Tag Archives: harmony quilt

A Harmonious Finish

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This week I finished my Harmony quilt. I will finally be able to send it off to my nephew and his wife as their wedding gift. Doesn’t some rule of etiquette say you can give a wedding present within the first year and it is still ‘proper’? According to this post on Manners Monday of the Huffington Post, I am still within the time frame. Though really, who would refuse a wedding gift because it was late? At least I am finally giving it to them!!

You might remember I made the quilt top a long time ago. I used a fat eighth set of Millie Fleur by BariJ for the centers and Moda solids, Fig Tree Cream and Stone. The pattern is one that alternates hourglass blocks and economy blocks, each of which finished at 9 1/2″. I love the look of this pattern and feel proud to have drawn it myself and figured it out without a pattern (I don’t do that too often.)

I wanted to quilt it on a long arm because there is lots of cool negative space and it would have been fun to play with it. However, that just never worked out and in the interest of time and wanting to complete this quilt, I opted to quilt it at home.  It is fairly large at 74″ square so I decided against free motion quilting and settled for straight line with my walking foot. I did a diagonal line across the middle. For one side I did vertical lines all the way out and on the other side I quilted horizontal lines. I like the effect.

My favorite part of the quilt is the bottom border where I relief quilted their last name and the words EST. 2016.  It is a sweet reminder of when they married and established their family of two (plus a couple of dogs!!) As with my other relief quilting projects, I fused stabilizer to the back of the border strip (before it was attached to the quilt) Once the letters were traced on to the border, I used my darning foot and created the design by free motion quilting around the shapes of the letters and numbers.  After attaching the border strip and quilting the body of the quilt, I took the darning foot and FMQ’d the outline of each letter and number to quilt that section of the border and make the letters stand out and puff up a bit.

On the corners I used a four patch block as a cornerstone.  On each of these I quilted a little flower. The borders were free motion quilted with a pattern of loops, alternating small and large ones.

To finish it off, I made a scrappy binding!  I am such a fan of scrappy bindings. Luckily, I had just enough of the Millie Fleur fabric left to make the binding.

The backing is a green, floral wide back I purchased long ago and I couldn’t honestly say what it is. I can say I love the ease of a wide back for backing. Pieced backs are very cool and give you sort of a double sided quilt but wide backs (108″ wide) provide ease of use and a speedy finish. (Plus I have a large piece of it leftover which is kind of nice!)  In fact, I recently bought the first bolt of wide back, a small gray polka dot by Red Rooster and it is listed in my shop.  Just in case you need some. 🙂

I can’t wait for the kids to receive their quilt.  I was really sad to have missed this wedding last year. From the pictures they shared, it was just a gorgeous day for my nephew and his new wife. I am sharing a picture of them dancing at their wedding. Breathtaking, aren’t they? I hope they love the quilt and use it happily for years to come.

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Checking In

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Balance (for me) is never easy. Lately I feel I have ignored my blog slightly as I work to get my fabric shop up and running. There are a limited number of hours in the day and I find myself divided between regular life chores, sewing, writing, listing items on Etsy and shipping a few orders here and there. The other distraction for me is social media. Oh how easy it is to be sucked into it and look up 30 minutes later, wondering how to get that last 1/2 hour back. This week I have tried to stay with one task to completion before moving on to the next.  I have also tried (with limited success) to stay off of social media and check it less frequently. I love seeing everyone’s posts on Instagram but really, it isn’t the best use of my time!

Earlier in the week I made it my top (sewing) priority to finish quilting the Harmony quilt that I made last fall for my nephew. I really wanted to quilt it at the long-arm shop where I can rent time on their machines. After scheduling and rescheduling appointments several times, I gave up on that wish and decided to quilt it at home. As luck would have it, my Janome 6500 (which has a nice big throat) is being very cranky. This means I am quilting it on my little workhorse – an older Janome with a narrow throat. As a result, I switched over to standard straight line quilting. To add some interest, I am quilting it in two halves. Starting on the center diagonal line, I began vertical straight lines. Those vertical lines continue to the far corner. Then on the other half of the diagonal, I am quilting horizontal lines. (Does this even make sense?)  At first I spaced them out about eight inches to anchor everything down. Now I am working on filling them in to about two inches apart.

I think it is working quite nicely and I should be finished with the quilting in the next couple of days. Selecting a fabric for binding it is still up in the air. I am aiming for a scrappy binding with the leftover fabrics but I am unsure if I have enough.

Moving on, I have been playing catch up with the Sewcial Bee blocks. This weekly bee is hosted by Maureen Cracknell and Sharon Holland. The blocks are fun and relatively simple. But I got behind and have to make about three more blocks to catch up. (Remember the first paragraph – just not enough hours to get it all done!) I am (was?) trying to use only my Fleet & Flourish scraps (by Maureen Cracknell) for the print fabric and various solids to tie everything together. As I create the blocks though, it is becoming clear I won’t have enough Fleet & Flourish to stay with this plan.  Now what to do???  Decisions, decisions. My choices are to:

  1.  Add in some Garden Dreamer (also .by Maureen Cracknell and would probably blend reasonably well) and since I carry it in my shop, it is readily available to me
  2.  Buy more Fleet & Flourish.
  3. To be very careful with the scraps I have and make it work by adding in a larger percentage of solid fabrics for the last 12 blocks.

Looking at these three incredibly important choices, my thoughts are these. Buying more fabric is silly.  I have more than enough fabric on hand and should be able to avoid buying anything.  Number three would probably be unsatisfying because I would have to use a whole lot of solid fabric to make it work and I don’t think the result would be to my liking. So, number one for the win. I will go slice six inches or so off several of the Garden Dreamer bolts downstairs in my shop and combine both lines. Phew! I am relieved to have gone through the process and made up my mind.

Before I close and go off to quilt a few more lines and make a Sewcial Bee block or two, I want to share some pictures with you. Remember I mentioned Julia was going to raise two piggies for her 4-H project? I have to say, these animals just crack me up. Here are some recent pictures with photo credit to my daughter. She is really enjoying this project and has done a great job with these two goofy pigs. They are growing like crazy but then that is to be expected considering the amount of feed we are going through!

Daisy and Ella Napping

Eating, always eating!!

Daisy, after playing in the mud.

Silly Ella!

Off to the sewing room now. Wishing everyone a wonderful weekend!

 

Q1-2017 FAL Plan

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I wasn’t going to post again this week but I decided I should do a quick outline of my quilty plans for the first quarter of 2017. I will be joining in with the FAL event hosted, in part, by Rhonda at Rhonda’s Ramblings. I joined in last quarter of 2016 and I liked having that list to work toward. In fact I finished all but one item.   Here is the plan for the current quarter.

  1.  Baste, quilt and bind the Harmony quilt. This WIP is moving from last quarter’s plan to this quarter. The issue is that I really want to use a rental at the long arm shop to finish this one and between their schedule, my schedule and my unpredictable migraines, I haven’t gotten there. Surely I can manage this over the next couple of months though.
  2. The second goal is going to be so much fun!  I will make – cut, piece, baste, quilt and bind – a sweet baby quilt for my first grandbaby. The baby is due March 3rd. I hope to have it done by then. It is a simple pattern of HST’s set on point that my kids chose.  Called Simply Snuggly, the tutorial  was written by April Rosenthal. The pattern finishes at 52″ x 61″ so I will be cutting it back a bit.   The parents-to-be chose a lavender, gray, white and pink color scheme. I have the fabric – all of it – for piecing, binding and backing. So I am ready to go. When I get back from our trip this week, I will get it cut out.
  3. I have another baby quilt to make this quarter as well. My niece is expecting her third child, a sweet baby girl, at the end of March.  My plan is to make a quilt from one oversized block. I am thinking of doing a big granny square block with bright, cheerful fabrics. I don’t have the fabric for this project yet but if I look through my stash, I suspect I will find at least a portion of it.
  4. I also plan to make some progress on the Sew Fresh Quilt Bee Hive blocks I am doing for the Canadian Ronald McDonald houses. I have 3 1/2 blocks completed.  I am sure I will be able to squeak these in between the other projects.
  5. I would like to make at least one, and maybe two, garments. I have no plan for these yet but I have a few pieces of fabric that would be fun to use. Two of them work for a baby outfit for that little grandbaby we are all waiting for. Or, I have that vintage border print I have mentioned before. I would love to make a little skirt for myself with it. I can fit those in, right?
  6. If there is any other time left for sewing, I will start a scrappy project. I decided not to follow the RSC17 color of the month this year. I have two scrap bins whose lids no longer snap tight. The green and blue bins are overflowing. Tons of scraps!! It would be fun to make a quilt with greens and blues and a pop of – something? – maybe yellow or a tiny bit of orange?  I will use Amanda Jean Nyberg’s and Cheryl Arkinson’s   book Sunday Morning Quilts for inspiration. I look at that book all the time, drooling over the ideas within. Maybe I should actually use one of them?!  Did you know Amanda Jean is soon to publish her second book, No Scrap Left Behind (love that title)?  I can’t wait to get my hands on it!!

This is plenty to shoot for this quarter! Now to see what actually is accomplished. Are you planning along with this quarter’s FAL?  If so, I look forward to seeing how the quarter progresses for you too.  OK – this is probably, almost certainly, the last post for this week. Probably, maybe, I think so?