Quilting and Stuff by Knitnoid

Category Archives: Quilts

The Easy Part is Done

January 5, 2011 10:43 pm ⋅

I’ve made all of my 9-patches. The hard part is now figuring out what to do with them.  The truth is, I didn’t have much of a plan when I started this project back in the spring of 2008.  Only a recognizable part of each charm square was required to be in the project.  I vaguely remember thinking I wanted to use as much of the charm squares as possible.  Thus my 9-patches are a weird size. I think they are supposed to finish at 3 3/8″.  There should be 4 more blocks, but I made two incorrect cuts early on and I haven’t figured out what to do about it yet.

Posted in: Charm Challenge, UFO Challenge 2011

January UFO Challenge

January 1, 2011 7:37 am ⋅

Judy has drawn # 6.

That means this month I’ll be either get my Charm Challenge into a top

or quilt my Scrappy 5-Patch.

Now for a bit of history on these two quilts.

For several years, my LQS, Heritage Fine Fabrics, issues a Charm Pack Challenge.  The rules are pretty simple.  Create a quilted object containing  a recognizable piece of every charm in the package.  In 2008 I  think the charm pack was a Three Sisters line.  I decided to make 9-patches using the ‘quick pieced’ method where you start off with two squares of fabric and end up with 2 9-patches.    I hadn’t thought past that point, and when I didn’t finish the 9-patches and the contest deadline passed, the pieces were set aside.

The Scrapy 5-Patch is a quilt top I completed in 2009.  It just needs quilting.  The backing and binding are folded up with the quilt top and I’m sure there’s a piece of batting big enough in my batting box (or I can piece one together).  I  just have to decide how I’m going to quilt it.  That’s where I frequently get stuck – although generally, I don’t get as far as making the binding and having the backing ready.

My brother and sister and their families are coming to dinner tomorrow, so I won’t get much quilting done this weekend.  Good thing I  have Monday off!

Good luck to all of the participants in this challenge.  I’m sure we’ll finish lots of quilts by the end of the year.

Posted in: 5-patch scraps, Charm Challenge, UFO Challenge 2011

No Blue Geese in My Tropical Garden – A Finish

December 28, 2010 4:42 pm ⋅

Early this morning (2 AM?) I finished sewing down the binding on No Blue Geese in my Tropical Garden.  I used the pattern Geese in my Garden by Mary Honas.   My quilt name reflects that there is no blue in the quilt top. At the time I started this quilt it seemed like every quilt  I made had blue in it.

Last month I took it down to Rocking Chair Quilts and rented time on their HQ16.  I loaded the top in sideways so I would have a good run for the feathers I did down the print and black strips.  The quilting is not award winning. At the time, I thought it horrible.  But once it was off the frame and washed, it’s not bad — still won’t win any awards.

The feathers in the top and bottom strip were done starting and stopping as I rolled the quilt up.  I obviously need to practice more with that concept.  Here are a few detail pictures. You should be able to click on them to see them larger.


 

It measures approximately 58 x 80.

Now to send an e-mail to Finn and let her know I have another finish for the year!

Posted in: finish, No Blue Geese

What’s on my Design Wall

December 6, 2010 6:27 am ⋅

Thanksgiving weekend I discovered I didn’t have anything really portable to take to a sew in.  I’m working on the Cream & Green quilt, the Double Wedding Ring and No Blue Geese — but currently it’s all in the hand work stage and rather large to tote around.  Not wanting to start anything new, I pulled down my box containing this quilt –well really just the letters and prepped about 1/2 of my letters.    This project can’t be completed until sometime in May, so I’m sporadically working on it.

In the meantime, I’m still working on my Double Wedding Ring —  Started the 6th row last night.  I’m also working on No Blue Geese.  I quilted a large pleat into the backing, so I’m having to stitch it down by hand.  Once I get that done, I’ll put the binding on and post a photo.  The Cream and Green quilt is still waiting on some handwork as well.

Check out other design walls for more inspiration by following the links over at Patchwork Times.

Posted in: Cream & Green Swap Sampler, crossword, designwall, dwr, No Blue Geese

Chain of Stars is Finished

November 27, 2010 8:11 pm ⋅

This is my Red, White & Blue Chain of Stars.  Started in 2007, this was the first mystery quilt pattern I wrote.  I did this scrappy version and a version in Pink & Black using just three fabrics.  The photo is not great, but if tomorrow is as pretty as today was, I’ll take it outside to see if I can get a better picture.

It is quilted with basic straight line quilting on the diagonal, through the blue chains and diagonal sides of the star points.  This extends to the red border. Stitch in the ditch between the red and beige border and then curved stitching in the red border reminiscent  of bunting.  At least that’s what I was trying to do.  I used my favorite khaki thread for the quilting.

The quilt measures approximately 62 x 79 and there are two matching pillow cases.

Although this is not one of the three UFOs I plan on finishing for Finn’s New Year’s Eve UFO Challenge, it was a UFO.

Posted in: Chain of Stars, finish, UFOs

Quilting My Flying Geese

November 25, 2010 9:25 pm ⋅

I hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving.  Today kicks off a week of vacation.  I don’t have to be back at work until the 6th.  I plan to use this time off to make significant progress on several of my quilts which are close to being finished.

Next Tuesday I have time reserved on a long arm.  I’ve decided to take “No  Blue Geese in My Tropical Garden”.  Instead of loading it top to bottom, I’m going to load it side to side as illustrated below:

In the black inner borders and the tropical print, I’m planning on doing a string of feathers.  I know that they will be nearly impossible to see – especially since I plan to use black thread — but since these will be my first feathers, I don’t know that I want them seen.

The geese, I plan on outlining and running a squiggle through.

That leaves the piano key borders and the cornerstones.

I could do the same thing on the cornerstones as the strip of geese — but I haven’t figured out how to do it continuously.

As for the piano keys, I have no idea, so I’m open to suggestion.  And yes, I plan to turn the quilt to get the top and bottom borders.

In the meantime, I’ve got to finish up the quilting and borders on Chain of Stars and put in some time on the Double Wedding Ring.  For that, I’ve borrowed my niece’s Harry Potter video collection to watch/listen to while I’m hand quilting.

Posted in: No Blue Geese

What’s on my Design Wall

November 22, 2010 9:29 am ⋅

Not exactly on my design wall, but this is the quilt I’m working on this week.  Yesterday I bought fabric for the backing.  Tonight I’ll piece the back, sandwich the quilt and start the quilting.

Check out what’s on other design wall by following the links on Patchwork Times.

Posted in: Chain of Stars, designwall

Did I Really Start a New Project?

November 16, 2010 6:00 am ⋅

Last month at Quilt Guild, one of the ladies had a reversible Christmas string quilt.  It was pieced/quilted one block at a time, then sewn together with a thin sashing to cover where the blocks joined.  Although I’m not describing the technique well, it was added to my list to do “some day”.

For the past month, I’ve been telling myself I don’t need to start a new quilt.  I’ve got the Double Wedding Ring, Green & Cream and Compass Lone Star to finish by the end of the year.

So, what did I do this weekend instead of working on the listed projects?  I dug into my batting scraps — and I’m not talking about the 23″ x 45″ piece trimmed off a quilt, but rather the pieces which are weird sizes  – 5″ on one end and then narrow down to 2″ over the course of 40″ in length (how do these weird pieces happen?). Or the 4 – 8″ HST (no idea where those came from).  The bits and pieces which most “normal” people would throw away.

Anyway, i pulled them out and started sewing them together.  I ended up with two  pieces large enough for baby quilts.  Then I started cutting them into 8″ squares to make the String Quilt.

After I had a stack of batting squares I should have stopped and put them away, but no, I pulled out my floral fabrics – light, red and greeen – and started cutting 8″ squares of backing fabric.  I don’t have all the backing fabric cut, but as some point I decided I might only want to make a baby quilt instead of a twin.

Perhaps now that I’ve got 4 blocks up on my Design Wall, I’ll get back to business and work on the quilts which I need to finish by the end of the year.

Posted in: String Quilt

What’s on my Design Wall

November 14, 2010 11:47 pm ⋅

Yesterday I promised I’d show my progress on the Cream & Green Swap quilt. This is one of my quilts which is on several of my UFO challenge lists, including the New Year’s Eve UFO Challenge which Finn is hosting.  This weekend I got about halfway through putting two rows together.

I still need to stitch down the seam allowance on the back, and then stitch in the ditch between the sashing and first row.

Follow the links over at Patchwork Times for other inspiration.

Posted in: Cream & Green Swap Sampler, designwall

Oops Repaired

November 9, 2010 9:08 pm ⋅

Several people commented that they couldn’t see the problem on my Blue Ridge Beauty. Pictured here it is the before (left) and after (right) I fixed it. Still needs borders, but I’m pretty sure that’s going to require a run to the LQS.

Posted in: Blue Ridge Beauty