Costume Maker’s Ball Wall Quilt

This was another gifted panel.  The designs by J. Wecker Frisch are quite unique and whimsical and they all make me smile.  This is the panel as it can be purchased.

I cut apart the images.  I dug into my stash to see what I had in the way of black and white checks.  There were more than I thought and I decided they didn’t all need to be white.  There is even a harlequin print in the mix.  

And then the evils of a panel came to life.  One reason I am not a big fan of panels is that they never seem to be printed or woven straight.  Or maybe that’s just my luck.  Then I added insult to injury choosing to frame each image with the checks.  I liked them...even without sashing.

But sashing won out.  It bothered me all during the making that the quilt might turn wonky and prove to be undisguiseable or unforgiving.  I kept along with it anyway...hoping...

This panel was really fun to work on despite its challenges.

Binding choice was easy.  No surprise here, right?!

I had to include the words that ran alongside the panel.  

I can’t believe that I forgot to work the selvedge into the quilt design!  How fun is that selvedge!

This wall quilt is quite large, measuring 51” X 30”.

Ta-Da!  All done.  If you don’t look too close, the wonk isn’t too noticeable.

(At the time of the photo, I hadn’t yet gotten a dowel for hanging)

Did you notice the panel has a sewing theme?

On to the next project...........

Paper Pieced Trees Quilt

Oh but I CAN see the forest for the trees!

I’ve wanted to make a little forest of trees for some time now.  Checking that off my list.  And it is a ‘little’ forest.  

When all sewn together, each tree block measures just about 3.25” X 2.25”.

I wanted a selvedge border so I dug around in my selvedges tote for neutral selvedges.

Then the little wallhanging stalled while I figured out how to stitch the selvedges for an inner border.  Of course I eventually figured it out.

Simple in the ditch quilting.



It was finally finished.  I’m SO pleased.



I tried out a couple of tree sizes before deciding.  The tiniest one turned into a cutie pie of a pincushion.

The block was SO TINY it didn’t look fun to sew so I added a bit of a border.  It was still so little.  But so cute.

I now have a very small collection of four little pinnies in my pinnie jar.

   

I actually use the skeleton one so it doesn’t really live in the jar.

I like that the little trees quilt can be hung for me to enjoy at any time of the year.  Right now it might be a Christmas tree farm.  Later a forest.

Eclectic Quilt and Giveaway

I’ve joined in with the “Show Your Stripes” blog hop.  Many thanks to Carla of 

Creatin’ In The Sticks for allowing me to join and all her hard work of organizing a successful blog hop.

My stripes project began with a smallish quilt.  55” X 60”

Using a bundle of Tim Holtz fabric fat eighths that I have had stashed for a few years.

I pulled out the bundle, plus considered a few extra pieces to add to it.

I cut the pieces into 2.5” strips.

I arranged a line-up and stitched the strips together end to end.  I made the top using the jelly roll race technique except in a controlled manner.

Because I’m terrible at accepting the unknown.  I had to have some control.

I squared it up and quilted it.

Added the binding.  I know, shocking that it isn’t a striped binding!  Who would’ve guessed for a stripes blog hop that I wouldn’t use a stripe for the binding.

Hand stitching the binding to the back is my favorite part of quilting.

And DONE!



I love including selvedges in my quilts.  I stitched the few selvedge strips end to end for a fun narrow row.

That’s another stored project OUT of storage.  It is my last long stored project.  What a super feeling to have ZERO planned projects in storage.

I also don’t want to keep making scraps to store.  I had some strips leftover.  They became a pillow.

But there are STILL some strips and pieces of strips!

Too hard to just toss them out.  And I can’t just keep keeping them. Too many scraps become too chaotic for me.  So I stitched them all together.

Then cut that slab in half, stitched it end to end and I now have a long hot pad for the table.

That’s it.  I always find it amazing how far a fat eighth collection will go.

The Giveaway...

I have a striped fabric postcard that I will send to one of my followers.  Simply include in your comment that you’d like to receive this postcard in your mail.  I will contact the winner for mailing info.

Check out my fellow bloggers sharing their striped projects today to inspire your sewing creativity.

Tuesday, February 23rd

Life in the Scrapatch

Stitchin At Home
Websterquilt

Homespun Hannah's Blog

Karrin's Crazy World

Quilt Schmilt

That’s Sew Kerry

SameliasMum

Annie's musings

Bah-Humbug Christmas Quilt

It was about time for me to have a Christmas Quilt.  This is it and just in time to enjoy it for a few weeks this Christmas.

I used Leila Gardunia’s Scrappy Triangles.  A collection of 53 paper piecing blocks.  I was hoping to use up some of the Christmas fabrics that have been in my stash for a long time.  Using some up is the perfect excuse to shop for some new pieces...right?

I loved sewing the blocks and watching the design come to life, all the while listening to Christmas music...since just before Halloween.

I’m not one that names my quilts.  But, this is when this Christmas quilt got its name, Bah-Humbug!

The first column I stitched together on the right end revealed two blocks a bit smaller than the other six.  That was not going to be good for this design.  I was so upset thinking how many more will there be?  I just wanted to throw the whole mess away!  I already had so much time invested in the blocks.  Within the hour I decided to sew it all together (trying not to notice how the blocks wouldn’t line up nicely), quilt it and donate it somewhere.

BAH-HUMBUG!!!

The other thing I didn’t like was needing to keep the papers on the blocks until they were all sewn together.  (I started removing some paper from a few blocks but quickly realized I was going to have an even bigger struggle than just mis-sized blocks).  I did remove the seam allowance papers to make it easier to press the seams.

Guess what?  There were no other mis-sized blocks!  Only the two on the end.  That made me happier.  I was also very happy to get those papers off.

But then I began quilting the thing.

It seemed like a lot of black.  I thought I’d give the black some interest by stitching with red thread.  I worried about it for awhile before starting.  My fear was realized just as I knew it would be.  I cannot sew a straight line to save my own life let alone someone else’s.  It really shows on the solid black.  I knew I gave this quilt the right name!  At this point I couldn’t wait to get it done and get it out of my sight.  So much so that I had to take a break from it and try a Christmas pillow instead.

For the pillow I used the smallest Triangle Ruler.

I just used scrap bits left after finishing the quilt blocks.

 

This was calming my upset over the quilt.

I don’t really know how I feel about the design for a pillow, but I do know that I liked it better than the quilt, mostly because it was not near the trouble the quilt has been.

When I was finished with quilting the quilt and it was no longer just 12 or so inches away from my face, the crooked straight line quilting stopped bothering me because it wasn’t noticeable.

As I was hand stitching the binding, I realized that it was the exact detail the quilt needed.  At that moment I fell in love with this quilt!

I think it’s bold and subtle at the same time.  I love that.

This quilt measures 58” square.  Just right for cuddling under to watch Christmas movies.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

Treasure Hunt Quilt

Grab a cuppa...this is

The story of the Treasure Hunt Quilt

This is the fabric that stole my heart that I could only find on Etsy (at the time) and I HAD TO HAVE IT.

It was sold as a 27” panel.  I originally intended to make another small quilt with it.  Possibly give it borders to enlarge the panel.  I loved it even more when it arrived!  So I thought to get another piece, sew them together and not add a border.  I went back to Etsy shopping (it was still not available anywhere else that I could find). I found another piece.  The price went up?!  Not fair!  But I HAD TO HAVE IT.  I added a 2 yard piece to my cart that I would use for backing and a striped piece I would use for binding.  And a bunch of other pieces I thought I would like to have in my stash as well.  After all, there was not going to be an in person quilt show this year where I could re-stock up.  Any excuse is a good one, right?

So the second panel arrived and I could finally get started on this quilt.  I am SO excited!  I opened the envelope and the happy dance screeched to a stop.  

The piece I now have is NOT quilting cotton.  It’s more like a canvas fabric.  Very coarse.  Now I knew why the cost was higher.  This has come after my Etsy purchase experience with the Curiosity fabric  with the 2” squares.

Oh yes I did...I went back to Etsy to get yet ANOTHER piece of this Treasure Hunt fabric.  Although I preferred quilting cotton, I decided I would make a quilt out of whichever fabric I would end up with 2 pieces of.  I did try hard to read everything and get quilting cotton.  And again it was yet another price.  Didn’t care anymore.  I crossed my fingers and the quilting gods must have felt sorry for me as I received another quilting cotton piece.  Big sigh of relief here.  This time it was a measured 1 yard piece.  36”. That explains the new price.  I’m scratching my head at Etsy now and hoping not to need to go back again.  At least not for this quilt.

I began to get the two pieces sewn together.  What do you mean they aren’t the same width???  1/4” difference.  This fabric has nice flat selvedges. I had planned to keep them in as part of the quilt.  There went that idea.  Don’t care anymore.  I moved on.  

Now I laid out the quilt top and batting.  All smoothed out and trimmed to size.  I flip it over to lay the backing down.  Guess what!  Same designer, 3” narrower than the top fabric!  Yep.  Figures.  Why would I think they would be the same width.  

Oh yes I did...I went back to Etsy (still the only availability of these Marcia Derse fabrics) to get more.  You guessed it, no more of the Birch available.  I had to choose something else to extend the backing.  I chose The Opposite.  No further surprises.  The fabric gods obviously knew there would be another incident and bestowed favor on me.

If I couldn’t use the selvedge on the front, there was nothing in my way for using it on the back.

But now that there would only be 3” of the new fabric, I had to try to get it straight on the back.  I don’t know any easy secrets to accomplishing that.  I put the time into it and I was successful in this regard.  Small happy dance.  

Finally time to start quilting.  I decided for a grunge fabric that I would do grunge quilting.  It’s probably really called improv quilting or something like that.  I just followed shapes and lines and not precisely.  That was the hard part.  Giving up control.  

After doing a width of that, I knew this was going to take awhile.  I did a block section at a time each day for a few days.  It got to where it wasn’t fun.  Make a few stitches, stop, turn the fabric, stuff it through the machine opening, make a few stitches and that was how it went over and over.  I had to force myself to stay at it until it was done or this quilt would never get done.  Ever.  After 3 days of quilting whenever possible, the quilting was finally finished.  

Now the binding.  I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to like it.  I had nothing better and still didn’t want this piece to end up in my stash.  So I forced myself to use it anyway.  Didn’t care anymore.

When I went to trim the quilt, I couldn’t bring myself to cut off the selvedges.  Even though on one side they didn’t line up.  (that 1/4” width difference). And I thought the other side would maybe be too narrow.  Guess what...yep, didn’t care anymore.  As I was sewing on the binding I really didn’t like it and the blank white sections of the selvedge were going to look really odd.  As I continued I started thinking what I could fill the white space with later on...fancy stitches?, ribbon?, cording?  Either way I could worry about that later.

This quilt is one and done!  63” x 42.5”

As I was hand stitching the binding, I decided the ugly stripe worked well afterall.  And the blank white spaces along with the text of the selvedges is now my favorite part of the quilt.  Who could have guessed!

I absolutely unconditionally LOVE this quilt!

I’m quite pleased that I powered through all the “I don’t care anymore”s and ended up with great features in this quilt that might never have been.  This is my favorite quilt ever.  It will never see the inside of a storage tote.

Sometimes there’s something bigger at the end of a lot of frustration and incidents that we think aren’t happy moments.  Everything that happened in the making of this quilt is now well worth it.  Had they not happened I wouldn’t have  this quilt exactly the way it is now.  All those incidents added fantastic features and character to this quilt.  It truly has been a Treasure Hunt and I found the Treasure!