Quilting and Stuff by Knitnoid

Category Archives: Quilts

Twisting Star Magnolia

 

I’ve finished the Twisting Star Magnolia. Years ago, I made another one of these for my mother. The fabric was found on the road trip to Iowa – 3 days and 3 nights, 13 shops. We left Friday after everyone got off from work and spent the night at a hotel on the interstate closest to our first shop.  Shopped all day Saturday. Managed to hit a few shops which were open on Sunday. Stayed another night and hit a few more stores before heading back to Kansas City.  Anyway, I think it was the shop in Ames, Iowa which had this on display and I had to make it for my mother as she was decorating her new home with magnolias. This was my mom’s. I now have it.

 

 

A few years later my friends and I shop hopped our way to St. Louis so I could meet my first great-nephew and I spotted the magnolia fabric in one of the stores.  I bought enough to make 4 more toppers, 1 for each of my husband’s sisters, my aunt, and myself. I did not have the dragonfly fabric, and got 3 of the 4 made.

 

Somewhere along the way I found more the dragonfly fabric in the original wall hanging, but after my mom passed, it came back to me, to the fabric for my quilt has been sitting in my stash as a PIG. I started to send the whole mess to my sister, but decided I’d just make another one to give her. Now that it is done, I’ve put the rest of the fabric back in the stash. It’s off my PIGs list and on my DONE list. Now I just have to remember to take it with me when I travel to Kansas City in a few weeks.

Oh, it’s the first of the month, so I need to do my stash report.

Teahouse Garden

Last week I started cleaning up my the flat surfaces in the Quilt Studio, starting with the cut off backing and batting from the past 6 months of quilts. Among the finds was a length of Teahouse Garden which was long enough and wide enough to make 18 5″ finished 4-patch kaleidoscope blocks.

In addition to the cut off scraps, I dug around for the rest of the fabric and discovered I had just enough fabric  to make a total of 48 blocks — half cut as 4-patches and half cut as hour-glass units.  I had more more yard left so, it became the backing of this unplanned quilt.

Thursday afternoon I loaded it on the longarm and started quilting.  With just 2 half motifs left to quilt, my phone rang and I paused the machine so I could hear.

It was a now retired co-worker with devastating news. She has Stage 4 Lung Cancer and the prognosis is grim.

After getting off the phone I did what quilters do – looked for a quilt to send her. Nothing seemed right in my stack of recently finished quilts, so I went back to finish up Teahouse Gardens and realized I had been working on Anne’s quilt for the past week. Anne loves Bonsai.  In my mind I had just found Anne’s quilt.

It’s packed up to ship out in the morning and I totally forgot to get the final measurements.  But here are the rest of the stats.

  • Started 3/16/2023
  • Finished 3/24/2023
  • Size before washing: 47 x 59
  • Thread: Glide 40wt in Biscotti – 2 bobbins 12 SPI
  • Quilting Motif: Flowers Spirals.  Lengthened to 18″ with a -3 Row Gap
  • Batting: Legacy 80/20

The Fabric Did All the Work

I’m calling this Bohemia Twilight Feathers in a nod to both the pattern name — Bohemia, and the fabrics Kaffe Feathers in Cool, and Stonehenge Twilight Ombre.  The binding is Grunge Basics in Tori, and the backing is Groovy Garden Colors in Purple. Truly the fabrics did all the work.

This was a quick start/finish for me.  I bought the fabric for the top and backing Friday afternoon and had a quilt top by Saturday night.  Once I had part of the top done Saturday morning, I ran out and picked up the binding fabric.

Clearly the purples in the quilt are on the blue side and the wall color is on the red side. The first picture is closer to the real colors.

Quilt Stats:

  • Pattern:  Bohemia from Villa Rosa Designs
  • Fabrics: Kaffe Feathers – Cool, Stonehenge – Twilight Ombre, Grunge Basics – Tori,  Groovy Garden Colors – Purple
  • Legacy 80/20 batting
  • Thread: Glide 40 wt Eggplant (2 1/2 bobbins)
  • Edge-to-Edge Design – Feather Wave with -1.75 gap
  • Stitch Length: 12
  • Stitch Count: 95,404
  • Machine Running Time: 2 hours 12 minutes
  • Total time to piece, quilt, trim & bind quilt 13 1/2 hours
  • Washed size 54 1/4 x 70 1/2

A 6 Hour Quilt Top

Friday afternoon I drove down to McComb to deliver the Log Cabin quilt to my cousin.  On my way home I stopped in at Gardensong Fabrics in Brookhaven.  Did I need any fabric? No.  But since it is the largest shop around and a little over an hour away from my house, I stopped anyway.  I wasn’t looking for anything in particular, then I remembered Bohemia, a Villa Rosa Design that  I picked up in San Antonio last month.

I stepped outside to get reception on my phone and looked up the pattern to see the requirements. I then asked about ombre fabric.  They had several colors of Stonehenge.

I liked these two, so began looking for a print to go with them.

For the teal I found this Kaffe Chrysanthemum. I think this would be very striking.

For the purple/blue I found this Kaffe feather print.  I ended up choosing the feather.

I picked up 4 yards of this fabric to use for the backing. Although not a perfect match, it was on sale.  I decided to hold off on binding fabric until I saw the quilt top.

Now to get it quilted.

 

 

Ready for Christmas?

It’s taken 4 years, but the matching pillowcases for my Christmas En Provence are done.  And the fabric is put away.

More Finishes

First up is my Black & White 4-patch Stacked Posies quilt.  The quilt top was finished in 2008.  I even started quilting it after my sister got her long arm.  Then I ripped out a bunch of the quilting. I finally pulled it out late last month.

Each block is quilted individually with the same motif, the sashing is quilted with another motif and the borders were quilted separately.  Given my thread color – Mercury – the quilting is not very visible, and an edge-2-edge design might have worked just as fine.  On the other hand, I learned a lot.

  • Quilt Top started: Spring 2008 and finished 9/8/2008
  • Quilting Finished 2/5/2023
  • Before Washing 60 2/4″ x 85 1/4″
  • After Washing 56 1/4 x 79″
  • Thread Glide 40wt in Mercury

This is quilt is on my 2023 Brandon Quilters UFO Challenge list.

This is Spider Webs.  A few years ago at a quit retreat, a quilter made Night & Day, a Quilt in a Day quilt. That particular pattern has odd  cuts, which can be used to make SpiderWebs. She didn’t want the extra pieces and gave them to a friend, who in turn passed them to my sister.  My sister put the center together.  While we were in San Antonio, we picked out the border fabrics and backing.  I added the border, quilted and bound the quilt before sending it back to my friend.

 

  • Start: unknown
  • Finished: 2/5
  • Thread: Glide 40wt in Biscotti – 2+ bobbins
  • Quilting Motif: PR105298 – Alpine – Grande with -7 row gap
  • Before Washing : 49 3/4 x 57 1/4

 

Another Quilt?

Well, it’s not bound yet.

Over the weekend I updated the software on my longarm. So between that and wanting to remember how to setup a separate border, I pulled out this Stacked Posies quilt from 2008.

In addition to having a separate border, each block and sashing is quilted individually. If you click on the picture the quilting becomes visible.  In retrospect, given the thread color I used (Glide 40wt Mercury) and edge-2-edge design would have worked just as well.

This quilt is on my 2023 Brandon Quilters UFO Challenge list. As soon as I get it bound it will be the 4th quilt I’ve knocked off my list.  That leaves me just 12 quilts tops waiting to be quilted.  We won’t talk about the # of quilts I’m still piecing.  Those can be seen HERE.

 

Quilt # 4 of 2023

I’m on a roll.  This is Cityscape.  Barb Q, a member of Candelight Quilters Guild pieced the top a few years ago, the put it in the guild’s auction.  My notes indicate I bought it in January 2020.  Last week I tossed it on my longarm and did some simple quilting.  Straight lines randomly spaced using my electronic channel locks in the sections with the buildings.  “Calm waters” turned vertically and chopped up for the ‘sky’ and ‘river’. The “Tree” section I sliced, diced and concatenated bubbles on a string.  For the binding I used  a Grunge in Moutarde.

Quilt Stats:

  • Obtained top: 1/20/2020
  • Finished: 1/21/2023
  • Glide 40wt in Strawberry Blond – 1 bobbin
  • Legacy 80/20 batting
  • 35 3/4 x 47

 

Quilt # 3 of 2023

This is Princess and the Pea.

I won the panel at a guild auction back in 2019. That year the retreat mystery quilt started with a panel. If I remember correctly, I brought the panel and a bunch of fabric that I thought would go with the top.  After I got the borders on it, I folded it up and it’s sat in the To Be Quilted pile.

This quilt was put on the 2023 Brandon Quilters UFO Challenge list because I  knew that the January program at Quilters By Hearts’ Desire was Panels and Cheaters. This even worked into our new monthly lesson on borders, as the first lesson was Coping Borders.

When it came time to bind it, I opted to use the same fabric as I used for the backing. It’s black and has multi-colored swirls on it.

Quilt Stats

  • Started 4/13/2019
  • Finished 1/16/2023
  • Glide 40wt in Amethyst
  • E2E – Radiate with Pearls
  • Legacy 80/20 batting
  • Size before Quilting & Washing 48 1/2 x 64 1/2
  • Size after Quilting & Washing 46 x 59

What I’m Working On

I “quilted” all weekend. Quilting in this case included actually quilting 2 tops, then getting 3 quilts bound, labeled and washed.  I’ll do a separate post for each of the quilts this week.  I also pulled this little top out of my tops box and quickly quilted it.  I won it in my guilds auction in 2020. Now to find something to use for binding.