King Diamond Ripple

It's finally time to share my Diamond Ripple quilt!
The original inspiration for this quilt came from THIS block by Quilt Matters (Can you see the individual blocks?), and THIS quilt by Hoosier Toni, which I apparently totally copied.  ;P

This quilt was my "back-burner project" for quite awhile.  It didn't really have a deadline, so I worked on it here and there when I could.  I actually made a lot of the blocks while on vacation at our cabin last summer.  Everyone thought I was crazy for bringing my sewing machine on vacation, but to me - sewing IS a vacation!

 

This quilt is for ME!  Well, more for my husband, but since we sleep in the same bed, it's all good.  :)

We acquired a new bed a few... years... ago.  Our previous bed was Queen size and the new one is a King.  All of a sudden none of our quilts were big enough.  Naturally, this called for a new quilt!  And this one is huge.  Trust me on that.  :)  576 HST units, in case you were wondering. 

Jeremy picked out the colors AND design for this quilt and I convinced him we wanted the gray background.  I love how the little pops of red make the quilt sparkle.

For the quilting, I kept things simple (Jeremy is always insisting that I quilt with straight lines.  He really has it in for pebbles and stippling).  It was actually easier than I expected (for a King sized quilt...).  I just quilted diagonal lines across the whole quilt, jumping across the colored sections and only quilting in the background.  Quilting straight lines can be pretty tough on a huge quilt like this, but I was pleasantly surprised to realize that quilting them diagonally gave me the benefit of having less quilt in the throat of the machine most of the time (compared with what it would have been like quilting horizontal/vertical lines).

For the binding, I chose the same gray fabric as the background.  Mostly because I had a bunch leftover and I was being economical.  You could also say I was trying to be modern.  ;)  The backing is a 104" wide denim chambray print from Connecting Threads.  Sometimes I really love a pieced back, but sometimes it's so nice not to have to worry about it. 

 And here it is on our giant bed.  No more fighting for covers!  Yay!

Quilt stats:

Started:  Planning/beginning stages of fabric gathering:  March/April 2014

Finished: April 2016

Fabrics: Various, Kona Coal

Batting: Fairfield 60/40 Cotton/Poly

Finished size: Approx. 108" x 108" 

Number of HST units: 576

Recipient: ME!

Methods used:  HST Piecing, Straight Line Quilting

Binding: Hand Stitched to the Back

Time to make:  Roughly 45 Hours

 

AND, this quilt was goal #1 from this quarter's Finish Along, so I'll be linking up!

 

WHW RS Sampler Quilt Class: Block 5: Pinwheel (Half Square Triangles)

This week we are talking about Half Square Triangles, or HSTs!  When I first started quilting, I was scared of these, but now I love them!  There are SOOOO many things you can do with them.  :)

There are TONS of tutorials out there for making HSTs.  My favorite is THIS ONE from Blossom Heart Quilts, because she shows us several ways to make them, PLUS she gives us the math we need to make them in ANY size. (Scroll to the bottom of her post for a link to more HST tutorials.)  :)

We'll be making a pinwheel using just 4 HSTs, but if you are willing to make a few extra (it seems like 16 is the magic number), look at all the awesome blocks you could make - all from the exact same beginning units:

Material Girl Quilts

For the alternate block, I'll show you how to make sixteen HSTs so you can make one of the above blocks.  :)

And for your inspiration, here are a bunch of full quilts made entirely out of HSTs:

Sew Katie Did

Margaret's Hope Chest

ME!

Diary of a Quilter

Quilting is More Fun than Housework

 

Sew Stormy

Making More With Less

Red Pepper Quilts

My HST blocks haven't actually been sewn together yet, so I'll share them with next week's post!

Here are the instructions for the HST blocks:  WHW RS Quilt Class:  Block 5: Pinwheel

My Favorite Thing

Recently, the ladies in my church group got together for a night of sharing our "favorite things."  Everyone was asked to bring something that was their favorite, with the intent to give it away to someone else.  It was a really fun activity, especially for me, since I am still so new to the area and don't know a lot of people.

Of course, my favorite thing is sewing, so I had to make something handmade to take to the party.  In the end, I went with potholders, because they are the easiest thing to make from a favorite block or two, they are quick, and don't cost much to make.

I even used some of my favorite fabric!  Leftover Me and My Sisters fabric from THIS quilt.

I had fun choosing designs that I love right now and ultimately ended up making two hot pads, so that I could make four blocks.  Two with triangles and two with squares.

 This was a fun project to use scraps on.

I kept the quilting simple on the chevron hotpad, and ended up doing an off-center spiral on the squares hotpad.  Different, but fun.

I tried something new and used a thermal fleece (kind of like insul-brite, but I have the feeling it's not quite as good) and a layer of terry cloth inside my hot pads.  I haven't been too impressed with the quality of thermal fleece I have, but I still have a bunch and I need to use it.  I read about a lady who uses only two layers of cotton towel in her hot pads and never gets burned.  So I compromised and used both.  I hope it was a good choice.  I tried testing them out before taking them to the party, and they seemed to work better on one side than the other.  Hopefully the lady who picked them doesn't have any problems.

I hand stitched the binding down because I wanted it to look really nice.  Machine binding just seemed too risky. :)

I love my Sketch fabrics!  They go great with everything and they make wonderful bindings.  Plus, using different colors of the same fabric helped my two hot pads appear more as a set.

For the loop, I tried this little ribbon technique I found at Chasing Cottons.  I felt like it would be easier and have a more finished look than the traditional looping of the binding.  The ribbon is sewn in with the binding on both sides.

The party was so fun!  It was great to get to know some of my neighbors and to have a chance to tell them about my favorite thing to do.  Now I know who all the quilters are in the area and I found out there is a guild here in my tiny town!  There are a couple really amazing quilters here.  And the best part?  My hot pads were the first item taken!  Wahoo!  I was really happy that someone actually liked my work.  I guess I'll keep sewing.

Speaking of which - did you hear I'm starting an Etsy shop?  Things are moving right along.  I've got materials to make a whole bunch more baby items, packing supplies, and a whole system for keeping track of everything.  Just need to nail down a name.  Do you have any ideas for me?  Would you mind taking my little poll at the top of my sidebar?  Thanks so much!  I'm excited to get this thing going. :)

Back at it!

It's been awhile since I have sewed, but things are starting to settle down and I have some progress to share!  Yay!

July was a BUSY month.  We moved at the very end of June, so there was lots of packing, cleaning, unpacking and cleaning going on.  Followed by two separate vacations, two weeks of swimming lessons (Mommy and Me - so fun!), and a whole month of working here and there to get our apartment ready to rent.  Ugh.  But once we started settling in, I picked right back up where I left off.

But first, I have to say that we are LOVING our new house!  We moved from a duplex apartment to a 3,000+ square foot house practically up in the mountains and it is amazing.  I have so much SPACE!  And I have a SEWING ROOM again!!!  Yippee!  Check out the awesome view from my sewing machine.

Every now and then a little family of deer or wild turkeys will walk past.  That's kinda cool.

 And the amazing TWO closets I get all to myself!  Now I just need to fill them up. :)

Crazy picture!  My sewing room isn't THAT big - I was backed clear into the window trying to capture both closets at the same time.

Even with all that space, I can't help but keep my actual fabric stash out on the floor in my plastic drawers so I can see it all the time. :)

Now that we are living in a real house and plan to stay here forever, I decided it was time to get rid of our ghetto grocery bag dispensers.  You know the ones:

I used THIS tutorial from Gen X Quilters to make some super cute new ones.

I made the first dispenser following the tutorial exactly, with the exception of the scary grommets.  I just attached my handle on one side and sewed some velcro onto the other side so I can hang it from the rods in our laundry room and closets, rather than installing hooks.

I used the same super cute fabric I used on my favorite bibs for the boys.  It's going to look great in their room, hanging from the changing table.

I wanted to practice some FMQ designs, but this fabric DEMANDED to be quilted with straight lines.  SO I obliged.  I did, however, use some fun variegated thread.  

Complete with decorative stitches at the bottom and the top to reinforce the bag.

 

For the second dispenser, I decided to go a little smaller, since the first one is SO LONG.

It didn't take long for me to pick out this blue African fabric.  I used it in my skirt and I've been saving the leftovers for the perfect project.  It's so pretty, I'm glad I'll get to see it all the time now.

This time, I was able to do LOTS of fun quilting!  It was so fun, and I definitely need more opportunities to practice and get better at it. ;)

I used Angela Walters' Tiles pattern for the first sashing strip, swirls in the fussy cut circle strip, and a simple back and forth in the next sashing strip.  For the main panel, I couldn't bring myself to quilt over the design, so I just stitched around the flowers and echoed them.  The next sashing strip is Leah Day's Modern Art design, and the next fussy cut print strip had diamonds following the pattern.
The bottom section is left unquilted, because it is the part that holds the elastic.

Here's the inside of the panel before I made the bag.  You can see the quilting better. :)

Also,  I'm still plugging away on my Storm at Sea quilt.  I'm making Snail Trail blocks for the borders, using some of my lovely and precious Oakshotts.

I'm also stocking up on solid remnants from Joanns (50% off!) for the backing.  I've got almost 12 yards stashed now and I think I have enough to put together a quilt-as-you-go King size backing (sorry for the fuzzy pic.  I'd hate to give TOO much away now, wouldn't I?)

And lastly, I've started a brand new quilt!  A friend of mine is having a baby girl (FINALLY!  A GIRL!), so I broke into my long hoarded Me and My Sisters charms and whipped up some HSTs.  This quilt is going to be darling.

Stay tuned!  I've got a couple of birthdays coming up as well and you know the birthday people need something handmade!  :)  I'm so glad to be back.

WIP: Sewing Machine Cover

I've been working with HSTs!  It's kind of a new thing for me.  I kind of like it.

I even tried something new - pressing to the side. :)  I've always been a big fan of pressing all my seams open, but since I had a lot of neutral fabrics and such, I tried the whole "pressing to the side" method. 

My seams weren't as flat as usual, but I think I like the way it works with HSTs.  It was also kind of nice having my seams butt together when I sewed the squares together.  I think next time I will press my rows open, though.  Good times.

I've been wanting to make one of these diamond designs forever.  At first, I wasn't a big fan of anything made with HSTs, but then I saw THIS and THIS and changed my mind.  I used a bunch of scraps and some fabric the Hubby picked out for me for Christmas.

It's going to become my new sewing machine cover.  If I don't decide to just hang it on the wall...  Which I probably won't since our walls are pretty much already full.

I'm going to make the sewing machine cover reversible, since I wanted to try two different designs.  Why not?  This is going to be part of the other side:

I like working on small projects!  I've got a few more small projects in mind before I tackle my next big quilt.  This is fun!