Thursday, 22 September 2011
A Dear Jane block - Finally!
Last week my Dear Jane internet friend Els, who is from the Netherlands, spent a week with me hanging out in my sewing room, going on quilt shop hops and visiting one of my quilt guilds. We had a wonderful time. Els has already completed her first DJ quilt and is working on her second one! She definitely inspired me to get back at my quilt. So, Monday afternoon, I decided to do another block. This one is Cabin Fever A 9. I used my stitch ripper a few times to get the colours right! I should have checked the original block out closer! But, I got it finished and am happy with it. Hopefully, I can keep up with my 1 block a week goal again. This is my 59th block of 169 center blocks. Then I have to decide if I'll do the triangles or not :-).
Tuesday, 20 September 2011
Kara Abigail's I spy Quilt
The fourth of my grandchildren started Junior Kindergarten this September. Can't believe how quickly these kids grow!! They seem to grow up faster than my own kids did :-). In June, Kara came over for a day and we planned out the quilt. Of course, we had to start off with 'coffee break'! We stopped at the store on the way home and Kara chose chocolate cake for snack. That is right up her chocoholic Grandma's alley!
The next job was putting all the chosen I spy squares on the design wall until we had enough that she liked. We then chose sashing colours and backing.
Inspecting the possible options for backings:
I chose a disappearing 9 patch setting. In order for all the directional I spy fabrics to appear straight up in the final setting, you need to orient the blocks properly. Check out the tutorial here for the directions. You then cut the 9 patch block exactly in the center both ways.
This is a great way to sew up a setting with sashings and corner stones very quickly. After you lay out all the squares, you need to sew one side row and a bottom row of white rectangles and pink squares to finish it as seen in the second photo below.
The final quilt, bound with striped fabric. I did not add a border since the quilt was plenty large for a little JK student :-).
The back of the quilt matches the doll bed that I made for Kara a few years ago for Christmas:
I tried out a new quilt design for this quilt from my new book: "Machine Quilting Solutions" by Christine Maraccini. It was a lot of fun and looked nice on the quilt. Of course I used my favourite "King Tut" variegated thread :-)
The quilting:
The next job was putting all the chosen I spy squares on the design wall until we had enough that she liked. We then chose sashing colours and backing.
Inspecting the possible options for backings:
I chose a disappearing 9 patch setting. In order for all the directional I spy fabrics to appear straight up in the final setting, you need to orient the blocks properly. Check out the tutorial here for the directions. You then cut the 9 patch block exactly in the center both ways.
This is a great way to sew up a setting with sashings and corner stones very quickly. After you lay out all the squares, you need to sew one side row and a bottom row of white rectangles and pink squares to finish it as seen in the second photo below.
The final quilt, bound with striped fabric. I did not add a border since the quilt was plenty large for a little JK student :-).
The back of the quilt matches the doll bed that I made for Kara a few years ago for Christmas:
I tried out a new quilt design for this quilt from my new book: "Machine Quilting Solutions" by Christine Maraccini. It was a lot of fun and looked nice on the quilt. Of course I used my favourite "King Tut" variegated thread :-)
The quilting:
