Christmas Bear Star

My mom bought the fabric for this quilt over 25 years ago.  She never got around to working on it, so earlier this year I asked her if I could have it.  She sweetly gave it to me and I came up with my own pattern.  I feel like this is a modern traditional quilt.  I liked the look of some wonky star quilts, but didn't want to make it wonky.  I was inspired by Cluck Cluck Sew's No Point Stars and decided to combine the two ideas into one pattern.  

I first cut apart all the bear fabric into blocks.  It looked very country. I had 40 bears.

I used the 5.5 inch AccuAuilt square die to cut out the bears.  I marked the diagonals and tried to line up the corners.  The fabric wasn't always printed square, but my pieces are square.  I actually sewed the quilt together with a 3/8 inch seam allowance to make sure that you couldn't see any of the skinny heart border.  

Here are my first four stars.

Over the next few days I sewed star points whenever I got a chance in between taking care of kids, decorating, cooking, and life.

I originally wanted to have the bears face every which way.  We frequently lay quilts sideways on the sofa.  However, my husband and Cheetah vetoed that.

All the bears face the same way now.

I quilted it on the Bernina Q24 with a red minky backing.

I decided to quilt with a simple stipple because I wanted to quilt around most of the bears' faces.

It is bound in the red fabric from the stars.

I actually finished it in the afternoon.

The light was still pretty so I quickly laid it on the sofa for a picture.

My family loves this quilt.  

Can you believe I am now only two weeks behind in my blogging?  I still hope to catch up by the end of the year.

XX,

Jasmine

Vintage August

I showed a few pictures of this quilt when I started blogging again in September, but I thought it still deserved its own post in chronological order.  I purchased the fabric a few years ago as a kit from Craftsy.  It was for a beautiful medallion quilt, Glorious Dawn, designed by Myra of Busy Hands Quilts.  I had every intention of making that beautiful quilt.  However, Panda was looking through the pattern one day.  He said, "This doesn't look like you." The rest of the family agreed.  So I changed my plan.  

This pattern is from Camille Roskelley's book Simply Retro.  It is the Vintage pattern.  I just added four more blocks, sashing, and borders.  My quilt is actually king size finishing at 104 by 104 inches.  I started out sewing one test block.  

I changed the background a little bit from her instructions and used quarter square triangles (5" finished) and half square triangles (3" finished) as the setting triangles for each block.  That made it so the edges of the blocks were not cut on the bias.  It also saved a lot of fabric.  

I even used one of the strip dies to cut out the blue and green pieces.  

The strips cut out very quickly that way.  

I was extra careful cutting out the fat quarters so that I could keep a 2.5 inch strip of each fabric for my scraps.  I love analogous color schemes.   

Another day I cut out all of the background fabric with the AccuQuilt.

But I didn't enjoy piecing these blocks as much.  So it sat on the shelf while I pieced two and a half more quilt tops.  After sewing some plus quilt blocks I got the urge to finish this quilt.  I did assembly line construction and finished the remaining 15 blocks at the same time.  

These are big blocks!

I had to lay them all out in the family room to determine a layout I liked.  

Then I could finish the quilt top. 

I quilted it on the Bernina Q24 with a light blue 108" wide backing.

It was so pretty when I took it off the rails.

I decided to use the last bit of the cream background fabric as a binding.  

I took one picture of the whole thing while standing on the stairs. 

Then I enjoyed having it on my bed for a month. 

I am so grateful I stuck with it and finished this quilt!

XX,

Jasmine

Custom Winter Jewel Box

This is the second quilt I made at the request of my husband's boss.  It was for one of their clients who was retiring.  She loves winter and snowmen so I chose to make a blue and white jewel box quilt.  It is made from eight inch blocks and finishes about 76 by 92 inches.  

This is the fabric I purchased for the quilts.  I bought 20 blue fat quarters for the blocks.  With there being 80 blocks I knew a fat quarter was enough for the equivalent of four blocks with some left over.  

I cut out both the half square triangles and the four patch squares out with the AccuQuilt.

Here are all the pieces for the 80 blocks.  

This is my first block (sewn scrappy style.)

I decided to swirl the seams on the four patches and the blocks.

That way all the seams still nested when sewing the blocks together.

I got a wool pressing mat for Christmas and must say that I love it.  It makes pressing the blocks without steam so easy.  And my blocks are nice and flat.  I sewed up the 80 blocks and laid them on my design floor.  

Then I added the two borders.  

Cutting the extra threads off the back is tedious but so important on a blue and white quilt.  

I quilted it on the Bernina Q24 with a 90 inch wide minky backing.  

I think pointed spiral quilting is so elegant.  

Then I trimmed the quilt and got the binding on.

I love how this quilt turned out and would like to make a green and white quilt similar to it for me.  

I still finished this quilt in less than a month even though her retirement ended up being postponed until April.  

XX,

Jasmine

Custom Ocean Waves Quilt

 

I was so tired after finishing my October bed quilt that I didn't do any quilting for a month.  Then one day I decided I needed something fun and new to work on to motivate me.  Ignoring my four quilts already cut out and started, I pulled out my pink scraps to start another improv log cabin quilt. This one has 30 blocks to make a lap quilt.  

That very afternoon I got a phone call from my husband.  He told me that his boss was asking if I could make a custom quilt for the CFO of one of their big clients who was retiring at the end of December.  He said he knew I hadn't been quilting for awhile and it was Christmastime, but wondered if I thought I could handle that.  He also said they would like another one for someone retiring in January.  Starting the new pink quilt helped me so much that I said I would do it.  I had three weeks to finish the first quilt.  

I went shopping the next day while my husband worked from home to watch Kitty.  I learned that the gentleman who was retiring loved the ocean.  What would be more perfect than a traditional ocean wave quilt block.  This was my original fabric pull.  

After getting home I realized I had 13 fabrics.  Each block would have twelve blue/gray half square triangles.  To make things easier I eliminated one fabric (the third blue on the left).  That way each block would have one of each print in a random order.  

I cut out all 1,152 triangles with my mom's Accuquilt.  It was the three inch finished half square triangle die.  Cutting out the dark and the light together saves a lot of time lining up pieces.  Here they all are.  

I mostly pieced two blocks at a time to keep chain piecing.  Here are the first two.  

I loved laying the quilt blocks on my design floor and watching the quilt grow. 

The pinwheels where four blocks meet are my favorite.  

The AccuQuilt lived up to its name.  My points turned out pretty good.  I don't think I would have attempted this pattern without the AccuQuilt.  Soon I had the whole quilt top pieced.  

I added a white border to make it a little bigger and make sure none of the points were cut off with the binding. Then it was on to my least favorite part: cutting stray threads on the back.

 I backed it with an extra wide and plush minky backing and quilted it on the Bernina Q24.  

I love the simple texture from the loopy spiral. 

I got the binding on quickly after trimming all the minky fuzz.

Then I had to admire it in my studio.  It looked so pretty by my mini pinwheel quilt.

I took a few more pictures before sending it to work with my husband.

This quilt finishes about 80 x 104 inches and looked beautiful on Bunny's full size bed.  I may need to make a green and white ocean wave quilt for my bed sometime.  

While I had three weeks to finish this quilt, I was able to get it done in ten days.  I'm grateful it was done early so I could enjoy more of the Christmas season without stress.

XX,

Jasmine