Autumn 3D Bowtie

I'm still working through my obsession with bright autumn colors.  Using the border and knot fabric as my focus, several fabrics from my stash were brought together to make these 3d bowtie blocks.  Random block placement enhanced the overall look.

The back fabric has nothing to do with the front, but is a cheerful neutral and was big enough to prevent the need for piecing.

My great-grandmother taught me how to make this block about fifty years ago.  I have no idea why the technique stayed with me, but it's cool.  You can learn this technique in a number of places online, but HERE's a link that has nice pictures.

To all of you the binding choice probably seems obvious, but first I tried the orange blender and then the green and gold leaves before figuring out that something more sedate was called for against the very colorful border.

Sure, it's dead of winter now, but dragging this quilt around in the back yard this morning to photograph it brightened up my day. 

Argyle in Tan and Grey

Right off the bat, let me say I have two really excellent helpers.  Each of them is willing to step on, chew, nap or shed on any quilt I make.  Any time, any where.  First up, Fiona Ferocious FooDog Faust.  She's an eight month old golden retriever and is never ever an instigator.  No sirreebob.  (Toilet paper roll destruction is her specialty)

Of course, I've already introduced our anatolian shepherd, Chrysler the Decaffeinated Sweet Beast Phillips.  We call him decaf for short.  This guy can shed an entire toy poodle in under five minutes.  It's amazing.

Oh right.  The quilt.  This quilt didn't turn out like I'd planned.  I wanted a fairly subtle argyle pattern in tan and grey and ended up with a high contrast very bold look.  It's still a useable quilt, but for next time maybe I'll audition the fabrics a bit more carefully.  This quilt was made from a combination of fabrics from Connecting Threads' Neutral Love line and my own stash.

I used two shades of gold thread and one metallic gold for the quilting.  If I'd had unlimited time for this one I might have couched a heavy thread or even maybe a yarn for the main diagonals.

The metallic really gives the quilt a little sparkle in person, but my photography doesn't do it justice.

The setting triangles and binding both made me happy, giving just the subtle blend I'd been looking for in the entire quilt.

I went to the trouble of buying a piece of wide quilt backing for this quilt and when it came time to make the magic happen it turned out I'd purchased about four inches too little.  Words were spoken.  I did have a couple of left over blocks though, so I threw together all the scraps and made a stripe in the back which is a fair addition to the quilt.  Serendipity.

 

This one is a BIG queen.  Plenty of overhang, plenty of pillow tuck.  I find that making a quilt for the next size up bed makes the night time tug of war a little easier.

In the Spirit of the Season

Both inspired by quilts in Jelly Roll Quilts by Pam & Nicky Lintott, these quilts were comissioned by a customer for donation to a local women's shelter.  The brown quilt is called Blue Lagoon and is made in blues in the book, and the blue quilt is called Pandora's box and is worked in dark and light neutrals in the book.

The Lintott's book is full of easy, attractive, quickly made patterns, so I go straight to it when I need to get a quilt out fast.

Cheap Jelly Roll

I found two jelly rolls at a discount store recently.  They were priced so low I couldn't just leave them there.  Not the finest quality Quilte Shoppe cottons, but still usable.    Sometimes it's nice to make something simple be as perfect as you can get it, so all the corners are as accurately pieced as I could manage.

A few flowers were quilted randomly over the top and then wavy diagonal lines through all the points.

 

The back was made big enough to roll the edge over for a binding.

Paired with some plain white, they made the world's easiest quilt look modern.

Because these prints weren't first quality, the quilt might not last more than ten or twenty years, but it will be cosy and warm just like any other quilt and it was fun to make something this carefree and easy.

100 Day Hustle Wrapup

Kelsey's 100 Day Hustle sure helped!  Everything on my list except this quilt got finished!  I even got the small projects taken care of.  This red quilt is completed,

this christmas cutie is all done,

it started out as a panel and charm pack from Sandy Gervais' Reindeer Games line.

and I've already posted here and here about the other items on my list being done.

Thanks Kelsey, the linkups have been super fun to follow and it always helps to have friends' support!

You can see how everyone else did on their 100 Day Hustle list HERE.

Kitschy Kitchen Kwilt

Should I apologize for the post title?  I'm never sure...

I'll add a white border the same size as the four patch squares (3" finsihed) and scallop it.  Bind in the periwinkle polkadots.  The plain white squares are good excuses for quilting colorful paisleys.  Don't really know how I'll quilt the rest of it though.

Current Project Updates

I've updated the pictures (haven't done any actual work mind you!) on the First Focus (quilt as you go) sampler and the WOW Row Robin. You can now see all the wow rows and all the blocks for the focus swap are spread out so you can see them too. I'll keep all the older photos in the album as I work on each project, but I think I'll update the sidebar links to always show whatever is the most current.

Wild Coffee has been updated as well but this is because I appliqued another block for it Saturday while my quilting friends were over. Three down, six to go! When I finish appliqueing the basic shapes on these blocks I get to do all the fancy work to them. I can hardly wait.

Two Block Donation

My little group of quilting friends and I split up a few pieces of fabric that were donated to us and each of us made up quilt tops from our stash with that fabric as the focus. This top is one I generated from the millefleur donation focus. I tried Patsy Thompson's hyper-quilting technique on this one when it came time to quilt it up. I like the way it looks on her website, but either my second color choice for the veins wasn't sufficiently different from the outline choice to show up well, or my technique isn't very good yet or something. I'm considering putting it back on the machine and outlining everything in a nearly navy blue but am a little worried that it will be too dark. Any of you out there with hyperquilting experience have an opinion on this?