5 Seconds of Quilt Fame

They say that everyone gets their 15 minutes of fame.  Well, today I think I have about 5 seconds of quilting fame.  This is the link for Kate Spain's current newsletter that came out today.  A week or two ago, I got an email from her husband, Pete, asking me permission to include a photo in the newsletter.  Well, the photo didn't fit, but if you scroll down to the "Flickr Stars" section, at the end you will see a link to my photo.  You will know it is me, because it says patrioticquilter.  Anyway, it is the photo of my Terrain Quilt that I made my sister and bother in law for their wedding.  (You may have seen it before.)  It was all really exciting to email back and forth and to have a link in their newsletter!

JoAnne

My July Schnibble

Hi Everyone!

I was going to call this post "updates and tidbits," but then I remembered that I need to post about my Schnibble for July before I forget, so look for that post tomorrow!

Here it is:  Ta da!  My July Schnibble, miraculously "made this month."  Okay, not really.  I made it a while ago, though, in hopeful preparation for this month.  Boy was I lucky that Sinta and Sherri had a "choose your own pattern" for this month.  Back in the spring I made several Schnibbles, hoping that one may work for one of these months that I couldn't participate due to "The Longest Move EVER."

This is my version of Spot.  I was looking for a pattern (and a fairly new release Schnibble) which would showcase the chosen fabric beautifully, and this seemed to be it.  I had leftovers from making this huge king-sized quilt made from Kate Spain's Terrain, which I had made for my sister and brother-in-law's wedding. 

When I make a wedding quilt, I like to give a matching wall quilt for the first anniversary, and this Spot Schnibble seemed perfect.  I didn't realize how perfect until I saw that Terrain was the fabric Carrie used to make her version!  This now make two "un-original" Schnibbles,  (I also used Origin for Bibelot.)  That bugs me a bit, until I look at both quilts and really love them.  I am going to try to be a bit more innovative later, though.

I'm looking forward to the upcoming parade on the first of the month.  Please check out Sinta and Sherri's blogs at the above link to see them yourself!  It is always an amazing day.  I can't thank those ladies enough for the excitement they provide!

JoAnne

Terrain Finished

I got the binding done.  Machine sewing it was so much quicker than doing it by hand--I may have to do that more often.

I washed it and while it was drying (and drying, and drying--my dryer didn't quite know what to do with a king-sized quilt and so would shut off when it panicked)  I contemplated how to photograph the quilt.  I already know from trying to photograph the flimsy that it didn't fit on my living room floor.  I considered having a few people hold it up--but even my 6'1" husband would have to stand on a ladder.

Finally I determined that a good solution would be to clamp it up on the top edge of the privacy fence that surrounds my yard.  On one side of the yard, the fence is up on a little rise, so the quilt would hang from the fence and then continue down on the ground down hill.  So I went out and wiped down the fence and got out some woodworking clamps and then hauled out the quilt.  It ended up working pretty good.

The whole thing in the photo above, and a detail shot below.

Now I just need to box it all up and send it off to Indiana where it will be living!

Aloha,
JoAnne

A Whole Lot to Handle

I began yesterday with a vague plan that I would get into the guest room to go through things, searching for stuff that may no longer need to be kept.  Since I'm moving this summer, and into what will be a smaller house, I'm trying to weed out the obvious (and maybe the not-so-obvious.)  I was procrastinating, though, but doing other things and then around 2 or 3 in the afternoon the doorbell rang.  I had already gotten the mail, but there was the postman bearing a large box!

It was the Terrain quilt back from being long-armed!  How exciting!  I opened it and unfolded it, and unfolded more, and more.  That thing is huge!  It is a King-Size quilt--about 112" on each side.  I know it is the largest quilt I have ever made.  It is heavy, too.  Of course, I had never gotten around to prep the binding, so the first thing I did was go upstairs and locate the fabric. 

Uh oh.  I have one paltry yard for binding an enormous quilt!  This doesn't look good.  But, I did the math, and yes, I did indeed have enough.  I cut bias binding, which I prefer for a bed quilt.  I like to cut my binding in 2 1/4" strips, and fold it.  Doing that was easy.  The whole time I was working on it I kept thinking how I was going to deal with that huge, heavy quilt while sewing on the binding!

My answer was this:

I cleared off the dining room table, made sure all the leaves were in, got rid of the extra chairs, and brought down my Bernie.  I set him up down on the far end so that the whole rest of the table would be free to support the quilt.

My problem with sewing at a table is that the cords become problematic, but look at this!  I pulled the right-side leaf out a bit and fed the cords through the gap, gently closed it again, and voila!  No cord problems!

Here is is, all ready to start sewing.  The table was the perfect solution.  I got the binding sewn down.  Normally, I machine stitch the binding on and then hand sew the fold around to the back.  However, on this quilt,  I'm trying something new--I'm going to machine stitch the second seam.  My thoughts are that I do not want to have that huge, heavy monster on my lap long enough to do the handwork.  So today, I'm going to do the second stitching.  I waited until today because I did the first stitching last night while it was dark.  Can you see the window in the dining room?  I'm going to do the "finicky" stitching today while there is bright light coming through.

Since I'm talking "Terrain," I don't think that I share a photo of the pillows that I began a week or so ago.  I got the backing fabric and it took no time at all to finish them.

Here they are, laying on the quilt.  I think the whole thing is going to look so awesome!



My only regret is that I don't have a king-sized bed to dress with all the things--the quilt, the coordinating bedskirt, shams, and now these pillows.

Aloha,
JoAnne

Terrain Pillows

So last week I took out my box of all the Terrain bits and pieces and leftovers and made a Schnibble, which I will show in another post.  When I finished, I looked over the other bits and found that I had a half strip of the entire jelly roll left and so I did a search at the Moda Bake Shop to see if there were any cool pillows using jelly roll strips but I didn't find anything that sang to me.

And then on Tuesday, this popped up and it took less than a second for me to know that it was the exact project I had in mind.  Well, I had a luncheon to prep for and hold on Wednesday, but after everyone left I scurried up to my quilt room, grabbed the strips and began.

In NO time, I had this finished.  I love it!  It was so easy and the results are so much fun.  The strips are ironed in half and then sewed on, leaving a series of 21 "pleats."  I still had some strips left, and a count told me I had 18.  I just needed three more to make another.  I found some leftover pieces from the quilt top that were the right size, just needing a little trim, and away I went again to make this:

Now I just need some fabric to make the backs.  Guess what?  The Fat Quarter Shop had Terrain at half price on Wednesday!!  My order is on the way and when it gets here, I can finish up the pillows. 

Update:  Here are the finished pillows.  I just love the way they came out!
To review, I made the King size quilt (off being long-armed and I can't wait until it gets back), trimmed purchased shams and bedskirt.  They will be the wedding present (it was back in June, so I'm "catching up.")  The Schnibble I made and these pillows will be the first Anniversary present.    The happy couple has seen the quilt and repainted the bedroom--Tango Tangerine!-- so they are eagerly awaiting the quilt.  I think I will prep the binding soon, so I'm all ready when it gets back.

Aloha,
JoAnne

More Fun with Terrain

Last time I showed you the Terrain flimsy I made for my sister's wedding present.  This time I'm going to show you some accessories.  When I make a wedding quilt, I usually like to make a bed skirt and other pieces to complete the look.  I find it especially important if the colors aren't typical "home dec" colors.  The Terrain quilt was somewhat easier because the background is white.  Instead of making everything, I had been looking at the Moda Bakeshop blog and found something that inspired me.  I just spent over a half hour trying to find the post that inspired me, but I couldn't.  What I did find were three of four projects that I "must do" ha ha. 

So I ordered a plain white pleated bedskirt and 2 tailored shams.  (King size!)  I also got a Terrain jelly roll and I went to work and created these:

This is the bedskirt. 

And this is one of the pillowshams. 

Behind the skirt.

 So what I did was take the jelly roll and pull out one strip of each fabric.  I had a yard of the purple fabric for the "backing" so I did not use the purple strip from the jelly roll.  I cut the strips in half and created strip sets.  I randomly sewed strips together until they were no more than 24 inches wide.  I stopped there because I wanted them to fit under my ruler without having to fold.  Once all the strips were sewn into strip sets, I cut across them making 2.5" strips.  So now I had strips of  squares.  After I subcut all of the different strip sets, I sewed them all together to give me yards and yards of squares.  I sewed the strip to the bottom edge of the bedskirt, right sides together. (Right on top of the hem.)  I pressed the strip set over, to extend the length of the bedskirt.  Next, I cut purple strips wider than the 2.5 inch strip sets.  I think I cut them 2.75 or 3 inches wide.  I sewed them end to end to get yards.  I pressed a 1/4 inch hem along one long, long edge of the purple strip, and then sewed the other long raw edge along the raw edge of the stip set, and then I pressed it around to the back.  Cutting it wider left it possible to have a bit of the purple strip showing on the front.

I carefully pinned it into place and then stiched from the front.  In the picture above, you can see the bit of purple from the front--creating a "binding-like" look.  I did the same thing around the pillow sham.   In that case, I just enclosed the flange of the tailored sham. 

In retrospect, I wish I had taken photos of the process, but I'm delighted to have been able to customize ready-made objects instead of making them all myself. 

I still have many jelly roll strips, misc. blocks from the quilt, and other scraps.  Usually, throwpillows and or a wall quilt made of "leftovers" becomes the first anniversary gift.  Or the third.  Or the fifth!

A Quilt I Can Finally Show

The end of last year saw me busy, busy in my quilt room working on lots of various projects that couldn't be "shared" at the time.  I'm trying to remember to share them now.  This one is a big project.  It is currently in the box to be mailed to my long-arm quilter as it is KING Sized (one of the biggest quilts I've ever made).  I was working away on it towards the end of my husband's deployment.  I was trying to get it finished before he got home because I had drug my machine downstairs and was piecing while watching tv.  I don't have a tv in my quilt room and when I work up there I listen to audio books or music, but this project was big and once a few blocks were completed, it got fairly repetitive.  So I was merely piecing away.  I had my whole schedule filled so that last week wouldn't drag by.  Then he called.  He got an early flight!  He would be home 3-4 days early!  This was good news, but it meant I had to pack up everything, with maybe 16 blocks remaining.  He got home and took leave for a few weeks, so it took a while to get it back out and finish it.  Then I kept making cutting errors and I didn't have the fabric to allow for cutting errors!  I had planned to make extra blocks, though, but now I didn't have quite as many to choose from.  But enough "chat," here is a picture:

It features "Terrain" by Kate Spain and is the free pattern sheet to accompany the fabric.  Of course, Kate's version of this quilt only contained 16 blocks, if I remember correctly, and this one has 64!  I ordered the fat quarter pack of the entire collection.  It was lots of fun to pair up the fabrics and play with the arrangement.  Here is another view:







This is one of the corners.  This quilt is so huge that it is difficult to photograph the whole thing.  The quilt is for my sister and her new husband.  They got married last summer--it is the second marriage for both of them.  I love this pattern because of the "X" and "O" effect in the block.  I love it for a wedding quilt (XOXO= hugs and kisses).  I also like the title of the fabric:  Terrain, because to me it suggests "new ground."  Anyway, they have saw it before Christmas, so I can share it with you now.  It was easy (it just took a while to make all those blocks.) I think the most difficult part was laying it all out and "tweaking" the arrangement on a barely large enough living room floor.  My plan was to have about 10 extra blocks so when I was trying to get them arranged, I would have plenty of choices. (I didn't want similar colors and patterns next to each other.)  I did have a few extras but it took a while to get the right arrangement.  Luckily, the stairs are there and I could look over the railing upstairs down onto the layout. 

I'm pleased with the way it came out, and it looks so fresh and pretty.  I was a bit concerned that it might be too feminine for my new brother-in-law, but he really likes it, too!  And there is more to show you  next time!

Aloha,
JoAnne