Jelly Roll Race experiment

I've made a couple of jelly roll race quilts in the past, but they just didn't make a large enough quilt top for my liking. They turn out very long and narrow. I have been saving 2 1/2" strips for years in a drawer and sorted them out last week and found 71 batik strips (some were half strips, cut from FQ's, but I matched them up to make a full sized strip).  I sewed them together and the finished size comes to 64" x 92" which would work for a twin sized bed.  Or I could cut it in half and have two quilts 46" x 64" which would make a good size for a lap quilt. It would be interesting to try it with two jelly rolls and see what size it turns out then :-).

Finished top (some hanging over the railing)

I chose prints with medium to darker values and like that result

Inside photo - colours are a bit more accurate here

Additional info:  I was rooting around on the internet last night and came across this blog which has math formulas for figuring out how many strips you need to make various sizes.  This should be a helpful resource

Emma's JK Quilt

I was going through some photos awhile back and realized I had never posted pictures of my granddaughter Emma's JK quilt which I finished a year ago!  Emma came over for dinner and chose 5" squares from my I spy stash and placed them carefully on the design wall.  She chose a backing fabric from my stash and we decided to use pink and purple solids to add corners to make snowball blocks.  I've made a lot of I spy quilts already, but thoroughly enjoy each one.

choosing squares for her quilt

Emma was very meticulous about keeping the piles neat and putting the squares in straight rows on the design wall :-)

Lots of fun squares and fabric chosen for the backing

the finished quilt

quilting in the blocks

border quilting

backing

Canada 150 blocks - the end is in sight!

I managed to get behind again on my blocks!  This has been a busy summer with lots of grandkids over and lots of sewing machine work in the garage.  But school is starting up next week and my husband has been occupied with school work and meetings at school, so I got to work on catching up again.  I'm all up to date!  And, we're at block 126...only 8 weeks to go and all the blocks will be finished.  Then it'll be time to put the blocks together.  I need to decide if I'll make one queen sized quilt or two smaller lap quilts.  This project has been keeping us busy for a year and it's become like an old friend :-).  I'll miss the weekly posts, but I will be happy when the blocks are finished so I can get to some other sewing again!  But, it's been a great project to celebrate Canada's 150th birthday.  Here are the blocks from the last four weeks.  There were some really fun designs in here and they were fun to put together.

Blocks 115 - 117

Blocks 118 - 120

Blocks 121 - 123

Blocks 124 - 126

And here is the stack of blocks #1 - 126

Wedding Quilt for Ben and Leah

This quilt has been in the UFO drawer for a long time.  I think I started it at a Quilt class on scraps at the London Friendship Guild?  This quilt used a jelly roll that I've had around for a long time.  The blocks worked up very quickly and it was a fun project to work on.  I needed a gift for a wedding for Leah and Ben, a young couple from our Church.  It's approximately 60" square.  I quilted this one myself on my trusty Bernina 830 vintage sewing machine.  It was finished in May 2017, but I forgot to blog about it. 

Finished quilt

I quilted this one myself using a large overall tear drop shape

Canada 150 blocks almost caught up

We were on vacation for 2 1/2 weeks so I got a little behind on my blocks.  But I did sneak a little sewing in on my vacation as we were able to stay in a friend's trailer for a few days.  I took a little FW along and set up a sewing spot and finished three blocks.  I have just this week's blocks to finish and I'm all caught up again :-)

Block 106 - 108

Blocks 109 - 111

Blocks 112 - 114

My trusty tablet with the pattern

All set up to sew a few blocks :-)

Ironing station

Innovation

I was testing a Singer 401 in the garage for Jake as he was servicing this machine for one of my students. I was sewing large squares together.  The table was a little rough and there is not much of a flip up bed on a 401.  So, I searched around and found this office organizer? cutlery organizer?  Not sure what it is, but I bought it at a yard sale as these are very handy for keeping scissors  or other tools sorted!  It was just the right height...put my slider sheet over it and voila, a handy extension table for the machine :-).

Singer 401

This really helped make the surface much smoother!

Two granddaughter quilts finished!

I have been working on quilts for all my grandkids for a couple of years and it was Charity and Katie's turn for a quilt for their bed.  They are 7 years old and born almost exactly a month apart.

This is Charity's quilt.  The pattern is "I used to be a layer cake" by Black Cat Creations.   I made a quilt using this pattern for Charity's older sister Kara which you can see here.  I had a layer cake with the same type of bright colours so we used that one for Charity's quilt since they share a bedroom.  They have bunk beds so it's a little hard to get the size right so I made a pillow case to make up for the lack of length.  (Click on the photo to enlarge it for a better view.)

The finished quilt

Love finding the exact match for backing in the sale bin :-)

pillow case to match

I have a collection of soft, fuzzy stuffed animals and each of the grandkids gets one to snuggle with together with the quilt...here are the two little doggies that are living with Charity and Katie now :-)

another view of the finished quilt.  I quilted it myself on my Bernina 830 with diagonal wavy lines right through the borders and through the corners of the bargello pattern in every other row using a walking foot.

Katie's quilt is a design by Lorna McMahon of Sew Fresh quilts.  She posted a note on her blog a year or so ago what we would like to see her design next.  I emailed her that I needed a quilt with flowers for my granddaughter.  She designed a wonderful quilt and I was totally in love with it.   I found this fabric in a quilt shop and that became the focus for finding the colours.

the focus fabric

The finished quilt

It was quilted by Julie Cassidy, a local long arm quilter.  We chose butterflies for the flower garden using turquoise thread.  It was perfect for this quilt

Since I only ended up using one of the focus fabric line in the front of the quilt, I pieced the rest of the fabrics for the back.  That plaid fabric was supposed to be for binding, but the quilt was bigger than I thought so I put it in the back and used 12" lengths of all the colours in the front of the quilt for a pieced binding.

It was a lot of fun piecing all the flowers!

close up of the butterfly quilting - that colour should be light blue :-)

Love the butterfly!

finished quilt