Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Quilts 8 & 10: progress

Quilt 8: The top is finally all put together, although I need to trim the edges.

Quilt 10: I've finished all the big stars for my baby's quilt. Actually, I finished a lot of the small stars too, but because of the extra orange star that I made I ran out of fabric. I found some of the browns still at the fabric store, but now I need to wash and cut it.

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Quilt 9: interlocking pinwheels

I finished Quilt 9! I was playing around with pinwheels and realize that if there were four of them they could interlock. It's kind of fun because my mind can only see a one or two color of pinwheels at a time.

The back...

To quilt it I made X's in the center of every pinwheel. It is very visible on the yellow, but it blends in with the other colors.

And I had one corner turn out great! It's the best one I've managed to do yet.




Sunday, July 31, 2011

Quilt 6: finished

Well, after a long hiatus I finally managed to finish another quilt. I wasn't feeling very well for about two months, and therefore pretty much all I did was hang out in bed and read. Anyway.

Quilt 6: I really like how this one turned out. The corners are probably the best yet. And I like the color scheme.

I'm not quite as thrilled with the back, but it works. And I didn't have to buy any additional fabric.

Quilt 9: Then instead of finishing one of the other quilts in progress I started yet another one. It is an interlocking pinwheel, and I think it will go quickly.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Quilt 5: finished

I've finally finished this quilt (and it's companion). The quilt is for my niece, who was just born this morning.

The pattern is my own. I saw a lot of random square quilts that I loved, but wanted to try something different. So random triangles it was! If you look closely you can see that not all the points line up and there are some bunches were I had a hard time putting two large pieces together. I think it might need to be made once more to work out the kinks, but overall I'm very happy with how it turned out!

However, we recently moved to the same area as my two- and four-year-old nieces and one of the first things I noticed is how they love their baby dolls. So I thought I'd make a matching blanket for the baby doll of the newborn's sister. Putting the binding on took a lot longer than I was expecting as I did it the "correct" way with a whip-stitch for the first time. I put it in the wash last night - phew! I just finished it in time.





Friday, May 13, 2011

Quilt 6 and Quilt 8: moving along

Quilt 8: all the blocks are together and now I'm working on some borders/sashing. So far this has been one of the most fun quilts I've made. I'm finally using that black fabric that I picked up a while ago!

Quilt 6: the weather was nice out the other day and I didn't want to be stuck in the basement, so I finally put the quilt together on the kitchen floor. So far this has been my favorite quilting because it isn't taking too long but it still "matches" the quilt top.

Today I'm joining up with Sarah's Whoop-Whoop Friday!

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Quilt 8: half blocks

This weekend I finished the half blocks.
I really like how these are coming out. One reason is that I haven't had to line up any seams yet. I didn't try to do that when I was planning the pattern, but it is a wonderful side-effect!

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Quilt 8: so much for finishing one quilt at a time

So I now have four quilts in process. Since I'm only on quilt 8, it means the statistics are rather sad. But I'm still working on all of them! I'm slowly working on the binding of quilt 5.5, I finished the back of quilt 6 this week, and quilt 7...I guess I didn't work on that one.

But quilt 8 was just calling my name, so I got the pieces cut and the blocks started.


I'm linking up to a link party. I like these parties because there is a small picture of what people have made, so you can see a lot of projects really quickly.

Friday, April 29, 2011

Quilt 7: strips

I got started on sewing my strips together today. I ended up doing a lot of the seams twice (and a few three times) so that hopefully everything will line up when I put the strips together. Wouldn't that be nice??

I also started the hand sewing part of the binding of a doll quilt. I am not enjoying it because my hand hurts. And my stitches aren't very even, but that is something that I could do better if I cared more. Oh well, at least it is only a small quilt.

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Quilts 5-7: update

Quilt 5: Finished! But then I decided to make a similar(ish) doll quilt out of the scraps for their daughter. So the package isn't completely finished.


Quilt 6: The top is finished! Now I need to make a back and quilt it. I've figured out how I'll quilt it, but don't know what I'm doing for a back yet. I have a lot of the brown fabric, but a small embellishment would be nice.

Quilt 7: most of the fabric is cut (see previous post) but I need some more grey. This week as also become rather busy, so I'm not sure if I'll get to it again.

To see what other's are working on, go here!

Monday, April 25, 2011

Quilt 7: pieces cut

Today I cut pieces for the next quilt. I keep thinking about trying to sell a few, so I wanted to figure out how long it takes me to make them. It was almost six hours to cut the pieces. This was more than I was hoping for but not as much as I was afraid of. I think I got faster near the end.


I joined Judy's link-up to share the progress.

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Quilt 5: quilting


I started quilting the random triangles quilt last night. It turns out that I'm not very good at straight lines. I also didn't like the washable fabric pencil that I had...it was too hard to see. I did go with a variegated thread, although that might be hard to tell from the pictures.


So my question is, how small should the biggest non-quilted piece be? My guess that my 5"x5" is too big. Then comes my next question...should I just add more lines to make smaller rectangles or should I go from point to point of the rectangles to make triangles? I was originally going to do point to point because that would make some nice random triangles, but then I realized that the hypotenuses (hypotenui??) would be going along different lines that the top triangles and it seems like that would be distracting.


I also managed to fold over a little piece of the backing and quilt it. Luckily it was just a tiny corner so I didn't have to remove the entire seam.

I just linked up with Freshly Pieced if you want to see some other fun quilts and works in progress!

Monday, April 18, 2011

Quilt 6: three blocks

Last night I managed to fix my mistake and get the whole block put together. Only one more to go!

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Quilt 6: opps

I was sewing along, and actually getting rather proud of how some of my sub-pieces were coming out. The corners were lining up, the lines were lining up, and all the seam tolerances seemed to be correct for the next seam.

But then I realized the brown triangles were all backwards. :( So I took it all apart. It didn't go back together quite as nicely.

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Quilt 5: top finished

I finished the top! You'll notice some additional triangles overlayed on some of the bigger triangles.


I also got more fabric. The back for the quilt above, and fabric for two more quilts. (There's a spring break sale at all the fabric stores.) I know what I'm doing with the colorful solids...they will be part of a quilt with those black polka dots from a while ago. I have some ideas for the white/grey quilt, but I keep changing my mind with exactly what I'm going to do.

P.S. Should I quilt it using white thread or pink thread?

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Quilt 5: top almost finished

The top is almost finished! I have a few details that I need to add yet. Not everything quite worked out like I was hoping...not all the points of the triangles are points, and not all the points meet in the same place. But at the same time, at first glance the errors aren't too obvious.I'm hoping to go to the fabric store tomorrow because there is a sale this week. But the car had a "check engine" light come on, so it depends on how serious that ends up being.

Friday, April 8, 2011

Quilt 5: beginning layout

The next quilt is coming along nicely! It looks like it will be a little larger than I expected, but oh well.

This is the first one that I've designed myself. There are a bunch of cool random square quilts, but no random triangle quilts. So I accepted the challenge. I'm just starting to get to the extra challenging part where things need to actually fit together.

The light isn't great in this picture. I think the colors are brighter in real life. I guess that's what comes from being in a basement though.

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Quilt 5: flags

I finished my first set of triangle flags. I started to do the next set, but need some pins and don't know where they are right now. I started looking through the moving boxes and found many other useful things (such as sheets) but no pins.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Quilt 5: pieces

I have all my pieces cut! Now to start putting them together.

Thursday, March 31, 2011

Quilt 5: cutting

Today I packed up my sewing machine for the move back to Michigan. I had planned on the time without it though, which is why I hadn't cut anything for this quilt yet. My "comfy" sewing/computer chair is also gone, so I moved to the living room to watch a movie and start cutting.

I ran out of orange and therefore had to make some last minute changes to where I'm putting which colors, but I think everything will still work out.

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Quilt 6: two blocks

Well, I now have two completed blocks.

This block went together much more easily than the last block with my change in how I pieced them together (left image below). However, I think if I change how I piece it again, it will be even easier (right image below).

I think I'm also slowly getting the hang of dealing with triangles. They're still harder than squares, but I'm getting there. I guess it's all a learning process.

Monday, March 28, 2011

Quilt 6: first block

I finished the first (of four) blocks tonight.


While I would usually make all the subcomponents at once, I realized that this is the first quit where all the subcomponents don't end up being rectangles so I wanted to do a trial run. I think I'm actually going to put it together differently for the next block and see if that goes faster.

The picture on the left is how I did this block, the picture on the right is how I'm going to try it next. (The purple and green outlines change.)

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Quilt 5

For the next few days I'm working on quilt 6 while I still have my sewing machine, and then once it is packed for the move I'll start working on quilt 5. Here's Flurry testing out the fabric to make sure it is nappable.

Quilt 4

This quilt doesn't have a home yet as I just finished it.


Quilt 3

I gave the third quilt to my friend Heather, who will be having a baby in a few months.

Quilt 2

I made the next quilt for my brother and sister-in-law.

Quilt 1

Here are the blocks for my first quilt with my trusty companion, Flurry.

I finished the binding while watching the 2009 winter Olympic hockey championship game.
And finally put it on the bed in the spring.