Bridal Sampler, Blocks 3 - 5

Progress on the Bridal Sampler has been stalled by work on the Blissful Sampler, so these blocks have been finished for quite a while now. The top row is my scrap box pieces, and the second row is my Breakfast at Tiffany's bundle.

By far, the funnest block was the "posies" block in the middle. The flowers at each corner are machine appliqued using fusible web with the edges raw. I'm sure this might make some quilters gasp, but applique is definitely not my favorite. The third block, the star one, had alternate construction methods. The first one was paper piecing. I liked the preciseness of paper piecing, but I wasn't too fond of the center seams. The second method was method was just piecing. Although the streams do not have that nice crisp look, I do like how the center block is uninterrupted.

Scrappy Hunter's Star -- almost finished!

I thought I would go ahead and post the almost-finished quilt top, as I think I am running out of steam on this one. I might have to put it away for a while before taking it up again. It lacks a final border, which is in a dark green floral. I say that I might put it away for a while because I am not liking how the two inner borders came together. Plus, I really stretched out one of the sides while piecing it and am thinking of ripping both borders out to start again.


The details: the fabric is Origins by Basic Gray for Moda. The pattern is from "A Baker's Dozen," from the staff of That Patchwork Place. The pattern is kinda neat in that the entire quilt is made from a combined layer cake and jelly roll and measures about 85" x 85" when finished. Almost all the fabric with a few odds and ends are used. I'll post the directions for the blocks at a later date. As you can see, most but not all my points and corners matched up. But, the various prints are interesting enough that I think I can get away with it. One of these days I will have a precisely pieced top. :)

Sneak Peak

This is what I am currently working on. The fabric is Bonnie and Camille's Bliss for Moda. Can you tell by now that I love Moda? I especially love this line of prints and colorways. The big dilemma is which ones to buy, lots of turquoise, red, pink, brown, and green in this collection.

The Hunky Dory Snowballs

This is another quilt top I pieced over the summer. I love, love, love, the prints -- they're from Chez Moi's Hunky Dory for Moda. I bought it as a kit from Fabric Depot, but the pattern is available for free on Moda's website. It's just difficult for me to find the full range of prints called for in the pattern.

The construction itself was simple. It starts as an 8" x 8" square, fitted with 2" squares sewed into the corners into triangles, and then cut in half for the snowball. I do like the effect of the center panel. Interestingly, the center panel was the most difficult to cut, because I just couldn't get the fabric and pattern to form a straight line for cutting. Plus, the dimensions called for were bigger than any ruler I owned. I ended up making a paper pattern measuring 25" x 25". Each block is then surrounded by 2" sashing.

Here's a close up of one of the blocks, with my favorite print out of the line. For the backing, I bought the same print, but in a tan colorway.


PS. I should have ironed the quilt top before the photo shoot!

Crazy Pinwheels for #2

This is the quilt top I pieced for #2. It's been finished for awhile, but I'm still working out in my head how I want to quilt it -- and figuring out the logistics of the execution given my rather small Necchi.


Just a few comments on the construction. I did not use a pattern, but started with 5" squares that I made into HST (half-square triangles) and then trimmed to 4.5". The final quilt top measures about 50" x 80".
As you can see from this image below, I did get most (but not all) of the points to align.

Bridal Sampler, Blocks 1 & 2

I've collected so many bits and pieces of fabric that I thought it would be fun to use them in a sampler quilt. I first started a "Dear Jane" quilt, but it turned out to be too challenging for my present skill set. I will post the 9 blocks (out of 250+) I was able to complete. If you google "Dear Jane," you'll find a lot of information out there, but basically it is a reproduction quilt using different 4.5-inch blocks and bordered by triangle blocks. The entire collection of blocks is compiled in a book by Brenda Manges Papadakis. While the book contains a full-size diagram of each block, there are no instructions on how to put the blocks together, which again, was too advanced for me. I still hope to try again someday.

Undaunted, however, I picked up two other books, "The Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt," by Laurie Aaron Hird, and "Sylvia's Bridal Sampler from Elm Creek Quilts," by Jennifer Chiaverini. The first is composed of 111 6-inch blocks, and the second is a collection of 140 6-inch blocks.
I chose to try the Bridal Sampler first, primarily because the book contained detailed instructions on putting the blocks together. Plus, depending on the block, you can try your hand out both piecing, foundation paper piecing, and applique-ing (my least favorite). The Farmer's Wife is straight piecing and contains a CD with templates to print out on paper.

So, here is my attempt at the first two blocks from the Bridal Sampler. Of course, I have to make it a little more complicated. I figured if I made each block individually, it wouldn't take me too much more time to make two of each, thereby ending up with two sampler quilts. Further, one I am making out of fabrics from my scrap basket, but again I figured that if I was going to spend so much time (in the aggregate) on a project, I wanted one that used coordinating fabrics. So despite myself, I picked up a FQ pack (Breakfast at Tiffany's by Fig Tree for Moda) from Fabric Depot. The top picture is a scrap blocks, and the following is my Fig Tree block:

Catching up

Wow, the summer passed by so quickly--but, now it's time to play some catch-up. I was somewhat productive but was never able to find the time to photograph and upload any pictures or update this blog. I finished the zig-zag baby quilt, as well as two twin sized quilt tops (including the pinwheels for No. 2). I also started a star quilt as well as a sampler quilt.
I'll slowly try to get the updates on all the above soon, but for now, here is the finished zig-zag baby quilt. It's actually a bit bigger than a baby quilt, but still too small to be considered lap-sized.

Quilting it turned out to be much more challenging than I thought. I decided to follow the zigzag pattern with a double row of stitching. First, my machine is just too small to do any substantially sized quilts that you have to roll up and create bulk. Second, stitching in the ditch with a walking foot attachment is actually much more difficult than I thought it would be. Third, my machine had some problems with keeping an even tension on the bottom bobbin and would sometimes tangle the back thread.

All in all, I still love this quilt, the design and color, but the quilting part is still a steep learning curve for me. This is what I meant when I said stitching in the ditch was difficult, just couldn't stay in the lines:


Corner detail: