Quilt Design of the day 1-15

I find it interesting to see all my designs so far all together. I see some trends, and I can tell I didn't know the software as well early on.  Some of my earlier ones are my favorites, though. I have several big projects I'm finishing, but after those... not sure which of these, if any, will be next. It is fun to design more quilts than I'll ever have time to make though!

Summer 2014 and QDAD

Summer 2014 update:

- Finished the top of my string quilt! 

- Working on some improv piecing blocks for part of the back of that quilt (rest will be a medium gray)

- Joined the QDAD facebook group (quilt design a day) - I learned about this from posts of interviews on Sew Mama Sew and thought it sounded like a cool idea.  I have actually been pretty terrible about designing my quilts before I start and actually have tended to pick designs/patterns that didn't require any planning or designing (see string quilt!) besides picking colors.  But more and more the past few years I have fallen in love with improv-like quiltes or asymmetrical quilts and quilts with lots of negative space... things that really need a bit more planning to look good, or at least to not waste a bunch of fabric!

When I joined QDAD there were ~275 people in the group and I figured there would be lots of designs posted every day and I would be intimidated.  Well, turns out there weren't really many people posting, though they were posted some pretty nice designs and I was a little bit intimidated. Especially because the posts are 'public' on facebook, so other people not in the group could see them, too. But I finally decided I just didn't care and designed something and posted it!

"First"

Turns out people were super-nice, gave great feedback and constructive criticism, and were helpful with some of the computer program issues I was having. And I have stuck with it for a week now, one design per day! (I'm not expecting to keep this up after fall semester starts... but who knows? They are only supposed to take ~15 minutes!) They are inspired and use the color palette from one of the Design Seeds pictures for that day.  Sometimes I have really not liked my design, other times I think they're ok, and one or two I've really liked.

I'm beginning to love designing ... now, to find a bit more time to actually make some of these!

Maybe a future post will be all my designs up until that point.

WIP Wednesday - A "Real" Grandmother's Flower Garden Quilt

It's finally summer!! It came a bit later this year because I taught a summer school session first, but it's finally here. I haven't done too much sewing or quilting (yet), but I did pull out this beauty to hand quilt the past few evenings.

This is a REAL Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt because my husband's grandmother hand pieced all the hexagons together. Each hexagon is about 1 inch long (I haven't actually measured) and there are 75 of the 'flowers' that make up the lap quilt.

His grandmother (who I met once or twice before she died) hand pieced the whole top, the flowers with the green hexagons, but then stopped there.  Her only daughter (my husband's aunt) had the top and showed it to me one visit a few years ago when she found out I liked quilting.  She does a lot of sewing, but not quilting.  I told her that I would love to finish it - it is just too beautiful and grandma put way too much work into it to just have it sit in a box somewhere! I don't know if you can tell, but she fussy-cut each and every flower print so that the exact flower she wanted would be in the center of the hexagon!

Of course with something like this, it just has to be hand quilted. So I made sure to tell Aunt H. that I wouldn't promise it would be done quickly! First I decided to applique the quilt top to borders (yellow on the right) because I didn't want to think about binding something around all the edges of the hexagons!

Now I'm doing the hand-quilting, which isn't what I usually choose for my quilts, but it's a nice thing to do in the evening or when chatting with visiting family. I had to take many months off though when I was pregnant (because I couldn't comfortably hold my hand frame!) and when my baby was younger (because I and my house seemed to be constantly covered in spit up and I really, really didn't want anything bad to get on this quilt!)

So now I'm back to it. Slowly... 19 of 75 flowers quilted. Not sure yet what I'm doing beyond that, but I imagine I have a while to figure it out.

String blocks update

 

I've got a few more of these done than last time, but only about half way! Next summer...?

Sister #2 Quilt Finished

A few summers ago I made a quilt for Daughter #1's twin-sized bed.  It was made of a random pattern of charm squares and blocks the size of 2 or 4 charm squares, made mostly of Sweetwater's Sunkissed line, but with a bit of Kate Spain and Amy Butler as well.  That same summer, I made blocks using the same fabrics for a quilt for Daughter #2.

This time I randomly (meaning I didn't use a pattern or anything) made blocks that are square in square, except sometimes rectangle in square.  Obviously I didn't make up this idea, it's all over.  My mom asked me last week how I made them if I measured or just cut to size or what... and I had to say that I have no idea.  It was a while ago, I was pregnant... lots of excuses, but I don't really know how these blocks got made exactly.  But they did get made, I liked them, and this past summer I finished everything but the binding. And then it sat in my closet for 5 months.

But I love doing the hand sewing on bindings when we have house guests because 1) I can still do some sewing even though they're staying in the sewing room 2) it gives my hands something to do while we're chatting in the evening and 3) I have people around to entertain me while I am hand sewing!

So, after we were safely over the stomach flu this Christmas break, I did the hand sewing on the binding and finished it up! 

I probably wouldn't have finished it as quickly as I did, except Daughter #2 (who is three and a half) kept begging me every night to let her sleep under her quilt!  I couldn't let her because then it never would have been finished since I did most of the sewing once she's asleep, but I worked on it as much as I could find the time and finished before the end of winter break.

She absolutely loves the quilt! I tried to add another blanket on top of it tonight because it's going to be extra cold, but she wouldn't let me because she said she wanted to look at her quilt.

It is nice to make something for someone who really likes it!

Here are a few photos of two sister quilts.  Now, I just have to plan a quilt for Daughter #3... (I have a few years though before she needs one)

The quilt by itself.

It works as a playmat, too.

The happy quilt owner.

The big sister's quilt (with the baby sister, too)

Another view.

Both quilts together in a semi-clean room!

Little gift

My girls helped me pick out fabrics so I could make a little purse or bag for their cousin who's two and a half.  I used the April bag pattern found on Sew Mama Sew by Elizabeth from Oh, Fransson!  Except I changed the size because I wanted it to be small, for a little girl.  This is roughly 3/4 of the size of the smaller April bag.  I've made this pattern before three or four times and really like it - especially for quick gifts because there's no notions needed and only a bit of interfacing. 

Here's a few pictures of the finished product, including it being modeled by eager models.

 

The recipient liked it and her new plastic dinosaur fit in it perfectly, with the head and tail able to stick out the sides, so it was a big success!

Christmas in July?

I finished my RTQA Colorado block!  I cut out all the pieces and sewing the half-square triangles in August... and trimmed the pieces Sunday and sewing everything together today.  Whew. 

I was hoping my blog wouldn't completely go dead outside of the summer months, but I guess I did name it correctly after all.

Though there are still more RTQA blocks left, I am finished with mine!  Not sure how I'll put them together or what I'll do.  I was going to try to mess around and think about layouts this afternoon when I finished... but this is how that turned out:



So, I'll put them away until I have some free minutes or a design wall so the baby can't crawl on the blocks.

Perhaps I'll have more to share in the next two weeks... I can hope!