Quilt #13- Green's Crossing

What did I do on a long raining day? Quilting of course!
I cut all my pieces the night before and today I sewed a mile an hour and done in 3 hours. Yep, I was determined to finish this top-quilt today. You may think, it was a small one, nope, it's a queen size quilt. This quilt is huge. It touches the top of my ceiling and goes down to the floor. I'm certainly not rushing to quilt this one soon. Perhaps next winter.

Selection of Fabrics
But it was the perfect pattern for the use of many of the blue floral prints that were given to me ago from a quilt-retreat and not necessarily knew what to do with it.  The solid blue-violet was purchased about five years ago from a previous quilt-along class but didn't use it then, and I also used a mixture of red and orange Batik for accenting the quilt.

Because I changed the colour themes for this pattern, I photocopy the top quilt on a grey tone and used it to place my colour choices, using colouring pencils to draw. It always helps to visualize where everything goes.

It all this pattern is super easy. Large blocks and large pieced. Just a BIG quilt in the end. Have in mind that it needs 7 1/2 yards for the backing. So if you are on a low budget like me, then you may think twice before doing it.

You can purchase the pattern at the Quilting Company:

Green's Crossing by Janice Prytz

Quilt #12-ScoreBoard

If you downsize this pattern, the quilt can be done in one day. That if you are speedy at the sewing machine like me. 

Most of the strips were cut to 2" wide and use what I had in my stash for this entire top-quilt.  Instead of using 30 blocks of 13 1/2" x 13 1/2", I only sew 12 blocks.

 Very simple assembly for this design. I'm thinking of doing again.

                                               I cannot wait to quilt the negative spaces.

Rosette #6: Planning

Planning Is Never Enough

My initial plan for this entire quilt was to create every single rosette with its own distinct hues of blues, greens, and purple.  At first, it was a simple matter of selecting the fabrics I loved, but not so much now.  Rosette 6, the combinations of fabrics clashed or blended with the other ones. After five attempts, I laid all the rosettes on the floor in order to select fabrics that will enhance the other ones.

                                 Block 1: This is the center of my rosette 6.

All my rosette on the floor and selecting fabrics for rosette #6.

Cutting the fabrics into pieces and cutting the paper for it, and ready to be glued together.

                                 Not a bad start! And 16 more blocks hexagon to go. I hope the rest will go nicely with this one.

Quilt #11- Wrapped Presents & Modern-Scrappy Backing

How intriguing it’s when a quilt has the illusion of interlocking blocks, but there are not.  The design for this quilt seemed rather complicated, but it wasn’t at all.  It was simply sewing a set of three strips together and cutting them into segments. And check out my first modern-scrappy backing.

 Designed by Jo Kramer

    Planning

The original size for the quilt is 90" x  90" because I didn't have enough yardage for this quilt, I reduced it to 1/4 of its size.  My quilt is 52 1/2" x 57 ".

Fabric Selection

                               Light grey, blue Batik, and red Batik.

Set of Strips

Sewing set of strips was easy and fast.  Only one important to remember when you pressed them, it not to stretch it, otherwise the set with start to curve.

Segments

 Strips cut into segments according to the pattern.

 Block Assembly

Sewing rows vertically together.

Modern-Scrappy Backing

Because every cranny spaces in my sewing room are accounted for, I did not want to accumulate unnecessary left-over of fabrics after those project. It is fine when there is enough fabric for another quilt, but when the pieces are less than 10” wide, why bother.  This smaller quilt was perfect to try my first modern-scrappy backing.

 Step1: Measure your quilt and added at least 4" on each side. This table cloth helped me visualize the size of my backing. You could use painters tape on the floor too.

Step 2: Put all the smaller pieces in a way you like them.

Steps 3: Add fabric is you are short of pieces as I did here.

 Step 4: When you are satisfied with the overall of your modern-scrappy backing, start sewing in section. Press seams open. Squared or trimmed so each section.

 This is what is left of all the fabric pieces that I used for this project.  Not much.

Pattern available at The Quilting Company

Wrapped Present By Jo Kramer

Rosettte #5- Part 2

This month, I was determined to complete Rosette #5 and spend hours hand-stitching the 19 blocks together. After completion, the rosette was not what I imagined it would be. What went wrong!

The center of my rosette became distinctive of its own, and it was not connected to the outer part of the rosette.  So was I to redo 19 blocks all over again? Hope not!

After thinking this through, I came up with a very simple solution. I embroidered over those green-parts simple stitches from my Janome 7700, so that it resembled the design from Kaja's fabric and it worked.

                       I used Isacord thread of a dark purple.

When the blocks for rosette #5 were all sewed together, I removed some of the papers, but only those near the center, leaving the ones on the outer part of the rosette for support. Then pressed the seams flat.

If you recall, I started this rosette on January 18/19.  It's time for another great rosette!

Sewing Room: Sorting fabric by yardage

Sewing Room

The last two weeks the painting jobs kept me away from quilting but managed to precut my scarps into squares and strips.  Our Ikea boxes arrived and my husband worked the set them up for me. It amazed me how it looked spacious in that same square footage area.  I set my Juki on the Ikea's table, my Janome stayed on its own table by the wall.  One large cutting mat and small ironing board on the same side of the table.

  So much brighter than before and it's now pleasant to sew in that area (8' x 11')

Today I finished sorting all my fabrics by yardage. The smaller pieces were cut into strips and squares. It took me three weeks to go through my stash, but it was worthwhile.

It doesn't matter how you fold your fabrics, but do it in a matter that is functional and practical to yourself. Mine was stored on a shelve by groups of colours at first, then I folded all my fabrics differently so it could fit in the Ikea units. What I didn't realize is, how the smaller pieces of fabrics got hidden between the larger ones.

Some were Fat quarters, fat eights, and lots of half yards! Surprisingly, I was able to fill these three boxes. With every pile I went through, I find pretty prints I had  purchased many years ago. 

It will be worthwhile to have an inventory of my entire stash.  Both for cost-effectiveness and a toll of colour selection.  

How many yardages do you have in your stash? 10, 20, 50, 100? 

Talbetop Ironing Baord

Saturday is a good time to catch- up on things, but today my daughter and I went to a quilt store and they had a sale on. Oh boy, was I in trouble with my mini-budget of  $20/month?  In the end, I spend nearly $100.

Fabric Sale just For Me!

 The yellow/pink print may be used as a backing for a small quilt. The other four could be used as blenders. Orange fabrics are on my high-priority list because my stash is so low.  Not my favourite colour, but they give a beautiful accent and contrast to a quilt.  I also purchased white-on-white fabric.

Tabletop Ironing Board

My larger ironing board is very useful, but when I sewed my piece, I would rather have a  small ironing board by my side.  This one was store aside and almost gave it away at the triftstore when we moved, but decide not too.

It looked dirty and overused, and batting under is so thin that it doesn't make for good pressing and it was stained.

A year ago, I purchased a kit that had a heat resistant fabric. It was to make a caddy pad which I never did it, so I used it for this project.

   I laid down on my table all the three layers of fabric for this project: Thermal poly batting, silver heat resistant fabric, and print fabric. The original cover-up for the ironing board was used as a template, then I trimmed the excess fabric, leaving about 1 1/2" all around. I winged it:)

 My fabric laid nicely down on my table, I set my ironing board over it, upside down and started stapling started with the curvy part. Then the middle part and stretched the fabric as I stapled the fabric all around. I used a stronger stapler.

                                           What a nice ironing board. A 20 minutes job. Cost $0.