Project Quilting 10.5 Abecedarius

This was a hard challenge for me this week.  Abecedarius: where the first word of every line of a poem follows the alphabet.  Or in other words, do something with the alphabet. I like words on quilts, but wasn't sure what to do with so many word options.

I got to thinking about names on quilts. My husband loves names on quilts.  This is our usual conversation when ever I make a quilt for someone:

Hubby:  Are you going to put their name on it?

Me: Yeah, it will be in the label.

Hubby: Are you sure you don't want to put their name real big on the front? In the piecing? or glued on there in fabric?

Me: This design doesn't call for their name real big on the front.

Hubby: Oh, well I think it will make it look good with their name on the front.  Real big.

So in honor of that I decided to go with a name...  real big... on the front.  I just had to pick a name.  Kid names are the easiest, nieces and nephews are always easy to make quilts for, but which one?

I still wanted to keep it somewhat on the theme of Abecedarius,  I didn't want to do the whole alphabet though.  Just wanted to focus on one letter.  I do love to work in rainbow color.  So I was going to do "R is for Rainbow" and "R is for (insert name here)". So whose named started with R? there were several, but one jumped right out at me because her name also had the same number of letters as the colors in the rainbow:  Raelynn.  Perfect.  

R is for Rainbows and Raelynn

I love the geometric block letters designed by Quiet Play.  They are nice and big and blocky, just what I was looking for.  They finish at 6 inches.  I just needed a rainbow to go around them. So I got to designing.  Each letter would represent a color in the rainbow and have three shades of that color in strips above and below it.  And since the letters were going to have a white background they could be in a cloud.

  I used excel for this one.  I do have EQ8, but haven't mastered making my own layouts yet and since I was pressed for time I went with what I know I could design with pretty quick. 

All the strips are 2.5 inches and I needed three of each color  plus an extra red and purple for the ends x 2.  That is 46 strips.  I decided to use the Accuquilt cutter that was sent to me as part of being an Island Batik Ambassador.  I used the die that cuts 2.5 strips and cut out all my strips lickety split and they came out perfect. I used to think I was already quick enough cutting 2.5 inch strips with my rotary cutter, but this was super nice and I did it in about the same time and they came out perfect, no shaving off 1/8 of an inch when the ruler moves.

The quilt measures 46 x 72. 

My husband loves this quilt.  It has all three things he thinks a quilt should be.

1. Has to be big

2. Has to have a name on it - on the front.

3. Has to have blue in it.

Make sure to check out all the other entries  HERE to see how everyone else interpreted the theme.  Scroll down till you see all the square thumbnails and at 1 pm central time vote for your favorites by clicking on the red heart in corner.

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Island Batik Magnificent Mini and Project Quilting 10.3

Week three of Project Quilting lined up perfectly with the timing of my Magnificent Mini project for Island Batik Ambassadors.  

The theme for week three of Project Quilting was "Bigger than a bread box".  We could create anything quilt related as long as it was bigger than a bread box.  

The February Island Batik Ambassador challenge this month is "Magnificent Minis". 

Ambassadors were asked to make a quilt smaller than 24 x 24 inches.

I had several ideas to choose from and even printed and cut out two different paper piecing patterns, but my heart kept thinking of Valentines day coming up and the fact that I don't have any valentine themed quilts at all.  Can you imagine that?  I didn't believe it at first, but after rooting through the quilt cabinet, there were no hearts to be found, so I put away the paper piecing and decided to get festive.  

I drew up a quick heart block that measured 3.5 inches and started pulling pink batiks.I grabbed two of the pinks from the stash builders that were sent to me from Island Batik, and grabbed the rest from my own Island Batik Stash.

- FYI -

From one 5 inch square you can get two 3.5 inch hearts and

from one 2.5 inch strip WOF you can get eight 3.5 inch hearts

    I still didn't have enough pink, so I added some purples and reds, all from older Island Batik fabric lines I already had. Isn't it wonderful how all the fabric lines play so well together, even the older lines. Island Batik fabrics never go out of style.  

Check out that half inch sashing and cornerstones.  I love tiny quilt pieces!

For the background I used the white batik fabric that was supplied to me as an Ambassador.  

I had never sewn with solid batik fabric before.  I love sewing with white backgrounds in my quilts so this was super nice to have that batik feel throughout.

And we can't leave out Hobbs Batting.

  I had two smaller pieces of 80/20 left over from a previous project and sewed them together to create the perfect size batting, once it was quilted you couldn't even tell the batting was pieced.

I am calling this one Candied Hearts.

As far as the actual size... well I got the "Bigger Than a Bread Box" part right for project quilting, but I'm actually 2 inches longer one side for the Island Batik February project.

It measures 26 x 21. In my defense, it did start out as less than 24 inches tall, but I had to add another row of hearts.  I couldn't have four on the top and three on the bottom. My brain needs symmetry and technically since the width is 3 inches shorter than 24 inches I do have the correct square footage...or inchage... is that a word?   

Thanks for stopping by.  Check out all the other Island Batik Ambassadors this month to see what minis and fabrics they are playing with.

And around 12pm Central time you can start voting HERE for your favorite Project for week three of Project Quilting.

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Project Quilting 10.2 - Red, White, and Blue

I made it!  I finished my quilt before the deadline. 
Albeit, it is super small this week at 8.5 inches.

The theme this week was Red, White, & Blue.  Not necessarily USA colors since many participants are from other countries, but it was based on the theme that most flags around the world have red, white, and blue in them, but we could create what ever we wanted.  It didn't have to be patriotic if we didn't want to.  

My original plan was to make a table topper I could put out for the 4th of July. It was going to measure 26 inches square. Not too big and doable in a week, but time time just wasn't my friend this week.  I was feeling a little under the weather halfway through the week. So instead of sewing I took a couple naps.  

Come Saturday night I only had the center done to my feathered star.  Instead of staying up all night I decided to trim the white triangles edges, add a mini border, and call it a mug rung.  Finished in plenty of time to get some sleep.  Maybe I can try the feathered star in another challenge.  It is a pattern I have yet to make and think they look really cool.

I have been checking out the other entries throughout the week as they have been posted and they are fabulous.  Go check out how everyone else interpreted the theme Red, White, & Blue.

Click here to see all the entries.

 You can start voting for your favorites at 12pm Central time.

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Project Quilting 10.1 - Hope Springs Eternal

It is that time of year again!  Project Quilting time! Where anyone who wants to join in the fun is challenged to make a quilt in a week based on that week's theme.  Check out all the details at  Kim Lapecek's website.

The first theme for season ten is "Hope Springs Eternal".  I will admit my first thought was Star Wars related.  I kept thinking of the line, "Rebellions are built on hope," from the movie Rogue One, but no ideas came on how to make that into a quilt.

My next thought was about how living water brings hope.  Out of the darkest darkness living water can spring forth and give hope and life to things around it.  I envisioned the colors of the quilt first, with the outer edges being black and fading into blue to represent the water and then bright colors to represent flowers.

Next was to come up with a pattern.  I was going to create my own swirling vortex of water, but I couldn't come up with a swirl pattern I liked.  Who knew it would be so hard to free hand draw a swirling whirlpool.  So I decided to go a with pattern I already knew that could still convey the colors I had in my head, The swirly triangle.

Not sure if that is the real name, but I got the pattern from an Irish Folding website a long time ago and made it bigger to fit my needs.

For each shade of color I used six different fabrics except for the blue, which has seven.  I thought about making a large quilt, but by the time I picked the pattern it was halfway through the week, so I opted for a table topper and actually got to bed on time every night this week.

It measures 30 x 27 inches.

If you haven't already, make sure you check out all the other entries this week HERE and vote for your favorites.  Voting starts at 12pm Central time.  To vote click the heart in the top right corner.

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