Saturday, August 18, 2012

I Spy Progress

3 I Spy charm swaps, several private exchanges, and an embarrassingly large novelty stash is leading to a 300 block, twin size quilt.  I've sewn a 2" square diagonally to each corner of each 5" charm square to make snowball blocks.


2/5ths of the way there.  School starts Tuesday and I'm looking forward to a significant increase in my sewing time.

Thursday, August 16, 2012

Retro Flowers Quilt Finish

My mother asked for a quilt for her birthday.  A tempting pattern and flickr quilt-along and a stashed fat-quarter pack that matches my mom's style fortuitously came together for this stunning (in my humble opinion) finish.




Fabric: Panache by Sanae for Moda Fabrics, Kona kahki, Kona chocolate

I designed a giant flower to use the large scale prints from the line for the back of the quilt.


Quilting: free-motion feathers. I'm working on a tutorial to show you how I did this.  I'm completely an amatuer at it, but I think it had a stunning effect.


Finish Date: May 2012

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Heirloom Quilt Finish

   I finished this quilt in April and gifted it to my mother-in-law for her birthday.  I know the gift was well-received, because, although it is a lap-sized quilt, it resides on her bed.  I won the fabric in a give-away from Dragonfly Fabrics.  It's not my typical color-scheme, but when it was finished, it was hard to part with.  Glad it will be well-loved.




Fabric: Heirloom by Joel Dewberry for Free Spirit Fabrics.  Kona aloe.


Quilting: Straight line echo quilting and free-motion flowers.


Another unreadable signature.  I love to sign my quilts this way.  It includes my name, the recipient's name and the date with a little message of love.


Backed and bound in the yellow fan print from the Heirloom line.


Finish date: April 2012

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Tweet Tweet Finish

Another quilt finish from 2011.  I made this one for my daughter and used Christmas as a motivation to get it finished as it had be languishing on the WIP pile for far too long.



Fabric: Tweet, Tweet by Keiki for Moda Fabrics
Finished size: Twin size
Quilting: free motion stipple and flowers done by me on my little ol' domestic machine.


Signature reads: "made with love by Sonia B. for Kim B. I love you. 2011"


Backed with the tree print from the same line and bound in the green dots from the same line.


Finish date: December 2011 (just in time for Christmas)
Process Blog Post (apparently, this was a year-long WIP . . . aaakkk)

Monday, August 6, 2012

Lollipop Quilt Finish

This little baby quilt was finished in July 2011 for a new little niece-to-be. The fabric is Lollipop by Sandy Gervais for Moda.


Backed with a panel from the line.


Free-motion quilted with large flowers and stippling in between.


Machine bound with a print from the line.

Sunday, August 5, 2012

Independence Day Quilt Finish

I'm reaching back into my quilt history to create a record of the quilts I've made in the last year.  I finished my Independence Day quilt about a week after Independence Day in 2011 and it's one of my favorites.

I used this tutorial from Allison at Cluck, Cluck Sew to create the star blocks from various red, white, and blue prints.

I found that there was so much left over fabric from making the points that I was able to make half-square triangles from the left-overs.  4 points = 4 hst = a great pinwheel.  The hst from the second point has an extra little piece from the first point, but the pinwheels still look great.  The best thing: the proportions happen to be 1/3 of the star block. (I'm cursing blogger right now because I can not get these pictures to rotate and don't want to spend any more time on it right now.)


I played with a random layout, fitting the 1/3 size pinwheels in around the stars.  I had a few gaps that were 2/3 size, so I created some random log cabins to fit into those spaces.  In other words, the stars finish at 10.5 inches, the pinwheels finish at 3.5 inches (1/3 the star size) and the log cabins finish at 7 inches (2/3 the star size).


For the quilting, I used a free-motion stipple, but added stars into the mix.  I didn't want the drawn-star look, so I cut out 4 different sizes of stars. I used the biggest size just for the corners and center, but the rest I pinned randomly over the surface of the quilt (after basting), free-motioned my way between the stars and then stitched around the edge of each star template.




I love the way it turned out.

I backed it in a Robert Kaufman print I found at Jo-Anns (gasp, I know, but I loved it). (No rotation again, grrrr.)


And bound in a fun red print.


It has already gotten plenty of use and is one of my favorite quilts so far.