Orient Express

Here's my second weekend accomplishment!

I'm happy that this big quilt is finished! This is only the third large quilt I've completed, and it's definitely a different feeling of accomplishment than when I finish a baby quilt.


Since the quilt design reminded me of a stained glass window from the start, I decided to fit the quilting to that theme. I quilted about 1/4" from the two seams inside each black sashing line.


On the "windows", I quilted random straight and bent lines as I did on a larger scale on the bentobox wedding quilt. It has a neat effect and kept quilt turning to a minimum. Win-win!



Here's a sneak-peak of the back:
I like the binding, though the diagonal lines got lost in the busy pattern - I guess I could have saved myself the work of making bias-strip binding...
Now, a funny thing happened when I turned the quilt over for a photo of the back. I actually like it much better! (Ignore the washed-out photo - the remnants of hurricane Danny left me with a grey dull day for photographing...)
If this quilt stays with me, I'd leave the back up, the front is so busy! :)

Now the question is - what do I do with this quilt????

Dinner Is Served!

The cutlery baby quilt is finally finished. I really did drag the final border quilting on and on, but I'm happy with the final result:


I did an impromptu corner stone quilting after ripping out some very wonky free-hand flowers.

QUESTION FOR YOU:

Unfortunately, the ripped out stitches left little holes behind, so the flower-motif is still there - any tips on how to get those out????


I used this cute jungle/safari flanelette for the backing - I just love flanelette on baby quilt backs. I found this one in a fabric store in Montreal, Quebec.

Here are some of the animals close up, as well as the quilting look of the back:


And, I have one more question for you!

I spent seemingly forever knotting and sewing away the loose thread ends, sigh.


It was a flash back to the wedding bento box quilt - those threads almost made me late for the wedding! I actually started doing the back stitching at the start end end of each quilting line and just snipping the threads. Gasp! And that from me, the thread snob - I used to be so proud that you couldn't see where a seam started on my quilts. But I guess below it all, I'm plain lazy.

So, I'm wondering whether you are a snipper or a knotter/sewer - I guess this is a question for machine quilters only, as the patient hand-quilters among you don't have much of a choice, or do you?

UFO Progress Update

Here's my progress to date - no photos this time, they'd all be repeats as I haven't taken any new ones... I think this is really more a post for me, to remind me of what I got done!)

1) Cutlery Baby Quilt
Done:

• looked at it whenever I walked by
  

Left to do:

• quilt-in-the-ditch around inner borders
• quilt corner stones - I tried flowers, but didn't like them
• erase marked quilting lines around blue border
• label
  

2) Apple-Owl Quilt
UFO since July 2009

Done:

• added outer border
• finished backing
• prepared binding strip

Left to do:

• cut batting
• baste
• quilt
• bind
• label

3) Character Quilt
UFO since July 2009

Done:

• put backing together
• cut batting
• basted
• prepared binding strip
  

Left to do:

• quilt, bind, label

4) Disaster Quilt (Triple Irish Chain)
UFO since February 2009

Done:

• started playing with borders - tricky...
  

Left to do:

• decide on borders, binding and backing
  
• baste, quilt, bind, label

5) Oriental Quilt
UFO since February 2009

Done:

• cut batting
  
• basted
• quilted grid and am now filling in the "windows"
• sewed binding strip on and finished binding on half the quilt
  

Left to do:

• finish binding and label

6) Spring Quilt
UFO since April 2009

Done:

• spread it out on the floor to work on it...
  

Left to do:

• decide on borders
• decide on backing and binding
  
• baste, quilt, bind, label
  

7) MODA Northern Solitude Baby Quilt
Not really a UFO either, totally a work in progress.

Done:

• no progress to date
  

Left to do:

• lots of hand-quilting, so this is a long-term ongoing project
  

8) Burgundy Floating Coins Baby Quilt

Done:

• cut backing and batting
• basted
• decided on quilting
  

Left to do:

• quilt, bind, label
  

9) Apple-Worm Baby Quilt

Done:

• appliqueed worm and apple stem on the quilt

Left to do:

• add some more applique
• baste, quilt, bind, label

Utter Disaster

I was on a bit of a quilting hiatus because of a week-long visitor, but as soon as said visitor was gone, I got going on a *new* project :)

I had this idea that this pattern would be really easy...


So I started cutting fabric - very exciting!


And then I started sewing, and things just didn't fit right... Those half-rectangle-triangles gave me a real headache...

I thought they'd be just like triangles, but to match the corners, the angle has to be slightly different than just drawing a diagonal across. I realized this after I had sewn the first few sets together. I sewed the rest anyway, it'll be another quilt...

This evening, I tried a different size rectangle to start with, but it still doesn't work, I guess I can't shortcut past the paper-pieced templates the pattern asked for, darn it!

Then I looked at my pieces a bit more, and realized I cut them all wrong. I looked at the finished size instead of the cut-size that includes the seam. Argh!

Now I have 90 four patches that are 3" square incl seam allowence, but they should be 3" final size.

I have center squares that are 6" square or 6.5"x6" (???) when they should have been 6.5" square.

And I have a huge stash of incorrect rectangles, BIG SIGH!


I'm going to leave the pieces for now. The rectangle-triangles will be a babyquilt or something, and I'll either do the paper piecing some day to finish this quilt with slightly smaller blocks, or I'll make something else out of the pieces.


My first really big quilting mishap :) Maybe I'll go back to the hiatus for a while???

My New Love

During all my basting activity last week, I got to use the new batting I bought recently: 50% bamboo and 50% cotton. It feels so nice - I'm in love with this stuff for several reasons!

1) It's soft like a baby blanket, a pleasure for my hands, not rough and snaggy like the poly stuff.


2) It cuts really easily - the cutter always got stuck in the poly fibers.


3) It smoothes out really nicely on the backing, I just kneeled in the center and brushed my arms outward to smoothen the batting out. It was actually fun!


4) Nice flat package in the end. (the picture is actually of the top and the batting, when I cut the batting to size, that's why the pins are missing)


5) Natural fibers vs. synthetic, yay!


Unfortunately, thanks to a sale last year, I still have all of this to work through, so there'll be more polyester-batted quilts on the way :)

We have two winners! Congratulations!!

Congratulations to Renee G, the winner of give-away part 1, and Sandy and Cosmo, winner(s) of the challenge. Many of you guessed correctly that the nagging feeling of something being wrong when I started to work on the quilt had to do with North and South Pole animals suddenly mingling. Since I'm a scientist, I couldn't help that feeling :)

Regarding the blocks touching in the center: They're actually purposefully arranged somewhat randomly. I'm not a huge fan of symmetry... organization: yes, symmetry: not so much.

Thank you all for taking part and come back to play again in the future and please stop by in between and let me know how it's going, I loved all your comments!

Cheers!

UFO Progress

Right after I posted my to do list, I got down to business and started basting. I finished the backing for the character quilt, here's the wrong side of it, taped down for layering.


As soon as I was done that, I got out the oriental quilt and basted it, here it is all done:


And after all this, my poor fingers, especially my thumb, looked like this:


Thanks to that blister, I first tried pinning with my left, and eventually just did some awkward contortions with my fingers to avoid that same spot and got it done :)

I finished basic quilting on the oriental quilt the following day: about a 1/4" on the inside of all the sashing, and I'm proud to report that after some pulling and tightening while quilting, there are no folds on the front or back, what a feat... a reason why I usually don't like intersecting lines!

More UFOs!

Now, what I didn't tell you about when I posted about all my UFOs the other day, I've also started more projects - of course, duh!

I made a girly floating coins baby quilt.



I was inspired by some reproduction fabrics available at the quilt store I mentioned that I rarely get to - they're closed on weekends and 4 hours away, so I totally splurged on my last visit.
A couple of the fabrics are in this picture, and I added some other pale baby prints from various fat quarters and eights I've picked up here and there.


And, while I never continued the 3-stars-on-green-background babyquilt yet - I just couldn't make up my mind at the time - I used the green squares with some of the red fabric from the character quilt and I'm making a delicious round red apple on green background instead. I'm envisioning a stem and leaf appliqueed on the top of the apple, as well as a fat round curvy worm. Here's a sneak preview of the apple - I love how vivid the colour contrast is!

Plug for a give-away

I never used to enter many give-aways or link to them and all those other things people have you do for extra chances to win, but now that I'm running my own and realize what it's like to be the GIVER... well, it's just so nice to get lots of interest in your own give-away and to have lots of comments, so I'm going to give back since some of you have told your blogging friends about my give-away. Fair, no?

So check out Mamaspark's give-away of a 50$ gift certificate to Bunny Hill!

A Decision

I have decided it's time to finish some quilts:

[don't laugh when you see my ambitious list! ;)]

1) Cutlery Baby Quilt
Not really a UFO yet, work is in progress!

Left to do:

• quilt-in-the-ditch around inner borders
• quilt corner stones - I tried flowers, but didn't like them
• erase marked quilting lines around blue border
• label
  

(side note: I have read of quilters taking out the quilting on entire quilts. I just took out the blue border I did with the free-motion quilt - it looked horrid - and redid it with the walking foot, but that was enough seam-ripper action for me)


2) Apple-Owl Quilt
UFO since July 2009

I managed to find more sashing fabric!! The original was pure cotton sheeting, but it turns out that Kona has the exact same fabric. Since the store I bought the original at renames their fabrics, it may well be that their pure cotton sheeting is Kona. If that's the case, my bargain purchases at 1.99$Can a meter were a total steal!


3) Character Quilt
UFO since July 2009

Left to do:

• put backing together
• cut awesome batting: it's 50% cotton and 50% bamboo and soooo soft... (and really affordable!). It's almost too nice to hide inside a quilt...
• baste, quilt, bind, label
  

Here's my idea for backing because for some reason when I found more of the red fabric in a store I get to only very rarely, my math skills temporarily kicked out and I was convinced that 3 m would be enough for the backing. Whoops. 5 m is more like it, so I stretched it with black and blocks of the novelty print fabrics. I really don't know what else I'd ever use them for, so might as well make a reversible quilt...


4) Disaster Quilt (Triple Irish Chain)
UFO since February 2009

Left to do:

• decide on borders and binding
  
• find a backing!
• baste, quilt, bind, label

5) Oriental Quilt
UFO since February 2009

Left to do:

• cut batting (yay, easy!)
• baste, quilt, bind, label

6) Spring Quilt
UFO since April 2009

Left to do:

• Decide on borders
• decide on backing

7) MODA Northern Solitude Baby Quilt
Not really a UFO either, totally a work in progress.

Left to do:

• lots of hand-quilting, so this is a long-term ongoing project
• I started doing a neat pattern I saw on Diane Gaudynski's blog called Diane-shiko, you can see it used on a large area in this post
  

As you can see, I'm going to be very very busy!!!