Blogger's Quilt Festival: Abecedary in Mint

Welcome!  This is my second post for the Blogger's Quilt Festival.  Read more about the Festival HERE.
Check out my other entry HERE.
This quilt was SO MUCH FUN TO MAKE.  I'm excited to share it with you.  The pattern is called "Abecedary" and will be released soon by Afton Warrick of Quilting Mod.

So.  Here's the story of this quilt.  Once I had mostly finished making my Improv ABC quilt, I decided I hadn't quite had my fill of making these I-Spy/ABC quilts.  Plus I had recently been to JoAnn and discovered their huge assortment of cute novelty flannels and needed an excuse to buy some of them.  :)

So I went back to the first IG photo that inspired me to make ABC quilts using fabric that represented each letter (check it out HERE - Quiltingmod).  Isn't that such a fun idea?  I decided I wanted the pattern.  So I told Afton that I was anxious to buy (or possibly pattern test) her quilt pattern once it was ready.  And since she's so awesome, she sent me a copy of the pattern to test for her!
It was so much fun to work on.  I promptly went back to JoAnns and had a blast picking out 26 novelty fabrics.  I admit I don't sew with JoAnns fabrics as often as I used to, but I was impressed by their flannel selection and decided to make an entirely flannel quilt.
For the background, I had a hard time deciding on something that looked good with all the fabrics I had chosen.  In the end I went with this mint green and I'm still not sure I made the right choice - those first few letters are really washed out.  Oh well.  I'm not going to start over.  ;)

This was also my first time sewing drunkards path blocks and practically my first time sewing curves.  Luckily, Afton's templates are generously sized, so I was able to trim everything up with no problems. :)  Curves really aren't that hard.

For the back of this quilt, I had TONS of fabric left over from the top, plus a few big chunks of novelty flannels in my stash.  As I was arranging all this crazy fabric on my design floor, one of my four-year-olds walked by and said "Mom, that doesn't look good."  Haha.  I admit it's a little crazy, but its still fun and it's really another I-Spy quilt all on it's own.  And now my quilt is double sided.  Win win.  :)

I really tried to make this quilt gender neutral in the beginning, but by the end I had decided it was a girl quilt.  So I used this fun and funky girly print for the binding.  And I rounded the corners just for fun.

This quilt is even big enough to fit on a twin bed!  Score!

Once again, this quilt doesn't really have a recipient in mind (although Noah seems to like it), so I'll be listing it in my shop.  Edit - HERE is the listing.

Quilt stats:

Started: August 2016

Finished: September 2016

Fabrics: Joann Novelty and Solid Flannels

Batting: Pellon 100% Cotton

Finished size: Approximately 60" x 72"

Recipient: ???

Methods used:  Curved Piecing, Free Motion Meander Quilting

Binding: Hand Stitched to the Back (Flannel)

Time to make:  Roughly 25 hours

After lots of waffling back and forth, I've decided to enter this quilt in the Large Quilt category of the Blogger's Quilt Festival.  Check out all the other large quilts HERE.  Check the entire festival HERE.

Blogger's Quilt Festival: Improv ABC

It's Bloggers Quilt Festival time again!  (If you don't know what I'm talking about - check out this link HERE.)

I have two recent finishes to share with you this time around.  They are very similar, and yet very different.  I'm excited to show them to you.  You can see my other quilt HERE.

 So.  A little bit of backstory.  Every quarter or so, the Nebo Modern Quilt Guild issues a challenge to its members.  Our most recent challenge was to make letters or words out of fabric.

 A few days after the announcement was made, I saw a DARLING post on IG (this one, right here - by Quiltingmod).  She had the awesome idea to make an ABC quilt using novelty fabrics - each letter represented by something that starts with that letter.

 If you know me at all you might know that I sort of LOVE I-Spy quilts (check out this one HERE).  WHY DID I NEVER THINK TO MAKE ONE LIKE THIS???  I was instantly inspired.

At our next guild meeting, one of our lovely and amazing board members gave a presentation on how to make letters - improv style.  Good, good.

 And then a few days later I was the lucky winner of a giveaway on IG (from the amazing Sweetfeetstitches) - a whole pouch STUFFED with novelty scraps. 

Obviously I was meant to make this quilt.  I had a TON of fun picking out fabrics for each letter and then making each block up as I went along.  (Don't you just love those toasters?)  Let me just say - I learned a TON about improv piecing while making this quilt.  Who knew uppercase Ys were so hard to make?  (Hence the lowercase y in my quilt... And thanks Sonia for helping me figure out which fabric to use for that elusive letter y.)

I was originally planning to sash these blocks so they could float on their own, but when it came time to assemble them, they wanted to be smashed together.  So I smashed them all together and I think it turned out pretty cool.  The bottom row was struggling a bit, so I made an exclamation point (from a text print! - thanks to Natalie for the idea) to go with it.  In case you couldn't tell what that was (the dot got chopped off in the quilt trimming process).

As for quilting, I knew all along that this quilt wanted to be quilted with straight lines.  And that it wanted to be bound with the same grunge fabric I used for the background.

 Unfortunately, I didn't have enough grunge leftover for the binding, so I used this cream texty print instead.  It's pretty close.  :)

Even the backing has letters on it.  This Scoot fabric has been in my stash forever.

Wouldn't this quilt look amazing hanging on a wall in a nursery somewhere?  (Obviously my wall isn't big enough, sigh).

 I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with this in the long run, so I'm listing it in my Etsy shop to see if anyone bites.  :)  (Check it out HERE.)

Quilt stats:

Started: June 2016

Finished: September 2016

Fabrics: novelty scraps, moda grunge in cream

Batting: Pellon 100% Cotton

Finished size: Approximately 42" x 42"

Recipient: ???

Methods used:  Improv Piecing, Straight Line Quilting

Binding: Hand Stitched to the Back

Time to make:  Roughly 13.5 Hours

This quilt could fit into so many categories, but I decided to enter it in the Modern Quilts category of the Blogger's Quilt Festival.   You can see all the modern quilts HERE.  Check out all the quilt categories HERE.

This quilt is also #3 on my Finish Along list for this quarter.  Wahoo!  When the time comes, I'll be linking up here:

Blogger's Quilt Festival: I Spy Bubbles

Welcome visitors from the Blogger's Quilt Festival!

I've decided to enter one more quilt in the festival.  This one is not new to my readers, but it's one of my favorites from the past six months, so I'm sharing it again.  :)

I'm a member of the Do.Good Stitches Humility circle (we make quilts for charity - ours go to a center for abused/neglected children and teens).

I asked my bee mates to send me raw edge appliqued circle blocks using their fun novelty fabrics to make this "I-Spy" quilt.

They most definitely did not disappoint!  This quilt was so much fun to put together every time I looked at it I found a new hidden treasure - I didn't want to give it up!

I quilted the whole thing with pebbles of varying sizes.

One of my bee mates sent me a whole slew of extra circles, so I put them on the back.  I was kind of going for the look of bubbles being blown out of a bubble wand.  Not sure if I achieved it, but that's okay.  It's still fun.

And here's my label with all of my sweet bee mates names listed:

Since the edges of the circles were all raw edges, I knew the quilt was going to fray in the wash.  So I threw it in the machine for a few cycles before boxing it up and sending it off.  LOOK how much it frayed (and crinkled)!  I love it.  :)

Thanks for letting me share!  I'm linking this quilt up in the Scrappy Quilts category of the Blogger's Quilt Festival.  See more amazing quilts HERE.

Quilt stats:

Started: May 2015

Finished: July 6, 2015

Fabrics: Various Novelty/I-Spy fabrics

Batting: Pellon Nature's Touch 100% Cotton

Finished size: Approx. 54" x 60"

Recipient: Junior's House

Methods used:  Raw edge applique

Binding: Hand stitched to the back (made from novelty print scraps)

Blogger's Quilt Festival: Spinning Dahlia in Bloom

Welcome visitors from the Blogger's Quilt Festival!

I almost didn't enter anything this time around, because I've been so busy sewing things and don't really have anything ready to share yet.  But I just finished this mini and I'm so excited to share it with you!

I made this for the Schnitzelandboo mini quilt swap on IG, and it was SO MUCH FUN!
My partner is a big fan of rainbow color and also loves hearts.  I wanted to challenge myself a little this time, so I took on curved piecing for the second time ever and I think it turned out awesome!

I used THIS paper piecing pattern from Shape Moth for my Dahlia petals.  Then I set the large circle inside the white background using THIS tutorial by Cut to Pieces.  The inspiration for this particular color layout came from THIS amazing photo on IG by birchandbirdsong.  I meant to make the outer edge of my Dahlia look more star-ish, like hers by using all white pieces for the very last section of each petal.  BUT, as things tend to go - I messed up a little by using colored pieces for half of my last sections (does that even make sense?). So I decided to call my mistake a "design element".  Now my Dahlia looks more like a flower and I love that it is it's own design now.  :)

For the quilting, I went with pebbles and swirls in the white section because it just felt right.  For the petals, I stitched in the ditch going the opposite direction because I'm cool like that.  Then I added a little bit of cross-hatching to the very center because it was still a little poofy.  I thought about adding more dense quilting, but my IG friends told me to leave it as is.  I'm so glad I did.  :)
Here's a shot of the back:

I used a charm pack (Meadowbloom by April Rosenthal for Moda - LOVE) for the front of the quilt and since I used nearly every piece, I had to dig through my stash for something to bind it with.  I hope this blue bias stripe/dot print works okay!

 Then I got to use my scraps to make this little mug rug!

 Aren't those little tiny geese so cute?

 I've been a little obsessed with matchstick quilting lately and finally found the perfect project to try it out on.  Of course, this piece is only 6" x 9" so it was really easy.  I LOVE the texture!

Thanks for stopping by!  Since this mini quilt is on the large side (for a mini), I'm entering it into the Small Quilts section of the Bloggers Quilt Festival.   Check out the rest of the entries HERE.

Quilt stats:

Started: September 2015

Finished: October 26, 2015

Fabrics: Meadowbloom by April Rosenthal (Solids are Kona white and Bella Steel)

Batting: Pellon Nature's Touch 100% Cotton

Thread:  Aurifil

Finished size: Approx.  24" x 24"

Recipient: THAT'S A SECRET FOR NOW!

Methods used:  Curved Piecing, Machine Quilting on my home machine

Binding: Bias binding hand stitched to the back; Mug rug - backing sewn by machine to the front

This quilt also happens to be #7 on my Finish Along list.  Yay!