Purple Pinwheel Quilt

At February's modern quilt guild meeting I was the winner of block lotto! Each month we make quilt blocks and bring them to our meeting where a winner is chosen randomly. The winner gets to take all of the blocks home to make something amazing!

January colors were shades of purple with a little bit of pink thrown in. There were two pinwheel block variations which added a fun little twist. We did a modern pinwheel

and traditional pinwheel

The blocks were fairly large and there were a good 20 or so. The simple thing to do would have been to just put them together but I wasn't feeling that... and I wasn't planning on a great big quilt. I decided to deconstruct the traditional pinwheels by trimming them from 11.5 inch blocks to 6 inch blocks. With the extra fabrics I put together 6 inch improv blocks and then laid them out haphazardly with the larger modern pinwheels. One of my goals this year was to make a quilt with differently sized blocks; this was just the ticket!

I loved that this project forced me to do things I wouldn't normally think of!!  Like use purple for instance, like a lot of purple! I decided early on that this quilt was going into my own collection. Since our living room is yellow with purple accents this was going to need a little bit of yellow... with my massive mustard crush lately my selected shade of yellow can't be much of a surprise!

I managed to get snails, mushrooms, flowers and birds into the backing! A pieced backing of course!

The quilting was done with my walking foot in a random wavy pattern in light orchid aurifil thread. It took quilt awhile to do but I do love how it looks in the end. Can't wait to see what it looks like all washed and crinkly.

It didn't seem right to leave the front a mustard free zone so I selected a mustard colored thread to attach the solid purple binding!  Just right!

This finished out to be a small lap size quilt, around 40x45. I'm planning to take it to our next guild meeting later this week and then we can use it!

Link Parti's 

Take a look at the linki parti's I get down with here or by clicking on the Linki Parti's link above. Linking up to Show and Tell Tuesday Quilt Story crazy mom quilts and Sew Cute Tuesday 

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!

Link Parti's 

Take a look at the linki parti's I get down with here or by clicking on the Linki Parti's link above. Linking up to My Quilt Infatuation Richard and Tanya Quilts Show Off Saturday Vals Quilting Studio and Whoop Whoop Friday 

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.

Link Parti's 

Take a look at the link parti's I get down with here or by clicking on the Linki Parti's link above. Linking up to Richard and Tanya Quilt Show off Saturday Quilt Story i have to say Sew Fresh Quilts and Whoop Whoop Friday 

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.

Link Parti's 

Take a look at the linki parti's I get down with here or by clicking on the Linki Parti's link above. Linking up to crazy mom quilts Quokka Quilts Whoop Whoop Friday Freshly Pieced and Richard and Tanya Quilts