Quilting and Stuff by Knitnoid

Category Archives: Quilts

Stripy 4-Patch Backing

April 7, 2010 7:11 pm ⋅

I really do need a better name for this quilt. I stopped by the library and checked out Quilt-Lovers’ Favorites Vol. 2. They call the quilt — or one similar to it — Candy Stripes. But back to the backing. This is really growing on me. Two widths of the fabric wasn’t quite long enough for the length of the quilt. So, I pieced another string of 4-patches to insert in the middle. It turned out really cute. I don’t know if I’m going to attempt to center the strip, or let it fall where it may — which will be an inch or two off from center.

If you don’t have a Companion Angle Ruler, or something similar, consider getting one. I became a fan of this ruler and the Easy Angle ruler after working on one of Bonnie Hunter mystery quilts. This strip went together so much easier that the ones on the front. On the front I cut triangles from squares – and I can’t promise you I cut them on the diagonal twice so the edge was on grain. One reason this top sat so long was I didn’t look forward to squaring up the strips. I still had to square this strip up, but it was so much closer to being ‘right’.

Well, off to sandwich the quilt. Have to pull out the ‘big board’ now.

Posted in: notions, Quilts

What to do with Tiny HST

January 9, 2010 2:28 pm ⋅

When making Carolina Christmas and Oklahoma Backroads you can either toss the triangles trimmed from the blocks, or you can sew an extra seam and have tiny (finish at 1 1/2″) half square triangle (HST) units.    I picked the latter and have a shoe box full of them.

But what to do with them?  One suggestion was to make an Ocean Waves quilt – which is also on Bonnie Hunter’s website Quiltville.com. However, since half of my squares are pink and white and the other half are simply light and dark, I can’t visualize my pieces as an Ocean Waves quilt. So, I keep tossing my HST into the box waiting for inspiration to strike.

Then this morning while I was looking for something on Quilter’s Cache I found my inspiration. The Depression Block.

This is what I came up with in EQ. I think I’ve found my next new quilt project.

Posted in: Quilts

My Favorite Quilt – Quilt Festival

October 8, 2009 11:01 pm ⋅

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

Quilts from My Past

May 23, 2009 10:07 pm ⋅

Blue Charm Applecore, originally uploaded by knitnoid.

I can’t tell you for certain what it is I’ve been doing, but it certainly hasn’t been quilting. Today i even went shopping — as in clothes, accessories and kitchen ware. My friend T suggested I go home, take 2 aspirins, lay down and perhaps the urge would pass. After a couple of hours visiting various stores, not finding what I was looking for, I did just that. –OK — I did bring home 3 new t-shirts. I found the cookware on-line and ordered it.. Then I finally sat down to the hand quilting.

So, here’s a pic of a quilt I made for my DH. I purchased the WonderArc ruler and Applecore pattern at one of the quilt shows. Then I decided to make a blue charm quilt. I have no idea what I was thinking. Needless to say, I ended up collecting 200+ different blue fabrics for this quilt. It’s not any bigger (about 70″) because I decided to start working on it. This quilt was the last quilt I made in 2005, finishing it about 8:30 that evening.

Posted in: Applecore, shopping

Peacocks

May 18, 2009 7:00 am ⋅

Yesterday I was in the mood to sew — and preferably on something new. So, I pulled out the peacock fabric and the pink and purple which came in over the last two weeks and made this lap quilt top from the BQ2 pattern.

If you need a fast quilt this is it. Large blocks, just a few seams. I started to track the time I spent on it, but since I kept getting distracted, I lost track. I know it would have taken me less time if I didn’t have a directional print. I sewed 3 seams wrong — at least to keep all the peacocks on their feet.

This top measures approximately 54 x 72.

Now the tough part. Figuring out how to quilt it.

Posted in: BQ2, peacock

Stash Report Week #20

May 17, 2009 12:09 pm ⋅

It’s been a really long week. Orchestra Concert Monday night that I audio taped for. Tuesday was the band tour (4 concerts, also audio taped) and evening concert (video tape). Wednesday I finally got going around noon and did a quick run through the MQS show and vendors — Got away virtually unscathed there $2.55 for scissor tip protectors.

Somewhere along the way my pink fabric for the BQ2 came in. But I didn’t get to work on it since I needed to St Louis. Of course that meant stopping at quilt shops along the way. Again, I did pretty good on the way over — a pkg of Tiger Tape, and a thimble. It was the stop on the way home that did me in.

Who knew you could find a quilt shop open on Saturday until 8 PM? Corner Quilt Fabrics is located in the Warrenton Outlet Center and they keep mall hours – except for the occasional Sunday or holiday. I picked up 4 blue FQs – I’ve got a blue, white & yellow quilt I’m planning on making, and I need to make some blue and yellow blocks for a swap I’m in. I also picked up a couple of reds and a green for the extra blocks I want to make to go with the Christmas Swap Blocks. I can’t explain the butterfly print except to say it was pretty.

So, here are the damages:

Fabric Added this Week: 7.75 yards
Fabric Added to Date: 132.5 yards

Fabric Used this Week: 0 yards
Fabric Used to Date: 38.872 yards

Net Stash: +93.628 yards

Posted in: block swaps, BQ2, Stash Busting Report

Fabric Before the Pattern

May 12, 2009 8:39 pm ⋅

Judy over at Patchwork Times asked which comes first — the pattern or the fabric. For me, I think it depends. Since I tend to do ‘scrappy’ quilts, it’s probably the pattern most often, but occasionally it’s the fabric.

For instance, this peacock fabric:

Two years ago I found this fabric at Blessings Quilt Shop in O’Fallon, MO. I had absolutely no idea what I was going to do with it, so I didn’t even know how much to buy. Ultimately I ended up with 4 yards, plus a yard of purple and pink to go with it.

I tried desperately to make an Irish Chain quilt, but before I cut into the fabric, I designed it in EQ6.

I just wasn’t feeling the quilt, so the fabric has been sitting in my stash waiting for the right quilt to come along.

In April at the quilt retreat I went to, I saw a BQ2 (about 1/2 way down the page) made up in a Christmas print. Immediately I knew what I was going to do with my peacock fabric. I bought the pattern on the way home. After I started studying it, I realized I didn’t have enough of the pink or purple fabric.

I found the pink easily enough online, but the purple was trickier. I sent an e-mail to Blessings, and they were able to give me the color # so I could find the fabric. Blessings keeps excellent records, for just such purposes, and yes, I did inquire to see if they had either of the fabrics before I ordered them elsewhere. The purple arrived last week and the pink was shipped today. So, as soon as the pink arrives, I’m going to make a pair of the BQ2 quilts.

Meanwhile, the Irish Chain waits for the right fabric.

Posted in: BQ2, peacock

Stash Report Week #19

May 10, 2009 8:54 am ⋅

Early in the week I opene a box of fabric which wasn’t sorted. I was surprised to findthe exact blue and gold fabrics I need to work on my Ladder to the Stars quilt. I completely forgotten that I ened up buying extra last summer for the 12″ version of the quilt. Admittedly, there’s not enough to complete my 6″ version, but there’s enough to get started on the pieced sashings. So the cornerstones are cut, and I’ve got 3 of the sashings cut. The only other thing I pieced this week was the Kansas Trouble block for the Kansas Spirt quilt.

In coming fabric was limited to 2 yards of a deep purple to use in a couple of BQ2 quilts featureing a peacock fabric. The pink will come in next week and I should be able to knock out the quilt tops in no time. When I bought the peacock fabric 2 years ago, I wasn’t certain what I was going to make wiht it. I also bought a yard of purple and a yard of pink to go with it. While at retreat I saw the BQ2 pattern made up in Christmas fabric and thought it would be great for my peacock fabric.

So, here’s the report.

Fabric Added this Week: 2.0 yards
Fabric Added to Date: 124.75 yards

Fabric Used this Week: yards
Fabric Used to Date: 38.872 yards

Net Stash: +85.875 yards

Posted in: BQ2, Stash Busting Report