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.

Rainbow log cabins

I finally finished up one of my older quilts.  (There are still two that are older, but we're not going to talk about those.  Yet.)

I was going to tell you who the original designer was, but after looking it up I found out it was...me!  I guess that's what I get for leaving it to sit for so long.  It was part of a QDAD (quilt design a day) design.

The reason it took so long is that I didn't know what I wanted to do on the back.  I ended up making it reversible.

A summer side and a winter side.  I quilted it with squares and rectangles, although I did use two different thread colors.  The summer side has yellow thread and the winter side is a variegated blue.

Here it is above my kitchen window.  Two people have now told me that they keep trying to read it though, which is a bit of a problem.  Hopefully the summer side won't have that problem quite as much.  Anyway, it it's current orientation it says pop_o_ - we're still figuring it out.  Next winter maybe I'll turn it over so the diamond is on the other side. 

I put it up with some 3M clips so that it is easy to change.

Ryan's bargello

This was my first attempt at a bargello quilt.  I really like how they look, but I went through a lot of patterns before I found one that I really liked.  The patterns is Harmony Bargello Quilt by Quilting Treasures, designed by Shannon Ownby.

Of course, to make it harder I made it into a mini quilt.  Probably not the smartest move, since it isn't square by any means, but it still turned out ok.

I quilted it with squares and rectangles.  It was a rather hard quilt to quilt, as I kept getting wrinkles.  I finally just decided I could only quilt from the center out, and that solved a lot of the problems.  It also gave me a bunch of threads to bury, but at least the wrinkles aren't bad.

And with a cat.  Just because.  Oh!  I used a lot of Kona scraps in this...Carrot, School Bus, Cinnamon, Grellow, Citrus, Highlight, Kelly, Basil, Clover, Chartreuse, Mint, Honey dew, Nautical, Riviera, Pacific, Water, Blue, and Sky Blue.

Pluses

Plus tornado is finished.  Let's be honest...it was finished a while ago.

The pattern is from here and the coloring is sort of from here.  I did less of a rainbow pattern, and the inside pluses are a different color.  I'm not completely sure why I did that.

It is bright and colorful for the little baby though.  When I stopped over to give it to her parents, they both noticed that there was a music score in the inside pluses.  They both, separately, said, "I wonder if I can tell what the music is."  However, it is well quilted and in small squares, so they were not able to figure it out.

I quilted something different in each color family.  I just did whatever I felt like, using thread that was about the same color as the fabric.  Oranges got a double orange peel and greens got back and forth.

Pinks got a double loop.

Blues have a wood grain.

Yellow has sea foam.

Purple has squares and rectangles.

And last, but not least, the background has pluses.

It was a fun quilt.  It isn't my new favorite, as newly finished quilts often are, but I did enjoy picking out all the different fabrics and different quilting patterns.

Linking up with Finish It Up Friday.

Family quilt - finished

Six months after I gave this quilt as a Christmas present, I finally finished it.  I'm blaming the baby...I was really happy to get the top and back pieced by Christmas, but after that my energy and caring plummeted.  They came back though, so I got it done!


Here's the top.  I got the inspiration for the layout from Gemma @ Pretty Bobbins.  You'll notice there are two blank spots...those for for pictures of the expanding family.  (At Christmas I put an ultrasound picture in one of the spots...it was how we announced the baby to that family. :D)

My son really liked this quilt because he recognized people on it.  We spent quite a bit of time naming everyone.  Here he is pointing to one of his pictures.

The back.  Cars, motorcycles, and flames.  (And some solids because I didn't calculate yardage correctly.)

I also didn't get enough of the inside backing fabric, and so made an emergency run to my LQS to see what I could find.  We found something that matched pretty well, but not quite as well as I wanted.  So I did spirals in the outside border to make it match the inside fabric design and tie everything together.  The inside background got squares and rectangles.  I did not quilt over the pictures, but I did stitch-in-the-ditch for a few of the larger ones.

I ended up using Spoonflower for printing the pictures because we don't have an inkjet.  So far I've been very happy with that choice!  The pictures were a bit dark, but not so much that one would notice.  I washed the quilt once without detergent and the pictures still looked good.  

My son thinks he should always get a turn with the camera, so here I am trying to pick off the white cotton fuzzies that got on the quilt while taking pictures.  They're everywhere!!

1-up - finished!

The 1-up quilt is finished!  It was requested by a friend and based on Cut to Pieces Super Mario Bros. QAL.  I added the clouds and ground so that it would be rectangular.

I found some fabric with squares on it for the back, to keep with the pixelated idea.

 

Quilting took a rather long time on this quilt, although it could be that school started up around the same time so I just had less time overall.  For most of the sky I put squares and rectangles, but also added a few Easter eggs.  I know they're hard to see, but that was kind of the point.

Some bricks and question marks,

 

source: http://www.giantbomb.com/mario-block/3055-702/images/

some mountians,

source: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/smashing-newsletter-issue-50/

and a pipe.

source: http://gamecola.net/2006/01/what-the-crap-super-mario-bros/

You can also see in the picture above that I did back and forths for the grass and square pebbles for the dirt.

Finally, the 1-up dude was mostly done using a maze pattern, with back and forths in the black area.  The thread always matched the fabric color.

The quilt was bound so that the binding matched the quilt.  (So it is sky blue for the sky area and brown for the dirt area.)  (I had a picture for this, but really it's easier to see on the quilting close-ups above.)

And finally, no video game quilt would be complete without a picture of some controllers.  Now, if he only had hands.

This is my finish for A Lovely Year of Finishes!

Finished - Ribbons!

I'm happy to announce that my baby blanket is done!  I'm hoping to get it to the family before the baby arrives even - it'll be a first for me.  I have about two weeks until the due date, so I might make it.  :)  The front is based off Off-track by Cluck Cluck Sew, but I made a few changes.

The back is pieced.  I do love pieced backs and thought I could do it on this quilt since it is being sent to a hot area and minky or flannel wouldn't be very appropriate.  I got a little bit more fabric, and I tried to use up what I had left from the front.  My back wasn't much bigger than the front, but it ending up fitting fine.  (Phew.)

I did some straight lines in the background orange (using my new rulers!).  I also tried to mimic the fabric pattern in the quilting of the ...buckles?  So in the picture below, there are small pebbles with the small dots, some large circles with the large circles (like the horizontal stripe), and some triangles.  With the triangles I tried to outline the triangles that were present in the fabric.  I didn't do a great job, but it is pretty consistent.  Also, big circles are hard to make circular.

This one shows the squares and rectangles that were done in the crosses (again like the horizontal stripe) and wonky zigzags.  I was picturing pristine zigzags in my mind, but it didn't turn out that way.  Not even close - so I decided they were then wonky on purpose.

Last year I made a boy quilt with orange and put it on the red lilies, so I thought I should do it again.

I kept the vertical color the same...it reminds me of a ribbon with buckles on it.

The binding is just a pre-bought sateen one, but it matched the blue in the fabrics wonderfully.  This is also my best binding by far...I'm not sure what I didn't differently, but it worked!

 The buckles are made from Simple Marks by Malka Durawsky for Moda.  There seem to be two different hues...this is the brighter line.

This was my June goal for A Lovely Year of Finishes.  I'll also be linking up with Needle and Thread, LAAF, Whoop-whoop Friday, Finish it up Friday, and Freemotion Friday.

Finished!: I-spy/maze/matching quilt

Here is finish number two for the week!  I made an I-spy/maze/matching quilt for a good friend's son.

I had a great time picking out the novelty fabrics.  I normally stay away from them, but some of them are so fun!

So besides the I-spy, people can use it for matching practice.  I fussy cut all the pieces so they're the same.  I tried to make them all exactly the same (note the apples) but there are a few that are slightly different.

And it's a maze!  It does have a start and finish, but I thought it could also be fun to go from one tile to a matching tile.

It's been really rainy, so the photoshoot had to be inside.  My son (and his monkey) helped out.

For quilting, I did squares and rectangles in the blue section, straight lines in the green, and back and forths in the brown.  I love all those designs.

I was a little disappointed that the thread color didn't show up on the back, but I used minky and I love how soft it is.  Since I didn't do any quilting in the maze, you can see it on the back too.

As always, there were a few times I was pretty nervous about how it was going to turn out, but I really like the end result!

Linking up with Whoop-Whoop Friday, LAAF, and Finish It Up Friday.