My Quilting History

Thursday, September 26, 2024

Finished Fall Jelly Roll Quilt with Matching Pillow



 I've spent a little more time in the sewing room and finished up my Fall Jelly Roll Quilt and also whipped up a festive pillow to go with it.



I used up the last scraps from my Jelly roll, along with some background fabric and made Half Square Triangles.




I trimmed them all up to 2 inches.



And settled on a 9 x 9 layout.



Added some skinny borders and sewed everything together.


I made a YouTube video that goes into more details and lists all the measurements. Check it out!




I took the quilt and pillow downtown for a fun photo shoot.





There were several benches,





Lots of pretty landscaping,





And fun brickwork.






There is even a rustic storage building that made a perfect backdrop.






It quilted up pretty quick with some all over meanders, swirls, and some weird things you can call leaves.






I tried to do an oak leaf, but it looks more like a bunch of wavy lines instead. 






I'm excited to have this drapped over the couch this fall. With the pillow nested next to it.

If you want to make your own quilt, I have a video for that too. Check it out!












Happy Sewing!


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Tuesday, September 24, 2024

Bee Kind Blog Hop


The theme for the September blog hop challenge hosted by Joan of Moose Stash Quilting, is all about "kind" projects: a favorite charity project, a free pattern, or anything that shows we spread a little kindness, everywhere we go. Of course, Bee projects of all kinds fit right in there too!




My project is a quick little baby quilt that can be sewn up in half a day. 



The main block is a nine patch that sews up really quick.

Perfect for charity quilts or a quick handmade gift and is beginner friendly.  




It was so quick to make, I made two!




I added a new free tutorial on my Tutorials Page so you can make your own. 
Check it out!



This project actually started out from a gift. 

Several years ago a friend gave me a leftover jelly roll with almost all the strips still in it.  There were 36 and a half strips left over! 



I cut it up into 2.5 inch squares and had the perfect shade of yellow to match for the border.



The  9 patches measure 6 inches square when finished, and with only 12 blocks, the quilt is small. 34 x 42 inches. Perfect for the car or tummy time.



It was small enough I could load them both on my longarm and quilt them at the same time.



And check out the back. I threw in some bees.




I did a little custom quilting on these two, but if you did an all over meander, the quilting can be just as fast as sewing the top together.




To keep on with the spirit of giving, I will be donating one of these to a youth fundraiser later next year.



I still had lots of squares left over, so I made a cute little pillow to go with it.  



Squares on the front and back.



After working on my Island Batik applique project this month I had applique on the brain so I added a cute flower on the front.



Thanks so much for hopping along.  Be sure to stop by my fellow bloggers to see how they are spreading a little kindness.


Monday Sept 23

MooseStashQuilting

Words & Stitches

Selina Qullts

Just  Sew  Quilter

Scrapdash

Tuesday Sept 24

Patchouli Moon Studio

Quilted Snail

Quilt Schmilt

Quilted Delights (Me)

Hazels Daughter

Wednesday Sept 25

BeaQuilter

Karrin's Crazy World

That Fabric Feeling

Elizabeth Coughlin Designs

Quilting Between the Rails

Thursday Sept 26th

Just Let Me Quilt

Ms P Designs USA

Quilting Gail

Songbird Designs




Happy Sewing!


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Saturday, September 21, 2024

National Sew A Jelly Roll Day - Fall Quilt Top


It's National Sew A Jelly Roll Day!

A day devoted to all those jelly rolls, rollie pollies, and strip sets sitting on shelves or in drawers, waiting their turn to become a quilt.




I got a head start and pulled out this Island Batik Pumpkin Patch strip set I have been holding onto for awhile.

I had a plan for it and didn't waste any time!


Check out my YouTube video to see how I made it and how quickly I stitched this top together!



The quilt is made from a simple square in a square block and uses almost every inch of the strip set. 




 I had a little more than 2.5 inches left from each strip, enough to make my own mini charm pack.




 But those little pieces won't sit around long, I've already got them trimmed up for something else!


To make the top, you need 40 strips.  Island Batik strip sets come with 40 strips, which makes them perfect for this project. The top needs 80 blocks and one strip makes two blocks.

To get started, I paired two prints together and cut each strip into:

Four 6.5 x 2.5 inch rectangles  
and
Six 2.5 x 2.5 inch squares.




 I laid out the block pieces in order and swapped the centers with their paired counterparts.




There was lots of chain sewing...




And assembly line ironing.




And it all went together pretty quick.  
The video above breaks down each step into minutes.




The quilt is laid out with 8 blocks across and 10 blocks down and measures 48 x 60 inches, the perfect size to throw over the couch.,






If you have Jelly Rolls decorating your shelves, give this project a try, it's quick and looks fantastic! And with a jelly roll, you know all the fabrics will play well together.



Happy Sewing!


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Tuesday, September 17, 2024

Adventurous Applique Blog Hop




Welcome to week three and day two of the Island Batik Ambassador Adventurous Applique Blog Hop!

Today I'm showing off the Island Batik fabric line called Geometric Symphony by Jerry Khiev,
and at the end of the post, there is info about a giveaway going on at the Island Batik blog and another giveaway on my Instagram page!





Geometric Symphony should be arriving in quilt shops now and is full of beautiful blues, pinks, purples, and light browns.





  Since this challenge was all about raw edge applique, Aurifil sent several spools of thread to match the fabric.






The first and hardest part of this challenge for me was coming up with a design.  I love the look of applique, but I don't do much of it myself so I'll admit I was stumped for a while.  I thought of applique circles to match the fabric and then my mind drifted to triangle flower petals.  I wanted to see what that would look like so I got to cutting.





When I cut out the triangles I wasn't too thrilled with the sharp edges, so I smoothed them out.  I added a smaller print on top and put them all on a light pink Island Batik background. 





The flower centers were cut free hand, no perfect circles here.  I used my Creative Grids 2.5 inch circle ruler as a guide for size, but I let the scissors do as they pleased.





Then it was time to add thread by using the edge color applique method by Fourth and Sixth Designs.    I used a Schmetz universal 90/14 needle.  I thought it would be fun to get a close-up of the needle as it's not often the needle is the star of the photo.










I used a different color thread for each section. Once I had all my blocks ready, I fiddled around with different ideas to pull them all together.




I settled on quarter square triangle sashing.  I paired the Geometric Symphony prints with Pomegranate, one of the Island Batik foundation prints.  Deb Tucker's  Tucker Trimmer Ruler helped trim these into perfect squares.


And then it was time for quilting.




I used Hobbs Heirloom 80/20 Bleached cotton batting. I had two big pieces left over and stitched them together for the perfect fit.









I did a little custom quilting in the sashing and a tight meander in the background of the main blocks.





I used more Aurifl thread for the quilting, a very light purple and a perfect dark pink to match the pomegranate fabric.





This quilt ended up being an interesting combo to me, with the random edges of the petals and circles next to the hard lines of the quarter square triangles.




This is definitely a pink lovers quilt.




Lots of Aurifil colors in this project  The empty spool was navy colored thread.  It had just enough to sew down the largest petals.  The bigger spools on the left are the colors I used for the quilting.






I didn't use much of the browns in the top, so I put them on the back.  I love how these three prints paired up nicely next to each other.





The main blocks are 12 inches and the sashing finished at four inches, making the final measurement 52 x 68 inches.



The quilt has passed Boonky's quality inspection.


Stop by my fellow ambassador's blogs today to see what they made with this fabric line.



And now for the giveaway info!

Check out this Island Batik Blog post to enter their giveaway to win a fat quarter bundle of either Geometric or Floral Fun.  This giveaway ends on September 21. Two random winners will be notified by email on September 22. 



And then head over to my Instagram post to see how you can win one of these Island Batik Strip sets. 
They were provided to me by Missouri Star Quilt Co. as part of their birthday celebration.
 I will pick a winner on Saturday, the 21st as well and send a DM to the winner.





Happy Sewing!


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