Quilt Display

I was honored to be asked to have a display in the professional talent night at church for a second year.  (I won't mention that I think they were a little desperate for displays this year after they changed the date, maybe.)  You can see the display I set up last year here.  Out of the seventeen large quilts shown, only one was made before my previous display.   I wasn't as nervous as last year because I knew what to expect.

I loved how portable and free standing my new quilt ladder was.  (In case you missed it, I have a tutorial for the side-by-side quilt ladder here.)

The display this year was definitely brighter!

It was fun including my favorite quilts (Modern Farmer's Wife, Floating, and Quilty Kisses).

I kept smaller quilts in the basket again.  They were great for showing examples of different quilting styles.

One thing that was new this year is a quilt photo album I made.  (More on that in a future post.)

The best part of the whole evening was when three 8-9 year old boys came over and had to look at every single page in the album.  You know how much I love boys who are interested in quilts!

One reason why I was less nervous this year is because I set up a practice display at home.

It helped me keep a balance of height and color, even if it did make a MESS of my family room.

(Just keeping it real!)

XX,
Jasmine

P.S.  I will be linking up with some of the fun parties on my sidebar.  Check them out to see what other quilters have been making.

Positive Hope: A Finished Quilt

I recently found out that one of my husband's cousins was diagnosed with cancer.  I wanted to make her a quilt, so I asked her what her favorite color was.  Turns out she loves pink!  I wanted to finish it before she starts chemo therapy, so I picked one of my favorite easy patterns.

This is a plus quilt made from sixteen quarter yard cuts of fabric.  Each quarter yard is then cut down to five eight inch squares, put on my design wall, and sewn into a quilt top.  That took me about five hours.

The fabrics I used are a mix of what I could find at my LQS including: Bandanna, Pam Kitty Garden, Summer Song 2, Timeless Treasures Sketch, and others.  I love how they all play together.  I decided to add aqua as an accent color, to break up the pink a little.  I was told that aqua is a very healing color.  :) So I chose four dark pink, five medium pink, four light pink, and three aqua fabrics.

The hardest part was deciding how I wanted to quilt it.  I ended up deciding to quilt with a large stipple and include simple flowers.  This design came from Christina Cameli's first book, First Steps to Free Motion Quilting.  The basting and quilting (on my Tiara) took less than three hours.

To keep the flowers evenly spaced, I decided to quilt one in each 7.5 inch square.  It looks so cute on the minky back.  (My boys were adamant that it NEEDED minky.)

Then I added the binding by machine which took a little over an hour.

I had a finished quilt in about 9 hours.  Of course that was broken up over a period of five days. (Quilting time is harder to find in the summer with all of our trips to the library and other fun places.)

I was going to call it "Positively Pink," but my husband wanted a more meaningful quilt name.  Together we decided to call it "Positive Hope."  I hope it brings his sweet cousin comfort during this difficult time.  

All of my five petal flowers are lopsided, but I think that is part of the charm.

The minky backing was hard to photograph.  It is a little too bright outside...

And then I had helpers testing it out inside.

I'm not the only one who likes the back more than the top.

Wolfie and Coconut even needed their own picture.  LOL.

Quilt Stats #143
Quilt Name:  Positive Hope
Pattern: Plus quilt from 8 inch squares
Fabrics Used: Bandanna, Pam Kitty Garden, Summer Song 2, Sketch, and more
Amount Used: 7 yards
Batting:  Hobbs 80/20
Size:  About 60 x 75
Date Finished: June 2015
What I learned:

• When your backing is the same width as what your finished quilt top will be, it is okay to sew squares together with a generous quarter inch seam.  

I hope to deliver this quilt to her this weekend.  

XX,
Jasmine

P.S.  I will be linking up with some of the fun parties on my sidebar. Check them out to see what other quilters are up to.  :)

More Bags

It is no secret that I enjoy making bags.  Recently I took my mom's projects from our Handi Quilter University and made her a bag.  She didn't get as much quilting done as me, so her bag is a little bit smaller, and the sampler quilt made its way into the pocket and lining of her bag.

She really loves her new bag.  (I just have to make sure my boys don't put my stuff in there by mistake when we visit grandma.)

I have also finished some more drawstring bags to give as gifts.  The large one was for Panda's soccer coach, and the little ones are for friends.

They all have a fun black and white checkerboard lining.

I love having some of these on hand for my boys to take to parties.  Besides, quick finishes are so much fun!

XX,
Jasmine

A Day in the Country: Finished Challenge Quilt

This was such a fun quilt to make, and I really enjoyed participating in my first quilting challenge at my LQS.  We were to use at least 80% of a fat quarter of Country Girls by Tasha Noel and make something.  I went into a lot more detail of my process in my last post.

I basically fussy cut the cute pictures and surrounded them by patchwork squares in aqua, green, and navy.  I love that some are squares and some are rectangles.

I quilted it with my Tiara using a 4 inch long arm circle ruler.  It was the perfect size circle for these 3 inch finished squares.  I wanted the fussy cut shapes to stand out a little more, so I just quilted inside the squares/rectangles a quarter inch.  That made it so all my quilting was continuous.  The combination of mostly round with a little straight quilting is so cool.

The unexpected straight lines are fun even on the back.

I decided to call it "A Day in the Country" because of the fabrics used in the quilt.  I used Country Girls by Tasha Noel and Daysail by Camille Roskelley.

The binding is the navy, green, and cream stripe from Daysail.  It ties all the colors together so nicely.

The backing fabric is from Vintage Happy by Lori Holt.

The sun kept playing peek-a-boo behind the clouds while I was taking pictures.  It made for an interesting photo shoot.

Just minutes after I took the picture above, I took the picture below.

What a difference the lighting made.

Quilt Stats #141
Quilt Name:  A Day in the Country
Pattern: Patchwork with 3 inch finished squares and fussy cut pictures
Fabrics used: Country Girls, Daysail, Vintage Happy, Riley Blake Basics, and more
Amount used:  4.25 yards
Batting: Hobbs 80/20
Size: About 39 x 48 inches
Date finished: May 2015
What I learned:

• I need to remember to include more blenders and not just prints.  I had to go buy more coordinating fabrics because it was too busy.
• Quilt challenges are fun!

I am looking forward to getting my quilt back at the end of the month so I can hang it back up in my kitchen.

XX,

Jasmine

P.S.  I will be linking up with some of the fun parties on my sidebar.  Check them out to see what other quilters are making.  

Progress of a Challenge Quilt

I attend a sewing group at my LQS, and we just participated in a challenge.  We were to use at least 80% of this fat quarter (in a visible location) and make something.  It could be a bag, quilt apron, whatever.  The perimeter of the finish project couldn't be larger  than 210 inches.

It is from the Country Girls line by Tasha Noel for Riley Blake.  At first I was going to make a bag, but it was just too cute not to fussy cut the shapes.  I started out by cutting 3.5 inch strips.  (The red is just so you can see where I cut the fabric.)

Luckily there was very little waste, but I did lose the cute girl with the knapsack.

Then I cut the strips into squares and rectangles.  I knew I had to piece some ends together to make them big enough to finish at 3 x 3 and 3 x 6.

Then I added fifteen fabrics cut into 3.5 inch squares and put them on the design wall.

I added some Riley Blake Basics, one from Tasha Noel's Little Red line, a couple from Lori Holt's Vintage Happy line, a couple Robert Kaufman quilter's linen fabrics, and some Moda Daysail fabrics by Camille Roskelley.  I am very happy with how well all the different fabrics played together.

I pieced the quilt is a new way.  After chain sewing some pieces together, I didn't snip the threads.  I just continued chain sewing pieces in the row together.  There is a tutorial for this method here.  It looks really neat hanging from my ironing board.

Then I clipped some of the threads so that all the rows were in pairs.  I pressed all the odd rows to the left and even rows to the right.

Then I folded it over and sewed the rows together.

  No pins and my points looked pretty good.  :)

Have you ever tried that method before?

Pretty soon I had a finished quilt top which used 92% of the fat quarter and had a perimeter of less than 200 inches.

I actually finished this quilt in May, but waited to blog about it.  I had fun enjoying it in my kitchen until it was time to turn it in.

I will share more of the finished quilt later this week.

XX,
Jasmine

P.S.  I will be linking up with some of the fun parties on my sidebar.  Check them out to see what other quilts have been doing.

Finishing My Sister's Third Quilt

My sister wanted to make a table runner to give as a gift, so I went fabric shopping with her.  She fell in love with a Jinny Beyer jelly roll.  We did add three different fabrics to it so there would be fifteen different batiks for the quilt.

She wondered what to do with the rest of the strips, and decided to make a quilt as well.

This is only her third quilt.  Her first quilt took her ten years to finish.  It is a beautiful lattice quilt.

She quilted it at my house with my Pfaff twelve years ago.  Her second quilt is a baby quilt which was a hand quilted panel.  It took her fifteen years to finish.  We finished her third quilt together in one week.

She bought the fabric on Monday.  Sewed the strips together for the Strip and Flip quilt and the table runner on Tuesday.  Added borders at my house on Wednesday.  Quilted her table runner on her own machine on Thursday.  Helped me quilt the quilt on my mom's Fusion on Friday.  Watched me sew the binding on the quilt, then sewed the binding on the table runner on Saturday.  It was exhausting!
But we were so amazed that her third quilt was finished in less than a week.

She chose the field of flowers digital pantograph which came with the Fusion for the quilting design.

I got the biggest kick out of the fact that she matched her quilt when we were quilting it.

Once we finished the quilt and runner, they had to have a photo shoot at my house.  :D

First, here's the table runner.

I will admit that the binding is only glued down in these pictures.  She will use the ladder stitch to sew it down to the back by hand.

It looked so pretty outside.

And I really loved the quilt.  It finishes about 55 x 70 inches and used the Strip and Flip Tutorial at Cluck Cluck Sew.  I like using the full width of the fabric and adding a 5 inch border.

We quilted it in a light gray thread which looked great on the front.

And perfect on the back.

The binding is the same as the backing and adds such a great frame to the quilt.

My mom thinks she should start making more quilts now.

 I really am so proud of my (older) sister.

XX,
Jasmine

P.S.  I will be linking up with some of the fun parties on my sidebar for this fun joint finish.