and coins and coins! Keeping busy getting started on some very simple stacked coin quilts. I’m going to make two at once… One for a boy and one for a girl.
I love working with so many fun, bright and bold fabrics! It makes me happy.
And a gratuitous cat photo just ’cause. She is as tiny as she looks. I lucked out and got a perma-kitten.
Hope that you all have wonderful weekends!
I’ve decided to call it the Land & Sea Quilt because it’s got lots of things from land (flowers, birdies) and sea (mermaids and erm…giant squid!) in it. Couldn’t think of a better name, so I settled on that.
It is BIG. 88″ x 100″. Queen sized for sure and the biggest quilt I’ve made.
I think that the Alexander Henry birds pop oddly in this next photo of the back, but in person, I really like the choice. Plus I was out of white fabric and determined not to go buy any!
And just a couple more photos because my sister Cate (who the quilt is for! Happy housewarming!) loaned me her killer fancy camera and now I want it. It takes photos that are so much better than the ones my camera takes.
Got this fun and bright baby quilt all finished up!
Settled on the name “Birds & Blooms” for it, but I’ll have to make another quilt with birds & flowers so that the name “Flowers & Fowl” is used.
Along with the new sewing room, I have a design wall and a new place to take photos of a finished quilt. I need to get the lighting sorted out more, but it’s already better the past situation: spread out on the bed where it was really tough for me to get a wide shot.
And a couple of individual blocks close up…
Here it is! All finished! There’s nothing like pulling a finished quilt out of the dryer and finally getting to see it in its fully crinkled glory.
It’s the biggest quilt I’ve free motioned. I luckily don’t seem to have that many struggles with shoving a big ol’ quilt around in my sewing machine. Maybe I just don’t know better, but I seem to manage alright. I don’t roll the quilt (much) but I bunch and shove it all over the place.
This quilt was based on my Gender Neutral Baby Quilt but full sized, and the color scheme is similar, but somewhat more “adult”. I’m happy with the results and I hope its owner will be too!!
And three fun log cabin blocks for the back!
Finished up these fun colorful blocks yesterday.
I’m happy with how they came out. I thought I might be mixing and matching too many different fabrics, but there are a lot of florals and I think the combo of that and the solids ties them all together. I anticipate doing my usual white sashing and framing but I need to figure out if I’m going to leave the blocks different sizes or trim them down to all be the same size… hmm… Decisions decisions!
There will probably be a bit of radio silence from me for the coming week as I was put on a jury for a trial that will last all week. However, the days are short so I’m hoping to get a lot of my sister’s curtains and pillows done through out the week!
First little glimpse at progress on the commissioned coin quilt. Just the binding left to go!
I’m really no expert, but I’ve been asked by some people about the various steps of making a quilt, and as I’m completely self taught (I’ve learned everything from blogs and books!) I thought I’d put all of my favorite tutorials/posts in one place. I’ve read a lot of blogs about the process of making quilts and to me, with these specific posts, anyone can make a quilt. I’m proof of it because this is how I learned!
In terms of making the quilt top, to each their own! That’s where it’s all about taste and design. The one thing I am not is a perfectionist, so I’m not all about perfect piecing. I’ve gotten better with practice and this is a great place to read about the details, from cutting to pressing…
http://quilting.about.com/od/piecingtechniques/Piecing_Sewing_Methods_for_Quilters.htm
Sizes of different quilts and different adjustments can be found here:
http://www.amishcountrylanes.com/Pages/QuiltSize.shtml
For basting layers of the quilt:
http://crazymomquilts.blogspot.com/2007/09/one-way-to-baste-quilt.html
For quilting there is lots to be read but I’m personally a free motion quilter. I love this discussion on flickr. It’s filled with lots of specific tips from different quilters.
http://www.flickr.com/groups/quilts/discuss/72157604324619530/
And this post with a video is amazingly helpful!
http://crazymomquilts.blogspot.com/2008/03/free-motion-quilting.html
Once you’ve quilted all that’s left is the binding and this is a great tutorial:
http://heatherbailey.typepad.com/photos/continuous_quiltbinding/index.html
And then your quilt is all done!! I’ve made many quilts simply by following all of these directions. I’ve never had another quilter see how I do any of my work so there’s a good chance they would look on in horror at my methods, but in the end, I always end up with a pretty quilt, so I don’t worry myself too much with that! I have so much fun making my quilts and that’s what matters!
I got this one all finished up and washed!
Meandering free motion quilting + a quick wash and dry = crinkly goodness!!
It came out much better than I had initially anticipated so I’m really happy about that. It’s the Denyse Schmidt pattern but I made fewer blocks that measured 15″ square, so it now measures about 45″ x 60″.
What fun it is to make blocks without really worrying about perfectly measuring and cutting. As long as they were vaguely the right size, and there was variety among them, they were “right”! Then framed them all in white and I was done with the top! Quick and easy and FUN!
When you start a day off with the mail delivering this how can you go wrong? Had to get some more of the wonderful Katie Jump Rope (and more) for a commissioned quilt and magically some other lovely (mostly pink) fabric snuck into the order… how did that happen?!?
I’m making lots of progress here… Just have to hand stitch down the binding now!
I just realized that the fabric I mentioned is designed by Denyse Schmidt, and the pattern of this quilt is too. Gee – think I’m a fan??
And to wrap up this post, I’d just like to say how wonderful this whole community is. I know that this is not news, but I started my blog so recently and to have so many lovely people say such nice things to me right off the bat is really so so wonderful. It makes me happy! So thank you!!
After months of a serious flickr addiction, I’ve decided to take the plunge into blogland. I realized recently that I’m probably one of very few crafters on flickr who’s SO invovled and doesn’t have a blog. Time to change that! Not sure how much I’ll post – and it’s certain to go in waves depending on my work schedule, but here I am! I find that the more I document my crafting, the more in detail I want to be so this definitely serves that purpose.
So for my first post, I figure I’ll post pics of the quilts I’ve finished in the past. There’s ten of ‘em so prep yourself for photos! If you want to see more details there are loads of photos at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/alissacrafts/
From looking at all of these photos together, (they are here from newest to oldest) I can clearly see the progression that my quilting taste and design has taken… I have fallen in love with loads of white in my quilts. While I realize it’s not practical, I don’t care! It’s beautiful! Also, I have thought a lot about the balance of solids vs. patterned fabrics in my quilts. Tends to be that the solids are white, but I’m trying to consciously branch out from that a bit. We’ll see how that goes!
Anyhow, all of my past quilts:
This is the first quilt that I had to make while not knowing the baby’s gender. It was a new challenge for me but I really enjoyed it and think that this quilt really works for either a boy or a girl!
These quilts were made for good friends of ours who had twin boys. I love the idea of making quilts that were some how matching, but not too similar. I think that using log cabin blocks, but in different styles, and also using lots of the same blue and brown fabrics made that work. Also having the same fun junglescape on the back really tied them together!
This was a fun simple quilt that I made for my husband’s cousin. Clearly for their baby girl! It was my first attempt at free motion quilting which I’ve since become addicted to!
This Flying Geese quilt (from the Denyse Schmidt pattern) is my one and only full sized quilt. Let me tell you, while I love the results, jamming a huge quilt through your sewing machine isn’t as much fun as a lil’ baby quilt! Though now that I’m doing more free motion quilting and am less concerned with straight lines, it might easier.
This quilt was also for a baby girl! The lovely Bento Box pattern. Had I known the results (and relative ease) of wonderful free motion quilting back then I would have quilted it that way, but I didn’t yet dare!
I made myself this lap quilt for my couch. It’s much duller in the wide photos than it actually is so I included a photos that shows its nice colors!
Next we have a small baby sized version of Denyse Schmidt’s Hop, Skip & a Jump quilt. Clearly my ability to take a good photo of my quilts has improved. These photos are lousy! This quilt is really small and I wish it were a bit bigger… Also, this was when I realized just how much white fabrics make your lovely bold patterns pop!
This was my second quilt and eh… I like the back (white!) but the front isn’t so exciting to me. I was learning though! The recipents really liked it and that’s what matters!
And lastly – my very first quilt! Triangles (I’m much more into squares now) and no white. Not at all what I’m drawn to anymore but I will always love pink & brown together, and I think that I already had a good sense of my taste in balancing solids and patterns.
I did the binding all wrong on this as well! Oh well, I’ve learned a lot making these ten quilts. And this one was the beginning of my real love of sewing, and particularly quilting.
Anyhow, welcome to my blog!
