Wonky Rainbow Burst Mini Quilt

I could not be any further behind with my blogging!! I'm here and sewing... although sewing lots of things that I've already shared here before. I am finally caught up with custom order requests and even managed to squeak in a Caribbean vacation this month with the hubby. Back in December I mentioned joining a rainbow mini quilt swap on Instagram. It was my first swap and so much fun! This quilt was featured at Richard and Tanya Quilts!

I made this mini quilt over winter break. My partner mentioned that she liked Heather Bailey and low volume fabrics. I had a jelly roll of Up Parasol by Heather Bailey and a bunch of prints from my stash that played really well together.

Thankfully my partner also likes wonky and since I've been head over heels in love with Greenleaf Goods wonky pinwheel tutorial for awhile it was a chance to try the pattern on a mini scale and a fresh layout similar to Wavelengths by Lee at Freshly Pieced. If anyone is wanting to see detailed construction on this mini let me know I'd be happy to put a tutorial!!

Capturing the rainbow was the trickiest part of the mini but this layout finally won me over! I had the perfect backing for a quilting enthusiast. The swap required a label, which is something I never do, but it does make it special doesn't it?! Plus I got to use my 'fancy stitches' on my Pfaff to attach the label, something I almost never get to do while quilting. I should make more labels I think...

 I quilted the mini in one big concentric circle. I started at the teal center and did a free motion circle until I reached the edge of the quilt and then I switched over to my regular walking foot to quilt the rest, restarting at the end of each arch. I changed thread colors with the rainbow.

On the theme of rainbows I added a rainbow binding too

I sent my mini to Australia several weeks ago and recently received my swap package; head on over to instagram to check out the amazing mini package I received!  Can't wait to join a new swap now that I'm finally caught up with almost everything.... except blogging!

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 Sew Fresh Quilts crazy mom quilts LAF and Whoop Whoop Friday 

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 

Free Motion Quilting

At February's modern quilt guild meeting last week I brought home a charity quilt top that needed quilting. Members can take home blocks to be pieced, quilt tops to be quilted, and/or quilts to be bound. The finished quilts will be donated to a local charity. I'm in need of some serious free motion quilting practice so I chose a quilt top that needed quilting.

This charity quilt is made up of 15 large squares in different shades of grey with pops of bright colors. I selected an Aurifil thread in a very light blue/grey which goes well with all of the blocks. I'm planning to quilt it using motifs that I've never put on a quilt before. It was just me and Angela Walters Free Motion for Beginners this weekend. So far I have practiced concentric circles (the type that are supposed to touch), pebbles, flowers, loopys, and paisleys. I have to say that some of these seem to look much better in photos than in person! So far the most difficult for me is the paisley. My thread kept breaking on this fmq design, likely because of my inconsistent speed and/or wild changing of direction while quilting. It's also easy to get trapped in a place that you can't get out of with this pattern. I ended up missing a few big areas and had to go back fill in later too. That said, I can see using this in small spaces again because it does look pretty good.

I started with the pebbles in one of the wonky star blocks. Pebbles take forever! I can't imagine doing pebbles in that scale all over on a large quilt - if I decide to do that on an entire quilt its going to be stones or large rocks for me! On the plus side they look good and were pretty easy to do for a beginner. The one motif that I really want to perfect is the concentric circle. For me it isn't easy to get those circles to touch... and I never quite get close enough to the edge so I have big gaps that I end up filling in later... and usually in a strange way. I also have several enormous circles... how'd that happen?! I'm thinking each row will need a few circles because I'd like to add that to my list of 'go to' free motion quilting patterns.

I think I perfected the flower pattern. I could see using this design on a large quilt. It's easily the most fun pattern so far. 

And the current 'easiest' free motion quilting pattern so far is loopys. I've seen this fmq pattern on many full size quilts and wanted to use it for awhile but never had just the right quilt top for it. I would use this pattern again, its quick and effective. I imagine it will be even better once its washed and crinkly.  

I have eight blocks finished so far. One of the things I noticed after an afternoon of quilting my muscles started to fatigue, once that happened most of my control went out the window... my lines were shaky, I couldn't stay within the boundaries, round things were square, square things were round, you get the idea... even though I had more energy mentally, my muscles were done and I had to take a break. 

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 Freshly Pieced Sew Fresh Quilts My Quilt Infatuation Whoop Whoop Friday Richard and Tanya Quilts and Sew Cute Tuesday