Parade time at Sinta's and Sherri's blog as we wrap up another month of Another Year of Schnibbles. This month's challenge pattern was called Clover.
I made a 4 square version (instead of 9) and used some charm squares from Phenomenal Fall (Moda).
To quilt, I just stitched in the ditch in both directions. I like the grid it formed on the back as well has the final look.
I've named this quilt Pumpkin Spice. (My daughter made a pumpkin pie this weekend - almost called it pumpkin pie!)
Trees are just beginning to turn here in central NC. I had a wonderful picnic and walks with my girls on Sunday.
Happy Stitching!
These postcards were the final item in SewCalGal's FMQ Challenge for 2013. I enjoyed the challenge.
They are all different. The first one on the left is a crazy quilt look using scraps. The center is my favorite and sports a FMQ feather. The final one is an attempt at a birthday balloon. You can see they are curling up at the edges - not quite certain what I need to do differently the next time.
This was the final challenge for the year. My FMQ has clearly improved - the biggest problem I have now is figuring out what to FMQ. My favorite is feathers and got brave enough to use them in two quilts. (post)
I made a small donation quilt for the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative. This is for sale on their web site and you can purchase it here! I quilted the words Live Love Laugh.
I'm excited to enter a quilt Amy's Creative Side Blogger's Quilt Festival!
I am entering my quilt family in the wall hanging category. I made this quilt last December as a Christmas gift for my mom and dad. I just love sharing it again. This quilt was my own design - not sure you'd find a tree shaped like this growing in the real world! (smile)
At the roots of the tree are my grandparents.
The trunk is for my mom and dad. (See the cute heart carved into the tree?)
There are seven kids - all girls - in my family so the tree has seven branches and then leaves for the 7 of us, our husbands and the collection of our 16 children.
Everything was appliqued on. The leaves have an extra layer of fusible batting to make them really pop. I used my machine to put all the names on the leaves as well as the years each of the families branched out.
I think the tree came out really amazing just in and of itself.
But adding the word family to the bottom, makes the quilt even better.
Thanks for visiting. Enjoy all the quilts that are available at the Blogger's Quilt Festival.
Happy Stitching!
I wanted to avoid the tangle.
So I took these two pieces of fabric plus a zipper sewn to vinyl.
Made a sandwich, drew a circle and now have a happy home.
Happy Stitching!
A fresh layer cake.
Some chain piecing.
A pile of HST.
More chain piecing.
Some beautiful hour glass blocks.
My first Ohio Star block.
Simple wholesome fun. Sweet.
(Block is 11 inches unfinished.)
Happy Stitching!
My absolute least favorite part of quilting is the backing fabric.
Everyone has opinions. Some people piece their backings from whatever they have in their stash and enjoy the random look.
I like the backing fabric to coordinate well with the fabric in the front of the quilt.
I don't buy the backing fabric until I am done with the quilt. This means sometimes the print you want can be hard to find so you have to hunt a bit. I also don't want to pay full price which complicates the hunt a bit more.
For my New Jersey quilt, I had used these pretty prints from Bonnie and Camille Vintage Modern.
The quilt is mainly the red and aqua with the gray as an occasional accent. I found none of these prints in the volume I needed for the backing with a price I liked. However, I did find another pretty gray print from the same designer so I purchased it. At less than $6 a yard, I was happy with the price.
I had a couple of blocks leftover to make the back more interesting including this one which I made a bit too large.
I plugged my quilt dimensions into my iPhone app. In order to accommodate the 4 extra inches my LAQ would need, I had to order enough to piece together 3 strips of fabric.
This is the first time I should have broken out a piece of paper and a calculator. Based on the quilt dimensions, I barely needed that third strip of fabric really about 10 inches worth. I had a couple of leftover blocks.and I could have creatively assembled them down the middle. But I was in a hurry so I ordered lots of fabric.
The second time I should have really thought this through was when the lovely fabric arrived and I thought about assembling things together. I barely measured and just did things the brute force way. Not thinking about how little I really needed from that third piece, I started to assemble.
The mistakes I made from there are too depressing to write down. Kind of like a snowball rolling down a hill. I cut fabric I shouldn't have cut. Ended up piecing fabric where I didn't need to.
It's done. And when quilted, I'm the only one who will know how much easier it could have gone and better it could have looked. (You won't tell anyone will you?)
I've also got all these odd shaped bits of fabric leftover. I will put it to good use - it is a very pretty gray. And I will use it as the binding. But, I could have - should have - really planned this out ahead of time.
Sigh.
No better photos of my backing until after it is quilted.
Fingers crossed for the LAQ magic. I drop the quilt off tomorrow.
Happy Stitching!
Yet another block in the Whovian-inspired Quilt-Along from Caroline and Soma from Whims and Fancies and the Doctor. I've never seen any of the episodes featuring the 4th doctor but everyone recognizes this impossibly long scarf as iconic Dr Who.
This block was quite fun to assemble. I did cheat on the fringe bit. In this little area about 2" long, there were supposed to be 20-25 scraps of fabric. I went with about 10!
I've been selective on which blocks I've made - of the 11 posted so far, this is my 6th one. I choose this one in honor on the major league Whovian living in my house - my DD (15) who is more than half way through knitting her very own Dr Who scarf!
When complete, this scarf will be at least 12 feet long!
The best bit? She and I like to sit and knit together while watching Downton Abbey (and Dr Who). We are late to the Downton party so are working our way through Season 2.
And being the good mom that I am, I offered to make her a fun knitting bag from any fabric in my stash. She said, no thanks. She likes the knitting bag she is using. (smile)
PS Here are my other completed blocks.
Happy Stitching!
Last week, I blogged about aliens - Daleks to be precise - that had entered my quilting space in broad
daylight and stolen a precious and limited supply of 2" quilt squares on my background fabric which meant my Schnibble was in a very incomplete state.
Those squares were never found and my trip to my LQS just didn't fit in my schedule. I was pretty sure the fabric was Moda solid called Parchment. But to be on the safe side, I ordered a couple of others that were close in coloring when looking at a computer monitor.
Fabric arrived. It was parchment.
Quilt is all assembled. I am just loving the colors. I hope to quilt it next weekend and then promptly display it.
Now I need a name and a decision on how to quilt it!
Hope you had a lovely weekend.
Happy Stitching!
A warm fall day on Saturday and I spent a couple of relaxing hours in my sewing corner.
The pattern is Schnibble Clover. I am just in love with these colors in Moda Phenomenal Fall by Sandy Gervais. I didn't want to use up all of my two charm packs in one quilt so I made a 4 block version instead of a 9 block version.
Very easy to assemble! However, since I was making a smaller quilt than the pattern I needed to do some math to figure out the fabric requirements.
That is where the aliens came in. I cut my squares for the background from a just big enough scrap of what I think is Moda Bella solid called Parchment. I sewed and assembled and as I got ready to assemble the final corners I found that I am SIX squares short. How could that possible be?
Clearly I didn't count wrong or figure wrong! (smile) Must have been those pesky aliens that crept into my sewing room and made off with those squares.
Off to my LQS with a scrap in hand. Wish me luck.
Happy Stitching!
