The Big Reveal

It's finally finished! I'm really pleased with the way this string quilt turned out.  I followed this paper-piecing method (which also happened to be the method used by a small group quilt-along I joined). While there are quicker ways to piece a string block, this method creates a pattern out of the red center strings that I don't think is possible from the quicker methods (perhaps I'm wrong?).

Although the blocks primarily use black and white fabrics, I threw in a few more red prints for some variation. I tried not to overthink the fabric choices within each block. Aside from not repeating the same fabrics within a block, I picked up a strip of fabric and attached it. If I sued a red print, I hewed to two per block and one per side, though I didn't necessarily use a red print (aside from the center solid).

The wind made it challenging to get a good picture of the back of the quilt, and this was the best my wonderful assistant (who wanted to be invisible) and I could get. Michelle helped me out by sending me some black and white blocks that made their way to the back of the quilt. Originally I envisioned using string blocks on the back of the quilt, much like I created the column of blocks here, and using a completely different pattern on the front. Once I started making the string blocks, however, I opted to continue making them and using them on the front. When it comes to quilt design, I change my mind all the time. It's the one area of my life in which I fully and truly embrace going with the flow and ditch planning.

The free-motion stippling on the quilt almost killed me. It certainly killed a lot of thread, some of which stayed in the quilt and much of which got ripped out. The red solid is "Christmas Red" from Moda, and it's a cheery, bright red. I used it for the binding as well, which I think helps frame the quilt. At 60" x 72" this is a large lap quilt, and I hope this quilt is well-used for many years in the future.

My sister loves red, black, and white and used this color combination for her wedding. In addition, she and her husband have a large black dog (who growls at me every time she sees me and, really, dislikes anyone who is not my sister or her husband). While this leaves me less than fond of Snoop, I figure the quilt will hide her fur fairly well.

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Design Via Savvy Shopping

Over the past 5 weeks, I've been inching my way towards a quilt for my sister and her husband. They got married in November but since quilt presents do not emerge fully formed with the press of a button, there was no chance that I would bring a wrapped present with me to the event. At that time, I had started collecting some fabric for it, but hadn't even settled on a design. The design changed a lot as I toyed with a lot of options and variations on those options. The only constant was the color scheme: red, black, and white. My sister has always loved this color combination and they used it for the wedding, so that decision was easy. Then, at a SE Michigan Craft Meetup, Emily told me about Lake Street Mercantile in South Lyon, MI. In early November, I went to check it out. Their collection has some modern fabrics alongside, shall we say, less modern fabrics. They also have a nice little sale room in which I found the black and white "big harlequin" print (above left) half-off. Anyone who knows my sister knows that she is an excellent bargain shopper and, indeed, takes immense pride in her shopping savvy. I decided to design the back of the quilt around this fabric.

My sister claims she only reads my blog when I post about travel (how she knows when this happens, I'm not quite clear. Perhaps my mother passes on the information). In any event, while I'm tempted to show the full front and back "flimsies" -- the pieced front and back before being quilted -- I'm going to stick to partial pictures of each. In the case of the front, the wrong side will have to suffice. I'm going to baste the quilt as soon as I finish posting, so hopefully I'll have a quilted and bound quilt to reveal soon. I may need to get some more fabric for the binding, however, as I forget how much fabric the binding of a big quilt requires.

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Sunny Days

Happy Birthday Mom! I hope it remains sunny and gets a little warmer. We've enjoyed several sunny, if brisk, November days this past week. A few posts ago, my mom requested a dresden plate challah cover for her birthday, and I obliged with this sunny one. Her favorite color is yellow, so I knew I would use yellow in it somewhere.

I took out a bunch of rich fall-colored fabrics to play with before deciding on the combination of this Anna Maria Horner yellow print, some Kaffee Fassett pebbles, and a cranberry solid. I made the dresden plate spikes first and played around with various layouts before settling on the rising sun from the left.

I like how the dresden plate falls off the frame into the edge. Initially I thought about using the cranberry solid as a binding but ultimately determined that the yellow was brighter and more fun.

On the back, I combined some of the pebbles from the front with another Anna Maria Horner print, the leaves from her Garden Party line. On the right, if you squint hard enough, you can see the outline of the dresden plate from the front. This time, I decided to make the applique of the plate part of the quilting process, so the back mirrors the front, with both the dresden plate and the parallel horizontal lines. I gave this to my mom a couple days early, on Friday, so we could use it Friday night.

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Natstown Quilt

A few posts ago, I mentioned my little monster of a quilt. I made this t-shirt quilt for my brother. Although I promised to make it for him for his birthday in 2009, it took until 2010 to get it done. To be fair, I didn't receive the t-shirts from him until about 10 months ago, so I don't bear the total burden for the delay. But at about 75 inches x 75 inches, it was a monster to handle in its latter stages, in part because I was moving furniture around to find a space to lay it out and then baste it.

Why the Nats quilt? My brother works for the Nationals (but, no, he is not a baseball player). If you want to discuss concessions or retail, he's your guy (who will probably kill me for posting that publicly). And since my trips to DC never coincided with home games for me to attend, I didn't even see them play this year. Everyone else in the family saw Strasburg's debut but I was left to hear about it. Perhaps I'll get to see his re-debut after his long recovery from shoulder surgery.

Nevertheless, the quilt is comprised of t-shirts from the Nats' first season in the new Nationals Park. These were promo t-shirts and, depending on the shirt, I used either the front or the back in the quilt. T-shirt quilts contain both easy and difficult elements, and I'll offer some thoughts based on my first t-shirt quilting experience:

1. Lightweight interfacing is a must. It was the only way to keep the knit edges from rolling up and helped stabilize the stretchy fabric.

2. Some people use sashing with t-shirt quilts. I opted not to because I find that the mixture of knits and quilting cotton looks and feels strange (to me). I also couldn't figure out a color that would work well, though dark blue probably would have been fine.

3. The size of graphics on the t-shirt will determine, in part, the size of the quilt (unless you cut off part of the design, which could work quite well in some cases). There are people with more patience than I have who work out ways to use t-shirt emblems of many sizes. Three was all I could handle, and 2 of the block options shared the same width! With these shirts, the "president" graphics were the tallest and led to 16.5" blocks (also handily the size of one of my square rulers).

4. Interfacing and cutting takes a lot of time; piecing the blocks does not.

5. T-shirts are heavy and the quilt top is pretty hefty as a result.

The grey N*A*T*S*T*O*W*N shirt gave me the idea for the 5" row amidst big blocks. It also gave me a chance to use the curly Ws that were on the front of many shirts.

Like these guys. As this shows, I opted for straightforward quilting, about a 1/4" from each horizontal seam and 1/4" from the vertical seams of the big blocks. I alternated red and blue thread, using red below and to the right of each seam and blue above and to the left of each seam.

Most of the shirts were white, so I wanted to distribute the few grey and red shirts across the quilt. I played with the arrangement a couple times to work it out. Initially I used a 4x6 arrangement of blocks (in addition to the short row) but its length was so out of proportion to the width that I ripped out a row and made it 5x5.

Though you can't see it in any of the pictures, I backed the quilt with soft red flannel. My brother asked why I didn't "use any of the stuff that makes quilts puffy" (aka batting) and, truth be told, it was a very pragmatic decision. The t-shirts were heavy and I didn't have that much space to baste; as a result, I wanted as few layers as possible and opted for the flannel alone. It's still very warm.

And totally unrelated, Sukkot starts tonight. Chag Sameach to those celebrating the feast of booths. I helped my dad put together my parent's sukkah but alas lack one of my own. Nevertheless, it's a wonderful harvest holiday. Enjoy the fruits (and vegetables) of fall!

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Home Goods

Although I'm not participating in it, the {Urban} Home Goods Swap has (not surprisingly) produced all sorts of lovely gifts -- quilts, small and large; placemats; table runners; bags; pillows; and more. Clicking through the images and reading blog posts about items made and received has been quite inspiring.

I made a set of placemats and coasters for my sister's wedding shower last weekend. I'd never made quilted coasters before, so this was a chance to experiment.

I started with a slightly wonky log cabin, quilted it, and cut it into quarters, as you would for a Bento Box quilt. The cutting was a tad tricky because I was hastily finishing them at my parents' house where I could use my mom's sewing machine but had no access to a rotary cutter. Scissors it had to be, and I made do.

I bound each coaster in a different black and white fabric. Coaster binding was a little harder than I anticipated. When I first started quilting, I loathed binding. Over time, I've gotten quite comfortable with it and don't mind it at all. However, the small sides of coasters meant that my usual technique for sewing together the 2 ends of the binding strips didn't work (or I'm not dexterous enough to make it work) so I went with a slight overlap which produced additional bulk. But I think I'm more aware of that than most users of said coasters will be, or at least I hope that's the case.

I pieced the placemats in a mostly improv fashion, using strips from my scrap bin. Red, white, and black were givens as the colors since that's my sister's favorite color combination. I confess I started with no vision. Given the time constraints, I knew simple was key and they would coordinate but not match. Because they're not matchy-matchy, I decided that using the same fabric for the binding would help bring them together.

I used the pattern on the backing fabric as a guide for quilting. For the first time, I quilted from the back -- following the lines (sort of) of the black and white fabric and not knowing exactly how it would appear on the front. I like the results a lot, but I think this method worked because it was a pretty simple and regular quilting design. The curved lines are not exactly the same as one another but they are the same distance from one another.

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My First Quilt

Warning: This quilt is pretty ugly. Avert your eyes if you must.

I made this quilt sometime between my junior and senior years of high school (over 10 years ago). I bought a lot of fat quarters of fabric and created a patchwork mess. Some of it is handsewn (I distinctly recall sewing some patches on the train on the way home from a college visit my junior spring) and some of it is machine sewn. Some sections are atrocious -- in terms of fabric and design -- and some sections are actually pretty decent. It's backed with soft maroon flannel and still warms up my bed when I go home. It's living proof that quilts can be ugly but useful.

It's safe to say I've improved since this first endeavor into quilting on my own. But looking back, I can only appreciate my willingness to try anything, a risk that knowing-nothing demands but also sometimes resist. If you're reading this and just starting, I highly recommending diving in. You can't wrong. Even if you do, it can be fixed, used, and learned from.

And if you need picture proof, here you go, warts and all.

A little of everything is happening here.

A closer view of a little of everything.

The most hideous section in the world. Look at the ugly bubble-gum pink border, the wacky late 80s leaf print, and early 90s purple something. I think the border print could have been made to look decent if it were not for that terribleness surrounding it. But, take a deep breath, this is the worst part of the whole quilt.

See, not so bad. I really like the bottom stripy section. It's one of the few things I would do again if I had the chance to remake the whole thing.

Learning how to make 9-square blocks and 16-square blocks. I didn't know anything about strip-piecing back then, so I cut everything out individually. The purple batik print on the right is actually very nice fabric.

You can see the back, with some sort of stitch-in-the-ditch quilting. Emphasis on sort-of. But there's a large piece of the pretty purple fabric as well.

Even a not-so-beautiful quilt can look decent folded up.

From the other side, not too bad when folded!

And impossible is nothing. You can improve.
From the horrors above to the niceness (dare I say beauties?) below...

...among others.

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For My Mother

My mom, as I wrote on the label of this quilt, taught me how to read and how to sew. She retired this June after 39 years as a reading teacher, and I decided to make her a quilt as a gift. Now that she'll have time to do her own pleasure reading, she (and the cats) will have a quilt to use.

As she loves yellow, I knew I wanted to use yellow in her quilt (and as the very soft fleece backing). I chose the other colors by thinking about what colors she wears -- bright green, royal blue, turquoise, various shades of purple. In addition, I had a lighter blue fabric in my stash with flowers in green, blue, purple, and yellow, and I figured it would tie all the prints together (you can see it in the bottom picture). It's also the last border strip before the purple binding.

I've seen quilts that use this bento box pattern, often with light and dark shades of one color. I went with light and dark shades of 4 colors. I have to confess that along the way I got worried as the individual pieces didn't look as great as I expected. But my roommate's dad, who happened to be in town the weekend I pieced, backed, quilted, and bound the quilt, remained confident that it would look fantastic together. His confidence bore out, as I really like the big quilt (a good-sized lap quilt, about 60" x 70"). It may be hard to see in the pictures, but I free-motion-quilted the top, playing with the intersection of rolling curves.

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All About Orange

I made each of my siblings a quilt for their respective 20th birthdays. I made my sister's in the pre-digital camera era, but hopefully I can grab a picture of it the next time I'm at her apartment. My brother patiently waited for his, as he received it about 2 months before he turned 21. He loves orange and so I wanted to make him a predominantly orange quilt. I based the design on a quilt I saw hanging in the Stonemountain & Daughter Fabric Shop in Berkeley, CA (a great store, by the by).




I strip-pieced various orange fabrics with a limited amount of yellow and turquoise fabric and then cut the strips into squares. I was aiming for a random look so I tried to turn the squares in such a way that there wasn't a repetitive pattern. I think that worked. I backed this quilt with a soft tweedy-grey wool that I found on the remnant table at G-Street Fabrics in Falls Church, VA. I love the remnant table; you have to sift through a lot but every so often you can find some great gems.

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