Are you seeing Double?

It is not very frequently that I have people insist that they want their quilt done exactly like someone else's quilt.  I typically just don't do that because every quilt is an individual masterpiece to the person who made that particular top.  People just don't pick the same colors and styles of fabric patterns and quilts can look so very different and all of them awesome in their own way because people are different.  While it is a compliment for someone to want to do something like you most people still want just a little something different so they can call it their own.  Recently I had a lady call and she said I have made a quilt like Gloria's and I want you to quilt it exactly like that!  I even borrowed her quilt because I wanted to be sure that the pattern was exactly like her's because I just love that quilt and I love the way you quilted it because it is so much a springtime quilt, and has the light and airy quilting that isn't the heavy stuff you see on most quilts.  Oh well to each their own.

Because I do each quilt as an individual I don't always remember all of the details of what I did with a specific quilt and this is one that I did at one of my busy times and I did not get any pictures made to put up on my blog.  Drat, that will teach me!  I have to remember to do that so I have a record of what I did to what!  I had to borrow Gloria's quilt so I would know how the quilt the thing! 

Well I finished quilting this morning so I am definately going to post pictures of this one.  There is a little difference between the two quilts because the border fabric that Gloria used was not available any longer on Janice had to pick out another border fabric.  The backing fabric that Gloria used was great but again Janice could not get enough to make a backing so she had to piece her backing and that turned out great.  The thread that I used on Gloria's did not go as well with Janice's quilt because of the difference in the border so I used a slightly different thread.  I'm not sure what Janice will bind the quilt with, but that may be another difference.  Anyway, here is Janice's quilt.

This picture is the quilt just laid out across the bed.  It will really be a great springtime quilt with those vibrant colors!  Now the center of the quilt is not quite centered on teh bed because the center is actually the light strip.  The quilt top is centered on the backing though!

The vibrant colors and then the half-square triangles that is using cloth made from all of the fabrics is really awesome, and a really wonderful way to use up scraps.  In every section of "made" fabric there is one strip of the color of the solid portion of the half-square triangle which really is nice!  And the way the 1/2 square triangles are rotated brings an interesting secondary pattern to the quilt.

 

This is all part of the light and airy quality of the quilting.  Using the varigated thread that contains the colors in the print really brings visual interest.  You can't see it in this picture but there is a straight line of quilting running through the center of the print strip so the quilting does meet the guidelines for that particular batting and how closely it should be quilted.

All of the orange pieces have the same quilting pattern which is some curlie q's.  The pink and orange prints all have a leaf pattern for the quilting.

 

Now this is the back which was pieced with this orange strip lengthwise down the center of the backing.  So nice that the top of the quilt had the strip that ran the exact same way so here is that quilting pattern that is on the front printed strip down the center of the back in the orange piece of fabric with the two sides having the quiting from the pieced strips.

A close up picture of the pieces strips on the front.

A closer picture of the back so you can see the line running up the center of that printed strip on the front.

 The pink and orange border with the little circle pattern quilted around that border.

The outer blue flower border has the leaf mofit quilted there as does the blue flower fabric that is one the ends of the pieced strips on the front.

I think this quilt turned out very nice.  Sure do hope the customer likes it also!

I'm working on some other things including a tee-shirt quilt that I have to finish by April, just another month away and then there is another tee-shirt quilt to be finished by August.  My tee-shirt quilts are really time intensive.  People seem to want to bring in their tee-shirts and then they find more they want added, and then they decide to add pictures, and then they decide they want some message or saying quilted into the quilt and so it can really get to be a long and drawn out process so I have to start those things early in order to get them finished!  Also have a few of my own projects that I would like to make some progress on! 

I hope you all have a wonderful quilty week!

 

Double Knit??

Boy isn't it a lovely day!  I can remember many years ago, now I'm going to tell my age here, when we first started seeing polyester double knit fabric.  Well we thought this was the best thing since zippers or maybe even the best thing since buttons.  You didn't have to iron it after it was washed and dried!  Oh my wasn't this a time saver and it gave us more time to do other things, like sew!  Everyone loved it!  Today the most amazing thing about this fabric is that it never wears out!!!  I mean never!  It is also very heavy! 

 

Well believe it or not I had a customer call me about quilting a top for her and I don't even remember where she said the top came from, but it was not something that she had made.  She wasn't even born I don't think, when they were making this stuff!  You guessed it the top was entirely double knit polyester! 

 

 

If you have never worked with this material, it is very stretch-------stretch-----------stretchie!  Extremely hard to quilt is the translation of that sentence!  But like Larry the Cable Guy, I "got 'er done".  I don't think Larry would have anything bad to say about the finished product either.  A lot of our older generation made quilts that were designed for a regular full size bed and the quilt was not the spread and they did not allow very much drop off of the sides of the mattress.  Many of the older quilts will just cover the top of the mattress with no drop down the sides at all!  This can make it difficult to use them as a regular part of the bed linen unless they are on a bed that is being slept in by one person only.  If more than one then you will hear the accussations of "cover hog" flying about frequently.  

 

At any rate I got this quilt and got it quilted.  Here it is!

You can tell in this picture that the person who made this handsewn quilt loved the 9 patch block because that is what it is!  All 9 patches sewn together without sashing or borders!

 Someone had a lot of scraps to get rid of and I don't know if they were all her's or not, but if they were all her scraps, she was a very prolific seamstress!

The person who brought me this quilt had picked out the backing and binding and I think she did a wonderful job.  All of the melon colors were just beautiful and the backing really brought out the color in the scraps.  As you can likely tell I just did a meandering quilting technique all over the top.  Sometimes that is just the best quilting pattern to keep it from looking too fussy or busy.

Now I love the binding and just wasn't able to get a good picture of it from the top.  Sorry I'm not better at photographing my projects.  The binding really made those colors pop out on the top!

 

 

I really enjoyed doing this very stretchy quilt!  It did turn out lovely.  I will give you a hint if you start to quilt a quilt top that has some stretchiness be sure to lay it out and quilt down the outside first!  This will help you manage all that in-between stuff and you can ease and stretch as you go to make things turn our properly!  They may never be perfect, but then neither am I.

 

Remember quilting is a very fun thing to do!  If it stresses you to the max then lets figure out why and see if we can turn this into something that is fun and relaxing.  I have found if something just really causes me to be anxious that I will do less and perhaps never even finish the project.  I need to stop and figure out why I am so very anxious and see if there is a way to de-stress it!!  Sometimes it's just one part that gives me trouble and if I can work through that the rest does fine.   Are you having a problem with a quilting project?  If the answer is yes, try to figure out which aspect is giving you the most problems and if you want my input just let me know.  I'm always happy to help a fellow quilter!

 

Ya'll have a great day.  Happy quilting.



I love "Kansas Troubles" fabric by Moda!

I really love the warm rich color palate of the "Kansas Troubles" line by Moda.  These colors just make me feel warm and cozy and they are the kind of fabric I want to just snuggle up in and read a good book.  Recently while talking with my best bud, Peggy she was telling me about finding a sight online that had some great tutorials and patterns.  Well with a recommendation from Peggy, you know I'm going to be looking that sight over for sure and boy was I impressed.  They have great tutorials and show you how to make some really fun quilts and guess what, they aren't hard at all!!  Some of you know that I spent a portion of my life living in Missouri and met some wonderful people there and did a good bit of quilting!  What does that have to do with anything?  Well the name of the website is "Missouri Star Quilts".  If you get the chance be sure to check out some of their tutorials at:   http://tutorialsmissouriquiltco.com/  This is a really neat site.

Now on to the quilt.  This one is for ME!!  This one will not be given away.




Of course I took a picture of a mistake in the quilt.  I wanted to and
attempted to alternate the blocks, dark next to light, but as the
saying goes, the best laid plans of mice and men go awray.

At least I know you can see how the warm rich colors play off one another in this spectacular spools pattern.  Now the hard thing to believe is this block is made with 2 contrasting strips, 2 1/2 inches wide and 1 background fabric 4 1/2" wide.  If you cut your strips to the width of the fabric it really works well.  From 3 strips of fabric you will have 2 1/2 finished blocks.  I won't go into the details of how to make the block because you can all see that on the Missouri Quilt site.  I have to tell you though that this quilt goes together very easily and quickly, otherwise it would not be finished in this timely manner.

When I made this one I did some careful measuring before putting
the borders on.

Since this quilt was for me and I had some very specific ideals about what I wanted I was very careful to measure the bed and make the top to fit the bed exactly with the addition of the small burgandy border.  I know that this quilt will be used as a spread on my bed and I didn't want to have a lot of bulky fabric haning off the corners, and I didn't want the quilt to be so long that I would forever be trying to get it pulled up off the floor at the bottom of the bed.  Gee, it looks like I'm picky!  At any rate, I measured exactly what size the drop would be on the sides and foot of the bed.  I bet you could figure out those two numbers were the same.   Then I cut the drops and sewed them to the quilt.  Now I didn't want all of the extra to fold back and up over the pillows.  I'm making pillow shams to go with the quilt to cover the pillows so I don't need the extra fabric at the top of the quilt and it still looks great.  Since I'm not putting the wide green border on the top the only border there is the narrow burgandy border. 

Since I didn't want the extra at the bottom corners of the quilt I decided to cut them out so the corners would fit straight down giving a very boxy tailored look.  These edges fasten together with button and loop on the back side of the quilt.  The look is very tailored and neat which is just what I wanted.  Now don't ask me why I wanted that particular look, because nothing else in the house is even close!  At any rate the quilt is finished and the shams are completed yet, but soon.

I hope everyone has a great day.  Have fun quilting and make something that is what you want in every detail!  It's fun to make something just for me occassionally.  Love ya!

Some quilts take longer than others!!

Some time ago I was asked to teach a short program on and provide a pattern for a block.  I was very excited that people I know had actually asked me to teach.  Well that didn't really last too long.  I struggled over what pattern to teach that would be somewhat easy to piece and yet go together in a fashion that made it appear to be a more difficult block.  I looked through book after book and searched online and it seemed that I couldn't find anything I felt would be a good project.  Finally, just a couple of days before I was scheduled to teach I found what I thought would be a great block!!  After looking at about a thousand patterns this was the one.  The blocks were relatively simple.  It was a square in a square pattern that extended out to another border around that and then an accent along each outer border.  The pattern was called Garden Path and the directions for cutting were simple.  There were no 7/8" or 3/8" to make things more difficult.  I took great pains to copy the pattern down correctly and made my sample.  I presented the program and everyone admired the block.  I was greatly relieved that it had gone so well....until......  The following week I had a telephone call from one the people and she literally blasted me that my directions were not right and there was no way anyone could make a block out of that pattern.  I thought I had been so careful, but not careful enough.  I had left out one line in the directions.  Now what is that saying about "the best laid plans of mice and men...."

Well, I decided to go ahead and make a quilt using the block pattern that I had demonstrated.  First I had to decide on fabric.  Just prior to these events a friend, knowing how much I loved oriental patterns had given me a piece of fabric that she had that did not match anything in her stash.  She was trying to whittle down her fabric stash to more manageable proportions.  (Something I have never, ever, ever had the urge to do.)  This particular piece of fabric was an oriental garden complete with pagodas.  Well the name of the pattern was Garden Path so why not use that oriental garden fabric to make a garden path, and then I pulled out some more oriental prints from my stash that contrasted with the piece I was given and then I picked a very neutral background.



This is the garden path block  and some of the fabric
I chose to go with the piece of fabric I was given.

 I decided that I really didn't want to go with a traditional sashing pattern, that this quilt should have some special quilting and I wanted room to do that quilting.  At the time I was thinking about ferns and feathers.  Oh well, it wasn't time to quilt just yet, I had to finish putting it together.  I had 12 blocks and I wanted to make a quilt that was larger than a lap quilt and smaller than a bed quilt, and I did not want to use just a 2" sashing around the blocks so I decided to do some math.  Gosh, who would have thought that math would have come in so handy.  Well actually I loved math so it wasn't a hardship.

You can see in the above picture there is a variation in the spacing between the blocks, and in the picture below.


This picture gives a better picture of the different block setting.
You will notice the points are closer to the border for some blocks.
The points on the blocks are not in a regimented line.

 Quite simply I decided how wide I wanted the inter portion of the quilt and basically I decided that I would use the 2 1/2" sashing measurements and I would typically use 4 of those for a total of 10" of sashing.  Instead of cutting 4 - 2 1/2" strips, I cut a 1" and a 4" and a 2" and a 3" and that was my 10" of sashing and then I just put those in different places in the row.  I sewed a strip on each side of the first block and then on 1 side of the other 2 blocks.  Then I carried it a step further and used the same technique for the sashing on top and on bottom.  The final result was to give my quilt a very unique appearance in the setting and it is not one that you will find in a pattern book.  I like things simple, but I like things unique.  I guess this is all part of the reason I love freehand quilting on my machine.  Every quilt is different.  Even if I tried I could not exactly duplicate any quilt.  That is part of my love for quilting, the creating of something unique.

Well I got the blocks and sashing together, in much less time than you would imagine.  Just about 2-3 hrs and I was ready for borders.  Borders are really special things.  You simply don't want to forget the function of the border.  The border functions to stop the eye.  It says "Okay that was the quilt and that is the extra special portion, take time to look again."  Really the border is not there because you want to make the quilt bigger and so you just added borders until it was the right size.  This particular quilt, I felt, was to have very special quilting, so I didn't want a first border that would overwhelm, just a little pause and then we will see what's next..  My choice was a very narrow, green and black geometric that really looks almost like a solid black with a little texture.  Turned out to be just what I wanted.

Now I was ready for a final border and I wanted the oriental fabric again, but it needed to be a fabric that combined many of the colors I had used in the blocks.  The cards were the perfect choice as far as I was concerned.  I did make sure that the fabric was cut so the cards were all correctly oriented to the person viewing the quilt.  On top the cards are all with the top of the cards toward the outside top of the quilt and down the sides they cards are all with the sides of the cards on the outside of quilt and still with the top of the card toward the outside top of the quilt and the bottom border has the top of the cards against the border and the bottom of the cards pointing to the outside edge of the quilt.

This picture of the bottom left corner of the quilt shows
the fabric orientation of the border.

It was actually hard to tell where the fabric was seamed together which was an accident on the first one and then I started striving for that look on the second one and it worked out very well if I do say so myself.

Well now it's time to pick out the backing and of course I had to go with another oriental fabric.  This is one I really loved and I had to piece the backing.  I learned a long time ago that when you were having to piece a backing the correct way was to make all 3 pieces the same size or put a larger piece in the center and identical smaller widths on each side.  It is not preferred to just place a seam down the center of the backing.  Well since I had gone to so much trouble with the rest of the quilt, I needed to go all the way, and since I had matched the pattern so well at the seams on the border I wanted to see if I could do that on the backing also.

                           !                                         
It really is difficult to tell where the seam is in this picture. 
I put an exclamation point under the seam and the seam is not at the end
of the wooden post but going through the center of the second flower
from the end of the post.

All in all I think the quilt turned out very well.  I did do some special quilting, but not what I had originally envisioned.  I actually love the quilting and how it goes along with the whole theme, but I'll give you a look at that next week. 

Happy quilting.