Blogger's Quilt Festival Part 2

The Blogger's Quilt Festival at Amy's Creative Side is a chance to see hundreds of beautiful quilts, each one a favourite of its creator. I've decided to join the fun and enter two of mine. One is my Swoon Monster Quilt in the home machine quilted category.

This quilt is in the scrap quilt category.

My DD had asked me to make a quilt for our guest room, the colours to be pink and brown to echo the colours in some art prints on the wall. I'll be honest, I had never thought of using those colours! We started collecting scraps and fat quarters , and before long I was happy with the colour choices.

I knew I wanted it to be scrappy and started making  bordered squares in different sizes. I spent a whole quilt retreat on it. Days and days of boxes. Fortunately by some fluke I made the boxes in sizes that would fit together: 2.5, 5, 7.5 and 10 inch. Fitting them together into an arrangement that I liked took some time, but finally it came together.

My friend commented that the quilt made her think of chocolate ice cream, and so we called it Neapolitan.

There's more strawberry than chocolate anyway! 

I quilted it on my home machine in a pattern called orange peel. The backing is from Connecting Threads with a pattern exactly like that same quilting pattern. The dark brown border is actually pink dots on brown and the outer border was the first fabric that we got, that inspired us in the first place. The binding is Kona, I can't remember which brown.

The quilt measures 88" by 96"

I hope you will enjoy browsing all the great quilts in the Blogger's Quilt Festival. I know I will!

Blogger's Quilt Festival

I'm sure that by now you know that the Blogger's Quilt Festival is on at Amy's Creative Side. It's fun to browse a different category every day (or every few hours!). While admiring the quilts today, I decided to enter two of my favourites. This is my first time entering, and I'm excited!

The first quilt I'm entering is in the  favourite home machine quilted category, and it is my Enormous Swoon Quilt. A lot of the fabrics I used are from the Gypsy Bandana line, so I toyed with names like Swooning Over a Gypsy and so on, but due to its size it got called The White Elephant. I blogged about this quilt here, and here, and various other posts along the way.

Today I set off to take some more pictures of it. I really should have checked the batteries in the camera. Perhaps taking two dogs wasn't the best idea. Maybe I should have taken pictures before the first snowfall too. The bright sunshine made pictures hard. No more excuses!

Since I entered in the home quilted category, I'll tell you a bit about the quilting. This quilt is a lot of firsts: first quilt-as-you-go, first feathers. Really that's the reason it took me so long to finish - I knew what I wanted to do, but was scared to try! Each of the Swoon blocks was sandwiched and quilted in a geometric pattern that echoed the star. I used a colour to match the star in each case. Then I joined them together with the white sashing, and quilted feathers on all the white strips larger than 1 inch. Angela Walters' class on Etsy was my savior there.

Here are a few closeups of my quilting:

One last picture of my favourite quilt:






Quilt stats:

fabric: Gypsy Bandana by Pillow and Maxfield, and other coordinating fabrics
size: 100" by 105"
backing: randomly placed left over from the front
binding: diagonal rainbow stripes
quilted by me

Now I'm going to view some more quilts at the Blogger's Quilt Festival. So much to see!

Super Tote!

It's no secret that I LOVE tote bags! My family likes to tease me because I keep my quilting projects separated in tote bags lined up in one corner of my sewing/living room. A real bag lady! I also like a tote for when I travel. It has to be large with lots of pockets, and must fit under the airline seat in front of me. Let others fill the overhead bins with huge wheelie bags, - when I want my ereader, or my snack, I don't even have to get up!

My previous bag for this purpose was Noodlehead's Nikki tote, blogged about here in Feb 2012.
When I saw the new Noodlehead pattern for the Super Tote, I knew it was perfect for me.

I don't know about you, you are probably lots more sensible, but when I have a project calling to me, I want to start RIGHT AWAY! The Nikki tote suffered from this, as the fabric available to me in home decorator weight was more a case of finding "I can live with it" rather than " I love it".

I prefer my bags to be in heavier fabric because I'm always lugging heavy stuff onto the plane. Don't ask, it's quite a variety! From yards of fabric, vintage T shirts, to Sudoku books. So when I had the opportunity to choose some fabric for the Super Tote from Terry's Fabrics in England, I gave the task my full attention. I knew I wanted 100% cotton, and then I wallowed in all the lovely colours and designs in home decorator weight.

I'm not a terribly experienced bag maker, and the pattern is quite lengthy, but it all goes together beautifully. I started cutting on Thursday, and finished on Monday. Oh ,and life went on as well in that time!

Here's the front:

The back:

This is the gusset, one of my favourite parts:

Inside the bag, showing the recessed zipper and the elasticized pockets:

The front again showing the front pocket open:

Lastly, here's how it will look being carried. Isn't it pretty?!!

I was in a real rush to finish this bag, I will be travelling in less than a week.
Next time I will put two inside zip pockets in the lining above the elasticized pockets.
I would also have liked a magnetic clasp holding the front pocket closed. Instead I used a large old fashioned snap fastening. It works fine!

The fabric is
Charnwood  mimosa
Bowden mimosa
and Dotty in smoke

all are from terrysfabrics.co.uk

Till next time,

Sue


Linking to

Lucky Stars Block of the Month

The last block I posted a picture of was April, so I've got 4 more to show.

Here's May. The background is Comma, I love that fabric line.




The June block :




I've just done July and August, in time for the September pattern which arrived today!




Last one, this is the August block:


These monthly blocks have been lots of fun to make. I'm much more comfortable with paper piecing now, too.
Only 4 more to make. I'm looking forward to seeing them all together. Even though I think I am going for a different look each time, I am frequently drawn to the same fabrics over and over. Of course I stuck to the same colour choices: red, aqua, grey and white.

Till next time,

Sue

Linking to:

Stacked Blox Redux

I can't resist making fun of this pattern name! Sadly, I can't think of a better one, so I guess I shouldn't criticize.

The binding is on, all the threads are sewn in, and it's all finished! I like the Kona Steel for the binding. We tried out a patterned fabric, and a yellowy green solid, neither was so effective.

 The quilt measures 110" wide x 102" long, and is my biggest quilt so far.
 The quilting is in circles, echoing the swirls on the feature fabric.
It feels good to have finished this in time for DD#1's birthday. I hope it is used and loved!

Till next time,

Sue

Linking to:

Stacked Blox

That's right, blox! It's not my idea, that is the name of the pattern. I prefer not to do those supposedly humorous misspellings, but the pattern author can do what she wants.

My DD#1 brought home pattern and fabric from a visit to Palm Springs and requested a king size quilt for the summer! Well, it's not the end of August yet, so I feel we are still on track.

The quilt top went together very quickly at a retreat. I just got it back from the longarmer, and I love the way it looks. We chose a fun dot for the back. There's only the binding left to do, and I'm counting it as a finish. it will be done later today.

The iphone pics are blurry. I'll try again before it goes to its new home on Sunday.

Yay for a finish!!

Linking to:

Till next time,
Sue

The Big Reveal!

The post title makes me smile! It was suggested by Kelsey of Everyday Fray, and sounds like pom poms and a marching band to me. Cake and balloons. Stop! I'm just getting carried away.

I'm very happy to announce the finish of my gi-normous Swoon quilt.

Here's another view from a different angle:

It was quite a challenge, but now it's finished, I love it!

It measures 100" x 105". The FMQ was a bit of a struggle, even though the quilt was in thirds at that point. It's still not my biggest quilt. That honour goes to my DD#1's king size. That quilt is being longarmed, believe me!

The back was fun because I backed some of my QAYG blocks with the Gypsy Bandanna fabric I had left.

Then they got moved around as I changed the layout, so I had no real idea of how it would look.

I also backed some of the sashing strips that way too.

The binding is narrow, machine stitched both sides, it's a diagonal rainbow stripe that might have been waiting for this quilt. I love how it stands out from all the white.

The blocks were all straight line quilted, and then I tried out my new feathers skills on everything white more than an inch wide. There were some learning problems, but I don't think I'll be afraid to quilt this densely again. Try Angela Walters' class on Craftsy, I'm impressed!

Now, on to a few new projects!

Till next time,

Sue

Linking to: