This post serves as my second entry to the Blogger’s Quilt Festival hosted by Amy’s Creative Side. The requirements are that we write a new post to share each entry (blogger’s can enter two separate categories). I am entering my Scrappy Row quilt in the Home Machine Quilted category.
Rainbow Scrap Row Quilt, February 2016
I made this row quilt by following along with the Classic Stitches BOM, hosted by Mari at Academic Quilter throughout 2015 (great tutorials for each row are available on her blog). I spent a great deal of time quilting it at the beginning of 2016. I decided I would quilt each row with a different motif. Here are a few examples.
For the yellow stars, I used a large flower that extended into the points of the star.
The brown Pennsylvania blocks are sporting Baptist Fans and my initials down in the corner.
The blue waterwheel blocks have a flow of meandering loops and flowers.
The green row of Crosses & Losses blocks is quilted with a spiral motif.
These Dutchman’s Puzzle blocks are my favorite row. I did a tight stipple here as the row wasn’t entirely flat and required a lot of quilting to tame it down.
This quilt was gifted to my sister Tina (the one sporting her birthday crown!) for her 60th birthday. It was very fun to make and even more rewarding to give!
I hope you will pop over to Amy’s to check out the entries in the Quilt Festival. She hosts this event each fall and I have come to look forward to it – lots of inspiration and always one or two new bloggers to befriend. This year is the first time I have entered though. Voting begins Sunday the 25th!
Last weekend was the best. I mentioned in a post last week that five of my (six) sisters were coming for the weekend. No spouses or grandkids were on the guest list so Ray and Julia took off for Downieville for a couple of nights.
A few of my sisters and I, plus my parents, were in cahoots, planning a surprise birthday party for two of my sisters. Tina turns 60 this year and Alicia, the youngest, turns 50. When I look at that sentence, it doesn’t seem at all possible that the youngest in our family is 50. In my head we are all still 30-something. The passage of time is crazy hard to wrap my head around. We have always celebrated the 50th in a big way and we needed to do this for Alicia too. We told Tina about the surprise for Alicia but we also (secretly) planned a party for her. The surprise party was perfect – neither suspected a thing.
Trying to figure out a theme for Alicia’s 50th party, I came up with a “50 Shades of Gray” party. Not having ever read the book, I was going for the number 50 and the kind of raunchy theme that the the title implies. We agreed that the five of us would each bring ten gifts, some silly and some not, that were either gray in color or wrapped in gray/silver paper. That way she would have 50 gifts to open. It was so much fun to pick things out. Everyone went crazy with it. Lots of silly things and some pretty gifts too.
Being fabric obessesed, I headed for the sewing room and, digging through my gray scraps, made a few items.
The potholder has a “50” FMQ’d into the upper right corner.
The key fob was fun to make. A few months ago I bought a bag of the hardware pieces and hadn’t done much with it until now. Also made a cozy for her coffee when she is out getting coffee, as well as a tissue holder for her purse.
I did have to part with some of my Allison Glass scraps but Alicia is worth it. 🙂
Here are the 50 items all together. Some of the highlights were: socks – lots of gray socks, Grey Goose vodka, two pretty gray mugs, bracelets, a knit beanie, flip flops, Earl Grey tea, denture cleaner, silly magnifier glasses, a book on becoming a mother later in life and a pregnancy test kit (apparently my mom is still hoping for more grandchildren??? Pretty sure that isn’t going to happen!), pretty gray towels, a picture frame and loads more. One of my favorite gifts was a plain, gray rock from my sister’s yard, all wrapped up. It cracked me up – look for it in the center on top of some cupcake liners (which were silver of course.) I also loved the tshirt in the front on the left. Awesome. It was so much fun.
For my sister, Tina, we honored her 60th with more traditional gifts. I had been planning for quite a while to give her the Classic Stitches row quilt. She had commented several times that it was her favorite of the quilts I had made. When I quilted it, I even wrote a little note to her in one corner. (I didn’t ever post about that for obvious reasons.)
Receiving the quilt was a huge surprise for her and it made me so happy to see that she loved it.
Note the gorgeous birthday crown she is wearing. My sisters and I got a little crazy with some glue and stickers and made these gorgeous birthday crowns for the girls.
Mom and Dad did a great job setting up the party at their house with delicious food and festive decorations. Mom pulled out their baby pictures and I got a quick picture of each sister with her baby photo.
It was a perfect party that could only have been improved if the sixth sister were able to make it. We missed her. It is so hard to get everyone here at the same time.
We also made a playlist of fun songs from our childhood in the 1960’s. Dad danced with each of the birthday girls.
We went back to my house on a stormy night and promptly lost power for the next 11 hours. Kind of a pain when you live in the country and rely on a well for water. At least it was later in the evening and we slept during most of the outage. The next family get together is one where I will be the missing cog on the wheel. There is a bridal shower for two grandchildren that are getting married. My family will be on vacation at the time though. Like I said, it’s always hard to find a time when the eight of us can be at the same place, at the same time. So it is important to revel in those times when we are (mostly) together.
Linking up with the usual suspects whose links are listed at the top of the page, under Link Ups.
Oh, how I love this finish! I’m not positive, but I think this quilt (so far) is the one that I have spent the most time on. I don’t track hours or anything like that, but I feel like this one has many hours into it. For RSC15 I made a row quilt by following along with Mari and her Classic Stitches BOM. Each row consists of a set of blocks that root back in quilting history. Mari chose an excellent sampling of blocks and I was able to complete nine of her eleven tutorials. A couple of them were too challenging for me and I substituted easier blocks those two months.
Overall, I absolutely adore this quilt. I love the bright, crazy, scrappy look, the traditional blocks that change row by row, sampler style, and the quilting that I did on each row. It was a great experience for me in a couple of different ways.
First of all, row quilts are a challenge in that it is tough to get each row to come out the same length. My supposition is that with all of the handling of each block and each row, month over month, they stretch a bit and become distorted. This quilt is absolutely not going to be entered into any juried shows! it is not even close to square. I sashed it because I wanted lines separating each row to give the eye a place to rest; this is a busy quilt. Additionally, the blocks are not accurately pieced enough to match row upon row. Did I cut off any points? Oh yeah. So by sashing them, I was able to deal with a lot of those issues. Cutting 60″ rows of sashing allowed me to ease the rows in and deal with any rows that were slightly longer than 60″. Really, sashing hides a multitude of issues. 🙂
I had a great time quilting this project. At 60″ by 70″, it was a reasonable size to FMQ on my machine. I chose a different motif for each row which was a great way to quilt it without getting bored half way through. Some motifs were easier than others but for the most part, I am very pleased with the result.
Lazy little flowers meander over the blue Water Wheel row.
I quilted meandering hearts over the pink row. They turned out decent but they were harder than I expected.
The orange Dutchman’s Puzzle blocks made for my favorite row. With these tiny pieces, my row had a fair-sized ripple to it and I was concerned about quilting it. After consulting with one of my favorite quilters, Janine over at Quilts From the Little House, I decided to use a tight meander. She felt like I could quilt the row into submission, and it worked. Yay Janine! Definitely good advice.
The yellow row of Double Stars is another favorite. I decided to quilt each individual star, rather than cruising over the entire row and I am very happy with the resulting flower contained within each star.
The green row of Crosses and Losses blocks is quilted with little swirls. These were tough. They are a bit more herky-jerky than I would like but this is where I am at this point in my quilting. With each row, I worked right to left, preferring to begin with the bulk of the quilt bunched into the throat and then feed the quilt out. So the right side of the rows are a bit rougher than the left. I improved as I went along. I plan to only look at the good half. 😉
The brown Pennsylvania blocks are sporting a Baptist Fan motif. Since I rarely get around to labeling a quilt, I also put my initials on the very far right corner. (On this row I did work left to right. It seemed easier to get the fans moving in that direction.) Again, these turned out ok – they look better from a distance than up close. Curves are tough.
Here is a peek at the back. I love the simplicity of the back since the front is so raucous. With the tiny floral print, the quilting really doesn’t show but that is fine. Crazy on the front and calm on the back! I used the backing fabric as binding too. The little floral has a vintage look to it that works with these traditional blocks.
Yep, I love this quilt and learned so much from the process of making and quilting it. It was a wonderful project and I am so grateful to Mari for all the time she took to create the tutorials each month and her patience with my whiny emails about how hard the blocks were! Her bit of history behind each block was an added bonus each month.
Linking this week with Linky Tuesday, Sew Cute Tuesday, Freemotion Mavericks and Finish it Up Friday.
Ahhhh….. what a great Sunday. Never got in the car once. That is the best sort of day. After a little bit of housekeeping in the morning, I spent the majority of the afternoon in my sewing room. Life is good.
I finished the sixth row for my Classic Stitches BOM quilt (hosted by Mari over at Academic Quilter). The color for RSC15 in June is light blue. Mari wisely chose the water wheel block (what is better for light blue?) The block was very simple once I got the pieces cut. The previous five rows that I made consist of 6″ blocks. This month I made 7 1/2″ blocks. Kind of fun to see the difference in size. I need to vary the sizes a bit. Maybe I will make a row of tiny blocks next month and some oversized blocks in a later month. Here is my row for June.
Somehow this row is a bit longer than 60″ so I may have a challenge on my hands when I stitch the rows together. But that won’t be for months, so why worry about it now?? It was too hot out to really hang all of the other rows, but here it is with two others.
This is going to be such a fun quilt to finish up. Looking forward to seeing what color and block are on tap for July.
Last week I spent most of the week in Sacramento with my daughter. While she was in class I did what any other self-respecting quilter would do and hit up a few quilt shops. Actually of the three stores I went to, only one was a true quilt shop. The other was a huge sewing machine store that sells fabric along with machines and long arms. The third was Hobby Lobby, only because I had never been to one before. Visiting these three businesses confirmed the fact that this obsession has turned me into a fabric snob of the worst sort.
Hobby Lobby was exactly what I expected. Low end fabric and so many novelty prints. I suppose this is the right place for moms that are sewing clothes for their littles. The fabric is of a lower quality and I wouldn’t put it into a quilt but for an outfit that will be outgrown by summer’s end, it is probably just fine. Didn’t buy a single thing there.
The sewing machine shop, Meisner’s, had a smaller selection but the fabrics were good quality. They had a 40-60% off section which sucked me right in. I found the backing that I will use for the 1940’s vintage double nine patch quilt that I am just starting. It was a steal which is nice because I needed 4 1/2 yards.
I had the most fun at a little shop called Quilter’s Corner. I had been here once before during a Shop Hop. Their selection is fairly extensive so I had fun looking through the shop.
I found a piece of Kaffe Fassett that I wanted to go along with a jelly roll that has been sitting on my shelf for a while. I have an idea for a quilt but that is on the back burner for a bit while I get the double nine patch going. It is going to be so pretty tho! Love Fassett’s shot cottons and these colors are wonderful.
Also from Quilter’s Corner, are these two pieces. The print is from American Jane’s newest line. Several months ago (maybe last fall?) Sandy Klop, the designer of American Jane fabrics came to speak at a guild meeting. It was interesting to listen to her and even more fun to look at the quilts she brought to show us. After the meeting, I purchased a set of 1/2 yard cuts and started a quilt with them. It is maybe 1/3 of the way complete. Looking at it coming together, I thought it lacked yellow so I was happy to find these pieces.
The nice thing about the American Jane line is that pieces from different collections work so well together. These will fit right in. Again though, this needs to wait a bit. I want to get going on the vintage blues quilt and if I pull any of these other projects out I will only distract myself.
Hope everyone had a great Sunday. I am so glad I found time to sew today because tomorrow we are headed back to Sacramento. When my daughter had her birthday in May we didn’t have time to celebrate it with her friends. She invited three girls and I am taking them to a water park tomorrow. For them, it will be a day of bikinis and squealing which she is really looking forward to. I plan to find a bit of shade and bring a good book to pass the time while they do their thing.
Well, I didn’t think I would get to these this month but I did! For RSC15 (Rainbow Scrap Challenge), April’s color is purple. I have been following along with Mari’s Classic Stitches BOM over at Academic Quilter and the block for April is a simple one titled Delectable Mountains. Lucky thing she was doing a simple block because this has been a really busy month. I just managed to squeak these out in time. I didn’t want to fall behind. Skip a month, thinking you’ll come back to it, and somehow it gets shoved aside.
I love these blocks though. Simple strips of the main color and the background, does it get much easier than that?
A whole mountain range of majestic purples!
The row quilt is growing!
While I did manage to make my April row for the row quilt, I didn’t finish all three of my goals for April’s ALYOF. My hope was to make two table runners (which I did) and one mini quilt. I finished the top of the mini for the Allison Glass Mini Swap but felt like I would really be rushing things to sandwich, quilt and bind it before the end of the month. Since this is going to someone else, I really want a great finish on it. I am debating doing a circular quilting pattern on it and that will take some time. So, I won’t link up with the April finishes over at Sew Bittersweet Designs. Just couldn’t get it all done. Oh well. The top looks great though.
The colors are wonderful.
Two out of three isn’t bad. Sorting and washing all of the vintage fabric that I have been posting about has been time consuming. Also I had a number of Etsy orders to deal with so April went by in a blink. I will have to really think when I plan what I can accomplish next month. May is going to be a crazy, busy time around here and I doubt I will have as much sewing time as usual.
Hope everyone had a wonderful week and got in at least a little bit of sewing time.
Linking to Crazy Mom Quilts and Confessions of a Fabric Addict as well as So Scrappy.
Another finish! Trying to get things all finished up for March. These stars are my RSC15 project for this month. The color is yellow and these turned out so cute.
Two of the stars have a bit of a mistake. However, I am calling this creative design. Mostly because I don’t feel like ripping it out. Do you see the mistakes? Hint, hint, look at the star that is second to the left in the picture above.
Here are the first three rows of the quilt. I am following along with Mari over at Academic Quilter. She is posts a new block for this row quilt the first Tuesday of each month. Looking forward to seeing what is up for April!
We are going to work on the house in Downieville this weekend so I won’t get a lot of sewing done. I do plan to take up some hand sewing. I am making some throw pillows for the guest bed and I am going to try hand quilting one while I am up there. I have never hand quilted before so we’ll see how it goes. Are there any tricks? Advice is more than welcome. I plan to quilt straight lines running on the diagonal. Hope everyone has a great weekend!
Linking to Angela at So Scrappy for this month’s RSC15 challenge.
The brown Pennsylvania blocks are sporting Baptist Fans and my initials down in the corner.
These Dutchman’s Puzzle blocks are my favorite row. I did a tight stipple here as the row wasn’t entirely flat and required a lot of quilting to tame it down.
