Colorblock Quilt top

Posted on March 27, 2013 by Andrea R — 6 Comments

For this quilt, I purchased the PDF Colorblock Quilt pattern from www.bijoulovelydesigns.com. The pattern is really well written and super easy to follow, with loads of clear diagrams. Perfect for beginners, a breeze for more experienced quilters.

I also went to two different Etsy shops to get the right fabric – Mod Tod by Riley Blake, purchased from Fiber Textiles and 44th St Fabric. Both shops were fabulous and extremely helpful, and my orders (to Canada from the US arrived within two weeks and a day apart. I was impressed with both places. So impressed, I now read Bev’s blog from 44th St. Heh. (Hi Bev!)

I had to piece one of my fabric for the long strip, but I did it carefully in the print and you hardly notice. The piecing and cutting was done in maybe 3.5 hours, while I watched episodes of Dr. Who on Netflix. About half the time was ironing, because I did follow the advice the iron seams open. The white I used for sashing is poly cotton, so somewhat sheer and I knew the seams from the darker fabric would show.

The only issue I had is something I consistently have with long strips – running out of strip at the end of the seam. However much I pin, the fabric still shifts. I could have used my walking foot, but it’s so noisy and goes slower. I guess I’ll know for next time.

One short sashing piece wound up just short enough it pulled out of the seam so I do have to make a small repair by removing the strip and sewing it back in.

Overall, I’m really happy with the pattern and the fabric – even if I did wind up getting the blocks reversed. The recipient will never know or care, it’s still a gorgeous quilt!

I’m not sure how I’ll quilt it yet, but I am open to suggestions. I’m thinking of leaving the narrow sashing unquilted. They wind up only 1″ wide. I’ll be using Hobb’s Warm and Natural cotton for the batting.

Linking up to WIP Wednesday.

Cowboy quilt

Posted on March 1, 2013 by Andrea R — 1 Comment

Or maybe “The Sheriff is in town”. I bought the fabric for this quilt a few years ago in a thrift store. 3 yards of each grey print, just sitting there. I maybe paid a buck a yard, not a thing wrong with it.

Ever since I got the fabric, I had an idea that I would have to do a quilt with bright solid stars, so I drew it up and roughed in some measurements and finally started it this month. Well, February but you knew what I meant. 😉 I did want a bit of a modern spin on it, so that will probably happen with the quilting itself.

I wanted to see how long a typical quilt will take me, so I’m going to try and track my time. I spent 50 mins getting these sashing pieces sewn and pressed today.

Before that, I figure I spent 2 hours planning and drawing, and cutting the pieces. That’s probably a conservative guesstimate there.

Once the sashing strips were done, it only took twenty minutes to do the first row.

uh-oh. I looked at the sashing pieces I had, said “That can’t be right” and realized I mis counted somewhere.

I have a grey stack of strips without the triangles on the corners, but couldn’t remember if I’d cut too many pieces or not. I opent get rotary-happy when cutting and cut out waaayyy too many pieces!

Do you think this would be a good free tutorial to write up? It’s just large enough that the backing can be done with one piece of fabric, and will be a nice baby quilt size.

Edit: I did manage to get half the top pieced today. Hoping to do the rest tonight.

I have a UFO problem

Posted on February 24, 2013 by Andrea R — 1 Comment

No, not aliens! 😀 I tallied up all the quilt tops I have in progress, including ones that were partially cut or partially pieced, and a couple that are for now just a pile of selected fabric and an idea.

There’s NINE of those.

Then I counted up all the quilt tops I have finished, including ones with back slected, all the way up to ones that are quilted (see previous entry), or basted, or I really need to get batting and/or backing for. Yeesh. Sometimes backing is the hard part!

There’s 10 or 12, I started to loose count., And yes, I KNOW! That’s a terrible problem.

This also does not count two baby quilts I have to make, and the fabric is literally on the way here. Oops? I jst did not really have any baby boy fabrics and both of them are for baby boys. Thankfully not born yet, so I still have, what – a year or so? 😉

Do you have a problem like this or is it just me?

p.s. – I’m trying really hard not to count the quilts I want to make but just have not pulled fabric for yet. Or a pile of fabrics that need to decide on a pattern. Easily a half dozen or two. *sigh* I DO have a problem don’t I?

How long does it take?

Posted on February 21, 2013 by Andrea R — Leave a comment

Sometimes people ask me how long it takes to quilt and I honestly don’t know. Do you track time, even loosely? I know it’s hours here, even on the super fast projects, but still.

Last night I was able to figure out how long I spent at it, and this afternoon I took a short break to wind more bobbins. Then I did more quilting. Then I realized I was almost done so I finished.

Whups.

So all told, on the crazy bright improv quilt I did, the special custom quilting took about 2 hours. That seems about right.

I know on some baby quilts I did previously in fast meandering, they took about a half hour, because I also like to go fast.

I’ll try and remember to track time on a larger piece.

Back in the swing of it

Posted on February 21, 2013 by Andrea R — 12 Comments

Now that the room is up, I’ve been making time to spend down there. I also got some Craftsy classes, including Quilting Negative Space. I’m a HUGE fan of Angela already and this class is just great. I’m really enjoying it, even though I listen along as I’m making supper.

Tonight I had the itch to quilt so I decided to practise some patterns from Angela’s book along with encouragement from her course. I already had a baby quilt laying in a sad pile waiting for me to figure out how to do it. I took Angela’s advice to break it up into smaller sections. It’s improv pieced so there’s no real background, but since it’s so wild, I figured it was a great chance to practise different techniques all over it.

Here I did two long pieces near the middle to start off and warm up.

You can see the loops, back and forth (love this) and some swirls.

Close up of doing the all over leaf pattern in the next “block”.

In this block I marked a single line diagonally across then followed it to make the sunburst effect. I love how it feels.

Two more long strips gave me the opportunity to try the swirl scroll and woodgrain. The scroll needs some work, but it’s good enough!

And there’s all the work I did this evening. Halfway done!

It was quite fun doing a different design in each section or strip.

Update: I actually went through a whole bobbin last night, did a quick bit this morning and ran out of the *second* bobbin,

Sewing room again, finally

Posted on February 16, 2013 by Andrea R — 1 Comment

We moved, again, but into a bigger rental. I finally have a sewing room! It’s in the basement, but still pretty light. I rearranged things a couple times to suit me.

Here it is before I started. And this is missing a few boxes of fabrics.

I now have a really nice sewing station. I’m left handed so I like to have everything off to my left, and give myself loads of space for quilts.

This is my to-do pile. Oops. I have a tendency to start things, but I’m not so good at the finishing. I’m going to try and finish up what I can, and since I took this pic, sorted the pile into almost done, halfway there and need to start. Needless to say one of those piles got put aside.

This was a first pass at organizing the room.

I added a bookshelf but still felt a little hemmed in, especially when I realized with a bit of rearranging, I could get more empty floor space.

Ah, that’s better! Move the to-do pile, switch the ironing station and the bookshelf and suddenly the room is wide open again!

This is my somewhat sorted pile of stuff to finish already. My motivation it is a mess, and by finishing it up I can get rid of the mess too.

Under the other side of my table you can see my sewing machine bag and another bag I have for accessories, as well as two bins of fabric and a very large bag of scraps.

I also got rid of the pile of plastic boxes of fabric by filling up the dresser. While I do like to see as much fabric as I can, it will also help me not start any new quilt tops for a while.

The list is rather long, as I have some sewing projects and garments I want to make for people so I stuffed those piles off in the corner.

I should still make a list though.

holiday sewing

Posted on February 8, 2013 by Andrea R — 2 Comments

I’m horribly behind here I know. The holidays threw me off, then we thought about moving (again) and packed up everything. So not a lot of sewing was done.

Here’s what I did do, if only for my own list.

Finishes –
finished reb purse
ayla’s quilt finish
izzy’s jammies
ipad cover

Progress –
started floral quilt
worked on fibonnachi quilt

I finally have a sewing room again after 8 months and boy did I miss it. More in the next post. 🙂