Pieced quilts

Pieced quilts / The quilt top cupboard — 26 Comments
13
Jul 11

Rising Star Quilt

In May of this year I posted quilt blocks that I bought online.  They were very soiled and poorly constructed.  When I took them apart I found that the quilter who pieced them hadn’t cut and sewn the pices accurately.  I decided to make some paper pieces and baste them in the English Paper Piecing style, so I’d get uniform pieces/blocks.

I had to edit out quite a bit, but I was able to save enough to keep the original “flavor” of the blocks.  I hand stitched the blocks together and added a narrow indigo blue border followed by a double pink, and then an indigo binding.  It ended up 34.5″ x41″.

As I worked on the quilt I found optical illusions that changed depending how I looked at it.

I saw light backgrounds with pink and blue stars…

dark backgrounds with pink and white stars…

and pink backgrounds with blue and white stars.  I also saw what looked like Tumbling Blocks that would appear and disappear.  It’s a fun design!  I quilted it by “stitching in the ditch” rather than 1/4″ away from seam lines like originally thought I would.  I was afraid I’d get a “tent” in the centers.  The border has a simple cable design.

I had a few more pieces left that I didn’t want to waste, so I’m piecing some Tumbling Blocks and will either applique them onto a background or make another small piece? 

This was a fun little change…and has one of my all time favorite color combos.  I love double pink!  : )

 

 

 

Pieced quilts / Uncategorized — 22 Comments
7
Mar 11

Paper Piecing Pixies…

I recently ran across a blog in German..(I think?) that had the beginning of a fun Pixie quilt made by Hilde Klatt. 

The method used for piecing the Pixies is called Lieseling, which is the same as english Paper Piecing over foundations.

The IldicoTextilDesign blog gives templates that you can print out…and fear not..there is an English translation if you scroll down.

I didn’t have the heavier weight card stock that is recommended, so I printed my templates out on regular copy paper.

  As I looked at the pattern I thought it could be used as a machine sewn paper piecing pattern?

I’ve done a lot of paper piecing in the past..but haven’t done any for a while.  It takes a while for the upside down and backwards sewing to click in with me.   My first block took 3 hours!

I decided to try cutting out the templates, tracing around and hand piecing.  Much better.  My next block only took 2 hours.

From there I got in my groove and the hand piecing went faster.

The Ildico blog shows a row of Toadstool houses around the Pixies, but she hasn’t posted the directions yet.  There’s a center star too, but I haven’t decided on fabrics for that portion.  There’s a couple of ways to go with that part.

I’m thinking I might want to do the Pixies with black dresses and the center as a bonfire.  It might make a cute Halloween candle mat?

Pieced quilts — 15 Comments
18
Feb 11

Story Time Quilt

I decided to make a play time quilt to go along with the more formal 9 patch one I just made.

The Mother -to- be asked for story books that were signed by the gifter in lieu of cards.  I like that idea, since I’m such a fan of reading to children and love to encourage it.

I remember reading to this Niece when she was little.  It seems like such a short time ago.  Now she’s grown and having a child of her own.  My how time flies!

Anyways…I thought it would be fun to give a story book that incorporated quilting.  I saw one called The Quilt on Amazon.com. 

In the story, the little girl’s blue toy dog gets lost in the folds of the quilt.  That spurred an idea for a play quilt.  I thought it would be fun to make a little quilt with a blue “Sally” dog hidden under a flap of fabric, like the one in the story.

I added pieced letters that say “Will You read to me?”, because the pieced letters are fun.

I don’t have a lot of novelty prints, but I have some, so I dug through them looking for things that might go along with stories.

I forced myself to go fabric shopping(LOL) too..to pick up a few additional pieces.  I found that 1/8yd  cuts can be tricky. 

Once you true them up, in a lot of cases you can’t center the image you want to use. I was making my squares cut at 4″.

If I had the book ahead of time, I could have chosen more prints that matched the ones in the story, but as luck would have it, I had a couple of circus squares, and one of houses that went along pretty well. 

Since I was trying to encourage reading, I also made a little match game book.  Recognizing matching shapes and colors help a child learn to read.

I got real lucky with the “Sally” dog image.  I had a fabric by Robert Kaufman that had a blue dog, with a red collar, except it has a sweater on.  It even has it’s tongue hanging out like the one in the book!

My sewing machine has a problem with the Sensor System, which is supposed to feed the fabric through perfectly, and make very even stitching.  It’s been to the factory twice and they couldn’t fix it, so free motion quilting was definately out of question.  I quilted across the squares, and in the ditch.  My stitches aren’t perfect, but the quilt will hold together.

The back side is a Free Spirit print that had the same colors as the squares on the front.  Kind of wild?

I know this one doesn’t fit the criteria for the elegant nursery, but I thought maybe it could go to Grandma’s house?  : )

Pieced quilts — 16 Comments
17
Feb 11

The Baby Quilt is Finished…

I’ve gotten the 9 patch baby quilt finished.  The quilting went pretty quickly, since the quilt isn’t very big and the quilting was very simple. 

I placed masking tape across the top where I wanted the quilting lines and just stitched along it.  That way I was able to avoid using anything to mark the quilting.  So..no added chemicals to remove afterwards.

The fabric I used on the back is pink with a much paler pink design on it.  I don’t know if this would be considered a toile?  The pattern is so muted I thought it would be OK?  I didn’t want to add a lot of different patterns to my Niece’s plan for the nursery.

The pale pink I used on the front is a sateen weave crib sheet that she chose.  I like the way it feels, I hope the baby does too?

Pieced quilts — 23 Comments
7
Feb 11

What do you do….?

What do you do when you’re just not sure what’s right?

I’m working on a baby quilt that must be done by the March 6 baby shower.

The Mother to be chose white with black damask and palest of pale pink for the nursery.  Very elegant.

I didn’t have any of the damask fabric, and I bought a crib sheet of the pale pink so I could use it for color matching.

I wasn’t able to find any pale pnk to match, so I decided to cut up the sheet.  I added a little darker pink in too, because the quilt looked too washed out.

I was unsure what to do.  I thought simple design would be best?  I sketched out several versions of Irish Chain quilts.

The black seemed too stark to me, so I chose a black with white polka dots.  Now I’ve strayed from the Mother to be’s chosen nursery design.  I didn’t want to do that, and I hope it will be OK?  I’m still not sure!

I pieced a few blocks with strips that were cut 2″.  The scale looked huge!  I redid them cut at 1.5″.  A better scale.

The sateen weave baby sheet has very fine threads and ravels like crazy.  The piecing had to be simple.

My first thought was to do a double 9 patch.  That would make the quilt more pink, and give a nice area for some pretty quilting? 

I got several blocks made and laid them out and saw that the quilt would be way too big!  I laid out the top with just 2 blocks wide and the quilt design looked too skimpy.  I scrapped the double 9 patch  idea, but I had already cut up the sheet, so whatever I did..there wouldn’t be borders.

I’m still not happy with the design..but I’ve got a tight deadline.  It’s a single Irish Chain set on point.

As I was basting the quilt the idea of a whole cloth quilt came to mind. Why didn’t I think of that before I cut everything  up?! I’m continuing on with the quilting…I hope it looks better once quilted?

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