My Favorite Quilt – Quilt Festival

October 8, 2009 11:01 pm ⋅ Pam

Amy at Park City Girl is hosting the Blogger’s Quilt Festival today through Oct 16th. She asked us to post a picture of our favorite quilt and tell it’s story. Well nearly every quilt is my favorite quilt, but I could only pick one, so here is my Blue Charm Applecore quilt.

Actually, it’s my husband’s. This quilt was finished New Year’s Eve 2005. It was only 2 to 6 days late — depending on whether it was supposed to be his Christmas present or his birthday present, and that was dependent on when I finished it. Regardless, with the exception of the quilt I gave my mother for Mother’s Day 2005, it’s the quilt closest to meeting the gift giving deadline.

I’ve previously blogged about this quilt here.

My best guess is I purchased the pattern, ruler and rotary cutter (love my Ergo 2000) in October 2004 at a quilt show. It might have been the previous year. The pattern sat for a while and then late spring 2005 I got a wild idea to make this quilt for my husband in all blue fabric — at this time, no deadline had been set.

Previously I had been collecting music fabric, so now I added blue fabric to my collection each time I entered a quilt shop. I gathered fabric from my friends’ stashes. When a fabric was both blue and music themed I scored.

Part of what makes this quilt special is the time I spent collecting the fabric with my friends. My friends T & S and I took a road trip to Iowa to hit quilt shops. We left Kansas City late afternoon on Friday and then hit 11 shops over the next 2 1/2 days. By Monday, we were so exhausted, we walked into one of the last quilt shops and said “Yep, this is a quilt shop” and then left without any of us buying anything. I picked up blue and/or music themed FQs at each shop.

Surprisingly, I ended up with only a couple of duplicates fabrics.

It helped that I put together a book of my fabric before I left home. This quilt is made with 6″ circles that overlap. So, before the trip, I started cutting circles of each of my fabrics. I then scanned them 18 – 20 of them at a time, and printed off the scan so I had a record of my fabrics.

I was still collecting fabric – I wanted all 400 pieces to be unique, but impatience won out in late summer and I started it when I only had about 225 different blue fabrics. The next decision I had to make was how to arrange the pieces. I finally decided on light to dark to light. So, I took the scans I made earlier and converted them to black and white to help with value placement — then I went back and cut additional circles where I had more fabric.

The final quilt has 400 pieces in it. Not including the 400 pieces of the backing. For the backing I purchased 10 different pieces of blue flannel.

So when it came time to putting the quilt together, I had to know where in the quilt to top fabric belonged, and which piece of the back went with it and keep all 20 rows in order or the pattern (front and/or back) would be disturbed.

I ended up stringing each row together, and as I finished each step of the process, it went back on the table in the correct position.

My husband likes the quilt — It’s too warm for me with the flannel backing, not to mention it’s heavy. It think it finished about 70″ square, more or less.

Check out other quilter’s favorite quilts by clicking on the button below.

Posted in: Applecore, blogger's quilt festival

Marathon Sewing

October 6, 2009 4:30 pm ⋅ Pam

Last night I had 3 hours of uninterrupted piecing. The 34 arcs for the next row on the DWR have now been pieced and I pieced 10 more sashings for Ladder to the Stars. Didn’t get the last of the trimming finished as I simply ran out of steam.

Posted in: dwr, Ladder to the Stars

What’s On My Design Wall? – 10/05

October 5, 2009 6:00 am ⋅ Pam

This does not mean I’m finished with my DWR.

This is a 6″ version of Ladder to the Stars. I designed this quilt to be raffled off by the quilting group I was in a couple of years ago. The original quilt has 12″ blocks and finished approximately 87 x 105. This one will finish around 58 x 70.

I’ve finally gotten the sashings down to a ‘science’, so need to cut the rest of the blue fabric so I can go to town on it. That’s not to say I’ve put away my DWR. The row that was up on the wall last week is complete and needs to be attached to the quilt. I’ve got the pieces for the next row sitting on my sewing machine ready to be pieced together. This coming week it will probably be a bit of both, plus this week’s SBS BOW.

Check out what other quilters are up to by visiting Patchwork Times.

Posted in: designwall, dwr, Ladder to the Stars, SBS

Stash Report Week # 40

October 4, 2009 5:51 pm ⋅ Pam

This week I managed to use a smidgen over a yard of fabric making my SBS blocks, cutting the background for more DWR rings and cutting the background fabric for a dozen paper pieced sashings to Ladder to the Stars (I need 80).

Nothing came in – and I stepped foot into a quilt shop on Friday. (OK, just as the store was closing, as I was waiting to the owner to go to dinner, but doesn’t it still count as being in a quilt shop?)

More fabric might have been used this week, but I traveled to Rock Springs, Kansas for String Romp. My original plan was to sew in the hotel room Saturday on the sashings, but a combination of events resulted in me driving out myself Saturday afternoon, so I didn’t bother to drag the sewing machine. The group above is the 6th grade orchestra that my husband conducted this weekend. The kids were from all over Kansas.

Back to the report:

Fabric Added this Week: 0 yards
Fabric Added to Date: 281.583 yards

Fabric Used this Week: 1.050 yards
Fabric Used to Date: 74.929 yards

Net Stash: +206.654 yards (162.583 was gifted)

See how others are doing with their stash over at Patchwork Times.

Posted in: dwr, Ladder to the Stars, SBS, Stash Busting Report, String Romp

October 2009 Quilting Goals

September 30, 2009 11:01 pm ⋅ Pam

More of the same this month.

* Keep up with the SBS BOW
* Finish the hand quilting on Josh’s Quilt – needs to be off the frame by 10/15
* Finish piecing the DWR – top needs to be done by 10/15
* Hand quilt 2 rings on DWR
* Complete Finishing Instructions for both sizes of Kansas Spirit BOM
* Machine quilt borders on Josh’s Quilt
* Make at least 4 make-up SBS blocks
* Decide on the quilting for Jeremiah’s quilt
* Work on Ladder to the Star sashings
* Keep Scraps Cut Up

Posted in: hand quilting, Jeremiah's Quilt, Josh's Quilt, KTS, Ladder to the Stars, monthly goals, SBS

Review of September 2009 Quilting Goals

September 29, 2009 6:21 pm ⋅ Pam

Another month has gone by, so it’s time to review what I accomplished this month.

* Complete remaining 2 sets of blocks for the SBS Brown/Blue Swap: Finished and in the mail by 9/8
* Keep up with the SBS BOW: It was close, but all blocks were made and turned in on time.
* Work on Josh’s Quilt – needs to be off the frame by 10/15: 3 1/2 blocks hand quilted — 1 1/2 blocks to go!
* Work on DWR – top needs to be done by 10/15: 12 rings added to the quilt and 6 more are partially pieced
* Complete Finishing Instructions for both sizes of Kansas Spirit BOM: Small quilt needs one more correction. Large quilt about 50% done. (the easy 50%) 🙂
* Quilt a baby quilt: Ran out of time.
* Keep Scraps Cut Up: Well my scraps were cut up, but my friend’s scraps have filled the basket back up!

I also cut the gold fabric for my Ladder to the Stars quilt and I managed to not start anything new. What more can a girl ask for who has more UFOs and Quilt Tops than she can count on her fingers and toes?

Next month will be more of the same. I’ve got my list ready to go.

Posted in: block swaps, dwr, hand quilting, Josh's Quilt, KTS, monthly goals, SBS, scraps

SBS Block Due 10/4

September 29, 2009 6:00 am ⋅ Pam

L3 – 54-40 Or Fight

This block has a template for the background triangle, but I’m not a big template fan when there are other options. Quilt In A Day has a set of Triangle in a Square rulers which I use, but since this a a six inch block, they were too big.

Then I remembered. I have a set of Tri-Rec Tools. I don’t know when I picked these up or why, but they worked great for this block.

Posted in: notions, SBS

What’s On My Design Wall? – 9/28

September 28, 2009 6:40 am ⋅ Pam

Does this look familiar?

Very little piecing got done this past week. It was a combination of the 5 hours of Dancing With the Stars and then spending the weekend away from my sewing machine. I still think I can meet my self imposed deadline of Oct 15th even if I add a row of rings. Of course if the extra row gets added I needed to finish the quilt 6 weeks ago to give me a week to quilt each ring….

See what others are doing by checking out the links over at Patchwork Times.

Posted in: designwall, dwr, DWTS

SBS Block Due 9/27

September 27, 2009 11:06 pm ⋅ Pam

C2 – Wedding Ring I

I stumbled upon some ‘onion skin’ paper this weekend. It made a decent foundation paper.

Posted in: SBS

Stash Report Week # 39

September 27, 2009 7:00 am ⋅ Pam

Since I’m focused on my DWR and my nephew’s quilt, there seldom is anything outbound except for a tiny bit used for the Sylvia’s Bridal Sampler block. Well, as I write this, I haven’t gotten the SBS block made, but I have prepared part of the fabrics I’ll need for the sashings to my 6″ Ladder to the Stars quilt. If I travel with my DH to String Romp, while he is rehearsing the youth orchestra, I’ll sew on my sashings. I need 80!