Morning Glories

It finally dawned on me that I never posted quilted pictures of the January Book of the Month quilt, Morning Glories.

I gave a teaser last week on Update Day,  to announce that it had won 2nd place in the Pieced Wall Hanging division at the county fair.  So, here are some detail pictures

I stuck with a rather simple fill quilting design of stippling and pebbles.  I wanted it to resemble the sandy-like rock from the original picture.

Then a very simple border treatment that frames it without competing.

Originally, I was going to quilt the 'glow' of the flowers.  I did do some stitching with a light blue thread, but the stitching smashed down the flower in an unattractive way, making it appear nothing like the funnel shape the flower is.

After tearing those out, I decided to just quilt in the ditch in the star points of the flowers, and applique the little centers.

Then the 'glow' was applied with these fabric crayons from Pentel, giving the flowers the appearance I was looking for.

Happy Quilting!

Susan

June Book of the Month Progress

Well, the project for June's Book of the Month, Nickel Quilts (affiliate link), is not as far along as I hoped.  Once again, travel has taken me away from quilting, so now I'm playing catch up!

But I do have progress to report!  I have picked out the Sunny Lanes pattern from the book, and decided to make it a yellow and blue theme.  Got the yellow nickel pieces sorted out from the rest, then determined I should find some more!  Looking through my yellow stash, I found a bunch of small pieces that could be cut into 5" squares:

The above picture shows the original nickels on the left and top.  And when making scrap quilts, the more variety, the better!  But what a lot of cutting!!!

So now I've got some sewing done, and here's the pile of chain stitched half square triangles

and here's the start of the four patch units

Everything needs pressing, cutting, some more sewing, and squaring.

I don't have a particular size in mind for this project--I just want to keep sewing nickels till I run out of yellow!  Unfortunately, I have run out of the blue I was using.  So back to the stash to find something similar.  I could use a bunch of different blues, but I really don't want to drive myself nuts!  And if I get two quilts out of all of this, even better!

Will keep you posted!
Happy Quilting

Spin Off!

Announcing my latest creation, Spin Off!

Do those pieces look familiar??  Remember my Glorified 9-Patch, Oh Baby Baby?

 And it's offspring, Ripple Effect?

Spin Off is another from the leftovers from Oh Baby Baby.  Totally awesome to create two more quilts from leftovers!  And there may be one more, but the ideas haven't hit me for those scraps.

I have to admit that this quilt hung on my design wall for a least a month as I pondered how to quilt it.  Every time I saw it from a distance, the curved square in the center kept jumping out.  And I wanted something to accent that, without overpowering the quilt design.  Here's the first idea:

It's okay, but the pebbles weren't doing it for me, and I didn't like the feathers in the corners.  So, using the lines from the blue squares, I decided to make a grid in the center so that it didn't detract.  I also switched the direction of the feathers, so now there was more size variety and interest.

And the flowing lines through the patches connects those, and separates the designs.

Here are more closeups:

And here's the back:

Hmm, now on to the next one!

Happy Quilting!

 

The Quilting of Starbright Part 2

This is Part 2 in quilting Starbright,

and is geared more toward longarmers, due to the use of rulers.  But there's no reason why, with a bit of practice, it could not be duplicated on a home machine.  

To view the quilt plan, check out Starlight quilting Part 1.

In this post, I'm going to go through the quilting on the blue/turquoise stars.  

I stitch in the ditch in almost all the seams, unless it interferes with the quilt design, such as the area below.

So, this star required some analyzing of the thread path, since not all seams where going to be stitched down and to minimize starts and stops.  And here's the plan:  starting in the seam at the bottom corner of the green arm (white star in the picture), and using a straight edge ruler, I stitched to the point. Turned and stitched in the seam and across the turquoise to the edge.  Then up the turquoise seam to the tip, and across to the where the turquoise meets green.

At the point, I backtracked over the longest line, 1/4" into the turquoise, and stitched another line toward the point and down the other side to make a 1/4" border.  From there, working the pebble fill, but in such a way that the stitching ended back at the corner (marked with the star).

Backtracking 1/4" on the long line again, my needle was now in the corner, where the green met turquoise.  Using a circle template that fit the design, I stitched from that corner across to the other corner.  Backtracked 1/4" on that arc and stitched a 1/4" border up the green to the point, and across into the turquoise hitting the arc again.

Using a chalk marker, I marked desired increments on both sides of that arm, and with the circle template, stitched back and forth to the marks.  Ta-da!  Zig zags!  Locked the stitches, and did the other three arms.

Now for the center.

A 1/4" circle border was stitched inside the first circle, then the same circle was used to stitch from one seam to another, giving the star an arc.

Once those four were stitched, I stitched in the ditch through the center seams.  To make the other points, the needle was put in the corner on the circle border, stitched across, then to a center point on the arc.

Then through the center to the opposing arc, and back to the point.

The same was done on the other side to finish, and repeated  for the other two points.

But I wanted a bit more, so I added the echoes to the curved points by starting at the stitching/purple seam intersection, went to the point, and down the other side. 

Involves stops and starts, but that's okay.

Now that you see how the design is broken down, it's really quite easy to stitch.  Now, go find creative uses for your rulers!  Remember--have fun!

Happy Quilting!

June Book of the Month

I can't believe it's June 1st, and time for another Book of the Month!  This time, I've selected two books, Nickel Quilts and More Nickel Quilts, (affiliate line) both by Pat Speth.

A few years ago, a retiring quilter sold me a lot of her stash, and was so happy her fabric was going to someone who would use it, that she gave me this under bed box full of 5" squares!  

Two years ago, I pulled out the reds and yellows, and made this,

from Spectacular Scraps, by Judy Hooworth and Margaret Rolfe. (affiliate link)

And since then, the bin has sat in the closet, and the books on the shelf, both calling to me!  So, that's the goal this month--use up some of those nickels, and check out those books!

Now to decide which one!

Happy Quilting!