Project Quilting Week 6 - "Time is Up"

"Time is Up" was the theme for the final week of season 8 of Project Quilting. 

When asking myself what to make, the only thing that kept coming to mind was song lyrics from the cartoon version of the Hobbit.

All week I have been singing, "The answer is Time..."  I suppose I could have made a mini quilt that had something to do with the riddle about time between Bilbo and Golem, but I wouldn need longer than a week to put that idea together. So I decided to go with a quilt that represented something that could capture moments in time.

Recently I participated in a Polaroid block swap on Instagram and decided these type of blocks would be perfect for "captured moments in time".

For this qulit I made the blocks bigger than the regular tutorials you see on the internet because I wanted to make the quilt big enough for a toddler to carry around. 

I fussy cut thirty eight 3.5 inch squares for the Polaroid base, 

I enjoyed going through my stash looking for the perfect "pictures".

I refound some old favorites.

The Polaroid Camera block comes from Quiet Play and went together fairly quick.

The quilt measures approximately 35in x 45in.

Make sure you head to Persimon Dreams to see all the entries and vote for your favorites!

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Project Quilting Week 5 - "Well Dressed Man"

This week's theme for Project Quilting was a tough one for me.  I spent most of the week trying to come up with an idea. Finally Quiet Play's Dr. Who patterns popped into my head.  Surely all the doctors are considered well dressed men right? I decided to create one of my favorite doctor's... 

the 10th doctor, David Tennant. Looks just like him, yeah?

I tried several different "walls" for him to lean on, but he kept looking lonely all by himself.  Then I had the grand idea to have him leaning against the Tardis,  so I found a Tardis pattern at Fandom in Stitches and enlarged it a bit to make it somewhat realistic in size to the Doctor.

  Well, I didn't resize it big enough.  I think I should have made it 20 inches or more instead.

Not wanting to start over, I put it off in the distance a bit instead.

I found some Tula Pink fabric for the border and called it finished.

This mini quilt measures 20.5 x 19.

Make sure you check out all the other entries at Persimon Dreams and see how everyone else interpreted a "Well Dressed Man".  You can vote for your favorites after 12:00pm CST.

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Project Quilting Week 4 - Brighter the Better

The theme for Week Four of Project quilting is "Brighter the Better".  So far all my entries have fit this theme.  I have been using my brightest batiks for all my entries, so I wasn't sure what to work on that could be brighter than what I had already been doing. 

I wanted to keep with my lonestar theme and finally decided to piggy back off the pattern that I didn't finish for week three due to sashing issues.  It was definitely a learning curve using sashing on 45 degree angles and trying to get all of them to line up.  I think I took the top apart at least 8 times.  Needless to say I didn't finish.  But I loved the pattern enough to try again this week.  It definitely fits the theme for Brighter the Better.

 I didn't want to create the exact same quilt though, so I opted for a dark gray background, hoping it would make my batiks pop.

There are 128 individual diamonds in this top.

To help get pretty points I paper pieced each one.

Chain paper piecing was the way to go

My stack of pretties.
I took all the papers off while riding in the car this week.

Laying out my diamonds for my wedges.  Again I used chain piecing for these sections.

When making sure I had the right size triangles in the right spots I laid one of my gray sections against the top from last week.  It looked pretty cool seeing the difference in background.

 This time I sewed the top together in quadrants.  Last time I tried doing it on the diagonal which didn't work so well and I ended up takeing it apart twice before I realized quarters was the way to go.

I even had time to do some free motion quilting in the back ground this week.

I am loving this pattern.  It is a variation of one of Karen Stone's lonestar quilts.  I just added sashing to it and omitted the borders.  It measures approximately 40 inches square.

Make sure you visit Persimmon Dreams to see all the entries this week and vote for your favorites!

(Voting starts at 1pm CST)

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BC Mini Barn Christmas Swap

My last swap of 2016 was the Bonnie and Camille Mini Barn Quilt Swap.  Another 6 inch block quilted up sent to my partner using only Bonnie and Camille fabrics.

 I didn't get many process photos for this one,  Just a photo of before and after with binding.

This super cute mini landed in Missouri.

This is the mini I received.  It is very similar to the one I sent out.  It is perfect!

At the end of 2016 I said I was going to quit signing up for mini swaps,  but as of today I have seven more swaps in the works.  They are just too fun!

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Project Quilting Week 2: Carolina Lily

This is my entry for week two of Project Quilting.

It measures 30 x 30 inches.

The theme this week was Carolina Lily.

Inspiration didn't come as quick as last week, I was stumped as to what to do.  I couldn't decide between an artsy abstract version or a traditional version.

After looking around on Pinterest I found this cute paper pieced block and put it on file for a back up mini quilt option if it came down to the wire. The only problem was I couldn't find the where this block came from.  The Pinterest link took me to blank page with just the image.  I copied and saved the image and dragged it into the google image search hoping it would take me to the original poster, but all I got were bad Pinterest links. So I put it on the back burner.

Come Friday I was still undecided.  That little block was going to be my best option, but I'd have to redraw it on my own to make it work.  Finally inspiration struck.

This image popped up in my Pinterest feed. It comes from Judy Martin's Book Shining Stars and I decided to recreate something similar using the Lily Block above.  I knew the Lonestar part would sew up lickety split using strips and chain piecing. It would be the 8 lily blocks that would take up most of my time.

The First thing I did was redraw the lily block so I could paper piece it. It didn't take as long as I thought it would in EQ7.  All I had to do was load the image and trace it. Piece of cake. Then I played around with some layouts.  I liked the one on the right with big lilies in the corners, but I knew I was already short on time so I went with the one in the middle.

By Friday evening I had my layout, my paper piecing pattern printed, cut, and fabric pulled, and was starting on my 8 lily blocks.

Luckily I had my most of my Saturday free to work on this quilt.  I finished up the lily blocks and got to work on the Lonestar pieces.  I went with rainbow colors again.  I can't help it, they are so pretty!
Since this quilt is only 30 x 30 inches, these Lonestar diamonds started out with 1.5 inch strips.

Working on the Lonestar sections.  I don't actually plan on making a Lonestar each week of project quilting, but it may end up being a fun side theme trying to see how I can incorporate a Lonestar pattern into each theme. We shall see what week three brings.

Saturday night I had all my pieces sewn and early Sunday morning I got up and put everything together.  I didn't have time for any fancy quilting on this one.  I barely had time to stitch in the ditch around some of the major areas. I finished the last binding stitch at 8:50am and went outside to take its picture.  It was pouring rain, so the front porch swing was my only option.  I put a very quick blog post up so I could link my entry and by then it was 9am and time to get ready for church.

It was a weekend full of sewing, but was so worth it!

Check out all the other entries HERE and vote for your 10 favorite!



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