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.

Pattern: Stack and Whack by Allison of Cluck, Cluck Sew

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)

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.

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.

Terrain Flowers

These 6 flowers were made from the same piece of fabric from Kate Spain's Terrain line. Amazing what some fussy cutting can do.

Hexagon Flowers

About a year ago, I needed a hand project to take on vacation and decided to start a Grandmother's Flower Garden of 1" hexagons. I finished about 7 flowers and have since discovered that my home-made templates weren't printed to scale. I've since decided to work on it in earnest. Here's the 25 I have done so far.

Today, I found one of my favorite prints from Kate Spain's Terrain line and was able to fussy cut 6 different parts of the print for 6 different flowers.

It left a rather Swiss-cheesy mess, but I think the results will be worth it.

Here's one of the cuts. Even rearranging this one results in strikingly different flowers.

Color Inspiration

from www.niftythriftydrygoods.com, ribbons, embellishment assortments, crazy quilt assortments, peach & gray

Recovering from surgery and spending WAAAAAYYYYY too much time on pinterest.  Saw this lovely color combination.  The jury is still out on whether I'm really a "grey" fan (ironic considering my blog background . . . really must change that), but I sure do love "coral" (that color really deserves to be called "coral", too dark for "peach").

Do you spell it gray or grey?  They've used the former, I prefer the latter.

Today, This Ruler is My Friend

I do not like trimming blocks.  I do everything in my power to construct a block that will not need to be trimmed.

But sometimes . . . sometimes it is necessary.  And, today, I'm glad that I have a 12-1/2"  square ruler.  It sure makes the process speedy.

I'm especially glad I have this ruler today since this is what it's doing outside . . .

My poor apple tree.  We skipped fall and went straight to winter around here.  Hopefully it melts fast . . . we still have some fall to celebrate.

tee, hee, hee

(Do you see the circles in that quilt? I'm thinking of quilting giant spiderwebs.)