My First Finish of 2020!

After being somewhat unhappy with my Trio of Random Sister's Choice quilts, I decided to use the rest of my 9 patches for something completely different. You'll be seeing several very similar quilts in this pattern with different colors.

I alternated the 9 patches with half-square triangles/quarter square triangles in a diamond layout. The recipient's nursery, according to her dad, was "all colors and especially purple." So I chose 4 different purples of different shades and arranged them in lighter and darker bands around the center for contrast.

I quilted with freehand swirls with hearts mixed in. I tried to get at least one heart per 9 patch and per purple triangle. I wrote "love" in cursive on the center block 3 times but forgot that I loaded the quilt in my frame sideways so the words are sideways on the finished quilt. I'm a little peeved at myself for that but the recipient's mom saw it and thought it was special and didn't notice or care about the sideways words...so I guess I shouldn't either.

First pass complete on the frame

Detail of the center block

Oh, and totally accidental awesome moment: I used a striped binding and had the closest pattern match happen without trying at all. Made me smile.

I couldn't have gotten this close if I tried!

I realized, as I was adding binding, that one of my corners was scant and needed me to patch some fabric to cover the batting. I made it a 'humility corner' and patched it with the fabric I had immediately had handy instead of cutting off a piece of the purple that was short. I kind of like how it looks, a reminder that nobody is perfect.

Humility Corner

Completed quilt photos:

Front of quilt

One of my better hearts

Label

Another decent heart

Center block's sideways "love love love"

For fabric purchases, I'm going to go ahead and count both purchases I have made this year by time of publishing this post. I purchased 4 yards of Essential Dots Chocolate Yardage for a backing on my Nice Nice Niece Quilt (top is complete and in my to-be-quilted pile) and 3 yards of Kona Ash for sashings in a new Mod Mosaic Quilt.

My goal for this year is to use more than I add to my stash. I'll be back in the black next week, I'm not worried.

2020 Stash Report:

Fabric used this week: 5.5 yards
Fabric used year to date: 5.5 yards
Fabric purchased this week: 7 yards
Fabric purchased year to date: 7 yards
Net fabric for 2020: (1.5 yards added)

Final Finish of 2019: A Brother's Coordinated Quilt

If you may recall, I made a "Twig Cabin" quilt for my first son back in 2016-2017. I realize that I never posted a finished picture of it, so this is going to be a post combining both quilts.

Twig's quilt was a 'streaks of lightning' layout of log cabin blocks. I backed it with an adorable print I had bought in Korea.

Blues, greens, oranges, and browns

These foxes are just adorable

When I had a second little boy ("Sprout"), I knew I wanted to do another log cabin block quilt in the same colors, but wanted it to be different still. I chose to do an on-point square illusion layout. I had to do more planning about what colors would be where, but I like the look it has.

Same block layout and size, but totally different look

Birch and bird backing

Since the first quilt had a green birch forest and blue binding I found a blue birch forest fabric and used a green binding on the second quilt to further differentiate the quilts.

Loaded on the frame, ready to go!

Freehand swirls and hearts <3

love

you

Tree binding

I've definitely gotten more adventurous with my longarm quilting. I still don't know that I'd call myself more than a confident beginner, but I'm getting there.

Orchid, Brown, and Beige...

If you've looked at my blog for any length of time you've probably noticed that I am not good at doing controlled color schemes with my quilts. I can only think of a handful of quilts where I really stuck to a controlled color scheme. But...my husband's cousin was pregnant with a little girl and, after asking through family members, I found out that the nursery theme colors were orchid, brown, and beige. I know just enough about this cousin to know that I should do a fairly modern quilt layout and settled on a chevron design (there was a specific design I'd found that inspired this quilt but I can't find it now...).

The hardest part about this quilt was choosing the shades of orchid. I had very little in my stash that was what I'd consider orchid. I bought quite a few different fabrics and eventually settled on these:

I already had the two on the left

I made crumb blocks with my tan and brown scraps and cut those into half square triangles that would finish at 4" finished, then paired those with the orchid triangles I'd cut to match. Each column was a consistent orchid fabric with the scrappy brown and tans as a background.

Completed top, the lighting is better on this to see the colors

Quilted and bound

Backing and binding

For a backing I used one of the fabrics that I'd ordered but was too pink for the front. I finished the quilt and washed it the night before we left for a trip where I could deliver the quilt by hand to the new mother and her family. Everybody loved the quilt, especially when I pointed out all of the brown and tan fabrics in this quilt that were in quilts I'd made for my kiddos and my other nieces and nephews. A little cliche, but there's a metaphor in there somewhere about quilting and familial ties that bind us together...

2019: A Trio Of Little Girls

The title is misleading. I didn't really get a picture of the first of this trio finished...but it has been waiting for the recipient to get me a mailing address. It's hard when you try to make something for someone who you've only met online, but I'm holding onto it in case the mom gets back to me with it.

I did a sort of experiment with these quilts that I'm not entirely sure I like the end result of, but they're done so...I guess it counts as a finish/win in the end. I used the idea and layout of Bonnie Hunter's Random Ohio Stars, but used the stars from her Sister's Choice quilt instead.

I made a lot of 9 patches in the two sizes (4.5" unfinished out of 1.5" strips and 6.5" unfinished out of 2.5" strips). The backgrounds for the big stars were neutral tan fabrics, the backgrounds for the small stars were darker brown fabrics, and the alternate blocks used big/busy print fabrics that I rarely use. This is the part I'm not a huge fan of - they make the quilt too busy against the 9 patch stars.

A little busy, but still pretty fun

I really like the quilting texture

Busy...but it's sewn together and given to its recipient

Stars everywhere!

Pink binding for a little girl with a very active older brother

The third quilt is very similar, for a little girl with three older brothers.

Overall view

Quilted texture

Backing, binding, and label

I stopped after making these quilts and put the leftover 9 patches away to use later.

The only picture I have so far of the first one I finished but have put away until I can confirm if I'm giving it to the intended recipient:

Binding with my cuddly old puppy

Can I do 350 blocks?

Shelly over at Prairie Moon Ranch has issued this year's 350 Blocks Challenge...and I am going to participate. Will I make 350? Probably not. But I can at least try (and stop procrastinating on things...).

Here goes nothing...

Plans for 2020!

Every year Shelly Paglai of Prairie Moon Quilts does "the final countdown" at the end of the year. The tasks are meant to get you into a more organized place before the new year. Organizing your sewing space, finding unfinished projects and deciding if you want to finish them/downsize them and turn them into table runners, that sort of thing. The final challenge for 2019 is "Make some quilting plans for 2020." So here goes!

First, to finish the baby quilts that are sitting and waiting for quilting/binding/finishing. I have two tops in this state and one that just needs embroidery on the label before washing it up.

Second, there are seven babies born in the last year-ish (the oldest is about to turn one) who I would like to make quilts for.

Third, I want to start blogging about my quilts again. I do post pictures on the quilting subreddit as I go, but that's not a good write-up and will be hard for me to find in the future.

Fourth, I want to find at least a little time to work on my longer-term works in progress. The hand-quilted quilt for my bed, the English paper piecing quilt for my dad, the Civil War Love Letters blocks languishing in their bin...time to keep slowly working on those.

I want to do a better job picking patterns that use blocks I have leftover. I've got a stack of over 60 blue crumb blocks and 22 blue string blocks thanks to using them as leaders and enders for almost six months. I've got some leftover 9 patches from a bunch of quilts I did with those. I have some blocks I got from an estate sale. I need to use them somehow, not just let them sit around.

My leader/ender bounty

Progress on my newest niece's quilt (with canine helper)

Happy 2020!

Last Catch-Up...of 2018

I managed to squeak out one last finished quilt before things got really hectic (understatement of the century) and then we moved across the country. Here's the last one I finished in Texas:

More strings!

 I keep waiting to run out of strings. It hasn't happened yet.

I didn't get a clear overall shot of the back of the quilt, but you can see the print better here anyways. The dots are another Thomas Knauer print.