Rise and Shine blocks

I've finished making the blocks for the Rise and Shine quilt. I have to say, I had a hard time with these for some reason, and there was lots of seam-ripping involved. I think part of it was that the directions were written for a white background, and I'm using blue, so every time it would say something like "Sew the white squares unto the blocks" or something, I'd have to stop and think and translate it in my head. Which sometimes I'd forget to do, so I'd sew the wrong piece unto the wrong row or some dumb thing.

Anyhoo...all mistakes aside, these are turning out so cute, and I love how they look like they're set on point, but actually not. I'm sick of setting quilts on point, since it seems like I've been doing a few of those lately and I think it's a huge pain.

Vacation Time!

I'm going to be at this lovely place for the next week:

I'm going to be doing  a lot of this:

I'm also planning on bringing my sewing machine, so there might be some updates while I'm away. If not however, and I succumb to total laziness, I'll catch up with you later!

Sweet Sixteen Longarmed

I took the Sweet Sixteen quilt top over to the Just Sew Studio on Saturday morning, and spent a few hours quilting it. I was worried about how much I'd remember from my training a few weeks ago, but I managed everything pretty well, under the watchful eye of the nice ladies who work there!

I think the trickiest thing is dealing with fullness in the quilt - I'd like to think that everything I make is square and measured properly, and that my quilt tops will lie perfectly flat, but who am I kidding? The reality is that my seam allowance isn't always perfect, and my borders are sometimes wavy. This isn't a problem when I free-motion quilt my own quilts. I baste from the center out and smooth things as I go. I also quilt from the center out so by the time I get to the borders, if things are wavy I just let it be whatever size it wants to and deal with it when it's time to put the binding on. No fuss no muss!

Things are not so wishy-washy with a long arm machine, since it quilts from the top down, so if things are off, it's apparent right away. There are lots of tricks and ways to deal with this, and I learned a few of them yesterday. Thank goodness, my quilt wasn't very bad, but it motivates me to be a more precise sewer...at least for the quilts I'm taking to the studio to finish!

I have a lot to do

I have my paper-pieced Flying-Geese circles, Cathedral Stars, the Tula Pink mystery quilt, Dancing Quill, and the Sweet Sixteen quilt tops all finished and ready to be quilted. This is getting out of hand. Yikes.

Friday Finish: Candy Squares

I think this little scrappy quilt is just the cutest thing ever. I name it Candy Squares, because it just looks yummy to me.

I quilted it in swirls, and the backing is a Jennifer Paganelli print from her St. Croix collection. It's very pink, but seemed appropriate for this quilt.

Backing

This is a good lap quilt, and I'm going to see if my sister wants it since it's her fabric and all. If not, then my mother will probably be able to find some deserving baby who will get it.

This week in sewing...

I started a new quilt on Monday, but it's kind of at the early boring stages, so I haven't blogged about it. This is a Camille Rosekelley pattern called "Rise and Shine" and I'm making it with her Miss Kate fabric collection, same as the "Miss Kate's Turnover" quilt. Still not sick of that fabric!

I've completed the 16-patch blocks, which all get cornered with a half-square triangle. Next up is making flying geese units, and then it starts to get fun! 

I'm supposed to mark each half-square triangle with a diagonal line to use as a sewing guide, but I'm lazy and impatient, so I've just been eye-balling it with actually very good success. I really hate marking things, especially hundreds of little fabric squares!

Friday Finish: Sugar Block

After I put this one together and quilted it, it started to grow on me quite a bit. It's still not quite my style, but it's not as bad as I thought it would be.

I pieced the backing out of all my leftover fabric from this line, since I don't think I'll want to use it again, and I'm trying this thing where I USE MY FABRIC!

Pieced backing

I quilted this in a pattern I made up and I don't know what to call it...it's kind of swirly, kind of spiky. I like it, because it's fun to stitch, and covers space up fast.

I happened to be working on this while my housemate's friend was over, and she was emoting over how much she loved it, so I handed it to her as she was leaving, all finished and bound. She cried she was so excited. My aunt teases me that I hand out quilts like they're sticks of gum, like it's no big deal. For me, that's part of the fun of making things. I don't tend to get too attached to what I'm working on either, so it really isn't a big deal to hand them over to someone else. I'm happy for my quilts to find new homes!

Sweet Sixteen: Finished Top!

As predicted, I was able to finish this one up over the weekend. I think this is such a fun happy quilt in a color palate I don't normally work with.

I also haven't made many quilts where the blocks are set on point, but I think I finally was able to get comfortable with the concept. I added two borders, and I'm happy to report that they're not warped or wavy. It's a challenge for me to get that right sometimes. Mainly because I'm too impatient to, you know...measure.

I'm going to take this to the sewing studio next weekend and practice my Long Arm skills with it. I can't wait!

Long Arm Lesson

My head is still spinning from my Long Arm certification class on Tuesday. So much new information to comprehend and hopefully retain! Thank goodness the ladies at Just Sew Studio were patient with my endless questions (and mistakes), and very thorough in making sure I was comfortable and confident with what we covered.

Backing is basted unto the leaders and zipped unto the rollers, batting is floated on the top and
the whole thing is clamped together.

The Long Arm machine the studio owns is a Gammill Statler Sticher, with lots of bells and whistles and fancy doo-dads that I don't know anything about yet. The kind of quilting I learned how to do is called Edge-to-Edge, where you load the quilt on the frame, program in a design, and the machine takes over and quilts it for you. This is perfect for the kind of efficient, utilitarian quilting I like to do. For something you'd want to create yourself, or a customized design, you can operate the machine and do the quilting yourself, but that's a different skill set and something I'll have to work up to doing.

For now, I feel like I'll have my hands full, remembering how to get the backing, batting and quilt top loaded in the machine properly, how to wind the bobbins, how to baste everything, how to operate the computer, how to deal with thread breaks or bobbin changes....thank goodness the studio provides cheat sheets and plenty of on-site support!

I have a session scheduled later in the month to go back with one of my quilt tops, and hopefully I'll start to feel comfortable operating this machine! (who is called Mary, BTW).

Sweet Sixteen

After finishing the everlasting Cathedral Windows quilt top over the weekend, I let myself have the fun of starting a new project. This is a pattern called Sweet Sixteen (because it's made up of 16-patch blocks). It uses Fig Tree & Co's "Somerset" collection in fun shades of aqua, persimmon, and citron, and I'm loving having some bright colors to play with after being stuck in gray and blue land all weekend.

This is coming together fast, so I'll likely have another quilt top to add to my "To Be Quilted" pile soon!

Cathedral Windows Top Finish!

I really went to town over the weekend and finished up the Cathedral Windows quilt top. I adjusted the pattern a little so that the Jacobs Ladder blocks were more prominent than the stars (I didn't have enough of the tie material to make the right amount of star blocks), and I'm happy with how that looks. I added two borders - a red one out of some jelly roll strips I had, just for an extra pop of color, and then a larger blue one out of the shirt scraps I had leftover from making the blocks.

Next steps are basting and quilting. I feel like this is really crying out for some fabulous custom quilting done to it, but I think I'll be as efficient as possible and finish with something easy and simple. I think at this point this just needs to be DONE.