Puff Quilts: From Bump to Baby and Hello Bear

I made a few more puff quilts.  :)  The first is for my sister-in-law who just welcomed her first child and specifically requested a puff quilt in these colors.  Fabric is "From Bump to Baby" for Riley Blake. :)  The minky borders are a little fiddly to work with, but way cuter than plain fabric borders!

And then a few months later we held a baby shower for a dear friend who is having a baby soon, after a long battle with infertility.  She's decorating her nursery using these adorable colors with a woodland theme, so of course I had to procure some "Hello Bear" fabric for her puff quilt:

And since one of these quilts was on my Quarter 3 Finish-Along list (the other was a little more spur of the moment), I get to link up here:

Do.Good Stitches: Diamond Kites

Back in April, I was in charge of our Bee Quilt for Do.Good Stitches.  I am now in a new group (our old group had to be dissolved, which was super sad), so I've been getting to know the skill levels and styles of my new bee mates.  Hopefully this block wasn't too crazy for them. :)

I made up this pattern using half rectangle triangles and asked for blocks in bright jewel tones.  

Doesn't it look cool all put together?

For the quilting, I went with random straight lines all over the whole thing.

For fun, I threw in a bunch of straight lines done in glow in the dark thread.  :)  It's pretty much not possible to photograph glow in the dark thread, so here's a picture of the back.  If you squint, you can sort of get an idea of what it looked like in the dark.  :)

The binding was done using a couple funky large prints that I haven't been able to match with anything until now. 

 Quilt stats:

Started: April 2016

Finished: August 2016

Fabrics: A variety of bright jewel tones with low volume background

Batting: Pellon 100% Cotton

Finished size: Approximately 58" x 47"

Recipient: My Very Own Blanket (an organization that provides quilts for foster children)

Methods used: HRT piecing, straight line quilting

Binding: Hand Stitched to the Back

Just under the wire, I'm linking this up with the Quarter 3 Finish-Along.  This was project #1 on my finish-along list. 

WHW RS Sampler Quilt Class: Block 12: Hexies (English Paper Piecing)

This is the last block for our quilt class!  Yay!  After this, we'll talk about assembling all the blocks into a quilt top, then quilting and binding it.  :)

For our last technique, I wanted to cover English Paper Piecing, or EPP.  This is where you use paper shapes as your templates and your wrap the fabric around the paper to get it into the shape you want, then you hand sew the shapes together.  By far the most popular type of EPP is the hexagon:

The Zen of Making

Gone Aussie Quilting

Lieblingsdecke

Mommy by Day Crafter by Night

And here are a few quick examples of EPP quilts made with shapes other than the hexie:

Dee's Doodles

Three Owls Handmade

Kamie Murdock

These hexies aren't sewn together by hand, but this technique is super fun and creates amazing texture:

Modern Handcraft

NOW.  Let's talk about how this is EPP thing is done.  I found this set of tutorials here and it is pretty awesome and very well done - this is exactly what we will be doing in our class:
The Zen of Making: EPP Hexies Part 1
The Zen of Making: EPP Hexies Part 2




Alright.  Here is the pattern:  WHW RS Sampler Quilt Class:  Block 12:  EPP

Here are is an awesome (FREE) link for creating your own Hexagon templates in pretty much any size:
Geta Grama Quilting Studio: Tips for Cutting Hexagon Templates
We'll be using the 2" Hexies for the 12" block, and the 1.5" Hexies for the 9" block

And here is a link to the alternate block we're making:  Sew Mama Sew: Star Hexies Tutorial
It uses the exact same technique, just with different shapes.  My tip for this block - DON'T clip the little dog ears that stick out from the corners.  :)  
I resized the pattern so that it will fit better with our block sizes.  The bigger one is for the 12" block and the smaller one is for the 9" block.  Don't forget to print it at 100%, or "actual size" - Diamond Star Hexie Pattern.

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: