Quilts by Julie Ramsey
Archive for January, 2008
Tetris Quilt
Jan 15th
It’s finally finished, after six months of off-and-on piecing and a year and a half sitting in the closet, waiting for the sandwich to be finished:
“Quiltris,” in a “Tetris DS/ Tetris Worlds” color scheme.
I’m really happy with the way this turned out. It’s far from perfect, but the overall effect is really great, especially with the 3-d shading.
I’m still practicing my machine quilting, but I really like this freehand design. I approached it like a curvy meander, but turned 90-degree angles instead. I was a bit wary of using the variegated thread, since any wonky quilting would show up very clearly on the back fabric, but I really like the way it turned out.
Since the quilt’s gotten such a positive response, I’ll probably be putting together an instruction sheet in the near future. While I doubt I’d be able to actually publish it, I’d like to share with other geek quilters out there!
Chocobo pixel quilt
Jan 14th
This one has been sitting in my closet for quite a while now, but I’ll be picking it up soon. I wanted to do a video-game sprite, but wasn’t sure how to manage all the little pieces. The solution: fusible grid! I cut 1″ squares that will end up at .5″ by the time all of the seams are put together, so the finished project should be small enough for a wallhanging.
At the moment, the rows are sewn together and I still need to trim the seam allowances before the columns are pieced.
EDIT:
After sewing the columns together, I tried to sew the rows, but I think the seam allowances are going to be more than I can handle; for each 1″ cut square, I’ll have .5″ of seam and .5″ of block! Next time, I’ll do this with 2″ fusible grid and end up with 1.5″ blocks instead. Maybe it’ll be a chocobo, maybe it’ll be a Yoshi, who knows?
Diamond Pinwheels
Jan 14th
I had originally planned to donate this to a charity raffle at work, but my sewing machine died the night before the fundraiser and the quilt didn’t get finished in time. Fortunately, I got a new machine, finished up the project, and sent it off to a friend.
I finished this one with a wide meander pattern. I used a cotton batting, which shrunk a bit and gave the quilt a very neat texture!
The pattern came from an Eleanor Burns book and came together very quickly. I’d definitely recommend the book and the pattern both!
Stars and Four-Patches
Jan 13th
I started this one a year and a half ago with the intent of donating it to a breast-cancer fundraiser. I pushed myself to try and hand-quilt the entire thing (despite a total lack of hand-quilting experience), only to burn out and put it on the shelf.
A few weeks ago, I pulled it back out and cut out all of the hand-quilting, which covered about half of the thing in (very uneven) stitches. I’ll be re-sandwiching it again soon and doing some quick machine quilting, though I’m not sure how complicated of a pattern I’ll do.
Dissertation Blues
Jan 13th
I made this lap-sized quilt as a gift for a friend who finished his dissertation last spring. I had lots of random yardage in different blue shades, so I used them to put together a modified log cabin block in two color schemes; I believe this pattern is called “friendship knot,” though the block is a lot like a log cabin.
The background was put together with more yardage and scraps. I pieced together a long strip of pieces 22″ wide, then cut that into sections and attached them to the sides to make a funky color-block pattern. This was the first time I tried a meander pattern, and I think it turned out very well!
Log cabin star
Jan 12th
Yet another quilt made for a friend who defended her dissertation and now works as a professor of sociology in Texas. She asked for subdued colors, since her house is decorated in beige and light green, and I think the light blue and bright red squares work very well.
I ended up doing a fair bit of straight-line quilting on this one; my walking foot certainly got some exercise here! It doesn’t show up very well in the original picture, but it adds to the clean lines of the quilt.
Scrap Basket Surprise
Jan 11th
The first of three quilts made for friends’ graduation gifts. I needed a way to use up all of the brightly-colored scraps from my Tetris quilt, and this did a good job of it without being overwhelming.
The pattern is Chunky Churndashes from Quiltville, which has lots of great scrap patterns!
Anniversary gift
Jan 10th
I put together this small gift as an anniversary present to my parents. I used one FQ of each color, and the finished quilt measured about 24″ square. The picture doesn’t show it, but it was finished with a chocolate-brown binding.
Bright Boxes
Jan 9th
This was my first foray into the world of paper-piecing, and I think it turned out very well! Having lots of scraps made the fabric-selection process easier than it could have been!
The pattern, “stacked boxes,” came from eQuilt Patterns. I really like the site because you can buy PDF files of the patterns and print them straight onto foundation paper, which makes the piecing go much faster!
Irish Chain
Jan 5th
This was my first project after leaving for graduate school. With my then-fiancé (now-husband) a thousand miles away while he finished his BS, I had plenty of spare time to occupy myself behind the sewing machine!
