Category Archives: Fabric

January 29, 2013 · 3:38 pm

A2MQG Spoonflower Quilt – My Rows

Jen from our quilt guild (who blogs HERE) surprised the A2MQG with a wonderful request from Spoonflower! Pick a stack of our fabrics and make us a quilt that can be featured on the Spoonflower blog.

I grabbed these fabrics from Jen’s pile of pretties:

And I make two 60″ rows. Everyone in the guild who wanted to participate was to make a 60″ row. I wanted my rows to be quiet – to give the quilt a couple of places to breathe – and I wanted them to showcase these amazing fabrics. So I fussy cut the arrow fletching and the stars (as best I could with the amount of fabric on hand) and spaced everything out with lots of Kona White sashing.

Can’t wait to see how everything looks pieced together! Thanks for organizing this, Jen, and to Spoonflower for the awesome idea!

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Filed under A2MQG, Challenges, Fabric

January 23, 2013 · 8:35 pm

Mornin’ Kiddo Quilt

Another kid quilt, for another friend of the family!

I call it “Mornin’ Kiddo!”

Very much inspired by this quilt by Red Pepper Quilts

I sort of feel this quilt tells a story…

Wake up in the morning, head to the kitchen for a cup of coffee…

Grab the newspaper (kids like coffee and reading about Vietnam, right?)…

Look out the window into the woods…

And see some wildlife! Hedgehogs are on the back…

Pieced back

11 Comments

Filed under Fabric, Kids, Quilting

January 23, 2013 · 8:30 pm

Rose and Mint Baby Quilt

Here is a sweet little baby quilt I made for a friend of the family. A Swoon block with Kona Ivory in the background with a spearminty and light pink border. Candy pink binding and rounded corners for an extra girly touch.

Fabrics from the Denyse Schmidt Hope Valley line.

Really proud of this filler quilting

I have to say, I think this is my best free-motion quilting yet. You can see the block details better from the back…

Climbing flower vine in the borders…

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Filed under Fabric, Kids, Quilting

December 19, 2012 · 2:22 pm

Quickish Tree Skirts

At our house we have two six-foot tall fake Christmas trees jammed into corners. It’s a tight fit and I haven’t found tree-skirts in stores that I like that will also work with our size restrictions. It was finally time to kick it into gear and crank some out.

However, with all of the other holiday festivities and sewing projects going on, I didn’t have infinite time – so I took one big short cut: I bought pre-quilted fabric from JoAnn’s. GASP. SHAME. But it fits the look I was going for (Country Cottage Christmas) and with a coupon it was super cheap.

I cut a 40″ in diameter circle out of the pre-quilted fabric. I folded it into quarters for ease of getting the shape. Then I cut out a 4″ in diameter circle out of the center. Then a slit.

Around the circumference, I pleated some linen-like fabric. First I pinned the pleats into place and then I did a stay-stitch. Over that layer I pleated some transparent holiday glitter fabric. For this fabric, I folded over the raw-edge as I pinned the pleats into place.

I didn’t finish the quilted fabric’s circumference edge because I was covering it up with the other fabrics. However, if you felt like you were going to be washing your tree skirt a lot, how about zig-zag stitching that edge to keep everything tidy?

I used the selvedge-edge of the homespun cotton (looks like linen) so it has that cute fray.

I bound the raw-edges of the slit and the center circle with twill-tape binding and attached some ribbons to secure the skirt once it was around the tree-base.

Pretty! And hello University of Michigan Stadium Ornament.

For my other tree-skirt I simply stay-stitched some lace around the circumference, and then I sewed some brown leather-like Ric-rak over the edge of the lace.

For the exposed edges along the slit and the inner circle, I sewed on some green binding. I also attached some ribbons so I could tie the tree skirt together once it was around the tree-base.

Looks nice! Cat photo-bomb

I’m a Fall for Solids WINNER!

YAY!

Thanks everyone who voted in the Fall for Solids contest (hosted by Pink Castle Fabrics). I am so pleased to post that I won in the viewers’ choice category for mini quilts!

Look at all of these fabric winnings I received?! A KONA color card from Robert Kaufman, and bundles of solid fabrics from Michael Miller, Bella, Free Spirit, Dear Stella, and Riley Blake! Thanks Pink Castle Fabrics !!

THANKS TEN TRILLION!

2 Comments

Filed under Challenges, Fabric, Quilting

November 30, 2012 · 7:09 pm

Essex Tiles

Annie’s Tiles has a little baby brother now…

Essex tiles! A wall hanging for my very.own.wall.

about 38″ square made out of Essex Yarn Dyed Linen in Black and Flax.

Echo line quilting and in-the-ditch. Done by me on my machine, as always, for better or for worse.

Special faux corded binding with some marbled black for a framing effect.

This dude is entered into QuiltCon under the piecing category. Wish him luck!

8 Comments

Filed under Fabric, Quilting

November 30, 2012 · 7:06 pm

Mary Blair Tree Quilt

I’ve been eyeing this tree from my sons’ “I Can Fly” book for a while! It’s an illustration by Mary Blair.

So I decided to make an applique quilt based on this image! I used my inside-out applique method (might have a Craftsy video class for this in the works – stay tuned) so it has the look of needle-turn. I could have cut out the extra layers under the appliques to have a flatter appearance to the quilt top – but I love the quasi-Trapunto effect!

Woodgrain quilting inspired by Angela Walters. (Great book!)

Cute leaves.

Happy curved free motion rainbow type quilting.

The colors for the illustration were so captivating. Red, True Yellow, White, and Bright Pink… should those work together so happily? At first I chickened out from using such a bright Pepto Pink, and I originally bought Kona Melon. But that didn’t work – even though I thought the more orangey pink would be visually pleasing it.was.not. So back to the store, and hello Kona Bubblegum! I love it. It’s bright and fabulous and enticing and confusing.

Look at this backing fabric – pretty perfect.

This little lady is entered into QuiltCon for the applique category. Wish her luck!

7 Comments

Filed under Fabric, Inspiration, Quilting

October 31, 2012 · 4:00 am

“Over-Under Bite”

Here’s a quilt that’s been done for a while but has taken a bit to get featured on the blog:

I call it the “Over-Under Bite” quilt. At first, I was planning on just calling it the Under Bite. But that was when I had this sketch and intended to make a quilt that fit the picture:

Why did I think I wanted the base of the triangle to be 6 inches when I wanted the quilt to be ~50 inches wide? These are the unsolved mysteries.

I thought the “Over-Under” name would better reflect the gamble that always takes place when I try and turn a diagram into a quilt : )

Mackinaw Island by Benartex. Totally unique from most of their fabrics.

The original idea for this quilt just came from a desire to find a fitting pattern for this fabric. I don’t know what it is about this stuff, but I just love it. The saleswoman said it would make for an attractive binding – she’s right, but I wanted to feature it more prominently. So I drew some bold triangles, reflecting the geometric nature of this pattern, and paired the burnt orange with some bold purplish/blue and laid it all on top of a geometric beige print.

The mustard yellow border is Robert Kaufman Gold Ultra Sateen.

Check out the random purple/orange be-speckled fabric I found from my stash. Works great in the binding!

Pieced back was pieced in a piecing fashion.

It measures 60″ x 60″ and is available in my Etsy shop.

Round Robin

I’ve never done a quilting bee before, so I’m very excited that the Ann Arbor Modern Quilting Guild has decided to start a Round Robin!

Photo courtesy of Rossie – http://r0ssie.blogspot.com/

I made the block on the left and included some more of the Silent Cinema (grey pattern) and the Kona Snow fabrics. Rossie added some modern touches, much to my delight! I’m hoping it’ll end up having the look of a modern medallion quilt, rather than a sampler, but I know it’ll be great no matter what.

My block was inspired by this quilt.

This is the block I got in the first round:

Isn’t the center swirl lovely? Kourtney made that out of 1.5″ finished squares! So precise and beautiful movement. I just added the green border and the next border of white with pink corners. I wanted to frame the swirl and then give the next person some negative space as a clean slate ready for her additions.