The Twin Twin Quilts: Broken Herringbone and Jungle Path

It's time to share with you the quilts I made for my boys' third birthday back in December.  We got the boys their first big boy beds - twin size - and of course I had to make some quilts to go on them!  I finished these just under the wire, but finally just now went outside to take some pictures of them.  Unfortunately, I didn't take a lot of process pictures along the way.  Although I did blog about their beginning HERE (a long time ago...).

To make these two quilts I bought a fat quarter bundle of the entire Cruiser Blvd line by Sheri McCulley for Riley Blake (which we love because the Hubby is a transportation engineer and this fabric is full of road signs and vehicles and stuff).  Then I split it into two colorways.  Green for Jaxson and Blue for Bronx.  So their quilts ended up looking pretty different, but most of the actual print designs are the same.  I narrowed the quilt designs down to 7 or 8 and the Hubby picked his favorite two.

Here they are!

First up, Jaxson's Green Broken Herringbone quilt.  Inspired by this quilt, block tutorial found HERE.

These are pretty much the only "process" photos I took.  I finished Jaxson's quilt top and he wanted to test it out.  I think it will be big enough!

Of course, Bronx had to get in on the action too!  Both boys really loved watching their quilts come together.  Luckily, the each claimed one of them and attached to it right away.  :)

This particular block yields LOTS and LOTS of funky shaped trimmings.  Not one to waste fabric, I pieced all the funky pieces into four rows and used them to make the quilt a little longer at the top and bottom.

Finished!

Close up:

For the quilting, I decided to honor the Hubby's wishes and went with really simple straight line quilting.  Basically I just stitched 1/4" from the edge on the inside of each sashing strip.  The back looks kinda cool.

I had a TON of sewing machine issues (and ended up taking it to the shop the day after finishing) with this quilt, but I had to push through them because I was on such a tight deadline at the end there.  The wonky, wrinkly sashing quilting bugs me but I'm pretty sure Jaxson doesn't care.  ;) 

My FAVORITE part of the whole quilt!  I traced the boys' hands onto a corner and quilted around them, then stitched their names inside.  My original plan was to do the hand prints Trapunto style, but - well, I forgot.  And this picture is super fuzzy, but it's the only one I have of Jaxson's hand print right now.  I love that I have something to document how big they were at the time this quilt was made! 

And I very belatedly remembered to add the labels, but I did!  Those yellow pieces are literally the last pieces I have left from the bundle!  I'm ALL about using every last piece of fabric if I can!  Sometimes it just takes a little bit of planning.  
Also, Jaxson's quilt is bound with this little hexagon print.  Hand sewn to the back, of course.  :)

The back is a mixture of large cuts I picked up at Joanns.

And now Bronx's Quilt:

The pattern for this one is called Jungle Path and can be found at the Moda Bakeshop HERE.

A close up.  I just love those arrows and road signs and little cars!

Here is Bronx's little hand.  So sweet!

Bronx's quilt is bound in this striped/road print.  I love it!  I actually made both bindings completely on the bias using THIS awesome tutorial.  

I was able to find a bigger cut of this blue fabric, so less piecing for the back!  Win!

It's hard to see it here, but for the quilting on Bronx's quilt I once again kept things straight and simple.  I stitched down the middle of all the white sashing and added a little extra quilting to the center four patches.  

And here they are on their big boy beds!  The boys did an amazing job transitioning from cribs to beds and they love their quilts!  Whew!

Quilt stats:

Started: January 2014 (cutting started June 2014)

Finished: December 5, 2014

Fabrics: Cruiser Blvd by Sheri McCulley for Riley Blake

Batting:  Warm N White

Finished size: 

Jaxson's Green Broken Herringbone: 61" x 91"

Bronx's Blue Jungle Path:  57" x 89"

Recipient: Jaxson and Bronx

Methods used:  Piecing, Free Motion Straight Line Quilting (on my home machine)

Binding:  Machine stitched to front, hand stitched to back 

Previous Posts: HERE 

Linking up:

Do.Good Stitches: Humilty Group Broken Herringbone

It's time to reveal my first bee quilt!  I'm a little nervous about it because I went out on a limb and tried some new things with the assembly and quilting.  Here we go!

First of all, for the month of May, I asked my bee mates in the Humility group of Do.Good Stitches to make me mostly monochromatic Broken Herringbone blocks.  It was so much fun receiving these little packages throughout the month!  They all turned out so awesome.  Here they are all arranged by color on the living room floor:

I knew that I wanted to try an offset layout with half of the blocks on one side of the quilt and half on the other.  After lots of deliberation, I decided to sort the blocks into warm and cool colors.
Here is the warm side:

And here is the cool side:

What do you think?  I wanted something with lots of negative space and offset blocks.  I also thought this might be a genius way to try quilting "echo blocks" in the negative space.  Basically, I quilted the warm colored blocks (which created the echo look on the cool colored side), then flipped the quilt around and did the same for the other side.  This quilt is totally reversible, I love it. 

Sandra (at least, I think it was Sandra - correct me if I'm wrong please!!), a member of our group, ordered some Do.Good Stitches labels from Spoonflower (I think?) and sent me a couple.  Thanks Sandra!  Since this quilt doesn't really have a back, I stuck it in the top right corner next to the greens. 

For the quilting, I chose five different skinny filler patterns and quilted them in the skinny sashing of each block.  My original plan was to stitch in the ditch for ALL of those little sashings, but after outlining each block I decided I really wasn't excited about the idea of all that shifting and turning, so I went with FMQ instead.  And then I decided it wasn't worth it to add more quilting once those were done. 
Also, after much debate I chose to use this silver/gray thread because I wanted something that would blend in with the white but still be seen on the gray.  In hindsight, I think I should have used a slightly darker gray for a more subtle look in the negative space. 
What do you think?  Does it need more quilting?  More straight lines?  Different thread color?

This photo turned out a little bit blue - the real quilt is more gray.

I wanted a nice gray for my background, so I ordered a whole bunch and was half way through assembling my quilt tops when I realized I had grossly miscalculated the amount I needed!  GAH!  Since I was too impatient to wait for more to arrive, I went to Joanns and picked up the closest match I could find for one of the sides.  They aren't exactly the same, but it's really hard to tell most of the time.  

For binding, I kept things super simple for myself and just folded the "back" over onto the front and machine stitched it down. 

Now, I really want to know what you guys think about this quilt!  I took some risks and tried an idea that has been floating around in my head.  I wanted something really modern and I think I found it.  However, most of the people I have showed it to so far - mostly family members - don't really like it at all.  Which is fine.  This quilt is for charity - not for any of my family members, so it doesn't really matter if they like it or not.  I like it, and I'm not offended at all if others don't like it.  But that doesn't mean I'm not curious.  What do YOU think?  Love it?  Hate it?  Do you wish I had put all the blocks on the front?  Done different quilting?  Used a different background color?  I'd love to know!
Truth Tea is welcome here!  ;)

And just for fun, a few more shots.  Thanks for humoring me!

I took these two shots in my backyard, and they look kind of cool with the sunlight shining through in spots.

And one shot of it post basting (LOVING spray baste lately), pre quilting.

Quilt stats:

Started: May 2014

Finished: July 11, 2014

Pieced by:  Members of the Humility Circle of Do.Good Stitches

Quilted by me

Finished size: 72" x 62"

Recipient:  Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota

Binding:  Backing folded to front and stitched by machine

This is finish #14 in this quarter's Finish-Along.  (Original list can be found HERE.)

Also linking up with Kelly at Needle and Thread Thursday:



And Alyce at Sew Cute Tuesday:


And Randi at Show and Tell Tuesday:


And Lindsey at Fabric Frenzy Friday:

WIP: Building Fun and Broken Herringbone

I finished a new quilt top!  This one is from the Building Fun pattern by Geta Grama.  I used some Textured Basics by Patty Young that I won in a giveaway awhile back.  I love the colors, and I'm glad the stripes aren't quite as distracting as I anticipated them to be.  It was fun to make a quilt from a pattern, with all the math and stuff done for me.  (Although I DID have to do some figuring when it came time to cut everything.)  Now I just need to quilt it.  Although I'm tempted to do something fancy and customized for each block, I'm thinking I'll do some stippling.  It's been awhile since I've done some simple, relaxing meandering.  I'm looking forward to it.

This was my goal for June's ALYOF.  (My goal setting post can be found HERE.  Mine was entry #51.)

I've also been working on another quilt, which is also almost ready for quilting.  May was my month for Do.Good Stitches (FIRST TIME!  WAHOO!) and I chose the Broken Herringbone block.  It was so fun to receive all my little packages in the mail and I was so excited when the last one finally arrived!  Here they are all lined up in color order:

I've got a really fun plan for these.  Hopefully it works out the way I've imagined it in my head...

I debated for awhile which of these two quilts I should commit to for my July ALYOF goal.  In the end, I decided to push myself.  I think I can finish these two quilts soon because I'm motivated.  However, I've got a new quiet book in the works for my shop that desperately needs attention.  It's going to be awesome (and big), and I've just got to finish it.  So my goal for July is to finish my ABC quiet book.  Everything is cut out, now I just need to do lots of ironing and stitching. 

Linking up: