Category: Quilts I made

a collection of sets of various quilts I made, with in-progress shots. Some may be added at a later date.

Free Motion Floral Sampler Quilt

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A finish! Yay! This might be my first finished quilt of 2014, ugh.

For this quilt, I used the leftover blocks from my Summer Quilt. You can do this with any collection of 10″ squares. I had 25 blocks and some were duplicates.

This would look really awesome in solids or low volume prints or even alternate value prints.
I should just call this my @angelafmq sampler quilt ... ;) every block is a design from her first book.

Take your 25 blocks and lay them out on the floor or design wall until you get a pleasing arrangement. Sew two together for each row until you’ve sewn a whole row. Sew all the rows together.

(or grab two at random until you get most of the way through the stack and start sewing those pairs together. Make sure you leave enough single blocks behind to finish each row.)

Back view for texture. #quilt

For the backing, I had fabric that was 54″ wide and used that. Baste well with batting of your choice. Mine needed work.

For the quilting – this is the fun part.

I used my walking foot first and stitched in the ditch for each seam, leaving a nice square sewn for each block.

Scroll quilting. I need practise there too. Hard to do in a square. :)

In each square, I quilted a different free motion design using the Bernina Stitch regulator on some and my free motion foot. I worked my way through Free-Motion Quilting with Angela Walters
and some of Leah Day’s free motion quilting designs as well. Have fun here! I used a white thread in the top and bottom on all fabrics.

For the binding, I trimmed the back so it was 2″ all around and folded it over to the front, then sewed it down. I screwed up trying to trim the corners so I won’t show that bit – just know there’s a gap. Sigh. I really need to work on mitring my binding, especially the “bringing the backing to the front” kind, which I don’t do often.

Nice and crinkly from the dryer.

This quilt I am leaving in my own stash for an example of the kind of quilting I can do. I hope eventually to maybe quilt for customers, so this should give them something to look at to pick quilting styles if wanted. At the very least, it showcases my skills now and I can compare it to another quilt a few years from now.

Chevron quilt

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I realized I never posted the chevron quilt I made. I was half thinking of giving it away to a friend for their baby, but wound up doing something different, and I had loaded it to my local quilt shop as a display quilt, so I sort of forgot all about it until I got it back.

I used this chevron quilt pattern because I had been inspired by this free motion chevron quilting. Seriously, go look – it’s amazing.

The fabrics I used were Life in the Jungle – by Doohikey Designs for Riley Blake Designs.

For the free motion quilting I used designs from Angela Walter’s first book – love it so much.

I’m super happy with how it turned out. I watched most of 3 seasons of Dr Who while I made this quilt. I could take pictures of the quilting and run my hands over it all day.

If you click on a picture in the gallery below, you can visit the next one with the previous/next links on the page.

Summer quilt

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I made a summer quilt and started last summer, but that’s not why it’s called a summer quilt. A summer quilt is a quilt with either lightweight or (in this case) no batting.

I decided to make a large queen sized lightweight quilt for our bed for those times we just needed something to nap under, or for not very cold nights. Also, I had a lot of light to medium value floral fabrics in my stash that I wanted to use up. My mom had hit a sale at a fabric store that was closing and bought half-yards of seemingly everything.

Going though my stash, I picked the fabrics I wanted and cut 10″ squares out of everything. In my case, I did not care if I had doubles or even 3 or 4 squares of the same fabrics – I just wanted to use them up. You could also use a layer cake or two instead.

I cut and cut and cut. And stacked.

Eventually I decided to start laying things out to figure how many squares I would need. I cut some more.

For this quilt, I decided it would be more interesting to place the 10″ squares on point and piece the strips diagonally. I also laid out the squares on the floor multiple times to make sure I didn’t have matching fabrics too close together, or all the pink ones crammed on one side.

Finally I started piecing, which was easy enough. Keep track of where I was seemed to be the issue. For the half triangle on the sides, i just cut the 10″ squares in half. Technically they should have been a bit bigger so I fudged the seams a little. I also took one square and cut it into the four corner triangles.

When the top was all done, I found a nice and worn flannel top sheet in our cupboard. We had already worn out the matching bottom sheet, which got a large hole when someone put their foot through it. It was a well-loved set. I did have to unpick the top deep hem of the sheet and piece a bit on the side, since the sheet was rectangular and the quilt top was square.

Since there was no batting, it did not take much to baste it together.

The only quilting I did was a stitch in the ditch along the seams. You can get away with doing it this wide because there is no batting at all. I used my walking foot and the quilt was thin enough that rolling it up and moving it around was much easier than even a double sized quilt with batting.

For the binding, I had cut out 2.5″ strips from my favourite scraps as I cut the blocks and set them aside. I did the machine sewn method where you stitch the binding to the back and pull it round to the front and sew it down. Any slightly off seams were also covered up this way.

This is really a quick quilt – despite how long it took me to finish, and it really is great for when you don’t want a blanket that is to warm or too heavy. Plus it uses up a LOT of large stash pieces in a hurry!

My husband gives it two thumbs up – both for fabric selection and ease of napping.

Star Spangled American Flag Squares quilt

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I took on a commission for a close friend who wanted a quilt for her husband, who was turning 50. He’s an american who emigrated to Canada, so she wanted something red white and blue, and had given me about 3 yards of a flag fabric from Joanne’s, the fabric chain.

We decided to go with a simple 6″ patch in alternating squares of print / white. I used up some red and blue prints (mostly polka dots, some star prints) in my stash and had to buy some navy and the perfect red to go with the flag print. I had also pulled some red striped fabrics but could not make them work.

The white was just a slight creamy white instead of a bright white. For cutting the squares, I cut a 6″ strip across the width of the fabric then cut blocks from those strips.

What happens when you don't check your math

Here I cut out all the squares I thought I needed but was off. Just by a little bit.

Better shot

Here, I recovered and figured out where I wanted the various prints to show up. I wanted a lot of the flag print and then alternating red and blue diagonal stripes. This is what I called my “planned random” layouts and I usually get Ron to help.

Bob is an American who moved to Canada, and so I added two squares of maple leaf fabrics just for fun, in all those stars, stripes and flags.

Good thing it cooled off because I had to press all that.

Finally the top was done. From the remaining white, I added a 6″ border. The rest of the white was left for the backing.

I don’t have a picture of the back when I pieced it, but there was just not quite enough of the white for the back so I knew I’d have to piece in some prints as well. I wound up with narrow print strips on the sides, which you’ll see in the finished pics below.

Basting.

Here I basted on the tabletop. I’ve had issues with basting and stretching the backing fabric too much and always getting something folded over. Rolling it up and smoothing out a couple feet at a time worked pretty well here.

Almost half done.

I quilted it on my Bernina using the free motion quilting foot. I choose this stars and swirls design from Happy Quilting and had to keep pacing myself to keep it light and open. I really didn’t want to wind up with a lot of dense quilting because it was taking forever at this point.

It was also hot and August. By this point, I was working on this quilt and nothing else for the two or three weeks leading up to Bob’s 50th birthday.

Stars and swirls quilting. Yes freehand.

I really was liking how it was turning out tho.

Can you see the stars?

More quilting shots from the back.

Binding a very American quilt while drinking a Canadian drink.

Finally, I got to the binding! Cheryl, Bob’s wife, had given me 3 yards of the flag fabric to work with, which was plenty, so I used it for binding as well.

Might be a wee bit bigger than intended. Just needs a label and a run thru the wash.

We were going for a size for Bob to use in his recliner. He has a disability so he’s in his chair quite a bit and loves to cuddle up under a blanket. This wound up roughly queen size, but no one ever said a quilt was too big!

Bob absolutely loved his quilt. He was surprised when we showed up to his birthday party and was even more surprised to see the quilt his wife commissioned. He’s been a huge fan of my quilting ever since we were neighbours, but circumstances changed and both our families have moved. When Bob found the two squares of maple leaf fabrics, he laughed quite a bit.

I did make a custom label for this quilt, which is something I usually forget. I do have a picture but for some reason can’t upload images directly from my computer. The images above I imported from my Instagram account where I took progress pics. Bob follows me on Twitter so it was hard not to talk about this quilt there.

But now here is the post. If you do a quilt similar to this, I’d love to see it. I’ve done variations of this layout for baby quilts three times now. Just vary the prints and block size or amount, it’s super fast with a charm pack.

Appliqued baby name quilt

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When I heard I was going to be a grandmother for the third time in four years, well of course my first thought was what quilt I was going to make.

Okay, maybe that was my second thought.

After I made this baby quilt, I figured you would love to have this free baby quilt pattern. It was super fast and easy to make.

I had a yard or two of a lovely fabric with dancing bunnies in pretty pastel Easter gowns. It was perfect after we knew we would be expecting another girl. I pulled some somewhat matching tiny prints for the letters for the front of the quilt.

baby quilt letter placement

For the front piece of the baby quilt, I used about a yard of a tone on tone off-white print. It’s about 30-36″ by the 42″ width of the fabric. Then I cut the letters freehand from the fat quarters I had chosen to complement the print on the back.

The letters could also be done with a large thick font. My size was about as big as a regular sheet of printer paper, so you could draw them out on paper first and then cut them from the fabric.

It would be smarter as well, to fuse some fusible web to the back of the fabric before cutting out the letters. I didn’t, and it made my work a bit harder.

Also if you have a name with a lot more letters, you will need to make the letters smaller so they all fit. If you’re not sure, do a test with paper letters first.

baby quilt testing fabric placement

 

You can see here how I didn’t like the original fabric for the letter A and swapped it for a yellow instead.

fusing letters in place on baby quilt

 

Here’s the quilt on my design board with the letters pinned in place to test placement. You can go vertically in a straight line – mark a guide line if you like – or go all funky and wonky.

Fuse the letters in place. This is mostly to hold them down before appliquéing.  I used a blanket stitch that came on my Bernina Aurora 440 Quilter’s Edition. A zig zag will also work perfectly fine.

back of baby quilt

 

Baste the top and bottom together with your favourite batting and quilt away! I used an allover paisley design, and went around the letters entirely, adjusting the design to fit. This is great practise for any allover design you want to try. And a baby quilt is a great size to practise on.

I also used a pretty Sulky variegated thread in pink / green / yellow. It matched perfectly.

easy fast baby quilt

 

You can see here how puffy the letters look. The only thing I would do different now is to outline quilt the letters.

IMG_0624

 

I bound the quilt in a jade green dot that was actually from a line of Christmas fabric. It works though!

I always pre-wash my quilt, so after coming out of the washer and dryer, the cotton fabrics and cotton batting crinkled up so nicely. It looks like a family heirloom already.

This is a super easy and fast quilt to through together. Just make sure the parents don’t change the name before birth, if you are making one ahead of time. 😉

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 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.

IMG_0272

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!

IMG_0273

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.

Pinwheels all done!

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Finally! And the pictures uploaded!

As I said in previous entires, I wanted to give the illusion of movement for the pinwheels and I think I got it here.

Note how I used a swooping curve in the plain triangles and left the print areas alone. I knew I wanted them puffy and raised, so I left them.

I went with a heavy back and forth quilting in all the sashing to flatten it and emphasize the pinwheels. I think I nailed it.

I’m also really happy with the 3 kinds of gingham used in the quilt.

The other thing I did slightly differently, was early on in my quilting process I swapped out my usual stitch regular automated foot and just went with the free motion or darning foot instead.

I think I want to write more about that, so someone looking at the Bernina stitch regulator will have some details.