QuilterGeek

Quilt insomnia

Julie — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 12:00:10 +0000

It’s 2:30 AM, I’m awake, and I can’t get back to sleep. What do I do? Why, I get up and goof around with my quilt software for two hours, that’s what! My husband suggested I make a quilt for our bed, since the one we have has gotten fairly torn up, and I’ve practically been dreaming new designs; I haven’t been this motivated to do a quilt in a long while.
I “borrowed” this design from a pattern I found online and worked it out first on graph paper, and then in Electric Quilt. The smaller half-square triangles will be 4″, and the finished top will be 100″ square, which should be plenty big for a queen size bed.
I think I like this color scheme, though I’m messing around with a version in all different shades of blue. My husband doesn’t share the same quilt-color tastes as me (he thinks most of my projects are WAY too bright), so something subtle like this should work nicely for the both of us.
Next step: counting pieces and figuring out yardage. EQ can supposedly calculate fabric amounts for you, but it assumes that long pieces, like those for borders, are cut in single pieces parallel to the selvedge rather than being pieced by strips along the fabric width. I think I’ll do it by hand, just to make sure I’ve got things right.

(Click to enlarge.)

Fun with color

Julie — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 06:05:13 +0000

My best friend from high school recently had her second baby, and I made quilts for both the new little girl and her big brother. I zipped through the big brother quilt, and put together the top for the baby quilt, but never got around to actually quilting the one for the newborn. No big rush, as I was having a hard time getting in touch with the mom so she could send me her address! I finally got the mailing information this week, and as I sat down to finish the baby quilt, I decided that I really didn’t like it. The color balance in the border isn’t great, the top didn’t quite lie straight, the pattern repeat on the teddy-bear fabric made all of the squares look the same, bleh. Time to try again!

I wandered around the fabric store tonight with no inspiration, as all my books and magazines were turning up nothing complicated enough to be fun to make, yet simple enough to put together in an evening. I ended up picking out 10 fat quarters (since they were on sale for a buck apiece!) in five colors, knowing that I had a handful of FQ patterns waiting for me at home, and hoped for the best.
Onward to a Google search for “fat quarter baby quilt patterns,” and an image search for crib quilts. Finally, I stumbled upon a quilt on Etsy that I really liked– inspiration! I grabbed my notebook and trusty mechanical pencil and sketched out the design, then the sizes of the patches, how they’d been cut from the original design fabric (charm squares), then how I’d cut the pieces out from MY fabric, and in about fifteen minutes, I had a fully penciled-out quilt blueprint, just like that!

The actual cutting and piecing came in at about three hours– long enough to prep spaghetti for dinner and then watch Julie & Julia on Netflix while I worked. I’m honestly amazed that I could pull something like this off in so little time; it feels like only yesterday that I tediously plodded through the steps in my first “Quilt in a Day” book and took the better part of twenty hours to piece a log cabin pattern. I’ve really come a long way since I first started, and it makes me feel really good about myself to know that I’m good at something unique like this

Sewing in stereo

Julie — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 18:57:33 +0000

My latest project was to sew a messenger bag big enough to hold my new Street Fighter arcade stick. That’s actually been a fun art project, as I’m conspiring to swap out the original art for a design of my own. I decided I needed somewhere safe to keep my stick (as the current location on top of a cabinet attracts a TON of dust), and I’ll need a carrying vessel anyway if I ever end up taking it to play at the local arcade. Thus, a handmade messenger bag was begun.
I forgot how difficult it is to sew in three dimensions, rather than the flat creations made in quilting. I used to do a lot of apparel sewing, particularly making Renaissance faire costumes, but it’s been years since I had to read a pattern, so it took a while to get back into the swing of things. Once I figured everything out, though, I think it came together fairly nicely.
My only complaint with the pattern is that the pockets were a bit difficult to get on. I messed up the alignment of them a bit, so they look a little sloppy, but at least they’re (mostly) covered up by the flap. The inside is very neat, thanks to a snazzy lining, so overall I’m very happy with it.

Zodiac stack-and-whack

Julie — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 04:25:54 +0000

Finally finished the stack-and-whack quilt! The top doesn’t quite lay flat, and there are a few triangle points that got cut off, but otherwise I’m very happy with how it turned out. I especially love the colors– I’d expected it to be a lot more gaudy, but it turned out very happy and cheerful.

Julie — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 19:02:26 +0000

When I was home to visit my parents in January, my mom and I checked out a massive sale at a fabric store that was closing. I ended up bringing home a full bolt of Alexander Henry’s “Astral Works” fabric, which was VERY busy, but I thought I could do something fun with.

With all the crazy colors, I figured a stack-and-whack would be in order! I finally decided to cut into the fabric last night, and I’m really impressed with the kaleidescope effect that I’m seeing.

The finished quilt will be on a white background with dark pink (or maybe yellow, haven’t decided yet) triangles between the pinwheel blocks. I’m really excited about how this is going to turn out, and even more jazzed by the fact that there’s easily enough fabric to do a second copy of this quilt in the same style. Hooray for fabrics with long repeats!

Disappearing Nine-Patch

Julie — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 21:38:03 +0000

I had a big stack of charm squares from a discontinued line from Connecting Threads sitting in my sewing box, leftover from an abandoned project that just didn’t work with the busy fabric, and today I decided to do something with them. Not knowing what else to do with a bunch of charm squares, I decided to try my hand at a disappearing nine-patch pattern, which worked up very quickly this afternoon.
I’m very pleased with the way it turned out, and it’s bigger than I expected– somewhere in the neighborhood of 40″ x 50″. The color scheme probably excludes it from being a baby quilt, but it makes a nice small lap quilt, and hopefully I’ll be able to find it a home where it’s appreciated.

Mind the Garden

Julie — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 23:49:58 +0000

I was on the lookout for a quick project, and I found this pattern at my local Jo-Ann. Conveniently enough, they’ve started to carry jelly rolls and charm packs, so that made my life easy! Unfortunately, they didn’t have enough charms of the color I liked to make the full lap quilt, so I got creative and made it one row shorter, left off the borders, and called it a baby quilt.
Even though the color planning is a little off and there are a couple of spots where same-print patterns are touching, I’m happy with the way it turned out. It’s definitely a very cheerful quilt, despite having such a mellow color scheme, and I think it’ll look even better once I get it machine-quilted.

Baby Quilt Number Two

Julie — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 22:16:38 +0000

Finished the piecing for the second baby quilt in about two hours. I need to iron the top out from the front, since the borders aren’t laying correctly in the picture, but overall I’m pretty happy with it. I probably should have gone with a darker color for the outer border, maybe have done yellow sashing with a blue border, but I think my friend (and the new baby) will like it a lot.

Rainbow Sherbet

Julie — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 04:14:55 +0000

My husband is going out of town for the weekend, leaving me at home to go on a quilting spree. I need to put the binding on my table runner and do the piecework for a baby quilt, but since I should finish those fairly quickly, I decided to pick up fabric to do another lap quilt once those are finished. This design is from Creative Two Block Quilts by Trice Boerens, and I really look forward to making it.

Table runner

Julie — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 22:47:00 +0000

Rather than starting a new full-size project, I decided to tackle a table runner (the first I’ve ever done in that size). This one is for a family friend whose house is decorated in red, so hopefully it’ll go reasonably well with the decor in her dining room!