Night Sky Quilt Top by Jaybird Quilts

Phew, you'd think I'm not getting any sewing done, but I am.  Maybe even too much sewing! Branching out to clothes again though - trying to implement some skills I've learned from craft sewing into garments

A few days ago I finished a Night Sky quilt top. I made it for someone I love, so that's always harder than making something for myself. Like.. higher standards, and working with desires I may not agree with!

It came together in fits and starts, I put it away for awhile, not loving how I was choosing the colors (or maybe not liking the colors in the first place)  but winter is going to be here any minute and er... although one quilt doesn't make that much of a difference when it's cold out, it cant hurt!

Wasabi supervising

I hadn't had a strong desire to make this, but  took a trip with my husband last spring to the Washington peninsula.  We stopped at a quilt shop along the way that we came upon (unexpectedly I swear!!!) as we had lunch on the drive over.  Luckily it had some great stuff in it, and I got the Night Sky pattern and the sidekick ruler to go along with it. (I already have her Hex N More ruler, as she's local and all :)

Bad news is when I started cutting this pattern out, I um.. didn't read any directions and just started cutting pieces out with the ruler.  That means my stars ended up larger than they were meant to be.  Good news is that meant less stars, so the quilt top only took like uh.. 30+ hours to finish compared to how long more stars would have. I imagine it would've been a lot worse if I'd made smaller stars, but maybe a lot better if I planned knew what I needed and cut everything out at once.

good vs evil

Err, as I didn't read any directions  I sewed the whole stars together instead of half stars. Don't do that if you want ease in sewing together, unless you are awesome at y seams.

I'm not and although some of mine came together beautifully, others were.. well... let's just say I hope everybody who sees this in person is drunk and not paying attention!



I would've liked to make this with a lighter background.  I also went a bit crazy on the brights with last years moda's bundle of new colors... they had some day glow choices, that's for sure!I don't know that I'll make this again, but I'm sure going to play around with the sidekick ruler more.

Marcelle Medallion Quilt

Well well well.  I have finished the Marcelle Medallion Quilt finally, the one I started last September.

back of Marcelle

One thing I just realized today  about medallion quilts is they looks odd being off center on the bed if you don't pull them all the way up over the pillows.  TRAUMA!

So, it's done.  It's king sized in case I ever have a king bed again.  The bedroom in our rental house is blue so it matches, what more could one want?.  It only took this long to finish due to the green border.  One of my cats (yes, my fat one)  had ripped a few holes in it while trying to jump up on the bed when I was testing it for size a long way back, and I wasn't sure I'd be able to quilt it without doing some major work.

I chose a random kelp like design that involved a lot of bubbles over the rips.  I think I patched them pretty securely!  We will see though.  I'm a little sad this will soon be covered with cat hair, but we make sacrifices for our children.

I'm actually on a quilting roll this month.  I've made good progress on a few quilts, made some Noodlehead 241 totes that have made me happy to play with, made a lot of clothes.. strike that.. started a lot of clothes and haven't managed to finish any of them...  

This was a fun quilt to make, and although I'm starting another medallion quilt, I have a feeling I will be revisiting this pattern at some point in the future. If you randomly stumbled onto this post and are suddenly struck dumb by the need to make one too, there's a great flickr group with tons of inspiration, and wonderful QAL instructionS and advice at the Penny Poppleton blog.

DEAR JANE

This is not a "I am not breaking up with you" letter.  I am not a big traditional fan, and I'm big on modern quilting but something about all these small blocks seems meditative.

I had a vague plan of something, and then I came up with this to be my color scheme.  It's a Photoshopped picture - supposedly of the Farie pools of the Island of Skye, which was sort of um.. ganked from a photo in New Zealand from what I can tell via my pal Google.  But I'm working my way through my color scheme pins on Pinterest, and it seemed time for this one!  Just to be clear, I fell in love with this version of the quilt two years ago and am finally starting it.

Then I suddenly went with dark navy blues instead of turquoise water and now I'm randomly going along.  Admission - I hit save on the above color scheme, and save as, in my $50 EQ Dear Jane program, and it said "screw you" and didn't save anything.  I just got lucky and pasted this one into Paint so I had a copy of it and I'm going with it.  Seriously, I hate you EQ.  I am smart and computer savvy.  I have done things you haven't even imagined in your mind, but nevertheless I am rendered idiotic at your stupid quilt program. Boo. Boo.

So navy blue for the innards, printed out the rest of the first half or so of the rows patterns, I have to get my double wedding ring further along so there is room for this stuff to go up on my quilt wall, and to resist starting anything new for awhile...

3 blocks left on the blues, some of them have taken 2.5 hours, and I'm getting practice in applique.  Daytime pictures to follow!

Birch Bay Spring Quilt

I've been starting and making lots of things, as well as finishing plenty of small things, but I finally put together and finished my Birch Bay lap quilt from this shopping trip fabric buy.  And felt like writing about it, so here I am!

Not too much to say, it's prettier in person, one of my cats made it into a bed within minutes of the finish and me putting it down on the coffee table so I know it's a winner.

 Here is the truth.  I had to take it off my quilt wall mid assembly to take photos of something else and I didn't keep track of what went where so the rows did not go together in the way they were supposed to. Whatever, I don't care,  it's bright and cheerful and I have it wrapped around me this very moment.

I put most of my Heather Ross' Mendocino scraps in it since it matched the colors I was using which makes me happy, no more hoarding them in a drawer, I get to look at the mermaids and seahorses and octopi every day.

Backed with remants from the front & a vintage sheet.  The binding is Rashida Coleman-Hale's Koi in plusses.  I admit it, I love this print more than almost anything, already made a shirt out of it, want to by more yards so I can hoard it for no good reason except sometime the world might end and I'd be proud to leave a super awesome stash behind.

Main fabrics -
Alison Glass Bike Path in Chartreuse
Lizzy House Pearl Bracelet in Meyer Lemon
Kaufman Interweave Chambray in Sorbet
Denyse Schmidt's Chicopee Ladder Dot in Fuschia
Lizzy House Pearl Bracelet in Chat Noir
Moda's Comma in Black and Chalk

Gifty Lap Quilts

A few months ago I decided to make lap quilts for three lovely children of my acquaintance for Christmas.   I've figured out why making things without patterns is a bad idea!  I don't particularly love any of them, but I am happy to say they are done ;)  I also get to say that all three of these were made at least partially with fabric I won, which made it less risky if they didn't turn out.

The first was made mostly with a pretty Kona Cotton Bundle from Canton Village Quilt Works that I was lucky enough to win from Alyssa at Pile O' Fabric.

It really ended up looking like I think it's the 70's still.  No idea what a 12 year old is going to think of that, but I won't worry about it, there are two dogs that can use any of these if the kids don't like them!  Her favorite color is pink but I still think I went overboard.  It's not quite as bright as the picture implies, but it's sure...pink.

The second was made with a combination of Kona solids and some Robotic fom Birch Organics given away by Fabricworm through Sewcanshe.  I went with the sexist slant of boys like robots (and his Dad said he'd like the robot and sciencey prints, which makes it slightly less sexist?  I know his daughters are just as interested in science as anybody).   It's my favorite of the three, maybe because it's the least busy.

 

 

 

 

 The last one had a good amount of Monaluna's Fox Hollow organics that I won from Moona Fabrics through a giveaway from Maureen Cracknell last year,.  This was a hard one, I decided to make it around the Fairy Tale Castle pattern I tested for Blossom Heart Quilts.  I made side A too busy, had to cut it apart and simplify it.  Side B was mostly a gathering of 12.5" blocks.  When I got "done" I realized it was way too small and had to add on, and now the 7 year old has the largest quilt.

When I started the quilt her favorite color was purple, but as of last night it was pink, sigh! She has surprising taste in fabric, picked out the prints for this ball I made and didn't choose the prints I thought a young girl would.  I'm still banking on her standards being lax if there are animals involved though, and hope she will just start singing about foxes and what they say.

I'd just done straight stitching on the first two quilts, after it taking less than an hour to stipple this one, I'm wishing I'd done that for all of them, it was actually easier than all the repositioning.

OK, long post, big pictures, wish I'd gotten outdoor photos, and glad they are done so I can get back to the other holiday sewing projects I have!

Marcelle Medallion Borders 5 and 6

In an effort to gently increase the size of my quilt, for border  I made my pieces 2.5" by 3.75" instead of the 1.75" by 3.75" called for.  I also made three rows, and ya know what?  I had no idea there were only two rows until this very second and I looked up the dimensions...no clue how I got the idea there were three, but it fits into my king sized plans quite well *cough*

Border 6 - I'd been auditioning 8 different prints for it, but nothing seemed just right so I went with a solid green.  This will make it an easier transition to a print here, I think & I'll be adding a solid print border to this before I add border 7.

I've started the crosses for it too, during a bout of insomnia that kept me cutting and trimming until 5:30 am yesterday morning - trying not to think about how many more blocks I'll have to make to compensate for the increased size though :o. 

On another note, last weekend I spent several days on Vashon Island, and my sister and I made a stop at Island Quilter.  They had Carolyn Friedlander's Tangelo quilt hanging in the front of the store, and my sister said I could make one for her. :D  It was absolutely gorgeous in person, and they sold kits but we decided to choose our own fabrics, so we grabbed most of the 12 fabrics needed for it, and I'm supplementing the rest from my stash. 

Island Quilter goodies

Marcelle Medallion - borders 3,4 & 4.5

I had to spread the flying geese construction portion of this over a several day period to spare my sanity.  There's supposed to be 16 on each side but I had to cut it down to 15 so the borders weren't entirely too long.  I did some searches to see if anybody had said what their finished FG block size was, and although I saw some people ask the question, I didn't find an answer.


One thing I don't like about Liberty Love - it doesn't give finished sizes for each border/block as you go (or I missed it the dozen times I looked - not out of the realm of possibility), I don't know if my center square was too small, or it was some other border that led to the flying geese issue, or if I needed to trim all the blocks down to some beats the hell out of me size so 16 fit.  Nevertheless I am aiming for a queen+ size instead of a throw now so keeping track doesn't matter so much after this point, when I get to the crosses I will make it work.  Sigh, I can't say that without feeling like I'm quoting Tim Gunn.


With that in mind, I decided to add an extra solid border with Kate Spain's Plumage in indigo at this point, and started the change to a rectangular shaped finished product.  Things are starting to ripple without having the exact measurements each block is supposed to be, which I suppose is going to call for quilt blocking at some point, maybe today, I just don't have a good place to do it since I haven't picked up the foam insulation boards I meant to after our move.  I'm not sure how many people I keep an eye on in the blogging quilting world do this - I never really see people talk about it, so I assume they just don't suck at accurate cutting like I do so don't need to ;)

I've reached the maximum quilt size I can take a picture of without standing on chairs to get the entire thing in a picture, better get my butt around to putting up another quilt wall of some sort.

Marcelle Medallion - Borders 1-3

The second border for the Marcelle Medallion QAL came together yesterday pretty easily, luckily I had a 60 degree triangle ruler. DISLIKE all the teeny cutting, so much so that I'm taking a break from cutting the 3 1/8 squares for the flying geese to write this.

border tryouts - blurry cell ;)

I pondered four choices for border 3 - I think I made the right choice for me, although the whole quilt seems to be getting darker and darker as I go, since I'm incorporating a good amount of dark blue and black in border 4.

I am considering making this a king sized quilt - the one I was working on is pretty much at a dead halt until I can get my quilt friendly sewing machine in for repairs so I can finish the quilting it and bind it.  I know I'll need to do something more interesting than adding more solid borders, but I'm debating what.  Orange Peel? Giant 60 degree triangles? X+ squares?  Ha..srsly joking on that last one, I don't have the patience for that much work, especially as I'm considering hand quilting this.

Marcelle Medallion - Cause Everybody Is Doing It

Modern Medallion from Handstitched class

Well they really are - and I don't blame them. I was pretty conflicted about making the Marcelle Medallion - I've seen a few versions I love (and wanted to avoid to temptation to copy them exactly so I'd know I'd like my end product), and a lot that I like well enough but not enough to want to make something so complicated.  It gave me some horrible flashbacks to the Modern Medallion from the Handstitched class at Stitched in Color (not that it wasn't a fun quilt to make, but the hours of hand sewing almost did me in!)

This weekend I realized if I got busy I might be able to start and keep up with the quilt along happening at Penny Poppleton, and I figured what did I have to lose?  Besides, the other 20 projects I am in the middle of can wait.

Green/purple in progress

A few months ago I'd ordered Liberty Love in case I ever got around to making this, so luckily I was prepared.  Choosing color/print combinations however, isn't my strong suit - I put together a green/purple bundle for the medallion, and then a blue/green bundle.  The husband liked the latter (for some reason I insisted on getting his input).  He said something about how I could totally make him one if I used dragons though....

I put together a template to foundation piece the blue/green bundle, and decided to EPP the green/purple one, figuring I'd use whichever one I liked best.  I finished the first last night, and was going to keep working on the other but realized
1. I sewed a green square of dark green into where light green should go so have to unpick it.
2. Screw it - the blue is done so the blue will be made!

There were some problems with the foundation piecing, somehow a few of the squares ended up 1/8" over on one side (guess it wasn't a perfectly square template) and one of my points doesn't line up in the middle, and the same square doesn't match up in another place.  I had to baste some pieces into place too due to the way my template was laid out, but that will be just fine once I do some quilting on it.  I'm going to just call it quirky and move on.

I haven't done flying geese and only done 60 degree triangles once before, so I'm trying not to shudder at the next steps and get excited about it. I have most of the day free to sew, so I'd better start choosing borders!

Picasso Mickey Mini

When Ellison Lane posted about the 2013 Modern Mini Quilt Challenge, I got excited - I missed the one last year and  I mean...mini?  Hell yes, it means I won't be working on something for months. And don't look at me that way...my husband looked at it and said it looked like a Picasso Mickey Mouse, and since it's a Minnie challenge (YES I JUST MADE A CRAPPY PUN) and I'm sure not going to ever come up with names for anything I make..I'm going with it.


My inspiration came from this lovely building.  I considering recreating it in the form it is, with squares and rectangles.  However, I've been making lots of english paper pieced hexies for an ongoing lap quilt, and I thought I'd try my hand at making something with EPP hexagaons, trapezoids, diamonds and triangles.

I used a variety of Kona and Kaffe Fasset shot cotton solids for the "building", Riley Blake shaded cotton in slate for the background and Essex linen in Steel for the binding.  I went a LOT liberal with my color choices because frankly, I didn't have anything quite right.



I've got to figure out how to securely fold/tuck under the seam allowance around the edges when I do EPP, I had a bit of trouble at a couple corners.  Of course one of the lovely blogs I follow posted some great tips about the subject right after I finished and I can't find the link to it.  Something to do with those mini irons.

Accuracy is something I don't seem capable of,  there was a lot of seam ripping along the way and a few more things I should've redone.  If I didn't know better I'd think I'd been drinking and sewing around some of those triangular corners!


Nevertheless it's weird and not what I had in my head at ALL, and I'm OK with that!  It's a good reminder to take things slower and put projects down for a day or two so I can look at them with fresh eyes and fix anything that needs to be fixed.  This mini quilt finished at an "almost-square" 11 inches.  And again I didn't leave myself a way to hang it ;)

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Wonky Star Engagement Quilt - Mission Accomplished!

If it weren't for A Lovely Year of Finishes I may have never finished this. It's been about ten months since I finished the quilt top, and since I've only been quilting for 15 months... At that point I'd only machine quilted with stitch in the ditch,  so I thought I'd hand quilt.  I only hand stitched around the center squares and it still took forever and ever.

Not much to say.  I'm so tired of this quilt it's not even funny.  Started off with Kona solids in both parties favorite colors, but that looked flat so I added some prints & Pure Elements empire yellow (I love that color so much!) and it helped some.  This sure isn't my favorite quilt to date, but uh..it's done! *happy dance*

Yes, its horrific isn't it?

I didn't think I was going to get it done with my machine broken -somehow my dear husband bringing my backup up from the garage did what a few hours of tinkering couldn't...made the feed dogs kinda start working - they wont start things moving unless I start stitching away from a corner, which is what my old machine did.  Think they're still a bit lower than they used to be. No singer warranty centers in my state.  Not happy.

But it's patched where it needed to be yesterday, washed and dried it and labeled, done and cat hair free! My dear ex DID joke "didn't you start that two years ago or something?" so I might smother him with it...

Lovely Year of Finishes May Goal

Wow, I've been so busy getting ready to go on a road trip that I forgot to make a goal (well I mean I HAVE a goal, its just the blogging part I slacked on).  With that said, it's time to link up to A Lovely Year of Finishes so I don't somehow slink out of my commitment!

I'm making a wonky star quilt for my ex-husband and his lovely fiance as an engagment present... I hate to say this but I kind of blogged about finishing the quilt top last AUGUST. 

In December it was all sewn together, and I was using pearl cotton to hand stitch around the center squares of the stars. I think I'm about halfway through, but since my cats kept sitting on my quilting frame, I finally took it down until I had the time to actually finish it.


When I started this my understanding of how important having enough seam allowance was... how do I say this nicely...sucky.  There are at least a few places where things are going to come apart if I don't patch them, and thats the other reason I haven't finished this.

Luckily they are having a long engagement so there's not a wedding date set yet, but I still want this to be an engagement and not a wedding present!  They are mellow folks so I know the imperfections will be AOK with them too, but I AM going to get this done this month.

Tomorrow I'm off to the Oregon coast to relax, ponder life, and drink generous amounts of red wine while I embroider (I actually considered taking my sewing machine but managed to stop myself...) and this is in my trunk and I will be finishing the hand sewing this week, and anything I can't re-enforce by hand will be finished up by machine when I get back.

King Sized Triangle Quilt

I'm pretty fond of super giant blankets (ones big enough that they'll still cover me at  4 am after my partner has spent all night tossing and turning clockwise and making them slowly creep across the bed and onto the floor on their side,  ya know?) so even though we only have a queen sized bed, it seems sensible (if unwieldy) to go bigger. I happen to be lucky enough that my quilt wall is JUST big enough to plan out a king sized quilt on.

Freshly Pieced - baby quilt

I have an inspiration as usual, a Triangle baby quilt from Lee at the Freshly Pieced blog. I'm using Mary Sue's Triangle ruler to make 7 3/4" tall triangles for this one.

So far I'm doing OK in the planning, I keep trying to add more and more colored bits and having less and less neutral showing. I guess this is one of those modern quilting challenges - managing to have a lot of negative space when I'm done.

I'm a fan of unusual quilt edges, so wont be doing straight edges, but a zig zag border that follows the triangles. Hopefully binding it won't be too horrible.



 I decided to make a cooler hued quilt than would be my natural tendency, to go with the Riley Blake Chevron curtains I have up.  I'm really confused by some of the fabrics I chose because I don't actually like all of them, but I'm going with it :p

My print choices are from Art Gallery's Carnaby Street, Anna Maria Horner's Field Study & Piper by Dear Stella. I'm throwing some matching solids in too, and using Kona in bone for the neutral.  I have a lot more tinkering to do and I'm not sure if I'll end up happy with it but that won't stop me from finishing it ;)

Kaffe Fassett Shot Cotton Quilt

I've been using Kaffe's shot cotton for my Lucky Stars BoM blocks, but earlier this year I'd started cutting fabric for a lap quilt from them.  Originally I wanted to make a king sized quilt but I didn't have enough fabric and didn't think I'd end up getting more.

The colors I used were sprout, magenta and lemon, I added Kona in coal and snow.  I used the Kona coal for the binding too.

My inspiration was the HST Love quilt from Katie at Sew Katie Did.  My photos don't do the fabric justice, if you haven't tried shot cottons and are curious about them, please DO get some they are simply stunning, especially in the sunlight.   The ones for this quilt were from Purl Soho, but my subsequent purchases have been from Hawthorne Threads.

My blocks finished at 5.5" and the finished quilt is about 50" by 68" .




I straight line machine quilted it with grey, green, magenta yellow & white. I didn't use my walking foot (hadn't tried it before) and certainly regret that I didn't know how useful it was, as is you can see the quilt's a bit ripply in spots.

I was lucky enough to find a pretty vintage  sheet at Goodwill to use for the back. 

This is seriously cozy.  Pondering making a pajama set from QUILTS- it really seems like the sort of thing I'd do ;)

Tried taking indoor photos, was cat-blocked by Wasabi at every turn

I still may make a king sized quilt like this for the bedroom, but as I'm currently in the middle of making another king sized quilt will probably push it off for a bit ;) YES my husband's started asking me why I'm making more quilts.  No I did not shank him for voicing that crazy question out loud ...


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