Quilt 107: Orange Mocha (Sonnet Collection)

More charm squares!

I got three of these charm square sets at a sale at Patchwork With Gail B.  There were only 25 squares in each pack, so I needed all three (plus fabric for borders) to make a single quilt top. 

There were 5 squares cut from fabric like the top square you can see here:

The top 4 squares are solid fabric sewn into little pleats, giving a textured effect.  The rest of the squares were various stripes and plaid prints in chocolate, melon, olive green and turquoise. 

Some of the squares weren't perfectly aligned when they were cut

Quite a few of the squares weren't cut strait, so the plaids and stripes are off a little bit.  Fortunately the slightly "not quite right" squares don't stand out - your eye fools you a bit when you look at the completed top.  In the photo above, it's obvious.  But when you look at quilt overall, they fade into the design.

At the same sale I found a 4-meter package of one of the prints in the charm-square pack.  It is the perfect backing for these charm squares, and with 4 meters to work with, I was able to use some of it on the top to add interest

Quilt 106 - Flower Panel - DONE!

I love making panel quilts.  They generally come together very quickly and, although they are simple in design, the results are lovely.  Here's another example:

48" x 66" - quilted on the longarm, cotton batting

The center panel has a splash of summer blossoms on it, with a butterfly and dragonfly near the top.  I simply added borders of solid lavender cotton and two coordinating prints (blue and green) from the same manufacturer that sells the panel.

The quilting was done using my "Baptist Fan" groovy boards.  The backing fabric is a pink-polka dot print, and the binding is the same lavender cotton used in the smaller borders.

Simple but lovely!

Quilt 11: Trees - DONE!

It took me a while to get around to this one, but I finally did.  Almost 7 years to the day!  Here's my original post about this project: (click here)

I started it in 2011, a design I put together using "leaf" blocks.  I got the top put together, but then got distracted by other projects and ended setting it aside until just recently.

Here's the design:

And here's the finished quilt, laying on the bed.

The forest image just doesn't show up well like this.  But I decided to hang it on the wall of my "quilting room" - and it's spectacular there!

(doubleclick the picture above to see a larger image)

For batting, I just grabbed leftover bits and pieces from other projects and hand-stitched them together.  It took a little time, but I used up a LOT of leftovers and you'd never know where the joins are; the quilting hides them beautifully.

The quilt stitching was done on the longarm using the "Nested C's" pattern I've been experimenting with.  It only took 3 hours to quilt it!  Amazing!

I'm especially pleased to have this on the wall of my "quilting room".  There's no carpeting in there (just a carpet runner I stand on in front of the quilt machine), so having the quilt on the wall gives a little bit of noise-reduction.

Quilting in Space (you can't make this stuff up...)

Oh, this is too good.

Back in 2013, astronaught Karen Nybert, while aboard the International Space Station, made a video about "quilting in space"...

Here's the video: (click here to view)

She really got me laughing when she said "I can say one thing with certainty — it's tricky."

She challenged other quilters to come up with star blocks to be combined with hers into a quilt which she intended to complete and present at the 40th anniversary International Quilt Festival in Houston in 2014.

And did it happen?  It sure did!

Here's the story about the quilt:  (click here to view)

Jenny's 3D "North Star" Quilt - Fabulous!

Pauline, my quilting guru, is an avid follower of "Jenny" from Missouri Star Quilt Company.  Today she told me about a tutorial that Jenny did last Wednesday.

Jenny's latest is a quilt design she calls "North Star" - and oh, my... it's fascinating.  If you do a Google search for "North Star Quilt", you'll find quite a few different designs under that name - but unless Jenny's tutorial comes up in the search results, you won't see her version.  Her's is a very distinctive quilt with a 3D effect.

I don't have a photo of my own I can share (yet), but the link below will take you to Jenny's tutorial on YouTube.

See Jenny's "North Star" Tutorial.

And am I going to make one of these?  You betcha, baby!

(BTW - The tutorial was added on May 31, 2018.  As of this moment - June 3 - there have been  58,573 views! Yup.  Jenny's worth her weight in gold, that's for sure!)