Coast to Coast 2: C's Quilt

I shared K's quilt with y'all earlier this week, and today I'm back to share C's quilt with you!

C's quilt was the first one (other than my own) that I tackled for C2C this year. I feel like the first round is always super tough--you're setting a major tone for future additions! And I struggled with C's quilt. I felt like I could go a conservative route and tack on some trees, or a sunshine in the sky, or a river underneath, and I sketched out numerous plans. I researched natural features in NH, where C is from, and I even considered improv piecing a waterfall. But none of those ideas felt right.

What did feel right was a retro travel poster idea. I reached out to C, who was okay with my idea, and I went to town! I googled retro travel posters and looked for ideas. I ultimately decided to frame the mountains with a white-on-white print and a chocolate shot cotton, which totally looks black and way too much in the pic above, but it's really a tad more demure.

For the lettering, I used a red and white polka dot because I knew I wanted red. Yummy, yummy red. I bought an alphabet pattern from From Blank Pages, and it was awesome. I would totally recommend it!

This was a teaser I put up on instagram, and I asked readers to guess what it was going to say. Some of the responses were totally awesome.

Next I'll work on S's quilt, but I have a brief break because I haven't received it just yet. Here's hoping I can squeeze out another quilt or two and maybe even cut into the fabric I purchased for two dresses this past weekend. (Yes, two. Apparently my fabric-buying self-control went out the window this weekend. I blame it on the snow and my need to wear sundresses without heavy tights and boots.)

Do you have any fun weekend sewing plans? I'm going to be staring longingly at my tangerine knit fabric and my Moneta dress pattern. Maybe???

Coast to Coast 2 Quilt Top Start

Last year, I helped start a traveling quilt bee called the #coasttocoasttravelingbee. Along with five other super awesome quilters, we stretched our skillz to the max and produced six super awesome quilt tops. (Here's mine!) I had such an amazing time, and it was pretty obvious that C2C had to happen again!

My 2017 quilt top was inspired by a mountain range, and it was fun to create based on a place. (I had never made a quilt like that before!) I had thought at first that I would use water (particularly in the form of rain) as the base for this year's quilt, but my initial work following that pursuit was...um...bleh. And not me at all! And you know how sometimes it's good to do things you're uncomfortable with and push yourself to try new color schemes/techniques/things? Well, this wasn't any of those things. It was just bleh.

At this point, I had a couple of weeks to produce something worthy of this year's C2C group. After spending MONTHS laboring over the water/rain idea, I searched through my folder of quilt ideas/patterns/inspiration, desperate for something.

And then I saw these awesome Butterfly Charm Blocks from lillyella. And they'd looked pretty fun, and what if I did a rainbow? So I did.

At first I'd planned to make 9 and then do a nine-patch grouping, but after talking with K, she suggested maybe a ring of butterflies would be awesome.

And I was like, I have this nine-patch idea cemented into my brain! I can't betray that! And besides, it's going to look fierce! And then I laid out a ring of butterflies as K suggested, and it looked AWESOME (and meant less paper piecing) and how could I say NO?

This is what I've sent to the always fab Alison, along with some rainbow goodness. Yes, please, butterfly charm blocks. YES, PLEASE.

Who wants to guess what will get added? I'm SO excited to see where this group of awesome quilters will go!

Wordless Wednesday WIPs

Just a few shots of WIPs from the last week or so.

QIP: Frozen Watermelon

My Monday was shaping up to be a rather normal day until I read this post by Kim from Leland Ave Studios. She had marvelous success combining a bunch of old projects into one, and I'm reading her post thinking, I have some old stuff hanging around. I could do that. (Maybe.)

You may recall, I tried to use these blocks in another improv project. But the more I worked on that project, the longer I realized it didn't want to be friends with those blocks, so the entire quilt top was made without a single orphan block.

Sheer determination just may have carried me through this project. I was going to use those blocks, so help me. (And I did! Yay!) I'm calling this one Frozen Watermelon since the temperatures have finally dropped out of the weird mid-60s that pervaded much of my December. (I hate cold. I hate snow. So you know when I think it's too warm in December that it's really, really too warm.)

This quilt measures 40ish by 50ish inches. I never felt like those star blocks were very me, so I dropped that project. This feels much more Audrey. And now that they've been used, I could maybe talk myself into trying the paper pieced star project again, but this time using fabrics more up my alley.

I have no idea how I'm going to quilt this baby. Oh, who am I kidding? I'll probably quilt it in straight lines on the diagonal because that's what I always do! But maybe in a pale pink thread?

I'm thrilled with this quilt top, not because it's my new favorite, but because it's the first time I did a large scale improv project and didn't stress out. I didn't throw anything or have to step away because I was getting too frustrated. It just happened, making me think that maybe, just maybe, pushing myself outside of my comfort zones has been a good thing. 

I'm linking up with WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced!

FQB: Sarah's Quilt.

Once upon a time, I joined up with some other lovely ladies, and we formed a traveling quilt bee called the Fierce Quilters' Bee. In today's episode of FQB goodness, I was tasked with Sarah's awesome quilt in progress, a low volume, paper piecing, arrow bunch of true fabulousness.

I made four arrows and four low volume blocks. (Yes, those hedgehogs are all sorts of awesome.)

My fave block involved piecing together a bunch of EPP hexies, then framing them with strips. I love the look of it, and I think it will be a fun contribution to the rest of the quilt. I did not cut the extra ends off because it still has a way to travel, and I figured it's more secure this way.

This is everything to date. It's going to be a super sweet quilt top when finished!

This bee has been all sorts of awesome fun.

FF: Ikat Quilt Top.

I finished my Ikat quilt top. (Woo!) I modified the pattern from the May/June 2014 issue of Love of Quilting, meaning that instead of a throw size I only used a fraction of the blocks the pattern recommended to make a baby quilt.

This bad boy is a little wild. When I saw the original picture in the magazine, I fell head over heels in love with this quilt, and I knew I wanted to make it in the exact color scheme and spirit of the original. (Yep, blatantly copying. But how could I possibly improve on the original? I couldn't. Unless maybe I made it in pink. But since this is a Team Green quilt, probably not the best option.) But when I finished piecing all of the blocks together, it just seemed a bit too much. Then, I remembered a post from Quilting Jetgirl in which she took a super fun crazy wild orange quilt and reigned it in a bit by adding a thin border of Kona solid around the edge.

So, I did the same. (Thanks Yvonne for your awesome inspiration!) I added a two inch border of Kona black, and yeppers. I love that a whole lot more. I had originally planned to bind the quilt in black, but my backing choice vetoed that option for me, but this enables me to still frame the quilt in black while using another color for binding. It's almost like I plan this stuff, folks. (And do I have a picture of the backing fabric? Of course not. Because that would be too much awesome for one post. Let's just say, there are unicorns on the fabric.)

I have two plans for quilting, and we'll see which one wins out. The safe straight line quilting option or the slightly crazy (for me) FMQ option. It could go either way at this point. I'm glad to have the top done even if I don't have to have this bad boy done until Thanksgiving-ish. And can I just say, it took me 1.5 hours to rip the paper off the back of the blocks? Not awesome. But I'll forgive this quilt since it looks awesome. And really, when you look at the whole, you can barely see the row where my points don't line up, which just makes my little heart happy.

I'm linking up today with TGIFF hosted by Leanne at The Devoted Quilter. Woo for a finish!

Work on a Team Green Baby Quilt.

Some friends of mine are expecting their second bambino around Thanksgiving. Since I made their first little one a quilt, I'm definitely making their second a quilt. Except, this time, they're not finding out the baby's gender. Apparently they're now members of Team Green? (I had never heard of this concept, but maybe that's not surprising seeing as how I needed to find out my kidlets' genders as soon as possible.)

But even before they were Team Greeners, I knew I wanted to use this palette for their quilt. Weird how that worked out, right? 

Cutting all of this took approximately twelve million hours. I also determined during the course of cutting that I was short two pieces of lime fabric. LAME. But I suppose there are worse things than having to visit the fabric store?

And that twelve million hours really cut into my time for piecing! I pieced twelve of twenty blocks, then got excited and decided to start piecing the rows. And do you know what happened when I started piecing the rows? DISASTER.

The points don't line up, and not just a couple of them. ALL of them. And since this pattern is paper pieced, that really shouldn't be a problem. We're talking like a 1/4" off. And since my seam allowances were included in the template, and I know it was printed at 100% scale, I really can't understand the problem. Which makes me think there isn't a solution.

I'm a little grumpy. I'm going to seam rip the row and see if I can figure something else out, but the finished product might be rocking something like this. I'm trying to tell myself that it's okay if it is....

We'll see what the next few rows have in store, I suppose!

FF: Fava's Quilt.

After a particularly long and painful bout of Braxton-Hicks contractions, I knew I needed to get this bad boy done, and quick! And done it is! I don't even want to start to think about how much time went into this one. Let's just say...a lot. But it was totally worth it.

After doing a ton of intricate piecing, including those feathers, I opted to go super easy and minimal with the quilting. I think it was the right call. And I tried to keep my quilting lines to the solid pieces of fabric, mostly because I wanted the quilting lines to disappear in the top. Lots and lots of echo quilting. (And I loved it.)

I did consider trying some FMQ, and I even pulled out some test sandwiches and practiced, but it didn't feel right. To me, this quilt just wasn't a good candidate to practice my FMQ.

The binding is one of my favorite touches. I sent my quilting sensei a pic with a bunch of different solids for potential binding options. Well, they looked so yummy all next to each other, but I thought it would get a little crazy to use them all. Well, when K texted me back and told me to do just that, how could I say no? The binding took forever to cut and piece, but it was totally worth it.

I also hand bound this one, which is the first time I've done that in a while. I opted to hand bind because I really do prefer the look of it. And after putting so much time into the top, I really wanted to finish it off right. I'm glad I did, even if my fingers are raw and my back is aching!

The backing is from the same line as the prints on front--Violet Craft's Waterfront Park. I loved the bridges print, as did my husband, and I knew it wouldn't get enough room to really shine on the front, so backing it is! But I hadn't ordered quite enough, so I used some of the leftover fabrics from the front for the back. (And can I just say that I'm really excited about those metallic birds from Craft's newest line? YUM.)

And YES! This was an item from my Q2 FAL list, so I'm sneaking it in right before the deadline! Woo! How did your Q2 list finish up?

FF: Fava's Quilt Top.

After a rather meh finish last week, I'm super excited to share this one with you today! On Monday, I added the last border to Fava's quilt top, and now I can get to basting and quilting and binding, woo!

This top has truly been a labor of love. From diamonds in the center, to paper pieced feather blocks that took multiple hours each, to tiny borders, to equilateral triangles, to round it all off with a bit of navy, I love the finished product, but boy, am I glad it's done.

I used Violet Craft's Waterfront Park collection, with which I am still very much smitten. (And yay for having TONS of yummy leftovers!) I also used a variety of solids, including Kona navy, and I think that's Kona Rich Red. I have no idea what the turquoise solid is, sorry. And the whites are technically two different whites, but you wouldn't have known that if I hadn't told you, would you? And I pretty much can't tell either, so I think it all fits.

Regardless of my careful measuring and math attempts, my triangle border wound up too long. UGH. This was my first time piecing triangles like this, so it's no wonder that it got complicated and messy. But I wasn't re-cutting all of those triangles again, especially since I was using my 6" x 24" ruler to do it, so I just centered the strips and let it be what it was. I doubt Baby Fava will care too much. As for the square in a square blocks, they wound up slightly too big, so the corners are chopped on all four sides. But again, it looks consistent, or dare I say, almost intentional? So that's staying too.

I'm quite in love with this one. It's definitely top five favorite quilt material, though I'm not entirely sure it will surpass my first love. The piecing, certainly, but can it shove a hot pink quilt from the number one spot? Time (or the quilting) will tell.

But now Friends, how do I quilt this bad boy? FMQ came to mind, but I'm not sure I trust my rusty skillz enough for that. And I do want to do some handquilting on this top, but how? Or go uber minimal and let the piecing do the talking?


I'm linking up today with TGIFF, hosted this week by Quokka Quilts. See you there!

Arrow One.

Yesterday, I showed you a bit of the first half of some arrows I'm making for Fava's quilt. And today....

I have a finished arrow for show!

I'm especially proud of the fletcher. (Incidentally, I did not know this was called a fletcher until I started making this pattern. Who knew quilting would sharpen my math AND my vocabulary? Fist bump to quilting.)

That's one down, and three to go! And then, you know, the rest of Fava's quilt. Oy. What have I gotten myself into? (In case you're wondering, the answer is, I've gotten myself into a SUPER awesome quilt that is going to look SUPER fabulous when finished. I hope!!)

FF: K's Mini Quilt.

I started up work again on my City Sampler quilt this week. I thought I had finished through #60, but in fact, I stopped at #58. And would you look at #58? It's maybe the easiest block in the entire book. It took about two seconds to finish.

But I've only posted that pic because this post is about my friend K's belated Christmas gift, and I don't want even the slightest hint of what it is to reach her blog feed. (She's been instructed to stay far away from my blog today.) Here's what I really want to show you: 

It's ridiculously late for a Christmas gift, but it's done, and that's what matters, right? Oh, and I kind of think it's awesome. But I'm happy to give it away because it's going to one of my favorite people, K! (In case you're new around these parts, K taught me how to quilt over two years ago, and that poor girl has since had to put up with my almost out of control obsession. Because of this, she deserves all things pretty. In fact, I'm starting to wonder if the reason for her move last fall wasn't entirely because of the new job....)

But back to the mini: Oh, NY Beauty blocks. How I love you.

Not when I'm putting you together, of course. I absolutely hate you when I'm piecing you. But when you're all said and done? Oh la la. YES. 

The background is Kona Nightfall, which is a really yummy dark blue. The rest are a smorgasbord of prints, including fabric from my very first quilt. I echo quilted the interior triangles as well as the outer triangles using four different thread colors to match the four different triangle colors. (See what I did there? Yeppers. I'm super clever and creative.)

And the back, using a print from Lizzie House's Constellations line. I had been hoarding this print, but how could I not share it with a friend, especially when I knew it would be perfect. We'll be having a visit from K's husband this weekend, and I'll be sending it back with him, so K will have it soon enough. (I really hope she likes it!)

I'm linking up today with TGIFF, hosted by M-R at Quilt Matters and Finish it Up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts. This is also a finish from my 2014 Q1 FAL list. You can see my original list here.

BQF: Baby Boo's Quilt

I've got a finish, and just in time for the Blogger's Quilt Festival at Amy's Creative Side, woo! This quilt is for my baby niece, who should be arriving the first week of November. It's also a finish from my Q4 2013 FAL list, woo!

Because this quilt is going to my niece (who will be the second girl out of six grandbabies--my parents are so excited) I needed to make sure it was extra special. I have an amazing niece and two nephews from my older sister, but this is my younger sister's first baby, so even more reason to make the quilt spectacular.

In January, I finished up a quilt for a cousin's wedding. My younger sister saw it, fell in love with the feathers, and told me if I ever made her a quilt, she wanted a feather. Well, I made her two.

Of all of the quilts I've made, I'd say this quilt is the most me, which is why I chose it for the BQF. The colors, the fabrics, the craziness of it all...me. In fact, it is really hard to part with it, but I'm going to because it's for such a special kidlet. (I did embroider her first initial into the top, just in case I got weak and tried to change my mind.)

It took a while to piece. Those AMH feathers take a bit of time, and paper piecing all of those geese did too. I also drafted my own arrow paper piecing pattern because I didn't find anything online that I was crazy about. Elizabeth Hartman has a quilt called "Kaleidoscope" that inspired the section right under the feathers. I had to end the quilt with a bit of classic and used friendship stars and churn dashes on the bottom row. I'd love it if my niece got into quilting one day, so she needs a bit of traditional too.

As for quilting, I used nine different threads in three different weights. I handquilted the patchwork squares in lines 1/4" apart. When I ran out of one color thread, I'd start another. It was my first time handquilting a larger piece and handquilting so densely, but I love love love how it turned out. I did some basic straight line and echo machine quilting on the feathers, the arrow, and the bottom row. And I did some wild lines on my kaleidoscope-y section. When I sewed the first line, I was pretty sure I was going to hate it, but when it all turned out, I really like it. I'm glad I tried it rather than going safe and echo quilting. I FMQ'd over the geese, including two feathers that sprout from the center.

My fabric selection was lucky ducky. I picked out all of the fabrics online and ordered, even though I hadn't seen any of them in person and had no idea if they'd match. I am so pleased with how they came together. The backing is the glasses from Geekly Chic, and the binding is Kona Charcoal with a pop of Kona Corn Yellow. On the front, I've used some Comma, some Glimma, some Flea Market Fancy, some Sew Mama Sew, and a couple of other prints from lines I can't remember.

Thanks for letting me share this quilt with you. Even though it's small, it's probably my favorite quilt finish to date. My younger sister doesn't read my blog, and I've given her absolutely no clues except for the general color palette, so here's hoping she likes it as much as I do!

I'm linking up today with BQF in the Baby Quilts Category, TGIFF hosted by Quilter in the Closet, and Finish It Up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts.