Week ending June 25, 2023

I'm still hobbling around in a walking boot which is hindering my productivity.  I did cover my wool pressing mats and think they look so good. 

I finished my Laerning Curve quilt- more on it later. 

I quilted it over the weekend.  

I also pulled out a quilt top made by my grandmother thst I quilted on Sunday. 

She signed the back with the date she gave it to me - July 4, 2006. She had hemmed it for me to use as a table cloth.  I used it that way for many years and thought I'd rather have it as a quilt now for display. 

I have a lot of things to photograph and share and hope to do so soon.  

Learning Curve Quilt

I'm an environmental scientist and the three R's (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) are really important to me. I save every usable scrap of fabric - down to 1.5" squares for quilting cottons. I absolutely love making scrap quilts. They are my favorites. I keep all my solid colored scraps in a bin and that bin was overflowing.   I received the Bubble Lights print on Cotton Sateen from Minerva and decided to make a quilt to use it for the backing.

I pulled out each scraps, then selected pieces that were colors I saw in the Bubble Lights print. The print is so colorful so I had a whole rainbow of colors to select from. I then needed to figure out a pattern. One quilting technique I have been wanting to master is sewing curves. I thought that a quilt full of drunkards path blocks would compliment the bubbly pattern in the Bubble Lights print. I decided my quilt blocks needed some "rules" so I put my fabrics into two piles - cool tones and warm tones. I then decided that the cool tones would make the concave piece and the warm tones would make the convex piece.

I initially wanted to piece the blocks randomly,  but found that I didn't like some of the color combinations. I sewed the pieces in color groupings that I felt were visually appealing while also making sure there was a good variety in each color. After all my blocks were made, I set about pressing them and had to  fix a few where I didn't catch enough of the seam allowance. Many of my blocks have wrinkles and folds, and I have left those imperfections. I named this quilt "Learning Curve" as that is what I was doing - I was learning to sew curves and felt like to be true to myself I needed to leave those small imperfections to show that when you are learning, it's not always going to look perfect. Many people focus on the imperfection without realizing when it is combined with everything else, those mistakes and imperfections disappear and become very hard to find. 

Cotton Sateen makes for a luxurious quilt back and I was so excited to try the Minerva Exclusive Bubble Lights Cotton Sateen for a quilt back. This cotton sateen is almost 56" wide. It has a very soft and silky texture. It is not as heavy as other cotton sateens I have used, but it  doesn't affect it's use as a quilt back and would make it especially great for apparel. Some finely woven cottons like a cotton sateen can show puncture holes - especially when quilting, but this cotton sateen did fantastic. I normally put in a new needle before quilting on tighter weave fabrics and forgot this time. When I checked the quilt back as I rolled it on my longarm, I was relieved to notice that the puncture holes were not noticeable at all. I would definitely use the Minerva exclusive cotton sateen  for another quilt.

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Week ending June 18, 2023

My Garden Club Quilt is on a road trip and was at the Kansas City Regional Quilt Festival this weekend. 

I worked on my Drunkards path Quilt. This pile is 252 blocks. 

I pressed them and organized by color of the concave piece. 

I then trimmed them to 4.25". They were supposed to be 4.5", but since these were my first I took a larger seam allowance and was not always consistent. 

I started placing the pieces on my design wall and liked this Block layout as I didn't have to worry about curves not matching up. My curves are not perfect and not all trimmed so that the convex is a consistent distance from the edge. 

I had decided to do an ombre.

All the pieces on my design wall. 

I ended Sunday with my blocks sewn together.  This coming week I plan to finish the top.  

I also got a sweet photo on Sunday of a baby on my quilt. It just melts my heart. 

I have fabric from Jaftex to sew for July and will share it soon.  

Week ending June 11, 2023

Not a whole lot photo worthy happening in my sewing room. I'm wearing a walking boot for a few weeks and trying to stay off my feet. I did take a few indoor photos of my Karnak Quilt  

I'm still cutting and organizing scraps. I can do this seated, and plan to get this cart filled and organized in the next week or 2. 

I put this baby quilt on my longarm and quilted it, then did the binding before mailing it off to a colleague who recently welcomed home a baby boy.  I made the quilt top 2 or 3 years ago.  

I'm crafting a leveling shoe lift to wear on my foot without the walking boot. I was not amused by the $35 price tag of something I only need for maybe 2 more weeks.  

Hopefully I'll have more photos of stuff this coming week. 

Urban Crossroads Pattern by Prime Time Quilt Company

I fell in love with the Urban Crossroads pattern, and Prime Time Quilt Company, when I saw the tester photos flood my Instagram feed. Each was so beautiful, but I was especially drawn to the fat quarter versions that I saw. 

When selecting fabrics, I started with the Baltic Blue solid I received from Minerva. I have a full blog post on the Minerva website about the fabric. I then went through all my fat quarters and really loved how the batiks were looking. 

I had several fat quarters of batiks and a few half yard cuts. I decided on a group of 12 prints and decided to double up on the ones that were half yard cuts. 

I then needed to pick a fabric to use for the corner pieces that would create the diamond shapes. I found a golden marbled batik and felt like it gave the right pop of color that I needed. 

The batiks I chose have a variety of colors with blues, greens, pinks, and some browns being the primary colors. The colors are more rich and vibrant in person.

I quilted my Urban Crossroads quilt on my Tin Lizzie using a woodgrain pantograph that I purchased from Urban Elementz. I love this pantograph and think it was perfect for this quilt. 

This quilt was so fun to make and I really want to make another!

Prime Time Quilt Company has a great selection of patterns that are unique and modern. 

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Week ending June 4, 2023

It's been busy in my sewing room. This past week I received new fabric from Minerva (seen below with Nia) and finished my Karnak Quilt (pattern by Tesselate Textiles. 

Here's the Karnak Quilt quilted.

I blogged about my Flower Peddler Quilt made with the Willow Hollow collection by Kim Diehl for Henry Glass Fabrics.  

My Garden Club Quilt made with the Garden Club Collection by Missie Carpenter for Henry Glass Fabrics will be going on a road trip to be in a show. 

I've seen many quilters recommend cutting scraps to frequently used sizes when storing them. I got my Tim Holtz Vagabond cutter out to help with the task.  

I ended my Sunday grabbing a few photos of my finished Karnak Quilt.