Mystery Quilt

I finally sewed together the mystery quilt!

Now onward to a backing and then some interesting quilting so that I can present it at the next guild meeting.


I have to admit that the many points were triangles meet were a nightmare. I need to learn that trick with the rotating/windmill seams to reduce the bulk.

Also, I must have skipped the squaring-up of the HSTs step a lot of the seams did not meet at all. Maybe this is my "mini-disaster" quilt :)

Jumping On Bandwagon #2 (Strings)

What does this:


this:

and this:

look like??

A string-quilt in progress, of course :)

I've seen so many online, and liked them all, I had to try one! It seemed that you couldn't do anything wrong, some people reportedly just pull fabric strips randomly out of a bag and sew them on.

So I took a stack of scrap paper, cut them down to 8.5"x8.5", and started following the many tutorials I've read about paper-piecing string quilts.

I got about this far -

- yes, two whole seams! - before I decided that I couldn't stand the sound of the needle going through paper and that the smaller stitch-length was taking too long to sew.

So I did it without the paper, just to see if it would work.

It did:


I pressed the two blocks and used the pre-cut paper to square them up.

(here you can see my new cutting mat!)


Here is block #1, pressed and squared-up... I like it ;)


And here are the first two together: (I'm using the same colour for the center strip in all blocks)


I have a lot of blue strips left from previous projects, so this is a great scrap-buster project.

Except....

... now what do I do with the new scraps??? *LOL*

Full Imagination

Almost done, yay! I've made some decisions about the borders, still working on that...

Here's a view of most of the quilt, with some of the backing and the one lonely raw edge still to be bound :)


Now some concentric circles in full force (I like them a lot!):

I did the small/narrow circles free-hand, simply 'eyeing' it, but the larger ones turned out wonky, so I used chalk to mark them first.

The city-scape or bargraph (depending if I feel metropolitan or scientific) was simply outlined with a line approx. 1/4" from the seam.


Here's the start of the border quilting. Circles on the inner one, I'm still figuring out what to do in between, I have some ideas.

And in the outer, darker border, I'm quilting a vine but instead of flowers there are diamonds quilted in between, to repeat the round/edgy theme of this quilt.


And, with raw edge and still some visible basting thread, this quilt is in full use already!

Jumping On Bandwagon #1 (Red & Aqua)

I felt like making a quilt, a simple quilt. I happened to have blue and red fabric sitting next to each other on a shelf and thought, hmm, wasn't there a "red and aqua" craze going on in the quilt world in 2009? Might as well give that a try.



So I cut out 4.5" squares, played with the layout and pieced them together. It was definitely quick!


It looks pretty bright right now, so I'll see if I can tune it down a bit with a border. I love the rich colours though!

Christmas Gifts

I just realized that I never blogged about my 'quilty' Christmas gifts yet!

I received some beautiful fat quarters in fall/earth-type colours with matching thread:


I also got a new cutting mat - it's huge (22"x36" or so)! My last one was foldable and sadly, one of my students in class forgot that she shouldn't cut on the fold and slice right through it. It's a matter of time before the two halves fall apart. I love this new one, I think it'll last a long long time.

(I forgot to take a photo of the mat, but it'll show up in some pictures on future posts).

I also found this pattern book under the tree: variations of cute Santa Clauses and Christmas trees - maybe I'll be inspired for next Christmas :)


And lastly, a friend of mine had bought fabric to make a quilt for her son, but never got around to it, so I'll do that some time soon and she'll get the finished quilt.

A Gem By A Newbie

So, the quilting on my mom's quilt worked - even without a special attachment! I ended up doing the quilting, because the machine was really tricky.

Then I showed my mom my favourite binding stitch (see Ladder stitch in my side bar for quilty links) and off she went round and round. There were a few moans of "Oh, still 2 sides left, phew." But in the end she zoomed around fairly quickly. We put on a label with both our names and the year, and now it's gracing her couch:



You can just see the pillows peaking out behind the quilt (on the top).


Here you can see some of the quilting - I did extra-large stippling to keep the quilt soft (and get it over with. I'm going to have nightmares about that machine ;) - it's really more a large meandering than stippling.



You all know I love MODA colours. This print is my favourite, so the two blocks in that print are my favourites on the quilt. I have a bit of yardage of the blue one, but of course don't dare cutting into it, because then it's used up and I can't use it in something else, hahaha. Still haven't gotten over that yet ;)


My mother is really really happy with her quilt and I think this one will actually get a lot more use than the "late fall" quilt (see side bar of my quilts) I gave her in 2008. That one is probably too big for something other than covering the quilt during the day... still looks nice though and fits her bedroom well.

I thank all of you for your nice comments about her progress and accomplishment making her first quilt (and she only started in September and really didn't work on it much for the months before Christmas, soooo... not shabby I say, not shabby at all!) - I've passed them on to her and she's really pleased to get such accolades from around the world :)

Isn't it nice to know you've made someone happy? Ah, the joys of blogging...

Invisible Thread

Thanks for all your comments regarding your experiences with invisible thread! It seems that problems with this stuff on quilts are fairly common. I think I won't attempt using it anymore - maybe the store will take it back... too bad there isn't a natural, clear fibre for thread.