It's Not What I Thought

I have so many projects I am juggling, that I often put something away for a while, and when I come back to it, it turns into something totally different. Does this ever happen to you?

Don't get me wrong: I love the transformative effect of time. It usually improves my plan! (Now there's a great reason to keep that list of WIPs to juggle nice and long!)

Case in point: I made this Triumph Star top back in March. It was okay but I didn't love it.


I took it out today to start quilting it and realized: it wasn't done. A few borders later and voila!


It turned out to be so irresistible that my quilt photography assistants had to give it a test run. It checked out to make awesome forts, tents, curtains and capes. Excellent!


I pieced a fun back for it (it was just crying for a pieced back, don't you think?) so now it is all ready to quilt. For real.

We're supposed to have the nicest weekend of the year (the forecast says 80 degrees! Hooray!) so the quilting will have to wait. It might not be this nice again until August!

April Quilt-A-Thon

Here they are: my finished tops and one quilt in the hoop... the subjects for this month's Quilt-A-Thon! There is 9th quilt, too, I just don't have a picture of it (you know your pile of tops is out of control when you don't even have pictures of all of them!)

My goal for April is quilt as many of these as possible. If all goes well that means at least 3...

They are:

1. Grayson's Quilt done 4/11
   
2. Triumph Star
3. Amish-ish Mini Quilt
4. Gypsy Madness
5. Summer Flowers
6. Bright Snowballs
7. Stars & Strings
8. Calico Houses
9. Indian Summer

I am looking forward to showing off some finishes. If you've got tops... feel free to join me... April is the month... let's quilt it up!

Baby BOOM!

I want to share a couple of baby quilt tops I have made in recent weeks. I am clearly in the midst of a baby boom- if you look back one day and see that there was a tremendous population surge in 2010 and 2011, you'll know that the people I know are in large part responsible. Yay for procreation! Seriously- I love babies, and I love making quilts for them!

First, a baby girls quilt... based on the Garden Path quilt in Freddy & Gwen Collaborate Again (which is one of my favorite quilting books ever!) I started pulling strips for a little girl with a gray nursery (with pink, green and yellow accents), and quickly realized this was a perfect opportunity to make this quilt that I have always loved. It was so fun to fit all the strip sets together-- I definitely plan to make this quilt again and again!

This quilt is for a brand new boy named Grayson... the colors remind me of his talented daddy's art. More strips, more improvisational piecing, a Gee's Bend feel... another quilt I have always wanted to make. The orange, brown and red with gray combination was a happy surprise when I started pulling strips and strings for this quilt... I like the masculine, earthy feel of these colors, and hope they will stay with little Grayson for a long time!


The funny thing is, both these quilts started out in the same place conceptually- I planned to make Chinese Coin quilts (which I have always wanted to make.) I love that they ended up in two different, but wonderful places... and I still have a Chinese Coin quilt in my bucket list :-)

Triumph Star

I was compelled to finish up this quilt top before working on anything else... I love how it turned out! Even though it started out as a "mistake" and went through a couple uncomfortable patches as it grew, it's lovely and finished: a triumph.

I really had to tear myself away from using red with my made fabric- it did sneak in there in a few places, but I am really happy with the combination of yellow, orange and pink with blue.

At just under 36" square, I am counting this as a mini quilt and looking forward to machine quilting it to try boost my skillz.

More Madness

I finished my Gypsy Madness quilt top this weekend- it's my version of Kaffe Fassett's Diagonal Madness Quilt from Country Garden Quilts. I started making it from yellow, orange pink and blue scraps as my Leaders & Enders project last year. I ended up adding an extra border of Amish Buggy, or 16-patch, blocks to make it fit my queen size bed.

This is a huge quilt for me... it barely fit on my living room floor to lay it out and quilting is going to be a B! I had to get my husband and my daughter to help hold it up so I get photo of the whole thing. My daughter is standing on a chair behind there, it's so big! We had to go outside to take a picture because of the size, before it starts raining later this week. Even with all those shadows, I am loving the striking watercolor tones of this quilt!


I'm planning on sticking to Kaffe's simple quilting from the book... I want to get this done and on my bed!

Giants!

I finished the Houses quilt last night, and it now takes the title as the biggest quilt I have ever made. It's GIANT! When I started making quilts, I resolved to only make baby and throw size quilts, since my house is small and full of a family, and my sewing space is limited. This one is a queen size and definitely taxed the limits of my "design bed" (which happens to be my actual bed, too.) I'm so happy with it!


I had previously put on a different border, which just didn't work, but the time spent with my seam ripper removing that mistake was worth it. Even with queen size seams.

I also found this to be a satisfying challenge as the small calicoes I used were the "uglies" in my stash, and to find a way to enjoy working with them and like the outcome was a stretch.

It also made a huge reduction in my stash- I'm down about 3/4 of a stack (of 6 stacks.) Whooo!

This quilt inherited the pieced back I made for my Gypsy Madness quilt. It fits perfectly and even has some of the same fabrics as the Houses top.


Gypsy Madness had to have this fabulous vintage sheet for a backing instead.


Working with the Houses top, I realized that Gypsy Madness is too small- it was previously the holder of the Biggest Quilt Ever title, but it barley hangs over the edges of the bed. I am going to add another row of 9-patches around the edge, that should be perfect. It is going to be giant too! Basting these babies is going to be a bi***- I'll have to move all the furniture out of the living room and hope I have enough pins!