White facets: an inverse - finished

Another finish!  They're slow as I'm not quilting as much lately, but they're still coming.  

This was gifted to my friend.  She had originally chosen a similar one as a gift for her husband, but this one was a surprise.

It isn't an inverse, per se, because there are three colors.  But it is a rotation.  This is based off Christa Watson's Facets...you know it's a good one when you're willing to do it twice.

Really, it turns out that I like making large blocks from fabric crumbs.  I've done it in a lot of my quilts lately.  I think I enjoy it because it doesn't require too much thinking.

I backed it with minky, which is way to warm for this summer but will be nice in the winter.  The quilting also matches the other quilt, with triangles in the diamonds and back and forths in the crumb blocks.

Irish Chain - finished

Let's talk about this Irish Chain quilt.  I finished the top about five years ago and got it quilted about four years ago.  I used it for two years without the binding.  I finally got the binding put on last year and then finally, finally, got pictures of it this week.  It has been used well during that time though as it is my basement blanket and I spend a lot of time in the basement.

It's been a while, but I think I used the scrappy Irish Chain pattern from Happy Quilting.  As I was taking pictures I really enjoyed how different the images looked as I got farther and farther away, so I thought you'd enjoy them too...

For the quilting, I did a motif called Fancy Floral (180 Doodle Quilting Designs) in the white areas.  The blue squares got up and down back and forths, the green squares got side to side back and forths, and the teal squares have a double loop.

The base fabric I got for Christmas many years ago and have since forgotten what it was called.  I didn't quite have enough though, so I added in several solids and a few prints that matched well.  The solids include navy, windsor, splash, enchanted, artichoke, olive, bonsai, and, of course, white.  I worked on this during the 2020 lock down and ran out of white in the middle.  It was a sad day as I had actually been making good progress and was brought to a halt because white Kona was on back order for all the on-line stores.

Black and Pink stars

I just finished another quilt that was made by my friend's grandma.  

I'm pretty sure that it isn't square.  I'm not sure anyone will ever notice because people don't lay quilts out flat very often, but ...oh well.  It is what it is.  I had some trouble quilting the bottom and I don't know if it was my fault (probably) or if there were enough things off in the quilt top that would make it skew so much at the end.

I quilted pink loops in the pink border and the main flower area and back and forths in the black borders.

Quilting update: Dec 2024

The last few months were extra busy and I barely touched my sewing machine.  It felt rather odd, because for the last many years I usually do something quilt related at least six out of seven days.  Life is still busy, but the cause of the extra-busy has finished and I'm slowly getting back to normal.

Quilts I'm actively working on:

1. Surprise quilt.  It's all put together and needs to be quilted - it's up next

2. Black and pink.  A friend's grandma died, leaving behind a few unfinished quilts.  This quilt was all put together and just needs to be quilted and bound.

3. Stash Bee 2024.  I put this together, only to realize that I put it together incorrectly.  I also need to make another column of blocks to make the proportions work out a little bit better.

4. Fabric from Christmas.  The quilt finally got bound and just needs official pictures.

Quilts with no progress since last time:

5. Stash Bee 2023.  I chose dark greens and yellows as the colors, thinking deep forest with yellow flowers, but several people said they were reminded of Green Bay Packers instead.  I think for 2025 Stash Bee I'll ask for some of the same pattern in different colors.  Blue/orange?  Red/orange?  I have until May to decide.

6. baby quilt. I had started this for a baby of someone in my Mom's group, but I've only seen her a few times and I'm not going to finish it before the group disbands for summer.  I think I'll put it aside for the next baby.

7. Scrap quilt. Last time I wasn't expecting any progress in the next six months; that was correct.  It's still waiting.

8. Trying to fit in - left over triangles. I put this on the quilter and got some done, but then had to take it off.  It might be off for a bit yet, but hopefully not too long.  It's small, so easy to take on and off as needed.

9. Winter quilt.  Needs to be quilted

10. Temperature quilt.  I need to quilt this.  It's from 2017, so it's rather low on the priority list. 

11. Other grandma quilts: There are still quilts from my friend's grandma to be finished and/or quilted

12. Jan's quilts: A different friend found some quilt tops...I forget where.  They're on the older side, but just need to be quilted up

13. Duvet into quilt.  I gave my parents a new quilt, and so I took their duvet cover back.  (I made the duvet cover ten years ago.)  I'm planning on making it into a light quilt.  I need to separate the front and back and then quilt

Quilts I haven't started but don't want to forget

14. Nephew
15. Christen

A new bed quilt

I've been quilting for a while now, and realized that's been at least 10 years since I have given some bed quilts to people.  I recently changed my quilt and realized that these other family members might also like a change.  One of them took me up on the offer.

They previous had a duvet cover (project 19!) and didn't want a duvet anymore.  They also liked one of the baby quilts I had made a few years ago, so I went with a larger version of that.   This is project 108, so probably about 80 quilts later.  (There are some in between that I still need to finish up.)

I enjoyed making this quilt because I got to use a bunch of my scraps.  I still have a lot of scraps, but the scrap bucket went from overflowing to manageable.  I had also gotten some fat quarters as a present soon after I started this quilt, so I included those liberally to pull things together at least a little bit.

It was quilted mostly with just a basic stipple because the quilt is already pretty noisy, but I added some leaf-pairs in too.  I thought it would give the quilt a bit of interest while not taking too long nor adding too much quilting.

Since I'm tracking my solid fabric usage, the light brown is Kona Sand and the green binding is Julip.

And now it's at it's loving home!  We think I'm going to take the duvet cover back and make a light quilt out of it - and then it can change with the seasons.

A Grandma's quilt

A friend of mine had a grandma that quilted, but passed away in the middle of several projects.  She commissioned me to finish several, starting with this one.  This one was given to my friend's mom, the daughter of the person that made it.

This one came to me all basted, so it was pretty much all set to go.  I had to undo the basting, and I decided I didn't like the batting.  It is more of a polyfil and I couldn't pull it like I normally do.  However, the quilt weighed much less at the end than normal.

I did get to choose the binding, so I choose a matching pink: Kona Rose matched really well.

I quilted a square maze in the log cabins.  It's hard to see, but there are leaves in the white and green borders and wood grain in the pink.  The thread colors were matched in the borders and a light tan in the log cabins.

Nathan's round robin

A long while ago, Liz suggested that I make a quilt hanging for Nathan's office because it was cold and boring.  She had made a blanket for his office, so Christmas 2022 she brought the yarn she had used and I color matched it with fabric so that I could match the current blanket.  I decided to make a round robin style quilt.  I thought that all the different shapes on the blanket would lend themselves well to that style.

Here's the original blanket:

The colors I used were Kona putty, old green, bluebell, taupe, dresden blue, saffron, and ochre.

I took my time with the quilting (for once).  There is a tiny stiple in the center, the blue squares have back and forths, there are some echoes in the chevrons, and figure 8 in the green borders.  Not all of my quilting is nice and straight, but it is good enough. 

I matched the thread to the fabric color too.  It just looks nicer.