3-D Pinwheel Quilt

My first ever pieced quilt top.

I love that it is perfectly imperfect showing my piecing skill improvement over the years.

This quilt top has hidden from me for close to 25 years!  

I didn’t start making quilts until 9 years ago.  I was under the greatly misunderstood impression that quilts had to be free-motion quilted with a design or tied.  How silly is that!  I’ve done free-motion on many small quilted pieces, but I don’t enjoy it.  So I knew I’d never machine quilt this top.  It would have to be tied.  Although that wasn’t really appealing either, it would be what I would do.

This quilt top got carefully folded and set aside.  Then we moved.  And moved again.  This quilt top never made it’s way out of the storage bin that it was put into to move...and move again.

Over the last 9 years, I’ve searched for this quilt top a few times.  Because I finally woke up to the fact that I could quilt it in any design I wanted to.  Including straight line quilting.  Not finding it anywhere, I have been kicking myself for obviously giving it to the thrift shop thinking I’d never quilt it.  I went through the kicking myself every time I looked for it.  And I kept looking occasionally because I wasn’t absolutely sure that I had given it away.

During the last 2 years I have slowly worked at sorting and purging my stuff-burdened life.  A couple of months ago I finally began to notice the progress and I went at it whole hog in the basement.  At the very end of storage bins to sort through, buried at the bottom of the bin was this quilt top!!!  Can you even imagine my surprise?

The top is cheaply made.  The pinwheels and black sashing are broadcloth.  Did I hear shocked gasps?  Well, it was what I could afford at the time.  And could not afford batting and backing at the time.  Which was another reason the top was carefully folded and set aside.  

I’m not hard on my quilts, so I expect even broadcloth is going to last a good long time in my possession.  I won’t treat it any different than the quilts I’ve made with quilt shop fabrics.  

At the bottom of that storage bin was another surprise.  It was my daughter’s very first ever quilt top that she sewed.  She would have been about 10 or 11 years old at the time.  I told her I’d quilt it for her.  She’s not taking after her mother or grandmother or great grandmother with an interest for sewing.  Her quilt top is next under the needle as I cannot have unfinished projects lying around.

I still can’t believe I had enough patience to cut and fold all those 3-D pinwheel pieces!  I’m not sure I would even consider doing that these days.

Be My Valentine Quilt

My third unfinished quilt is FINISHED!

Be My Valentine

This quilt got its start in 2016.

I paper pieced the hearts from a pattern I drew myself.  A heart paper piece pattern is not hard to draw at all.

I lay thin sheet boards on my bed for pin basting.  I have one full size sheet that is 4’ X 80” (because I have low ceilings upstairs).  I have an extension sheet that is 30” X 80”.  I used the smaller one for drawing my quilting lines.

When a fabric has a wide flat selvage with printing info on it, I like to make it a part of my quilts.  Just for fun.

This is a smaller quilt that measures 58” X 76”.

I used two of the fabrics for the binding.  They are pretty close in looks, so it isn’t easily noticed.  But I like it.

It feels so good to have all of my unfinished quilts finished.  

I couldn’t wait to start on the next quilt.  I meant to start and finish one.  But I’ve got two new ones going at the same time.  I planned one.  The second came as a request that I don’t want to put off too long.  So I’m just working them both at once.  What a happy quilter I am! :-)

Halloween Quilt #2

This second Halloween quilt began to come to life in December 2015.  I was ready for Christmas early and this Halloween quilt wanted to get started being made.

I wanted to make a Jelly Roll Race quilt.  I began collecting Halloween prints and colors a couple of years earlier to cut my own Jelly Roll.  But as I saw jelly roll race quilts being made, I saw that I wouldn’t be able to control how the colors landed together.  A quilting control freak cannot live with that!  I kept thinking on it and collecting and cutting 2.5” strips of fabrics.  

Finally I hit on this plan of jelly roll race CONTROL.  

I cut the strips into shorter lengths to maximize color EVERYWHERE.

It was fun to get this far, but I began to wonder if it was too wild and out of control.
  

But I kept going and for some reason, stopped taking progress photos.  But I began to like it again when the black end strips were added.  And I liked it even more when the checkerboard pieces began to be added.

Then I had to put it away to move back home.  Back to my teeny tiny sewing space that was not inviting me to come sew in it.  The quilt stayed packed up with the art quilt and another unfinished quilt for a years time.

I finally caught the sewing bug, worked on making my sewing space useable and began a mission to finish quilts.  It was now this quilt’s turn.  The rest of the checkerboard framing went faster than I thought it would.  Soon I was quilting this quilt.

It took me a weeks worth of every free moment to get it quilted.  And I only do straight line quilting.

I couldn’t believe I was finally about to bind this quilt.

I was so glad I chose the green for the binding.

I didn’t even notice the tiny green dots on the backing fabric until I was hand stitching the binding.  What a lucky choice to do green binding.

I still struggle to believe this quilt got finished.  But I love it.  My daughter has already claimed it for herself.  She’s Halloween crazy and color crazy.  I’m thrilled she loves it too.

My photo helpers are a bit on the silly side.

It measures in at 68” X 84”

I did it. I finished it.  I’m still trying to convince myself of that.

And there it goes, off with it’s new owner.

That’s now two of my three unfinished quilts finished!  The third one is being quilted now.  I’m getting pretty excited to start a new fresh quilt and get it from beginning to end.  No more of this UFQ (unfinished quilt) sewing!

It’s time to get your creep on!

Snowball Quilt

I've seen lots of snowball quilts.  But when I saw one with green and white corners, I immediately saw those corners in my mind as black and white.  And I had to get started making that quilt.  

My granddaughter has an important birthday this year and I thought with the black and white it might make into a fun teenage quilt.  (I think I was right about that).  

I didn't like the fact that her favorite color is blue because my least favorite color is blue.  When I found the Horizon Layer Cake bundle, I thought, that's blue enough for her and I think I could work with that myself.  Then the bundles arrived in the mail, and I thought what old lady prints they are.  But I still liked the colors.  So the quilt began.  And now it's finished and I'm quite happy with the way it turned out.  

I kind of think the fun-ness of the black and white corners and check make the old-lady-ness of the prints disappear.  This finished quilt measures 60" x 80.5"  

xxx

Annie

Pinwheel Quilt the 2nd

This is the pinwheel quilt that almost wasn't.

 

 

 

98 pinwheels later and it's a quilt.

(Yes, Sheila, I miscounted)

 

The reason it almost wasn't is because the 98 pinwheels would have had to have been sewn together by way of improve.  That would have taken me forever and NEVER would have gotten done. 

 

So I had to decide on a more structured layout.  I had too many pinwheels already made and didn't want them laying around to remind me of a failed idea.

 

I worked at this quilt diligently until it was finished because I didn't really want to make it after the layout disappointment.  I knew if I stopped it would become a UFO.  I don't want quilt UFOs.

 

 

Quilting this quilt was quite the challenge.  The 3 second rate purple air soluble markers I bought would make two or three lines across the quilt then spit purple ink blobs on it !!!! When I finally gave in and bought the Dritz brand..... 

 



 

 

all was well and quilting went like a breeze.

 

 

 

You can't even imagine how happy I was when the binding was on and the quilt was done.

 

 

 I think I've satisfied my pinwheel making desire for awhile now.

 

 

This pinwheel quilt was made with the same fabric collection as I made this Fractured quilt.

 

 

It fascinates me how different they look.

 

And now I've HAPPILY moved on to a quilt that's looking exactly how I hoped it would.

***smiling***

 

xxx

Annie

 



Fractured Quilt

I had these bright, colorful fat quarters that needed to be a quilt for my daughter.

 

As soon as I made this Fractured Pillow design,

 

 

I knew I wanted to make a whole quilt with the design.  I didn't have colors enough to duplicate the design, so it took on a look of it's own.  That was close enough for me.

 

So I began laying out the 3.5" squares.

 

 

And pretty soon it was a flimsy.

 

And then quilting began.

 

Soon I was stitching the binding.

 

Before I knew it, I had a completed quilt.

 

With a very worthy orange backing.

 

Measuring in at 59" X 77".  A very nice throw quilt size I think.  My daughter approved the fabric stack in a hot second.  I hope she likes it made up.  (Of course she will!) 

 





 

 I really got a bug when I started this one and kept at it continually (when I had the time) and within 5 weeks it was a quilt.  That's the fastest I've gone start to finish on a quilt. I  have in mind two more quilts I want to make, so sewing is not done yet.

xxx
Annie



 



CAREFUL!

Don't fall off your chair.....

 

.....I'm sewing!
 

I'm making a new quilt...

 

 

 

I'm actually only still cutting and laying out, but I'll be sewing soon!

 

xxx

Annie



Pretty Pinwheels

 

Once upon a time, there was a quilter named Annie...  I love pinwheels.  They are my all time favorite block.  Every fabric collection is considered for a pinwheel quilt.  But none has ever been right.

Until one day in February, Carol and I decided to purchase and split a Fat Eighth bundle called 2wenty Thr3e.

When my now Fat Sixteenth arrived, I knew it would be my long awaited pinwheel quilt.  BUT would there be enough fabric for enough pinwheels to make a quilt?

It was March when I finally decided on a design plan.  I actually NEVER have a total design plan...only a start.  I then dive in and fly the rest of the way by the seat of my pants.  I decided to make both 6.5" and 4" pinwheels.  The 4" pinwheels would be sashed with two different widths and then turned and placed at random between the 6.5" pinwheels.

Then a border of all the 4" pinwheels again.  It turned out to be the perfect sized throw quilt for me.  As I prefer quilts as accessories to beds and chairs and such rather than as a bedspread, I couldn't be happier.

I still had small scraps of all the fabrics and decided on a pillow.  But not with tiny pinwheels!  Just some small squares placed in a fractured arrangement.

I wasn't sure about not using pinwheels in the pillow, but it turns out that I love the design contrast.

 

 

I am SO happy to have my pinwheel quilt!  And even happier that I'm completely happy with my end result...even seven months after it's start.  **sheesh!**

 

 

 

It doesn't bother me at all that this looks more like summer than fall.  I prefer summer and I'm happy enough to hang on to it as long as possible.

xxx

Annie