Finished: Diabetes quilt

Over a year ago, I put out a call for quilts on Facebook.  I enjoy making quilts for people, so it's nice to make one for people that want one.  Today's quilt goes to someone from my church.  We were in a small group together for a short time, before COVID hit, and we have two sons the same age.  Well, two of her children were diagnosed with Diabetes I within a year.  So to say that is a huge part of her life lately is an understatement.

And so when it was her turn for a quilt, she asked for a diabetes themed one.  I found this ribbon quilt and used the blues that recognize diabetes.  I'll be honest, the making of the ribbons was tedious.  It's the same subblock six times into the same block 30 times...I had to take several pauses and work on other things.  It's the first time I remember dreading a quilt quite so much, although a quilt with broken dishes was close.  I used an assortment of solids and prints, but the kona solids include: alegria, blue jay, blueprint, candy blue, copen, horizon, Niagara, peacock, stratosphere, water, and waterfall.  The background is white.

But after that things started getting interesting.  I had been sewing the triangle clips together, and realized they would make a cute border.  Then there was math (and mistakes) and figuring out how to best put everything together.  It was fiddly and took a while, but I started to fall in love with the quilt again.

For quilting, I did loops (although I tried to make them look ribbon-y).  I also put some flower things in the middle of the ribbons.

The weather was finally warm enough to dry the quilt outside, and there were some pretty images coming through.  I used minky on the back for a good snuggle.

Finished: black to purple and green

Black to purple and green.  That's not a great name, but a good description.  In any case, the quilt is finished!

 It's a very large queen size, so it was hard to get a picture of it.  Anyway, you can see that it starts out in the top left with little black, and as you go down you get more and more.  Although it's hard to tell, the quilt was divided into four diagonal strips, each one getting darker.  In hindsight it looks like I could have graduated it a bit more in the second and third sections, but I'm still happy with how it turned out.

I used a loop pattern to quilt it.  It was a large quilt, and I know I didn't want to spend too long on the actual quilting.  I chose a medium grey color for my thread.  It obviously blends in better with the colored fabrics, but I like how you can see it on the black too.

I had my grandmother (in-law) come with me to pick out some of the fabric and that was so much fun!  It's always fun to pick out the fabric, but it was a nice thing to do with her too.  As for my Kona solids, I used black, titanium, graphite, medium green, crocus, mulberry, dark violet, cosmos, palm, kelly, hunter green, clover, peridot, and holly.

It took a while to get to the recipient because she lives in Canada and we decided to save on shipping by having her mom bring it to her during the next visit.  But I was able to see some pictures of it on the bed!  People don't always share photos of their quilts being used, which is fine, but I do love it when it happens.

Oh!  I just realized this is quilt 100!  Although I used my spreadsheet and then found out it only has number 100; I've only finished 98.  I'm getting close!

Finished: Begonia

Begonia is finished!  I know this isn't a great picture, but it's the best one I have that shows the whole quilt.

I got the pattern from the Seattle MQG and I loved it.  This is absolutely a pattern I'd make again, and I don't say that very often.  I really like how it turned out and I enjoyed the medallion style of the quilt.  If I had to do it again though I might choose a white background; the light grey didn't quite do it for me.  The Kona colors I used include: quicksilver, splash, nautical, marine, pacific, Malibu, Paris blue, horizon, spa blue, blue, and breeze.

I am going to admit, I made a ton of mistakes with this quilt.  (Through absolutely no fault of the instructions.)  It's been a while so I've forgotten several, but the big ones include realizing I put one of the outer rows on backwards after I had it loaded on the quilter and had just started quilting.  I didn't require a lot of unpicking, but it did take several hours to get back to the same spot.  Then I had started with some cool quilting in the top corners, but by the time I got to the bottom corners I had forgotten and just did some pebbles.  So that was another unload, unpick, and reload.  I wouldn't call myself a perfectionist at all, but these were big enough errors that I wouldn't have been happy with the result if I had left them.

For the quilting, I did a variety of motifs.  In the center I did some straight lines that formed a star.  in the oddly shaped grey sections I added pebbles.  I created some squares and rectangles in the larger grey spaces.  And I skipped all the colored pieces, so they could pop a bit more.

So, while it took much longer than I was hoping, I'm really proud of the end result.

Update Mar 2023

I'm a "little" late with this, as my previous update was last July.  But it's nice to see where I am once in a while to regroup.

Quilts I'm actively working on:

1. Diabetes quilt.  This started out rather boring, and I had a hard time working on it.  However, I've now added my own twist to it and have been enjoying it.  I'm almost ready to put the top together.  Hopefully my math is correct and I have the correct number of little triangles.

2. 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.

3. Surprise quilt.  I have the fabric!  There's a few more colors to pull from the closet, but it's ready to start when the Diabetes quilt goes on the quilter.

4. Begonia. This just needs a blog post.  It's mostly written already, but not quite finished.

5. Rebekah's quilt.  This needs a blog post.

Quilts with no progress since last time:

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

7. Fabric from Christmas.  I've finished burying some threads, but have a few more to do along with binding it.  I'm currently using it in it's unfinished state, which has surprisingly made me less motivated to finish it.

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.  I thought I'd working on this during the winter and haven't touched it.

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

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

11. Pat's quilt
12. Fractured 2
13. Nephew
14. Christen

Quarter Log Cabins - finished

For 2022 Stash Bee I had asked for some log cabin blocks.  In retrospect, I should have asked for 12" blocks but instead I asked for 16" blocks because I wanted to cut them into quarters.  Long story short I ended up with enough blocks for two baby quilts.  The first one is posted here, and here is the quilt from the second set:

I like how both of them tuned out!  Scrap quilts are so fun.

For quilting I did some squares and rectangles.  I did not quilt over the white squares.

Now, my friend just moved to Miami, so I thought I'd try to be thoughtful and not put any batting in the quilt.  I've done this a few times recently with mixed results.  In hindsight, I should have added the batting.  The thread broke a lot and the quilting quality just wasn't as nice as it normally is.  It makes me really curious as to how the batting can have such an effect on the ease of quilting, but the results are quickly becoming apparent that it's important.

Earth Tones: finished

I realized that I needed a semi-quick baby quilt recently.  I know I can always be late with baby quilts, but try to be on time.  For some reason, earth tones kept coming to my mind.  I know they're not all that normal for a baby, but I don't think the baby will really care.  I usually choose colors that I like.  

I found a pattern that looked fun and, bonus, it was super easy.  I saw the quilt first at Quilting By Dawn, although I'm not sure of any further information about the original.  As with most quilts, I figure out sizes and measurements on my own.  I split the colors from the browns.  Based on darkness, I started with the lightest color and darkest brown and alternated color/brown, getting lighter or darker.  I used Kona solids from my stash: Nautical, Sand, Hunter Green, Stone, Teal Blue, Spice, Artichoke, Spice, Waterfall, Eucalyptus, and White.

I did an all-over quilting of seafoam, which is a mix of swirls and pebbles.  It isn't one that I choose very often lately, but it seemed to be perfect for this.

I backed it with a dark green minky and bound it in sateen and it's all set!