Quilts by Julie Ramsey
Archive for February, 2008
Baby Bargello*
Feb 28th
One of the managers at my office is expecting kid #3 in a few weeks, so I put this together last weekend– literally! I got the fabric at about 8:00 on Friday and washed it that night, then started sewing at 11 on Saturday and had the top assembled by about 4:00. Trimming, sandwiching, and quilting took a few hours on Sunday, so this one definitely came together in less than 10 hours.
Good things:
• I’ve never done the tube-piecing method, and I was surprised by how easy it really was. Normally, I have a hard time getting my seams to match up (don’t we all!), but I was surprised that so many of the block corners ended up dead-on!
• I really like the color scheme for this, which is kind of surprising since I tend to use much brighter colors. I’ve gotten lots better at coordinating colors and prints since I made my first quilt several years ago.
• This top lies much flatter than any other one I’ve done! I used fusible batting and actually blocked the damp top directly to it with my steam iron, then marked off the edges so the corners were square and trimmed it so it was even. Success: no wrinkly edges!!
Things to work on:
• My free-motion speed is still a bit uneven, especially in my first ten minutes of sewing or so. The tension on the back is a bit off in a few spots, so I have to remember to take it slow and steady!
• I tried using single-fold binding (I usually make double-fold), and I had a very hard time getting the corners to miter correctly. I sewed the binding to the front and folded it back, but I suspect it’d work better if I tried it the opposite way.
Overall, I really like the pattern, and I think it turned out very well for something that got sewn up so fast!
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*Yeah, I didn’t notice how weird that name sounds until now. Unfortunately, I’m downright terrible at naming quilts, so this will have to stand.
Strip Twist
Feb 22nd
Since I’ve got tons of brightly-colored scraps sitting around, I tried the strip twist pattern at quiltville with dizzying results! I think is looks crazy, but in an organized way, and it looks very happy.
I think I did a pretty good job on the binding for this quilt; rather than tacking it to the back by hand, I finished it with a zig-zag in extra-fine invisible nylon thread. The corners aren’t the best, but I figure that’s okay in the big picture. If Amish quilters can have one deliberate flaw in their quilts (since only God is perfect, so we shouldn’t bother trying), I figure that wonky corners aren’t all that bad 
Baby Quilt #1
Feb 16th
I’ve recently discovered that two of my friends will be having babies in October, which means I get the fun job of making baby quilts! This is a sketch of the one that will be for the lady I work with, though she doesn’t know what colors (beyond “pastels” she wants). This is a fun and easy pattern, and I’m sure I’ll have lots of fun with it!
EDIT: sadly, this project will be put on hold for a while 
How to make a Tetris Quilt
Feb 10th
Want to make your own Tetris quilt? I’m working on a “fancy” version of the pattern in PDF, but until then, here are the basics
Materials:
I hope you have a big stash, access to lots of FQs, and/or very patient cutting-table ladies at your local quilt shop, because you’re going to need a LOT of different pieces of fabric! You’ll need sets of fabric in red, orange, yellow, light blue, dark blue, green, and purple; for each color, get one quarter-yards each (FQ or yardage, either one works) in five gradiating shades. Small prints work best, though larger tone-on-tone patterns are fine if that’s all you can find.
If you have difficulty finding enough pieces at once, break your fabric shopping and sewing into separate sessions. I ended up working on these blocks one color at a time, as fabric discoveries (and the cash to purchase them) permitted.
With so many fabrics to deal with, I found it was helpful to glue a scrap of each to a piece of tagboard and mark the color number with a sharpie.
Block Construction:
In order to get the 3-d effect, each 4″ colored block is made as a nine-patch with the five different colors; for reference, 1 is the lightest, and 5 is the darkest.
For one block, you’ll need the following:
Color 1, 2, 4, and 5: one strip, 2.5″ x 1.5″; one 2″ square, cut across the diagonal
Color 3: one 2.5″ square
You will also need a stack of 4.5″ squares in a black tone-on-tone print.
Color Counts
For this layout, make:
12 red
20 orange
18 yellow
18 green
18 light blue
12 dark blue
13 blue
39 non-pieced black
1. Assemble the cornerstones:
for each block, you’ll need:
1 and 4
1 and 2
5 and 4
5 and 2
If you need more than one block of a particular color, layer the two squares together, draw down the diagonal with a marker (sharpie is okay, since the ink will be inside the seam allowance) and sew 1/4″ from each side of the line.
TIP: use a 4.5″ square quilting ruler to trim each block when you’re finished sewing and pressing. With so many small blocks, it’s important that everything be square!
2. Assemble each row:
Following the diagram above, attach one corner to each side of the middle strip for the top and bottom rows. The middle segment can be speed-pieced with two 1.5″ strips and one 2.5″ strip, which is then cut into 2.5″ slices.
3. Assemble three rows into one block, pressing seams towards the center.
Top Construction
Following the layout above, assemble the top, chain-piecing the first two columns of each row together without clipping the threads, Do this for each column, and then fold the rows together to finish the horizontal seams. Having the blocks connected helps to line up all of the seams!
For this top, I finished with long-horizontal grey borders measuring 2″ wide, a 6″ border of small, multicolored dots on a black background, and another 2″ border in bright red to tie all the colors together.
Quilting
An easy way to machine-quilt the top would be to simply stitch in the ditch between each block and outline the borders.
Alternately, you can freehand an all-over pattern in either single-color or variegated thread. A meander pattern would work well, though for my top, I used angles instead of curves for a neat effect.
Finishing
Finish the quilt with a red binding and make sure to add a tag. Congratulations! Now you can play too much Tetris, dream about it, and have it decorate your bed, too!
If you make one of these on your own, I’d love to see it! Send me a pic, and I can start a gaming-quilt gallery!
