Postage Stamp Pillow

After finishing up my Sherbet Baby Quilt I still had quite a few scraps and jelly roll strips leftover over in varying lengths. I decided to put together some 9 patch blocks just to see how it went - I thought I might be in for weeks of sewing tiny squares together but I managed to put all the little blocks together in a weekend. Usually I sew my quilts together in rows so first sewing these into nine patch blocks was a first and a very good idea for these little squares. My test project was this postage stamp pillow cover

Usually I make a pillow with leftovers from a quilt... I guess I still wasn't quite ready to commit to a full quilt made with just 2.5 inch squares. Finished squares are 2 inches. This pillow was made with nine- 9 patch blocks and fits an 18 inch pillow. I was able to strip piece many of the leftovers which allowed for some quick block making. So. Much. Ironing! Thankfully I don't mind ironing...

I went with straight line quilting around each seam... and decided that I was not going to be doing that for a large quilt even though I love the look. It took quite some time just for the pillow top. After lots of hmming and hawing I went with Tangerine Leaf from Botanics by Carolyn Friedlander for the backing fabric. I really love this line and especially this print; I have it in every color... although I'm mostly hoarding it! Why is it so hard to part with the prettiest fabrics?!

I wasn't sure if this fabric was appropriate for a backing and I don't think I would use it for the back of a quilt but it works well with the pillow. Plus the leaves fit right in with the birds and flowers from the Up Parasol line used on the front. And of course an invisible zipper in cream!

I am ridiculously happy with that photo of the zipper!

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Up Parasol Sherbet Baby Quilt

Oh jelly roll, how you get to me every time... I know I'm not the only one who finds it tricky to use jelly rolls but they keep me on my toes that's for sure! I had a bunch of leftover strips from when I made my rainbow burst mini quilt from a jelly roll of Up Parasol by Heather Bailey. I love the large scale prints in this line but it's hard to showcase them when they've been cut into 2.5 inch strips.

I added in some odds and ends from the Birds and Berries collection by Jessi and Lauren Jung. These two bird loving fabric lines went together just perfectly! The sweet oranges, pinks, greens and teals meshed so well! I could not help but think of sherbet ice cream the entire time I was working on this quilt!

With my deep affection for teal and orange fabrics it's no wonder that I drawn to the two of these collections. I'm so glad I was able to pull them together into one baby quilt! And use up part of my jelly roll.... although I still have a bunch of strips leftover so more jelly roll pondering in my future.

I didn't wash it but I can imagine it with all its crinkly quilty goodness. That pop of hot pink gets me every time!  And darn it, I do love plaid, I was just telling my hubby that I need more good plaid in my life... err, stash.

With all of the busy prints in this quilt I chose a solid binding from Art Gallery Elements.  The backing is by Kate Spain's Joy collection in Mint - although it was part of a holiday collection, it goes perfectly with this spring baby quilt!

I've been a meandering machine lately and again did a meandering quilting pattern.  I'm still perfecting my meandering - the pattern is so quick and universal that I just want to do it over and over!!

If you are wanting to make your own jelly roll squares quilt the center squares are 2.5 inches, followed by 6.5 strips and then 10.5 strips. It does require 'squaring up' after each square is complete. This baby quilt measures 40x40 and goes together super fast!

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What's In a Name

I had a tiny handful of WIPs unfinished in 2014 and my name tag for my guild meetings was one of them. I did manage to finish it up just in time for our January meeting!

I didn't have much of a plan in creating this. I started with a small white rectangle of Kona white, apx 3.5x5, and just added my favorite scraps until I was happy with how they looked. I moved the whole mess onto a piece of scrap batting and backing. I free motion quilted the little scraps in place starting with those closest to the back. There was a little deconstructing and reconstructing involved with that. I free motion embroidered my name to the dark teal solid with a piece of stabilizer behind it and then attached it to the top of all the other scraps using the special stitch, which reminds me of bird footsteps, along the bottom and straight stitch around the top and sides. That was my second attempt at my name... the first attempt had a better R at the end but messier is other places. Hope its legible! Or close enough! I mean really, its the fun colors and prints that matters the most isn't it!?

And look, there's that design wall I was yacking about awhile back. Seems like a good place to hang it up so I don't forget to take it along... we'll see if that works anyways! Sort of brightens up the space too!

I don't think the Kona white was entirely necessary but it forced me to stay within my limitations otherwise I would have just making it bigger and bigger - I had lots of other 'favorite' scraps waiting in the wings. As it is I'm already going to need a bigger chest to display this beauty! I didn't think to measure that...

I backed it with more little birds and attached a scrap piece of teal binding... always love a teal binding!

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January Guild Meeting

Last month I joined my local modern quilt guild and have two sewing projects in progress for the upcoming January meeting this week. The first is our January block for block lotto. I'm not exactly sure how block lotto goes but I gather we bring blocks (or a block) using a specified quilt block and color palette. A winner is selected and then the person gets to keep all the blocks to make something. Sounds like fun! This month we kept the block simple doing HSTs in red, aqua and tan with white. I'm not too sure how many we are to bring so I just did a few until I got bored...

Pretty! I had not thought of bringing in tan with red and aqua before. Learning already!

Some time ago (last year?) the guild did name badges. The group was 'warned' to wear them to upcoming meetings - I hope the warning meant something good is going to happen! Since I'm new I didn't make one with the group but figured I better go ahead and have one... plus no one knows my name so probably a good idea.

Mine is kind of an eclectic mix of my favorites. Lots of cute fabric scraps in solids, polka dots, birds and whimsy prints from some of my favorite designers like Dear Stella and Art Gallery, plus others. Mustard, teal and pink of course! I even broke out the fancy stitches using my Pfaff, haven't put that on a quilt before! Pow!

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It's A-Bark Time

I managed to finish my latest dog quilt this weekend! I pondered and pondered over the fabric choices for the bases. And then pondered some more for the borders and binding fabrics, good grief. Working in the dark hasn’t been helpful. I initially thought I was going to use the coral solid I auditioned in my last post about this quilt. After I cut the coral strips it wasn’t right so I plunged ahead with the teal solid. I blame the short days. By the time I get home from work it is already dark, stuff just looks better in the dark!

Once all of the bases were attached I reviewed about a thousand – ok a dozen (felt like a thousand though) – different combinations for the inner and outer borders and couldn't get that to come together either, ugh. Ever have ‘one of those’ quilts, jee whiz?! I finally decided to nix the inner border altogether and increase the size of the outer border so that the quilt ended up the same size but only has one border. Since this quilt is destined to hang in a dog rescue I went with this Moda Summersville print by Lucie Summers that features different animals included dogs for the border. The larger sized border allowed for plenty of space to show off those animals too!

I had not forgotten about that solid coral! I did a peek out binding using the solid coral and teal. I'm wondering if there is a name for this type of binding? I recently discovered a two color binding strip in a $5 scrap bag I purchased from my LQS, Patches and Petals. Serious, make your own scrap bag for $5! After deconstructing the scrap binding I figured that I could probably manage making one! To create the two color binding I just cut a 1.5in strip of teal aka the outer binding color and a 1.75in strip of the peek out color which was coral on this quilt, sewed the two pieces together and pressed in half. Done! It’s a little fussy because the binding does need to be pressed exactly in half or the peeking color ends up wavy but this is going to look super cute hanging up so totally worth it! It is just the right amount of that amazing coral which is by Art Gallery Pure Elements. The teal solid is Kona Azul. 

I attach my bindings front and back by machine. I use a 2 3/4in binding folded in half, the extra ¼ inch gives me just a little breathing room... I attach the binding to the back of the quilt first. This time I sewed the back binding a little narrower than usual by moving the needle to the right a couple of hairs (1.0 on my machine – it was either 3 or 4 hairs). Making the back binding a little smaller allowed me to stitch along the front directly on the crease where the teal and coral meet without sewing over the back binding accidentally.

Side track: Did you notice the dog butt with chicken head, yikes!

Oh the quilting! This time around I top stitched each dog in coordinating thread. The simple quilting should allow the dogs to shine without distraction at the rescue.

And

Too rainy for a good outside photo but here are all the dogs! I did add in the coral with flowers in the upper right and solid mustard dogs... because they were too awesome not to.  Both are Art Gallery fabrics, but don't they look great with the Simply Style line!

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Doggone Progress

I've still been playing catch up from our trip to California last week. My family did Thanksgiving last weekend so we were out of town again. Hoping to catch my breath this week! I did manage make a trip to the grocery store, the first in three weeks! And make some progress on my current dog quilt

I've been struggling with selecting the base for the dogs so I've left it off for now. The rest of the pups should be finished by the end of the week so I've got to figure it out!  Below is the base for the dogs; it sort of acts like a colored sashing. Here's a pic from the last time I made this quilt.

The base is a pretty major component since it's repeated in every block. Below are a couple of options I have auditioning on my sewing room floor aka center stage at my house!

Coral solid or print

Mustard solid or print with teal

I think both the mustard and coral prints are a little bit busy for this quilt. I'm also still thinking about the borders and binding. Usually I have all these things pulled together before even starting.

There are a number of green, teal and blue colored dogs and hardly any coral, grey or mustard which is why I'm leaning towards the less dominant colors as the base. I've also considered doing bases of all different colors??  Thoughts? Which do you like?

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