Something New: Quilting

I finished quilting all of my blocks for the Something New Sampler!  I trimmed them all last night and now they look nice and pretty waiting for me to sew them all together.

Since all of the blocks are so different I decided they NEEDED to be quilted using some kind of quilt-as-you-go method.  That way I could focus on trying a few new quilting styles on each one.  I also knew that I wanted to use the basketweave layout for the quilt. 

There are several different QAYG methods out there.  The most common method seems to be the one where you sew thin strips of sashing between each block and then hand sew the strips down on the back (similar to what I did with my Fandango quilt).  However, the thought of hand sewing 20 blocks, PLUS borders steered me away from that idea quickly.  Besides, it didn't work well with my layout plans.

I found THIS video tutorial that shows you how to combine QAYG blocks completely by machine, WITHOUT using sashing.  I was quite intrigued and plan to give this method a try someday.

Ultimately, I decided to go with Maureen Cracknell's method.  It involves quilting each block with the top and batting only (no backing), then sewing the blocks together the normal way, and THEN attaching the backing.  I have been hesitant to try this method, because I really like the look of the quilting on the back.  Plus, quilting with the batting exposed made me nervous.  But I didn't want to worry about cutting more pieces of fabric for the backs, and then having to sew them together - even by machine.  I justified my backing/quilting worries by telling myself that this quilt is intended to go on a bed, so no one is going to see the back.  The backing will be sewn down every 8ish inches, so I'm pretty sure it will hold up.

Here are some of my thoughts on Maureen's QAYG method (SO FAR):
-Quilting with the batting exposed wasn't really a problem.  I just kept my feed dogs down most of the time.  I left them up for the blocks I used straight line quilting for, and it was fine.
-I did have to clean the lint out of my machine three or four times.
-I've had an itchy nose for a few days - presumably from the little tiny pieces of cotton that are probably floating around my sewing room.
-Once I realized I didn't have to pull up the bobbin thread, I was able to save a little bit of time.  Plus, it's nice to know that when my stitches look horrible on the back, but fine on the front, I don't have to rip the stitches out because no one will know!

Since I was using batting scraps (donated by my awesome friend), I decided to piece together all of the smallest pieces to get the 18 inch squares I needed.  I used a loose whip stitch where I probably should have used a tighter zig zag stitch.  Some of the pieces came apart a little towards the edges where I tend to tug a little more in an effort to keep the quilt sandwich smooth.
I also didn't plan ahead and give myself any extra room around the edges of the block tops, so I had to quilt all the way to the edges.  This was fine, but it would have been easier to have some more wiggle room.

Anyway.  Enough talk.  Would you like to see my pictures?  I took a lot of them, since I know I won't be keeping this quilt.   I apologize for the glare.  I was working with a limited amount of time/light.  :)
I had a lot of fun trying new designs on these blocks and took a lot of inspiration from Leah Day's Free Motion Quilting Project.

All 20 blocks neat and trimmed

I'll have to get more pictures of the quilting on the "back."  Here you can see what happens when you aren't careful sewing pieces of batting together.

Starting with the oldest blocks, here are my Bargellos. 

They each got an allover boxy meander, plus #1 got wonky back and forth lines.

My folded blocks got tacked down about 1/8 inch away from the original seams (so the flaps still have room to wiggle a little).  I love the pebbles in the white strips of #2.

I started playing around a little with the Reverse Applique.  The stars just got echoed, but I tried some Leah Day designs in the circles.

I did some more echoing in the big circle, Feather Universe in the yellow circle (except you really can't see it), Spinning Daisy in the red circle, and pebbles in the blue circle.  I tried Ocean Current in the negative space around the circles specifically because I want to do something like it on my Storm at Sea.  I think it makes it look like outer space.

My two Sashiko blocks just got some simple straight lines so as not to distract from the stitching.

The Trapunto blocks were fun.  I did a tiny meandering stitch around the stars to make them pop, with a star design (which I picked up HERE) in the colored strip.  The squares got some radiating designs in the middle, with wavy lines in the extra space.  I added the pebbles to make it denser and I LOVE the effect.

The Cathedral windows got some simple echoing/straight lines in the windows.  Then I quilted little orange peels (tutorial HERE) around the big windows, and extended the design around the little windows.

By the time I got to the Curves blocks I had decided I wanted to try feathers.  I've never been great at them, and I'm not super impressed with the first block.  The area for the feathers was just too big.  For the second block I used Leah's Flowing Glass and it's one of my favorites now.

I thought about trying some kind of Baptist Fan pattern in my clamshells and decided I didn't like it on the first block - probably because I felt like the stark white thread detracted from the fancy stitching.  So I ripped it out and stitched in the ditch around those shells.  The second block ended up getting a variation of the Baptist Fan and I LOVE how it turned out.  Funny how these things work sometimes.

The Scraptastic blocks are super busy and called for a simple allover meandering design.  I threw in some stars to keep with the Patriotic theme.

And lastly, the flags.  I couldn't figure out what to do with the red stripes, so I just left them unquilted.  After lots of drawing practice, I went with feathers on the first flag (MUCH BETTER), and stars on the second flag.   I think I might try to throw in those stars in the border somehow.

I debated a lot on what to do with the white sashing areas.  I originally thought I might do feathers, then I considered straight lines.  I ended up using this Checkerboard pattern because then I wouldn't have to worry about matching seam lines when I joined the blocks together, and it will help make the blocks look like they are floating in a border of white, rather than only having white borders on two sides.

Whew!  Now all that's left is to sew them together!  I'm anxious to see if this new method really works or not.  Then I need to create some kind of border.  I've already purchased a sheet for the backing, so I won't have to piece anything together - SCORE!  Off I go...

***EDIT:  For those who are curious, I have now finished the whole quilt and here are my thoughts on the finishing process:
 
-Maureen tells us to use 100% cotton (natural) batting.  I'm pretty sure (although I really have no way of knowing) that mine is 80/20 cotton/polyester batting.  Sewing the pieces together was fine and for the most part, so was ironing.  I did notice a funny smell that was similar to the smell I get sometimes when I iron polyester fabrics.  And then a few days later when I was working on my borders, my iron suddenly spewed out a whole bunch of water and what looked like dirt.  I'm guessing it was from ironing my batting directly with steam.  I cleaned out my iron the best I could, and from then on I ironed the batting side of my seams with the point of my iron only, NO steam.  Then I flipped the quilt over and steamed the heck out of it from the top.
-I still had to baste my backing fabric to the quilt, but it was a lot easier because I didn't have to tape anything.  I just laid my quilt top side down and pinned the backing fabric on top of that.
-To attach my backing fabric, I stitched in the ditch around my quilted blocks (which was actually really easy since the "ditches" were so "deep").  This means that the back is only tacked down every 15 inches or so, which seems kind of far apart to me, but the pattern of my blocks makes it difficult to sew any closer.  I think everything will be fine, though.  Besides, the quilt is HEAVY!  Quilting the backing to the rest of the quilt was doable on my home machine, but there was a bit of pushing.
-The seams created from sewing the quilted blocks together are a little bulky, but the quilt itself is so heavy from all the quilting (and some of the heavy blocks) that it doesn't seem so obvious.  I think washing it often will help soften the lines.

And here are a few pictures taken in the middle of the night of my quilting on the batting side:

Linking up:

March Goals

Hi there!
It's time for me to make a new goal for March.  I recently realized that EASTER is on the 31st.  That is less than one month away!  My boys will be almost 16 months old by then and I always figured that Easter would be a good time to give them a couple of quiet books to play with at church.  I think they might be coming into the perfect age for them.  Besides, with their birthday being in December, I feel like we need another holiday somewhere in the middle of the year to give them lots and lots of presents.  I think Easter is going to be a big deal in our house from now on.  :)
So.  My goal for March is a big one.  I want to make at least two quiet books.  I haven't even started, let alone decided how to make them, and I've never done anything like this before,so I figured this would be a good one to make official.  Is it bad that I keep making goals that have nothing to do with quilting?  I guess it means I'm branching out.

I also need to finish my Valor Quilt soon so I can donate it before the deadline.  There is a possibility that our lives could become a little hectic in the next few weeks (having to do with preparing a rental apartment for new renters), so I'm adding this caveat that if I need to put something on the back burner, it will be the quiet books.  But I WILL finish the Valor Quilt this month.  I've been quilting the blocks and I'm excited to see that the end is nearly in sight.  I'm a little nervous to give this one away, but the experience has been awesome.  :)  


Linking up with A Lovely Year of Finishes!

Something New: Improv Curves, Machine Applique, and Scraps

I finished all my blocks for the Something New Sampler!

First up is my pinless curves block.  Tutorial HERE.

I was a little surprised this actually worked out.  I think the little wrinkles are just from my use of cheap fabric. :p

My second version didn't work out quite so well.  Some of my curves were great, but some of them aren't quite curvy enough and it just looks like I don't know how to sew a straight line.  Ah well.  I will have to quilt something amazing there to make up for it.

Here they are together:

Next are my machine applique blocks.  Tutorial HERE.  

I followed Amy's advice in THIS post and used fusible interfacing to turn my edges under and adhere them to the fabric.  I could have been a little more careful with my placement to make sure the white parts didn't show, but I was really glad to have an easier way to turn under a curved edge.

I wish I had made that bottom clamshell brown.  Then it would have looked even more like an ice cream cone. ;)  I used my standard blanket stitch to stitch these down.  I'm still a fan of raw edge applique.  I'm not sure the effort required to fold the edges under is worth it to me, but I really like the effect and I'm glad I gave this a try.  Next time I might try using freezer paper.

I ran out of blue thread right before stitching my second block down, and I didn't want to purchase invisible thread, so I just went ahead and did it all in white.  I figured since my stitches were going to be visible, I might as well make them interesting!  So I tried out a bunch of fancy stitches on this block.  

Here they are together:

The last Sampler block was the Scraptastic block.  Tutorial HERE.

These were super fun to make.  I have a TON of blue scraps and hardly any red.  I'm happy to say that I used all but ONE of my red scraps and I made quite a dent in my blues.  I like how these two blocks turned out.  I'll be sad when that pink herringbone print is all gone.

I also made a second version of my Cathedral Windows block.  This time I wanted to save myself time and see if I could get more accurate blocks by making them bigger.  I actually ended up using the size and instructions from THIS tutorial.  The blocks did come out much better the second time around, but the smaller ones still look cooler. 

Lastly, I made a few extra blocks since I need 20 to make a twin size quilt using the basketweave layout.   Since this quilt is going to be donated to a Veteran's Memorial Home, I adapted THIS pattern to make a couple wonky flag blocks:

I laid all my blocks out last night (in the dark) to get a good look at them.  

Next up - sashing.  After that I get to quilt them.  I'm super excited.  A dear neighbor announced that she would supply batting for anyone who made a quilt to donate.  Isn't she sweet?  I told her I planned to do mine Quilt-as-you-go style and that all I really needed was scraps.  She brought over two big huge bags of Warm and Natural scraps for me to have!  Is it silly that I'm kind of excited to go through them and cut/sew the pieces to the proper size?  Well.  I guess I'm a little silly.  Free stuff will do that to a girl. :)

New Skirt!

I took the plunge and made myself a skirt!  And I LOVE it.  Probably mostly due to the fabric.  It was SO scary cutting into it, but I'm really glad it is finally being put to good use!  I also loved that even though I made a "garment," everything was cut with my rotary cutter.  Works for me!
Isn't it gorgeous?  The fabric is African Spirit by Elizabeth's Studio and I was super lucky to have won it.

I even made my own pattern!  I used THIS tutorial.  The only thing I would change is to not be quite so liberal in my measurements.  I was so afraid it would be too small, but it was definitely not too small.  I think next time I will take in the waist and not make it flare out QUITE so much (I went with slightly more than the maximum recommended - guess she really does know what she's talking about).

The skirt itself was made using THIS tutorial.  I love the ruffles. :)

I even sewed in my very first invisible zipper!  I'm not convinced I did it completely right, but it works pretty well, so I'm not complaining!
Since I was working with half yard cuts, I didn't have enough blue to go all the way around.  No worries, I just happened to have the flower print in three colorways.

I've already worn the skirt twice and I look forward to making another one someday!

This was my February goal for A Lovely Year of Finishes, so I am linking up here:



Now I think I might go get a head start on my March goal. ;)

Sew Thinky Thursday: My Style

Here is this week's question for Sew Thinky Thursday:

Describe your quilting style. Who or what influences you? How do you see your style changing over time?

I usually just describe my quilting style as "modern."  I know that is such a loose term, but I have never been a big fan of "traditional" quilts.  If it weren't for this modern quilting movement going on, I never would have found such a fun hobby.  I generally like my quilts bright and colorful, with lots of negative space and I love squares.  I also prefer the look of machine quilting over hand quilting.

As far as my style changing - I see a lot more paper piecing and applique in my future.  I used to be a strictly straight lines/regular piecing only kinda girl, but I am branching out and learning that paper piecing and applique (although they sometimes feel like cheating) are super easy and super fun. :)

I am mostly inspired by blogs.  I am almost entirely self-taught, so quilting blogs are pretty much THE reason I even own a sewing machine. ;)  I read a lot of blogs, but there are a few out there that stand out to me as having a quilting style that matches my own.  Some of my favorites right now are From the Blue Chair, Freshly Pieced, and The Elven Garden.

Of course, there is also Pinterest.  Here are a few of my favorite pins (at the moment).  I think these help define my personal quilting style:

SOURCE:  Sweet Jane Etsy Shop

SOURCE:  Film in the Fridge

SOURCE:  Elizabeth Hartman via Sew Mama Sew

SOURCE:  Nero's Post and Patch

SOURCE:  Kate Conklin Designs

SOURCE:  Kelby Sews Etsy Shop

SOURCE:  Geta's Quilting Studio

SOURCE:  Flourishing Palms

What about you?  What is your quilting style?  Write about it and link up HERE.