Triangle Quilt finished!

Back in March  I joined the Triangle QAL hosted by Paula of thesassyquilter.com.

I had enthusiasm and determination, and before long I had cut a huge stack of triangles in my chosen fabrics. All was going really well. Then I started putting the triangles together, and oh, the disappointment! The pics of everyone else's triangles looked wonderful, but not mine. It was too late to scrap it all, so I added some lights and carried on.

Now the question of size came up, and since I am always afraid my quilts might be too small, I added triangles and rows and carried on.

Meanwhile those keeners in the QAL had their quilts sandwiched, quilted and bound by April 25th.

What do you mean it's June already? I finished at the end of May I'll have you know. A month behind, late to the party as usual. I feel like those sad runners who finish a week after everyone else, and looking like death. Never mind that if it was me they'd be tripping over my body. I digress...

I also had to make life difficult by binding the angles on the sides. Honestly, I wonder sometimes. Fortunately Lorna of Sew Fresh Quilts posted a tutorial, and it went as planned. Yay!

As you can see it is straight line quilted on all sides of the triangles. That's a lot of stitching!
I'm happy with my finish, and it is taking up a home on my couch instead of being given away like most of my quilts. The colours and fabrics make me happy!

Quilt Stats:

size: 68" x 87"
fabrics: Seaside Cottage, Bluebird Park, Architextures, Secret Garden, Prince Charming, Brr, and some Kona Solids
Binding: Kona Steel


Linking to:

Till next time,

Sue

Bee Blocks for Stars in Their Eyes

This year I am busier than ever, so I cut my online Bee commitments down. The Bee I stayed with is so much fun that I hope we go on for years! There are 6 of us, and every month a different person chooses the block and the colours, and away we go! The wonderful thing is that you get to try out blocks and techniques that you would probably only have thought about before.

January we made the Arkansas Traveler block for Becky. It is partly paper pieced, and my pattern printed too small the first time. Yikes! I started again, and learned to be wary of the printing, even when you have unchecked all those pesky sizing boxes!

February was my month, and my bee mates made awesome blocks for my Harry potter bookcase. More about this soon, as the quilt is nearly finished. I'm just putting the binding on. Yay!

In March we made Scrappy Trip Around the World blocks for Brandy. I'd seen them on the web, but never tried it. They turned out great!

 Aren't they pretty? And all with the low volume fabric in the centre.

In April Susan chose a 3/4 log cabin in bright coloured solids. I had not seen this block before. It is so striking! The inspiration is found here

It will make such an amazing quilt! Here are my blocks

 Wow, this quilt will be stunning.

This month Lisa asked for the Mosaic Block, which is like the Economy block but with an extra diagonal portion. It is for a childrens quilt, so the centres are fussy cut with that in mind. The tutorial for this block is found here

Here are my blocks, (2) 14 1/2 inch blocks in 4 quadrants each. As Lisa said, the most time consuming part is choosing the fabrics. That was fun! Each quadrant has a fussy cut centre, a round of bright, a round of low volume, diagonals in a bright fabric and then corners in low volume. I enjoyed debating which fabrics to put where! I can totally see myself making another quilt with this pattern.

Till next time,

Sue

Bloggers Quilt Festival

Although I have several other quilts almost finished that I'd like to enter, here is my completely finished entry, Creamsicle. The colours in the quilt remind me of the frozen treat, hence the name.

I started the quilt in January, blogged here. I experienced the usual snags while making it, including sewing in a row backwards and not even noticing! The picture of what went wrong is here .

  It was made in four sections, quilted on my HSM, and then joined using a row of the background squares. I had a few troubles getting the zig zag border to fit, and it occurred to me afterward that it would have been easier to put the border onto the finished top instead of onto each quarter. However...

The quilt was finished in March, blogged here . There are closeups of the quilting. I'm quite proud of the leafy vine I did along the zigzag. It turned out well, but not overwhelming.

When I delivered it to its new home I took pictures of it with Vancouver Island backgrounds.

I love looking at this quilt! There are about 30 low volume prints in the background, and each one became a favourite! It was definitely worth all the planning!



Quilt stats:

size after washing -  92" x 100"
binding -  wonky black and white stripe from stash
backing - Ikea



Linking to

I plan to spend lots of time admiring all the quilts entered in the Festival. Have a look!

Sue

Triangle Quilt Along

I love the look of triangle quilts, so when I saw this quilt along hosted by The Sassy Quilter I couldn't resist. I chose fabrics from my stash in my favourite colours:

Then I cut them into LOTS of triangles:

Still all was going according to plan. Then I started laying out rows on the design wall. Larger of course, I always make everything larger. But, oh no, it didn't look good. In fact I hated it. 

Now I can freely admit that I have a love/hate relationship with choosing fabrics. I love the idea, but I don't think I'm good at it So frustrating. It never looks original and eye catching like others I see.

So I looked at the Flickr page for the Triangle Quilt Along to see how everyone else was doing. You should look, there are some stunning fabric combinations. I can honestly say, I liked everyone's quilt better than mine! I tried to see why, and I think it is because I'm drawn to bright saturated colours and the eye needs a bit of a rest from this. It was nearly all mediums. Even the greys were still mediums. The dark turquoise and dark red helped, but I wanted some lights. I don't have any pale florals, in fact I have very few florals at all. So I pulled out a white crosshatch and cut enough to put two blocks in each row. I also added a print with a white background.

Here is the result:

 Unbelievably better! I wish I had a "before" picture to show. I'm amazed at the difference.

I would be pleased to hear any ideas to better my fabric choices. I've read lots of theory, but it seems that trial and error is my way to learn!

Till next time,

Sue

Pottering Along

I've posted about my Harry Potter Bookshelf quilt lots of times. It's not my oldest WIP, but I'm determined to get it finished very soon.
The blocks are 10 inches, so I'm doing 6X6 with a row on top of the bookcase, and feet at the bottom.

When I counted my blocks, I'm really close, another two blocks should do it.

Here are my latest blocks:

(you have to be a bit of an HP fan to get what they are!)

A framed picture of Dumbledore

Mad Moody's Eye

The Sorting Hat

A Howler

It was my month in the Stars in Their Eyes bee, so I asked for blocks for this quilt. My Bee-mates were awesome!

I can't wait to start laying out these blocks!

Linking toWIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced

Sue

Creamsicle is finished!

I put on a burst of speed and finished this mega quilt. I'm even a week ahead of schedule to take it to its new home.

I had hoped for some nice outdoor shots, but it's snowing again! Perhaps I'll get them at its new home, if the weather is better there.

This quilt was started right after Christmas, inspired by this block. I used about 30 low volume prints, very little from stash. At least I have a bit in my stash now! All the low volumes are white, grey, or ivory tones. I steered away from any tan. About half of the coloured fabrics came from stash, so we can't really count this quilt as a stashbuster!

I made the quilt in 4 sections for ease in the quilting. The front is a little directional , and the back is completely directional, so I had to be careful joining them together. The zigzag border was an added problem. I suppose I could have joined the quilt and put it on last, but I chose to do it on each section. That meant having the corner in the right place and allowing for the joining rows so that I had the zig going the right way. I don't know if I'm being clear, there was quite a lot of thought involved!

Here are some pics of the quilting: I outlined each star and diamond, and straight line quilted within them as well. Wavy FMQ lines in the squares between. The zig zag has a vine and leaf pattern along it, it's quite hard to see.

Here are a couple of pics showing the back. I love it! You can see where the joins are, and the quilting can be seen too.

Quilt stats:

size after washing -  92" x 100"
binding -  wonky black and white stripe from stash
backing - Ikea

Linking to:


TGIFF at Sew Fresh Quilts

Uh Oh!

As I was saying in my last post, I'm hard at work on this quilt. I've almost finished quilting half of it.  This is the third quarter. I spent two days putting rows together and making and putting the border on. It wasn't until last night that I noticed the mistake in the rows! No matter how I change it, there's a fair bit of seam ripping to be done. I've been going with "controlled random" for the background squares. After re-arranging the rows, it will be more like true random!

Linking to Lee at Freshly Pieced WIP Wednesday

Do you make these crazy mistakes sometimes?

Till next time

Sue