Towering Triangles Quilt

I’m back today with my latest quilt finish. This one is for my friend Kristi, who is having her first child very soon. I am so excited for her! I’ve been calling this quilt Towering Triangles.

I had a lot of fun designing this quilt and putting it together. I knew I wanted to do triangles, and I got it in my head that I wanted to make at least some of the triangles striped. First, I sewed together a few strips of a Kona cotton red, and Cotton + Steel/Melody Miller’s stars in pink, and I Heart Bees in gray. I cut equilateral triangles with my ruler. I didn’t like the idea of wasting half of the triangles, so the triangles with the bees at the base became the bottom large triangle, and the triangles with the red at the base became the top two triangles. I cut yellow triangles to fill in the holes. I think the yellow is also a Kona cotton. It was leftover from another project that is still in the works. After trimming all of the triangles, I sewed them into horizontal strips. Then I broke out the navy, which is from American Made, and finished piecing the horizontal strips. Finally, I sewed all of those horizontal strips together, and voila – I had a finished quilt top.

I love the stained glass effect from the window.

I got a little fancier than usual on my quilt backing. I took the strip of four-petaled flower fabric that runs vertically in yardage of Melody Miller’s stars, and framed it with strips of the red, yellow and navy solids. I thought bees and flowers were a nice compliment! The rest of the backing is the I Heart Bees print.

After I finished my quilt top and backing I read some rumblings on the internet that there may have been some sort of production issue causing the bees fabric to run at a slant. That never occurred to me as I was working with the fabric. I just embraced the angle. The angle looks more like bees in flight to me!

Finally, I quilted vertical yellow lines, which ended up looking like pinstripes to me. I rounded off the corners (can’t stop, won’t stop!) and bound it with the remaining pink stars fabric.

And look, it’s my very first labeled quilt...hooray!

Quilts for Sisters

Remember earlier this summer when I got hoodwinked by old wives’ tale predictions and made a flying geese quilt for my neighbors’ anticipated baby boy? Well, instead they had a beautiful baby girl! I opted to keep the blue quilt for another baby, and instead, I was inspired to make complimentary but not quite matchy quilts for the baby and her big sister.

Back when big sister was born, I was working extremely long hours at my old job. I would have loved to make her a quilt, but instead I needed my free time to do other things, like sleep and occasionally see loved ones.

This summer I had the time to make quilts for both sisters, and I had the Heather Ross fabric calling to me. I fell in love with the idea of making quilts for the sisters out of Heather's two most recent releases: Far Far Away and Briar Rose.

This Spring I finally cut into my stash of Briar Rose for a couple of other projects that are still in process. I had enough left over to make a scaled down version of Rae Hoekstra’s lovely Briar Rose Rainbow Quilt. 

In May, I went to hear Heather speak at Powell’s Books about her memoir, How to Catch a Frog. I was completely charmed by Heather. I’ve loved her art for years, but she also proved to be a captivating writer and speaker, and a friendly and funny person. I really enjoyed meeting her, and as if that wasn’t enough, I was lucky enough to snag the last charm pack of Far Far Away that she was handing out that night. I wanted to make something special and memorable with the 5 ¼ inch squares, and I didn’t want to cut them up and lose the special little details in the seam allowances. Ultimately I decided on sawtooth stars.

The Briar Rose quilt was not my own design, but it was my first circle quilting project. I was really happy with the way the finished circles looked. 

I backed the Briar Rose quilt in the same Kona Silver I used as sashing and background fabric in the Far Far Away sawtooth star quilt. The Far Far Away quilt was backed with yardage of the pink Princess and the Pea fabric from the collection, and I stitched around the stars and also sewed lines connecting the stars to one another.

Both quilts were bound with the same pale blue fabric cut on the bias so that I could round off the corners. I love how rounded edges soften the look of a quilt.

It’s always bittersweet to give away a quilt you’ve put your heart into, but this time it wasn’t so bad, knowing they’ll be living right next door.

Flying Geese Baby Quilt

Each time I make a quilt I learn something. Usually it's a new or at least improved quilting skill. This time, the lesson was that I should trust my instincts!

Earlier this summer, our cute next door neighbors Seth and Leigh were pregnant with their second child. They waited until the birth to find out if they are having a boy or a girl...or, in other words, they have much more patience and self-control than I will ever have.

I wanted to make a baby quilt for their new kiddo, and I certainly could have made a very gender-neutral quilt, but I wasn’t really feeling it, and neither was my fabric stash. My gut told me they were going to have a girl. I was about 75% done with the quilt when I ran into Seth while out for a walk in the neighborhood, and he mentioned that most everyone was predicting that Leigh would have a boy based on the way she was carrying the baby. With less than two weeks until their due date I switched gears and stared this quilt…a very blue quilt.

What do you know, the day after I finished the quilt, Leigh had a perfect baby girl!

I could have given them this quilt anyway. I love blue and certainly think that little girls can love blue as well as any other color, and boys can love pink and every other color. Ultimately I decided to save this quilt for another baby, mainly because I was struck with inspiration to make complimentary quilts for the new baby, as well as her older sister.  

Maybe it was good that I didn't trust my instincts. It was fun to make flying geese again, and it feels nice to have this quilt in the bank.

I thought about quilting it with vertical lines but ultimately decided on chevrons.

Here’s one last picture that I took after I washed it. I love the ruffled, cuddly look of a quilt after it’s been washed.

The Ample Curves Quilt

Earlier this month Patrick (the husband) and I had an Oregon must-do experience. We drove the Hood River Fruit Loop for the first time, but definitely not the last!

Hood River is a super cute small town about an hour east of Portland. It’s one of my favorite escapes from the city, with an unbelievably scenic drive right along the Columbia River Gorge, past waterfalls and kite surfers. We stopped for lunch in Hood River, and then drove the 35-ish mile loop of wineries, farms and farm stands. It was a gorgeous day in the upper 80’s, and the fruit stands were so very tempting! I got to try cherry varietals I’d never even heard of before, and fell in love with the ones called Lapins. I brought home cherries, apricots and blueberries. I can’t wait to go back in the fall for apples and pears.

It just so happened that I finished my first scallop quilt the morning of our day trip. I cut it out with an Accuquilt Drunkard's Path template and pieced it a few months ago, hand quilted it while watching TV, and just finished binding it. As I’ve mentioned previously, I’ve been having a lot of fun sewing curves, and the curves of this quilt were the gateway to my obsession.

This quilt was a trio of firsts: first curved pieces, first hand quilting project, and first curved corners! I was really nervous to cut the curved corners (eek, what if it doesn’t work right?! You can’t put the corners back on!!) All of the worry was for nothing, because it turned out to be easy-breezy. I really love the way it looks, especially with the stripey bias binding. The backing and binding are from the lovely Ann Kelle’s Remix collection. All inspiration for the backing and binding choices goes to Nettie of A Quilt is Nice.

I’ve named it the Ample Curves quilt, hee hee. I brought Ample Curves along on our day trip for a little photo shoot. Patrick was kind enough to take most of these pictures while I held it up.

Our first photo stop was at Panorama Point, just down the road from one of the farms where we bought cherries. It turns out there aren’t any bad views from the Fruit Loop, but this one was particularly good.

Next stop was The Gorge White House, which is an amazing farm with u-pick fruit and flowers, wine, beer, and cider tasting, and delicious smelling food. The scent of bacon was wafting through the air! These people clearly know what they are doing. I bought blueberries and a few gifts here.

Their flower fields were gorgeous, especially against the backdrop of Mt. Hood.

Our final fruit stop was Rasmussen Farms, where we bought more cherries and some delicious apricots. I couldn’t resist taking a quilty picture next to their daisies.

The little town of Parkdale is at the south end of the loop. Mt. Hood hovers over the town and surrounding fields. Soooo pretty.

Ample Curves was my second quilt made from one stack of Kona cotton. The first was one of the two quilts I made for twins back in February. I have one more quilt planned from the same stack.

In my next post I’ll tell you what I did with all the cherries!

2014 Umbrella Prints Trimmings Competition

Do you know about the Australian fabric company Umbrella Prints? Their fabric is so lovely! Gorgeous vibrant colors, and modern yet classic patterns.  Earlier this spring I was perusing the Umbrella Prints website and learned about their annual Trimmings Competition. Umbrella Prints trimmings are sweet little packages of "offcuts" from when the fabric is printed...or in other words scraps! My favorite!

The goal of the competition is to make something, anything out of the trimmings. I loved the blue package - after all, at least half of my fabric stash is blue...but I was also very drawn to the Earth trimmings. Just look at those pink, red and orange hearts! I decided to branch out of my usual blues, and the Earth trimmings package arrived at my door about two weeks later. Aren't these trimmings pretty?

I had SO much fun creating a little home for a rabbit out of my trimmings package. Here's my finished project!

In addition to my Earth trimmings package, I began with a set of three suitcases from Land of Nod.

I used the largest suitcase for the rabbit house. The first thing I added was some pretty gold hexie vellum. 

Next, I made my rabbit out of soft pink/blush jersey.

And every good rabbit deserves a soft quilt to sleep under, right?

It was a little nerve wracking to cut into the trimmings! I made a log cabin quilt out of one-inch wide strips of various lengths.

Finished mini quilt top!

These little scraps were left over from my quilt cuttings. Perfect for making tiny bunting!

Other scraps transformed into a rug and the top to a night stand.

And the rabbit received a vibrant petal skirt.

At this point my remaining trimmings were dwindling.

I turned a few scraps into fabric frames for pictures of tiny animal friends, which were from old Madison Park, Rifle, and Petit Collage catalogs that were going to be recycled.

With the rest of the scraps I made pillows, curtains, and an apron on a tiny hanger. A few more wall decorations, forget-me-nots in a vase, and the rabbit's room was furnished!

Hooray!

I'll put out a tutorial for the rabbit and the petal skirt in a later post.

I had such a blast making the rabbit's room. I am really happy that Umbrella Prints came up with this incredible idea to send their trimmings out into the world and eliminate waste. There is something so satisfying about creating something out of little scraps of fabric. I can't wait to see all the other amazing trimmings competition entries!