A while back TJ’s Mom asked if I could make her a quilt for the living room. I love to be asked for a specific crafted item, because it means that the recipient is more likely to be happy with it. Knowing the colours of my MIL’s living room, I set about trying to find just the right fabrics and the right design too. Nothing too….quilty? Country? Something more modern and streamlined.

The pattern is one I saw somewhere and then made the dimensions for myself. I thought it looked modern without being weird. Do you know what I mean?

The backing was actually the first fabric I picked out, because I knew it would go in the living room well.

Here’s a shot TJ’s Mom took after she got home with it:

The binding is a little tribute to something I learned years ago from my MIL – every room needs a touch of black in it somewhere. I thought it just framed out the quilt nicely, while being a little different from what you normally see.

The quilting is a favourite of mine – circles!

I thought it lent itself well to the geometric shapes of the piecing.

I did label this one, but I have to say that I have still not found a way to label quilts that I like. Does anyone have any suggestions on what they use?

I am still glad that I managed to get both this one and my sister’s quilt done in time to take home with me. Really, I had plenty of time, but it just got away from me, as it often does.

I hope you like it mom and I hope it gets lots of use!

My little sister got married this past weekend. I thought I would make something for her and her husband that they could enjoy for many years to come. As always, click to see larger pictures.

Pattern: Rec Center Quilt
Fabric: Various cottons from the shop, demin from Joann’s on the back
Quilting: Wind Swirls (done on Laura‘s machine)

This is designed to be a big picnic quilt, as the backing is demin. Much more durable and stain resistant than a usual cotton backing

I liked the pattern, but I had one problem with it. The instructions have you cut the red sashing strips longer than they are needed and then it has to you trim them after you sew them on. This is done to avoid having to pin a bunch of little tiny pieces, but what I found is that it caused some of my blocks to be slightly out of square. This is a beginner thing I am sure, but I like having that extra chance to square things up when you are adding more pieces. I would make this quilt again, but I would just adjust the cutting of the strips to be shorter. Does that even make sense to anyone?

The wonkiness added to the overall look of the quilt in the end, and I really like how the quilting shows up on it.

The pattern has instructions for an attached strap, but since I wanted my sister and her hubby to be able to use this on the couch without getting scratched by velcro, my strap was just removable.

And with it all rolled (or folded up) I put it in a cool picnic basket thingy instead of a gift bag for delivery to the wedding.

My sister called the day after the wedding to say that she loved it. I hope they get lots of use out of it! I would love to see it years down the line all worn in and loved.

I wish them both many years of happiness!

A while ago Whitney and I created a quilt for the beginner quilting class that she teaches at the shop. Using a lot of Moda’s Simple Abundance fabric, this is what we came up with:

Pinwheels, 4 in 9, saw tooth star, HST’s and borders. That is a lot of knowledge learned in one set of quilting classes. When we were finished making this one, I had a lot of bits and pieces left over. I decided to make another quilt to use up what was left, while trying not to cut any new fabric.

This is what I managed to come up with, and I only had to cut additional fabric for the borders. I really like the strong diagonals made by the 4 in 9 blocks.

For the back I used up the strips I had left from the 4 in 9′s to make some more interesting diagonals.

One of my favourite things about this quilt though is the little brown strip between the border and the blocks. It is a folded over piece, so it is actually only attached one side. Sort of like a little flap (there is probably a proper name for this, but I don’t know what it is).

Because of this little flap I could not do edge to edge quilting on Laura’s Statler, so I did separate borders and individual blocks.

I did a different quilting for each block. Some daisy blocks, some leaves – generally florally. You can see more of the quilting if you click on the picture of the back of the quilt above.

I was really happy to be able to use up so many of the pieces that were leftover from the first quilt. My first foray into somewhat scrappy quilting.

My bedroom design was partially guided by TJ’s desire to have a quilt for our bed. It took a while for me to narrow down what it was about a quilt that he liked – was it the piecing? A specific colour? The texture? After showing him some examples, looking at store bought quilts, it turns out it was the texture and weight that he wanted. Something very crinkly without a lot of fussiness.

Once I had the colourway of the room decided, I started my very simple, but very large bed quilt.

From 8 different red and cream fabrics I cut 324 5″ squares. 324. Obviously I needed to change my rotary blade after that.

Then I managed to carve out a space (by moving half of my living room furniture) to lay out all the pieces. I wanted to make sure I didn’t get too many of the darker reds too close together.

I then sewed together strips of 9 squares. Then seamed 9 strips of 9 together to make 4 quadrants. With the quadrants sewn together, I headed over to Laura’s to quilt the beast. (Well, after I seamed together 9! yards of fabric for the backing).

Thank goodness for long arms. There is just no possible way I could have quilted this with my little Singer.

I did a tight-ish meander pattern to give it as much crinkle as possible. I machine bound the edge with one of the stripe fabrics I had used in the quilt. I used invisible thread – I figured it was never going to get done if I had to hand sew the binding.

With a trip through the washer and dryer (that was an adventure. I probably should have taken it to a laundromat to use the commercial sized dryer. It was completely creased when I got it out of the dryer. I ended up wetting it down and laying it out flat to dry where the creases were) Big Red was complete.

And as for weight? You got it sweetie – 6.5lbs of it. That is a lot for a quilt, and it is wonderful to sleep under.

Yes folks, that is Laura and I standing beside our blue ribbon winning dress. We won “Best Amateur Entry”! I am still in shock. Can you tell we are excited?

What a great weekend we had. I really didn’t understand the size of this quilt show. It was HUGE. We had a great time wandering around checking everything out. I will post some of the unbelievable quilts soon, but here are some of the other wearables that were in the competition with us.

This piece won the best in show award. It was so masterfully put together. The picture really doesn’t do it justice. The quilting on it was stunning.

And this piece won the viewers choice award. My camera really doesn’t do this one justice either, red is so hard to photograph. It was such a pretty shape.

As Laura and I have never been in a show, we learned a lot about how the competition works, what kinds of things display well, and I think I picked up some tricks on construction if I decide to do something like this in the future (like buy a serger. BTW – does anyone know of some good references for learning how to use a serger and what to look for when buying one?). This will be the only time that we are able to enter as amateurs since we won this year, so I am not sure if I will enter again or not. The competition at the professional level is really stiff. But we shall see.

In the true spirit of a quilting weekend, Laura and I even busted out the sewing machines in the hotel room.

Laura is making some quilts for a charity event, and I told her that I would give her a hand.

If the hotel had not been packed floor to ceiling with other quilters, I might have been concerned about disturbing someone. But as it was, I am sure our neighbours were relaxing to a familiar sound.

Thanks to Laura, her stepmom Jeanne and her friend Clara for a wonderful weekend. You are just a great bunch of folks!

I can’t wait to show you all the quilts we saw. Stunning.