An Owly Finish

A few weeks ago I mentioned a rainbow baby quilt top I was working on and I wanted to share the owly finish with you. These cute owls were just the thing to put on the back!

For the quilting on this baby quilt I did more meandering - I have been meandering up a storm lately! Very unlike me...  But I'm feeling a little better each time.

I was a little worried about the placement of the applique letters because it seems that no matter how many times you measure and plan ahead, these things have a way of moving.... and I knew I wouldn't discover it until the binding was attached. Not this time; placed the letters just where I wanted them... whew!

The quilt measures about 31x31. Fabrics were from Moda Good Morning by Me and My Sister Designs (pattern too), Kona White, the teal squiggle is from Jungle Bungle by Tim and Beck and the owls were from Timeless Treasures.

I appliqued the name using Wonder Under and machine stitching to attach the letters to the border before attaching to the quilt. I have found that machine stitching is necessary even with the Wonder Under for items that are going to be washed a lot. There was a few places that I didn't machine stitch on my Mr. P quilt (like the doggie door) and it has started to pull up on the edges that weren't stitched down. Mr. Peanut doesn't mind though...

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Rainbow Baby Quilt Top

I've been working with an etsy client on this personalized baby quilt. I do love a rainbow quilt! The top is all done and was made with Good Morning fabrics by Me and My Sister Designs from Moda. The pattern is another one from Three Times a Charm, book 2 by Me and My Sister Designs. That book has so many cute patterns for baby quilts. And these fabrics, wow, they are so bright and cheerful! This quilt top was featured at Quilt Story: Fabric Tuesday!!

The backing is going to be an adorable owl print by Timeless Treasures. The owls will be all used up after this quilt - I need more. The teal squiggle is one of my all time favorites by Tim and Beck from Bungle Jungle.

We were auditioning fabrics for the personalization and ultimately went with the pink on pink print for the baby name. I used wonder under and appliqued with my Pfaff to attach the letters. You can take a look at the finished rainbow baby quilt here.

I was also asked to join do.Good Stitches, a charity bee, this week! Umm, for sure, I am in! I joined the Promise circle, which benefits orphaned children through Threading Hope. This month we are working on Jacobs ladder blocks (mine are all done) and I've got to come up with a block as I'm going to be the quilter for February which is coming up super fast!  Eek!  I'm thinking mustard, mint, navy and hot pink fabrics - sounds yummy! But I change my mind a lot....

I also finished another dog quilt this time for a Bichon Frise! You can check out The Sophie on my instagram

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The Bella Chica

I'm sure everyone is nearly tired of me yacking about my latest dog quilts but what can I say - that's what I've been working on! Plus they all have a story to capture and if I don't do it here I'll probably forget! The Bella Chica is my latest finish. This dog quilt is for an apricot colored mini poodle. She's a new puppy gift/memorial gift for a spa owner in Arizona.

The Bella Chica was done in deep purples and bright pinks with pops of lime. The house, letters and binding are all by Art Gallery. Two different batik fabrics were used for her head, ears and paws. I managed to find just the right shade of pink minky dot for the backing. When I'm quilting with minky I try to stick to 'easier' free motion quilting patterns like the meander. Even though meandering isn't that easy for me - I always struggle with keeping the pattern moving and not getting stuck in doing a repeat of the same bubble over and over. I noticed that one of the issues when quilting with minky is that it is a little harder to move freely while fmq and I feel myself really pushing and pulling the fabric and sometimes getting stuck which results in slightly squared off meanders, yuck! The Supreme Slider was recommended by one of my lqs to help with that issue. I ordered one on Amazon the other day since I have two more minky backed quilts coming up and I'll see if that makes a difference. 

The Bella Chica has been shipped off to sunny Arizona and I'm onto the next dog quilt, a bichon frise in pink on pink (and more pink!)! I also took out my remaining teal and pink strips from my Gumballs quilt and pillow and have been sewing them together... we'll see what comes out this time! 

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Quilty Christmas Haul and Finishes

Whew Christmas is over - we survived again! Although it was a busy time I did have some sewing time that allowed me to finish three quilts, two minis and another dog quilt!

This little pup was an orphan block from a past dog quilt; it's been on my design wall long enough so I just bound it in Dear Stella peony confetti dot and did tiny loopy loo quilting. In all honesty I wanted to practice the tiny loopy loos on this block before using it for the dog quilt I finished this week. The backing of the mini has teal polka dot bursts on white.

I'm calling this a throw back version as I have made this quilt using these exact fabrics earlier this year. Well almost, this time I used Kona Bone instead of a bright white on white print for the background fabric. I think it softened up the look a little. The rest of the fabrics were all from Coquette by Chez Moi from Moda. I'm nearly out of these great fabrics - I will miss them when they are gone. Over Christmas we had nothing but cloudy days and rain, no snow for Christmas... hardly ever happens in Wisconsin, we always have snow! The rain and clouds are no good for picture taking.

I also turned the little heart balloon block into a mini quilt- another orphan. I love this tiny quilt, I did put it in my etsy shop but I might have to keep it all for me! The backing is hot pink with great big white polka dots. Heart was appliqued and free motion embroidered. I love this technique and hope to do it again soon.

Aside from these finishes this week I also have a couple of WIPs that have my attention, my mini for the rainbow mini swap on IG and my wonky pinwheel quilt in navy and teal. As if that wasn't enough to work on my hubby gave me several quilty gifts this Christmas that are really tugging at my attention!

Pretty threads and much wanted Swoon patterns in mini and full size! Yay! These really aren't the best gifts of all; he also made me a thread holder. It's so amazing and it's deserving of its own post... another day, after it gets put up in my sewing room!

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RnB Finish

The Ruby and The Benny are all done! In addition to finishing these two fun pet quilts I also attended my first Madison modern quilt guild meeting last week, yay! There were so many ladies showing off some amazing skills.

The Ruby and The Benny were ordered for a pair of dog siblings, a red king charles cavalier and blond golden retriever. I added a heart balloon applique to Ruby's quilt. I practiced it beforehand on this little block

Easy peasy. I just drew and cut the heart using Wonder Under and attached it to the white square. I then drew the string with my sewline pencil. Once I had the heart and string ready I attached my free motion foot, loaded up some black thread and outlined the heart applique and followed by pencil line. I went over everything three times which was key as it didn't look that great after only twice. Oh, I did use a piece of stabilizer behind the heart and string before the free motion embroidery otherwise I think there would have been issues. I just trimmed the stabilizer back after I was done.

I'm glad I practiced the heart balloon before putting it on the quilt. It's a little like using permanent marker to write on your quilt, the pressure! See it floating in the sky.

I did free motion quilting throughout both quilts. The binding and backing on The Ruby were both from Girly Girl by Pat Bravo; I'm super crazy about this fabric for the binding!

The blond golden retriever fabric was from Marmalade by Moda. It's tricky to do a light colored dog!

I think these are my last two finishes for 2014! I'm not sure, there might be time to finish one more quilt by the end of the year! This was also my fourth and fifth of these custom dog quilts this year; they are putzy to make but my Mr. P is still sleeping on his quilt every single night!

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The Hildy

She’s finished! One down, two to go! I was able to send this quilt off to her new home this week, well almost home, she is a Christmas gift. She needs to make a stop for wrapping and inspection first. I hope she passes! This quilt was featured on Richard and Tanya's Link a Friday Finish!!

I did free motion quilting throughout using three different patterns, one for each section of the quilt. Tiny loopy loos for the white background, Moda Bella White.

Meandering in the sky because it sometimes reminds me of poufy clouds! Meandering is not my favorite fmq pattern, but it works here.

And swirls with great big flowers for the grass. Love!

The plaid binding fabric is by Denyse Schmidt, it was so perfect for this quilt. The oat colored backing is from Marmalade by Bonnie and Camille and was just the thing to pull it all together and was selected by her new owners along. Wouldn't you know I ended up with an adjoining piece of binding right at the corner, agh! At least it was only one corner on this quilt. I've had quilts where every corner was tricky because of the extra fabric. Maybe I should roughly lay out the binding before I start attaching to prevent that problem in the future?! I say with a chuckle, I’ll never learn!

A final head shot! The eyes are always tricky on this quilt but I think I've gotten it down. Basically 2 white jelly beans layered with 2 smaller brown jelly beans. Instead of free motion quilting them in place this time like with the Jake quilt I slowly did a straight stitch around the outside of the white and black in coordinating thread.

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Holiday Mini Improv Quilts and Dog Progress

Lots of catching up this week after the holiday last week! I've made quite a bit of progress on one of my dog quilts. The grass and sky have been pieced. I've cut all of the applique pieces using Wonder Under 805 which I have used since Steam a Seam II disappeared earlier this year although it looks to be back now; if anyone has given the new stuff a try I'd love to hear about it. I have just a few applique pieces left to attach including the eyes which are the most difficult to place. Temporarily I'm using scotch tape to attach them... and hoping I don't run over the tape with the iron!

This gal had some pretty floppy ears with the left one laying flat and the right one flipping out a little. I decided to give the right one a little dimension and added some fluff between the layers. I had worried about the batik dog fabric as I don't use a lot of batik but I think it really works here.

I do my applique with my Pfaff (love her!). It can be a slow process especially on rounded corners where the fabric needs turned every couple of stitches. Maybe I won't do such round-y letters next time!?! I'm using both Mettler and Aurifil threads to do the applique.

This will be my third time making this quilt. So far I'm really liking the 'Hildy' version!

Holiday Mini Improv Quilts

Just before Halloween I did a custom set of mini Ghastlies quilts for a client. Now there is a matching set of Christmas Ghastlies mini quilts! 

I love doing improv with the Ghastlies; you don't really know where you're going until you've arrived. They are all different but coordinate well together. They have been shipped off just in time for the holidays! I can't get over the gold polka dot fabric by Dear Stella; I lucked out and had a few large scraps of the gold and red snowflake fabric that went really well the the gold polka dots too.

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Throwback Thursday #1

I’m still struggling with selecting the base for my current dog quilt… Thanks so much for all the help! I finally decided on the coral solid, cut a strip and put them up on the design wall. And then I wasn’t WOWed. I cut a string of the teal solid. I liked the teal a little better but not enough to actually attach them. Sooo more pondering and less sewing. Boo. On the plus side I now have all of the dog blocks finished! Since there isn’t much to share on my current wip I thought I’d do my first Throwback Thursday post, yay, another first! I finished this red and tan HST quilt earlier this year

I was inspired by a quilt over at cluck cluck sew. I wanted to do something similar as a gift to our friends for their upcoming wedding that my hubby and I could make together. I thought it might be best to practice first! This is the practice quilt. We used Kona Khaki for the tan and various red fabrics. It had to be red for Wisconsin Badgers of course. I started with 4.5 inch squares, drew a line down the center of the tan squares, right sides together and stitched on each side resulting in two HST blocks for each set of squares.

I realized that I had absolutely no red fabric in my stash before I started making this. That was sort of an eye opener, jeez, how did that happen?! Oh well, more shopping!! I kept the quilting simple with straight lines outlining one side going in each direction. The balloon fabric is one of my favorites in this quilt!

I loved the idea of a black and white binding along with a black and white backing. This little quilt measured 37x41 and is available in my etsy shop.

Here’s a picture of the wedding quilt that my hubby and I made for our friends. Hubby marked all of the squares, did some rotary cutting, drew the applique and snipped all of the thread from the chain piecing. Serious. I sewed, quilted and supervised!

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Just Another Dog Quilt

I have made a lot of dog quilts in the last year... really, I have made two quilts for dogs inspired by the Dog Daze pattern from Stitches of Love Quilting and three dog quilts for humans from the book 3 Times The Charm, Book 2.

 

Both of the quilts inspired by the Dog Daze pattern were a lot of fun to do! The Mr. P quilt was the first of the two and it came out of necessity. Mr. P is our pup Peanut. Whenever I was working on my sewing projects Peanut was always claiming the projects as his own, laying on fabric piles, dragging pieces of fabric around, taking a nap on half finished projects... so I just decided to make him his very own quilt! Now if he's getting a little grabby with my projects in my sewing room I just go grab his quilt and find a place where he can't get into trouble and he plops right down on it. He love's his blanket and knows that it is all his; no other dog is allowed to use it, or look at it...  Mr. P is not the best at sharing. The house, dog and name are all appliqued. This is a great scrap project; a lot of the fabrics in these two quilts came from my scrap bins. 

They both have minky backs which makes them soft and snuggly for napping. The Jake quilt has a navy minky dot back... it was quite an adventure quilting it. As soon as I started to quilt the white background fabric I noticed a very dark navy line showing through to the front following my stitches. The tiny minky threads pulling through to the front. Not good. I ended up quilting the white background with the backing on top, in other words, I quilted it upside down. This was tricky since I needed to avoid the house, letters and stick (Jake loved sticks). I ended up outlining the appliqued pieces with safety pins and then maneuvering through the pins. Thankfully it worked! I have heard of a few other ways to prevent the minky from showing through, but this is what fixed the problem for me. 

The quilt pattern from the book 3 Times the Charm, Book 2 is just too cute. I really like it.  I mean really like it. I have made this quilt three times in the last year! Each time I've used fabrics from Coquette by Chez Moi from Moda for the dog blocks. The first time I made the quilt I used a solid Kona navy backing. It is one of two quilts I have in my living room. I just love how the pastel dogs pop against the dark background. It was one of the first quilts I did with free-motion quilting. I quilted it with a tight meandering pattern between each dog which allows the dogs to be the center of attention without any distraction. I had a bit of a hiccup while quilting... I didn't know that it wasn't a great idea to use lime green thread on the back and navy thread in the front with the navy background fabric - yikes. The lime green popped right through to the front, which doesn't look so good against the solid navy. In hindsight I should have used dark blue or matching navy thread on the back. Oh well, I love it anyways! The backing is a fun paisley print in shades of blue, lime, purple and yellow with pops of red. 

 

The second time I made this quilt I used pastels throughout against a white on white fabric for the background. I did a similar free-motion quilting pattern on the pastel version - using white thread on the front and back the second time around. This quilt is around 35x43. 

 

My current project is a charity quilt for an upcoming fundraiser. Since the fundraiser supports the rescue my husband I volunteer for the dog quilt seems to be an appropriate choice for the event. 

This time around I used a solid white by Kona as the background fabric. I believe the white was Kona Snow which is the perfect shade to go with the pastel dogs. I've chosen a solid Kona green in Celery to underline the dogs and border the outside of the quilt. The inner border is a lilac colored lacy print; same fabric as the binding in the previous quilt. Selecting the binding fabric has been tough; it's always hard to decide the binding fabric. Sometimes it takes me days to decide! This time I've narrowed it down to a solid yellow or solid green, both in darker shades that coordinate well with the flowered backing. I kicked out the lighter yellow because it just wasn't right. Instead of a tight meandering between the dogs I decided on an all over free-motion loopy loo pattern.  

I'm leaning towards the yellow. The color is Maize by Pure Organic... It reminds me of the color of margarine - probably why I don't name the color of fabrics for a living.   

Best, 

HG

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