Panels are good practise for free motion quilting

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My mom hits up yard sales and thrift stores for.. all kinds of things actually, but she goes often enough to get some great finds. One of them is quilt panels. Then she sends them to me to quilt.

This works out great, as I love the quilting part and I get to practise. She’s not picky and loves to hang up different panels for different seasons. And we use up the stash on backing and those weird small bits of batting.

Recently I worked on this one for her.
More panel quilted

More panel quilted

I also did this runner.

Christmas runner

Still need to bind them, but that’s another post. 😉

So don’t discount panels or “cheater” quilts! They are great practise, usually don’t cost much – especially when you pick them up at thrift stores or in clearance bins – and you can always give them away.

Colorblock quilt, all done!

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For finish it up Friday, I got the bonding all done on this quilt. It’s now taking a spin in the wash. I always wash and dry the baby quilts then check them over for loose threads and any place where I did a lousy job seaming.

Binding all done, time for a wash!

I’m really happy with how this one turned out. I’ve been working on piecing accuracy and undoing some bad habits I picked up over the years, like pulling the fabric taut while I sew. This causes it to ripple on the edges when relaxed.

Here’s a shot of the back, upside down.
Bach

I went and bought all new fabrics for this one, from the same line. I don’t usually do that.

Colorblock quilt progress

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I forgot to post this sooner, sorry. With the Colorblock quilt, I had a hard time deciding what to quilt. I defaulted to what the pattern samples show and what most people did, at least according to all the pics I found.

Straight lines.

Straight line quilting

It’s boring but it works. Up and down on the tall strip and back and forth on the horizontal blocks.

Funnily enough, when I did mark these, the width of my chalk was just enough to make the lines slightly over 1″ apart and a little off by the time I get to the other side of the block. But the recipient won’t care. 😉

And yes I did mark these and not use a guide or eyeball it.

Sunday Stash: out of control edition

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This weekend I moved my sewing room to a spare beedroom in the basement. It was at the end of one of the L in the main room of the basement, but for various reason, we decided to move it to the back bedroom.

Ta da!
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It’s much more efficient use of the space, a great work area, and even better – we moved my desk in from storage. That desk is big, heavy and most importantly does not bounce when I sew fast.

For the stash part, I give you this:

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Yeah. That’s all fabric.

And this is not all my fabric.

*gulp*

A new way to baste quilts

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Over the weekend – actually, on Friday, my usual day off – I set about basting as many quilts as I had ready to go that also had batting available. In one of the Craftsy classes I signed up for the awesome Leah Day showed us how to baste quilts on a table and use elastics at the corner to secure the fabric and pull it taut.

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Well I tried this and it worked so well I am in love with it! Of course I modified it slighty for my table and the quilts I was basting, but LOOK at the stack of quilts I got basted!

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I even ran out of safety pins. And when I started I realized my mom had my Quick Klip tool, but I managed.

Even though my table is a nice sturdy wood table, I didn’t worry about scratching it with pins as it is already dinged and painted and stained and watermarked and just generally lived on.

I can also report that my back did not feel like I was eighty years old when I was done either. I did two baby quilts, two Christmas panels and a Christmas runner for my mom AND I did the markings on another larger quilt. I also watched three episodes of season three of Dr Who. So I accomplished quite a bit.

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This quilt I am quilting a large Mariner’s Compass / Compass Rose on it. Can’t wait to see how it turns out, as long as I keep my eye on the right lines.

p.s – am I the only one who never has enough batting? Or the piece I have leftover is never quite big enough for the tops I have that need batting?

Colorblock Quilt top

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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.

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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!

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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

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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.

sashing strips

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.

first row together

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

laying it out

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.

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I have a UFO problem

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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?

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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.