I participated in the Michael Miller Challenge for Sewtopia again this year .
We each received 6 fat quarters and were able to make ANYTHING we
wanted. Last year I made a quilt, this time I made a book! I would do a
few things differently next time (like maybe look for a tutorial on how to bind the pages) but I'm pretty happy with this first
attempt. The block patterns are all by Lorna McMahon at Sew Fresh Quilts. The verse is by me. Enjoy!
A few of the particulars:
- I used the embroidery function on my sewing machine for the title.
- Ella's tail is a simple crocheted chain stitch and her ear flaps!
- All the eyes are buttons from my collection except Ben's which are pieced from MM fabric in my stash.
- The background for all the animals is Cotton Couture in Candlelight.
Linking this fun project up with Let's Bee Social of course! Thank you Lorna for such fantastic and fun patterns.
I’ve joined another quilt guild. The Detroit Area Modern Quilt Guild. They call themselves the DAM girls - so that gives you an idea of the fun they have!
They work together on charity quilts. Each month the group is given directions to make one block. (Or two if you’re on a roll!) At the meeting one person volunteers to take all the blocks home and sew them together into a top. At the last meeting the volunteer was me!
March’s blocks were all black and white. Yes, this is a color photo!
There was no rhyme or reason to creating a pattern with these 25 blocks so I just randomly sewed them together. The prints read in all different directions no matter which way you look at it. I like it!
And speaking of prints, look how cute some of these are:
Sheep and bridges...
That's a map of London!
Oh those kittys!
Look, someone threw in a curve!
Bikes and running shoes!
I made a backing with some bright colors to contrast that front. Still gender neutral for any recipient and I think age neutral as well. This quilt will go to a local children's hospital where they care for all ages.
I free motion quilted this with meandering rectangles - an obvious (and easy) choice for these blocks. I added a black and white binding.
I won 3 packages of batting from Quilter’s Dream on Valentine’s Day! (Yay!) I used one of them in this to #payitforward!
Have a wonderful week!
Linking up this group effort with Let's Bee Social on Wednesday and Crazy Mom Quilts for Finish it up Friday.
Who doesn’t love a Jelly Roll Race quilt?
This one was made with a Horizon Jelly Roll by Kate Spain. Such pretty colors.
My daughter pieced the top as a way to practice her 1/4 inch seams.
I quilted it with a different pattern in each fabric. Yep, that’s a lot of different quilting patterns. Good practice for me as well. Unfortunately, I was not able to capture it in a photograph :(
The back and binding are also from the Horizon line. I cut the binding on the bias because I think this print looks better if you don't try to line it up.
We gifted this joint project to my mother who just celebrated a big birthday. She takes it with her to watch the sun rise on the Florida horizon!
Have a wonderful week!
Linking up with Let's Bee Social.
This is the Go Anywhere Bag by Anna Graham of Noodlehead.
I chose this pattern over a year ago as part of my prize from the Wallflowers Quilt Along. I used an Andover chambray and a print from the new Carkai collection by Carolyn Friedlander for the exterior.
The inside is from the Franklin collection by Denyse Schmidt. I had a large piece leftover from the back of my pineapple variation quilt. Yay for large usable scraps!
Pockets outside and inside! It will make a perfect bag for outings with my new granddaughter. It's not too big so it can’t get too heavy!
Another Friday finish to link up with Crazy Mom Quilts.
Have a wonderful weekend.
A quick finish! Just in time for Valentine's Day!
I started making 4”, 5”, and 6” hearts with this tutorial by Cluck Cluck Sew.
I made them all into 8” blocks varying the borders for the smaller hearts.
Originally I placed all the hearts going the same direction but it just started looking a little too ordinary. This is only a small quilt - it needed to be fun! So I started twisting and turning the hearts...all ways!
I really wanted red binding on the front but the back NEEDED gray. So I tried a two-sided binding. I used this tutorial by my friend, Pam. It worked perfectly!
I quilted this with organic straight lines, each block opposite its neighbor. I love the texture.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts.
Little strips, little squares, little blocks, little quilt…
This is the most decadent quilt I’ve made to date. I used this tutorial from Red Pepper Quilts to make 48 different 16-patch checkerboard blocks. The repetitiveness of piecing these blocks was very therapeutic: cut, sew, press, repeat. Each of those 768 squares finish at 1.5".
I’ve been collecting fat 8ths and fat 16ths of Liberty of London Tana Lawn for awhile now and finally had enough variety (54 different prints) to give this a try. I used my favorite fabric, Peppered Cotton, for the solid. I just love the way the charcoal color makes the Liberty pop.
I quilted this on my Janome with a simple cross-hatch through all the solid squares. I used the thinnest (request loft) Quilter’s Dream cotton batting. Even with the thin batting there is an amazingly beautiful poof to this that I just couldn’t capture in a photo.
The binding is super luscious voile. It’s so soft I wanted to make it bigger and used this great tutorial to help me sort out the math to do that.
The back is a single piece of classic D’Anjo Liberty that I splurged on when Duckadilly had their Black Friday sale.
I made this ultra luxurious quilt in anticipation of our first grandchild who was due in February. She arrived six weeks earlier than anticipated and I have a few more quick little projects to share.
First, our baby girl (BG) is teeny tiny but mighty and healthy and we are blessed. The sweet little hat she’s wearing was donated to the Special Care Nursery where she spent her first 10 days. If you make things to donate to hospitals THANK YOU! I now know first hand how gratefully they are received.
I used this tutorial from Cut to Pieces to make a simple crib sheet. More of these are in the works!
Every baby needs a few sweet burp cloths. No tutorial needed here. Just measured, pressed and sewed.
Finally, I used this simple tutorial from Cluck Cluck Sew to make a car seat canopy. The measurements Allison provides fit a Chicco infant car seat perfectly - just in case you ever need to know! The fabrics are organic cottons from Cloud 9 I picked up at Joann’s over a year ago. It’s good to have some yardage in your stash for when you need to make something quick!
Linking all these little finishes up with Crazy Mom Quilts. Then I'm off for some baby cuddle time!
Like many, I’ve been reflecting on my 2015 finishes. Two highlights, in no particular order, are participating in my first blog hop and having one of my quilts go to Quilt Market. It occurred to me that I had not yet posted about my quilt going to market - so here we go…
Fellow Ann Arbor Modern Quilt Guild member and owner of Pink Castle Fabrics, Brenda Ratliff, designed her own fabric collection, Pie Making Day, for RJR Fabrics. It was very exciting each month at our meetings to hear about the process and see the initial runs. We were offered the opportunity to make something for her booth. We could only use fabric from the collection and RJR's Cotton Supreme solids. When the fabric arrived time was running short so I chose a pattern from Amy Smart’s "Fabulously Fast Quilts". I’d been eyeing the Modern Buzz Saw pattern for awhile and felt it was perfect for showing off the whole collection.
I used all 24 prints with Wimbledon & Cove for background colors.
I had extra fabric from my bundle so I used it for a border.
This was the first time I played with selvages. It took a few tries but I love that I got the collection and designer’s name, and even the date, in there!
On the back I used the last bits of fabric to make the blades for a version of the Sawtooth Stripe quilt from Denyse Schmidt’s book "Modern Quits Traditional Inspiration". I love that this is a two sided quilt!
Keeping with the saw blade theme I quilted this with all-over jagged lines.
Can you spot my quilt in this photo of Brenda’s award winning booth? I still can’t believe my quilt went to market!
Equally exciting is that Amy Smart was there to see it and she shared it with all her followers on Instagram and on her blog! (Amy's post is excellent. If you are interested in learning more about Quilt Market I encourage you to check it out.)
This quilt is one I'm keeping. It fits perfectly in the bunk room at our camp!
Thanks to Brenda for this wonderful opportunity. A highlight of 2015!
Completing this post is a finish so I'll be linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts.
