do remember sitting with her and learning this doodle.  Funny the things we remember. 

Stephanie, the quilting class instructor, had suggested using red thread for quilting on the black fabric, but I was  (at that time!) a little bit afraid of doing anything that would stand out and show all my mistakes!  By the time I had done all the large blocks, however, I was ready to give it a try, so these header blocks are for Stephanie!  They came out great, although they have almost an Oriental style that doesn't really match the rest of the quilt.  But I like them anyway.  I used a programmed stitch on my machine to do the extra border inside each section.

Another project complete! On a recent trip thru WV, we ran onto a small quilt shop, where I found a package of 5" squares by Moda, called "Figgy Pudding". Bought 'em, but had no idea what I'd do with them. (But, the best thing about this stop, was that the shop had just installed a long arm quilting machine, and they let me try it out! That was really fun. I guess they were planning to start offering a quilting service to their customers.)

So, the package of squares -- I guess they're called charms -- was a challenge. Each square was different, but in coordinating colors and styles. I found a pattern called panache on the web, and thought it would be a good way to use the charms. Hardest thing was picking out the additional fabrics I needed for the backgrounds and "setting" squares. But, after a couple of hours at Jo-Anns, I settled on a pine green material that has little colored spots that look like Christmas tree bulbs, a subtle red print, a deeper red with spots for the binding, and muslin for the setting squares and the backing.

After I got started, I realized I had gotten almost twice as much fabric as I needed : the original pattern was for 10" squares, while mine were 5". So, I cut all the amounts in half. But, a 5" square is 1/4 of a 10" square ... duh. The overall dimensions end up being about 1/2 of the original, tho. ANYWAY, I had fabric left over, as well as a bunch of half-square trianges from the setting squares of the main quilt, so I came up with a couple of pillow designs. I had been wanting to try prairie points, so I did those around the edges of the pillow. Not sure I like it, but it was fun trying it out. It's a little too "fussy" for my tastes.

I was quite pleased with the machine quilting on this. The back thread is green and red, and its almost as interesting as the front!

I've been busy! Getting more practice doing hotpads and placements for Christmas. I tried cutting my binding for the placements on the bias, and like it a lot. The "corners" are 45 degrees instead of 90, and the bias seems to work better.

Alice in Alamance

I got inspired to create a quilt to depict one of the huge old oak trees that we have in our yard. Originally, there were 4 such trees, but we had to take one down several years ago, as it was dying and threatened to fall on the house. We believe the trees are close to 200 years old. My husband named the tree Alice, for the woman from whom we purchased our property. And, our place in Alamance County is truly a wonderland for us; hence the name "Alice in Alamance"

I made the main part of the quilt totally from "disappearing 9-squares". I invented some oak leaf blocks for the corners of the trim. It was really fun doing this one! Here's the quilt, and a photo of the actual tree.

Pot Holders

I've been experimenting with different blocks, and making them into pot holders to get experience with the quilting, framing and binding techniques. Found some material (looks like batting, but is especially for heat resistance) that you include along with batting to make these useable as hot pads.

Here's my first one. I was running low on scraps, so I only did a single layer on the binding, and just did lapped corners. This block is called card trick:

It actually looks "neater" if you rotate it 45 degrees, but I can't get my photo software to do that for me ... if I figure it out, I'll add another picture here!

The next one didn't come out so well. I didn't intend to use the blue initially. I was going to use the same bright red as in the middle, for all the little triangles. But I mis-cut my red pieces, and didn't have enough to re do it So, I decided on the blue. There is some blue in the light-colored background fabric, so it's "OK", but not my favorite combination of colors. I messed up the settings on my machine when I quilted it, so that didn't come out so well either. But, I do like the pattern on the back. This one does have a double layered, miter-corned binding:

Now on to my favorite. This is a block made from 4 smaller blocks. They are all disappearing 9-squares. I really like the secondary color combination of orange, purple and green. I found some batik fabric at a store up in Fancy Gap, and used it for a border and for the back. This one has binding with mitered corners, but only one layer of fabric

First projects

Here's the 1st block I did, a 5x5 pattern.  It's now hanging on the fridge. 

Had lots of fabric left, so did this woven pattern, using the half/seam technique I read about in a book.  Putting the trim around the edge was the challenge here.

Starting up ...

Wanted to be able to participate in the quilter's festival, so had to learn how to create a blog! Sorry there's not much else here yet ...

I started quilting a couple months ago. My first project was a 5-square block design I found on the web. It came out great, but I quickly realized that following someone else's design was not that interesting for me. So I decided to create my own.

I came up with a 9-square kaleidoscope design that I felt needed some really bright colors. Off to the local quilt shop, where I found the perfect fabric. A local artist had hand-dyed pieces in really nice colors. She sold packages of 20 6x9 squares, each a different color, as well as 1/4 yd pieces. 

So, I put the 9x9 design together, and was really pleased with it, except for the bulk of some of the intersections. I couldn't figure out a way to press them to get them all to lock together nicely.

Then the question was, what next? I have been wanting to try quilt-as-you-go, so I made a top and bottom panel, using a row of "diamonds" in each one, and a couple of side panels. After machine quilting all the sections, another lesson was learned. Your quilting design can really change the size of your blocks!

The large 9x9 was 19.25 inches when I started, and 18.5 after quilting. The top and bottom panels were 19.25 when I started, but 19 when I finished. So I had to trim quarter inch off each end of the panels. I lost the nice points on the end diamonds, but oh well!

The process of joining the sections went really well. Then I tried putting the binding on totally by machine, based on a video I found on you-Tube. That was a challenge. I think I need a better machine for that.

Anyway, I love the final quilt. I used a nice soft yellow flannel for the backing, thinking that the quilt might go to the next new baby in the family, but I don't know that I'll be able to give it up!