Design Wall Monday-October 22, 2012

Yay, this is finished except for the binding. I finally decided what it would be and will put it on today after work. The baby will be born tomorrow, so I'll wait for the name, quilt it into one of the blocks and send it off.

Here is the next baby quilt. I won't finish it quite yet...I have  a wedding present to finish first, so it's ready to go with me to California and be delivered at Christmas time. I have to admit I think I like this one better. It is going to have white for the sashing and the rest of the background. I am going to move the first three and last three letters so that there only need to be the two blocks in the corners. I like the shapes of many of the letters in this one better than the first. These are not sewn together yet, so I'm going to change the Y. It's the only letter I don't like on this quilt. I'm going to have the tail drop straight down, like this Y.

I was at IKEA yesterday and found this. It's in the form of a twin duvet, but there is plenty of fabric for the back of the alphabet quilt. Though there are Swedish letters, I can go with it. The gray quilt is backed with green fleece. It is a mottled color that matches the R very well.

To see more design walls, check out Judy's blog.

Alphabet Blocks Idea

What do you think of the tumbling blocks in the corners? I think they might be fun. I've got all the letters done and I like them. It was fun to go through my scraps and choose colors that I thought would work. I like these letter shapes much better than the previous ones. The only one I'm not too happy with is the Y, I may have to redesign that and make another one. The H is a little spindly, and maybe there should have been holes in the B, and maybe the A.

Putting the letters together was a bit like a puzzle, and I may have at least one or two more quilts in me yet.

Design Wall October 15, 2012

Here is what is on the design wall at the moment. I finished the first alphabet quilt and decided to do at least one more, but with a few modifications to the shapes of the letters. I used graph paper to draw them out, and am being a bit more intentional about the shapes and colors I am using.

Here is the plan with the altered letters. I found some free graph paper online and printed out 8 squares to the inch, because I'm making 8 inch squares, then I just count the squares to know how big to make the pieces. It makes it much easier.

Here is the finished top. I like the way this one came out too, and now I just need to quilt it. I think I'll probably use gray thread for the quilting, though I may end up using matching or complementary colors for quilting the letters. I planned to use a fleece back, but perhaps I'll change that to flannel, much more baby friendly.

To see more design walls, check out Judy's blog.

And Another One

I had such fun with the last one, I decided to make one more of the three baby quilts with the alphabet. I modified it a bit this time, and am actually going to make it more or less look like this, I started and have already made 10 letters. I want to follow the colors I used on the plan this time, and make them more to plan.

I like the colors so far. I decided to use prints this time, but monochromatic so that they look almost like solids.I also decided to use white as the background, even though it's a baby quilt. I guess the recipient can worry about keeping it clean! I plan to make it machine washable, so that should make it a bit easier.

Alphabet Quilt Top

I like it! Now to quilt it. Don't know what I'm going to do, but I'll figure something out. I want to make another one using prints...and I was thinking white for the background, but that just doesn't make sense for a baby quilt.

It was fun to piece the letters. I didn't really plan, just looked at the shapes and made them up as I went along. I will change a few I think...the O, the P and the R for sure. Maybe A and V.

Fun quilt and didn't take too long, but it did make a mess. Fleece for the backing/batting I believe.

I don't know if I'll get this done it time, but if I do it's off for the new baby on the 23rd.

Design Wall Monday, Oct 8, 2012

Here is the boot pattern, almost done. The border and cord are actually drawn in this picture because I don't have a new picture yet, but that is the what I want it to look like. I'm still sewing down the binding and I decided to use thread to paint the cord, so it's not quite so bold, but it's fun. I don't know if I'm going to do more quilting on the background, or if so, what I will do. It's kind of plain, but I like it

This design is base on a quilt by Tula Pink. I changed some of the letters to look more like the letters and I really like it in solids. I think I'll work on this one this week. Three babies are due in the next six months, one on the 23rd of this month. Maybe I can get one done!

To see more design walls, check Judy's blog.

Another Plan

The next plan. I like it. I saw something similar online, but at the moment can't remember where (just Googled "modern alphabet quilt" and came up with this one by Tula Pink, here ) and decided I could do it, but with my own twist. So...here it is. I just bought some gray, and I have solids I have been wanting to play with. I don't remember if the gray is this dark or not, but if so, I still think it looks cool. At the moment, two babies on the way, one a great niece, the other a co-worker, so time to get going.

What does this....have to do with that?

 What does this....













...have to do with that?

Well, Joe asked that I make some bacon peanut brittle, so I did.

He thinks it's just marvelous, and I think it's OK. I don't really notice the bacon flavor, so I don't think it's a big deal, but if it makes my honey happy, well, there you go.

Paper Piecing Fear and Loathing-Aid

 I have, up until yesterday, always hated paper piecing. I have only experienced frustration and have never been successful. I had looked at books, tried different papers, bought videos, but still no success. I think part of the problem was I never found a pattern that was paper pieced that I wanted to do that I couldn't do with regular piecing. I am confident I would still fear and loathe PP except that I found a pattern I wanted to do that couldn't be done the "regular" way.

So, I decided to give it one more shot. One of the biggest problems I had was wasting fabric. There is no way around that, but when the motivation is there, I am willing to let that go. The result of not wanting to waste fabric was that I had problems covering all of the space on the patterns, and I couldn't get over it. I bought a video a while ago. I understood at the time that Carol Doak was a queen of paper piecing and I saw the video at a local quilt store and bought it. I watched it at the time, but since I wasn't convinced that the method was worth the trouble it really didn't cause a change in my attitude.

Yesterday, because of the pattern I found that I wanted to piece, I watched it again. It was very helpful, except for one aspect. I think this video was made to be a companion to a book, so she gives specific instruction about how to make specific blocks. She doesn't tell how to figure out what size piece of fabric to precut, and that is a big part of my problem. I went online and did a bit of research about how to figure out the size necessary and one blogger said to make the pieces 3/4" larger than measured. Because of my problems about covering the foundation I decided to go with it.

The ruler you see in the lower right of the picture above has lines every 1/8th inch. I used that to lay over the parts of the foundation and made them 3/4" larger. The foundation pattern underneath the ruler is a guide provided to piece correctly and I wrote the measurements I came up with on it. With the Singer block that I made I just listed each part and put the measurements on it, but this was a bit easier. Then I decided to go for it and cut the pieces out for the whole block. I then pinned the pieces to the foundation they will be sewn to.

The block I am making today is this one. I really think it's cute and I'm considering making it for our guild auction in a couple of weeks. It's taken me about 2 1/2 hours so far to prep, let's see how long it takes to make.

So if you have given up on paper piecing, or never tried it because it seems too complicated...you might want to reconsider!

I'll post a picture when I'm done.

DONE! Again it's after dark and the color isn't great, but isn't it fun?

I'll need to figure out how to embroider the words.

YAY