Bright Pinwheel Quilt for New Nephew:
I bought a remnant of this adorable dinosaur print back when I first started quilting...awaiting that great day when I would have use for it. The dumb thing was, being a remnant, it was a tiny piece of fabric. The lucky thing was, Joann's still carried the print. I like to foist my favorite things onto quilts for other people. Case in point is the dinosaurs here, and bright colors. You might remember my robots fabric from previous quilts as well...
Fabric themes I will buy if I find a good one (or one exists):
Microsoft Excel theme
Breakfast cereal
Target (the store)
Ugly animals - especially camels or warthogs or anteaters
Amazon.com
Fruit juice
I decided to try a close quilting pattern. Spiral was enticing because I could do one continuous line and the quilt was small. It worked out pretty well. I backed it with flannel for softness. I decided to choose a low-key backing because the quilt top is so loud and in-your-face.
I like that the print says, "DINOSAURS" all over it. In case you couldn't tell what they were....
Manly Quilt Attempt:
I decided to make a quilt for my bro-in-law as a high school graduation present. The daunting task was making it not girly. I also wanted to experiment with low volume versus high volume/ dark vs. light, whatever. This is a log cabin block tweaked so the dark parts are made with skinnier strips than the light parts. My grandma had given me some old sheets a while back, and they worked out really well here - some of the light green stripes and the only floral-ish print. The old sheets made it nice and soft too. The dark colors are pretty eclectic as well. Some of the navy, greenish plaid, and grey are from old shirts or robes.
I really like the quilting I did on this one two; I added the star in the middle of the light circles at the end, and am very happy I did. I might make this pattern again.
Fastest Baby Quilt:
My friend Emily asked me to make a quilt for her sister-in-law's baby shower. It was in two weeks, and she said don't worry about finishing it before then. I took that as a challenge, and was curious how fast I could make a quilt. Another challenge was that they didn't know the sex of the baby (wanting a surprise seems crazy to me, but I admire the self-restraint). So, I had to make it gender neutral.
I think I decided first to do some type of color fading/transition. I knew I wanted some bright solids. So I came up with the design shown below, and then went to the fabric store to find a matching print that could go throughout. It took me forever and a day, but I found this cool giraffe one.
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| Next thing I knew, she had taken off with it. I chased her across the playground, and after landing a few good punches, I got the quilt back. |
Originally, those white blocks were going to be giraffe print too. I decided that the solids got drowned out and re-started. I think I had made like 8 blocks or so, but I am very glad I restarted.
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| Chevrons are so hot right now |
Since I had already made a bunch of blocks, I decided to throw in a pillow case as well. So here you can see what it looked like with all giraffes all the time.
Many a Zipper Pouch:
I got this awesome Japanese quilting book from the library (in fact, months later I have re-checked it out, and it is 2 feet from me right now). There were all these cute zipper pouch projects in it, so I decided to try to eliminate a bunch of my scraps. I kind of keep everything, and so it was convenient that the patterns called for pieces down to 1.25"x1.25". I didn't realize til I was halfway through the book that everything was handsewn. Well, I said screw that. For the most part. I found that hand sewing the zippers in wasn't too bad.
I was intending these for Christmas presents, but I had too many that looked too different, and not enough females to give them too. Luckily, I got invited to a party where we were exchanging gifts and so I brought these!
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| These are the fabrics I bought in India...that I still haven't figured out what to do with... |
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| Actually probably my favorite. I like the old-fashionedy fabric look and the color contrasts. |
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| I thought this would be my favorite because it is made with scraps of some of my favorites. It isn't, but I still like it. |
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| I learned that some of the larger scale prints don't translate as well when they are 0.75" squares. Still like it also though... |
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| Made this a while ago; one of the first embroideries I did that I had no idea for. |
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| Did this embroidery a while back, and had no plans. When I got invited to the party, I didn't think I had enough pouches, so I made this the night before. It is mostly scraps from the next quilt in this blog entry. |
Emily's Queen - Adjusted Kaleidoscope:
My friend Emily (also my best and only client!), apparently was pleased with the 3 other quilts I have made her, so this time she asked me to do a queen-size quilt for her bed. I sent her all these links to quilts from the blogosphere that I liked, and had her fill out a spreadsheet with any comments she had on them. She wasn't into red - and it turns out I apparently am, because nearly all the quilts I showed her had some prominent red. She also wanted it to coordinate with her steel blue sheets.I had come up with this general pattern a while ago, and was waiting for the right project. This worked out perfectly because she like the idea of having a kind of medallion-ish thing in the middle, and it fading a bit into the background. The pattern is like a kaleidoscope quilt, but there is an extra couple squares in it. It also is all about volume. Since I was ordering fabrics online, it was a bit harder to tell how they would compare, but I think it worked out alright. I LOVE how it turned out, and it has some of my favorite fabrics in it: Animal Menagerie from the Indian Summer Line, and a bunch of Kaffe Fassett in the middle (the ones that look like Venetian glass).
I worked on this quilt partially while I was down in Santa Cruz for work, staying in a house with five dudes. I told them I brought my quilting stuff with me, and they didn't believe me till they realized that vibration they could hear through the floor was my machine. I brought a suitcase that was almost as big as my regular suitcase....just full of quilting stuff.
