Project Quilting - Time is Up

The final challenge of Project Quilting Season 8 is here and the topic is "Time is Up".  I struggled with this one, with the lyrics to Bruce Springsteen's Jersey Girl in my head, ""cause down the shore everything's alright."  It is always beach time here at the shore.  The beach is beautiful all year long, especially when the snow is covering the sand and the water meets the snow.  (A future beach photo shoot is in order)

So I decided a Jersey Quilt is the way to finish off this season of Project Quilting.  

Lots of nautical fabrics were used in this quilt, including some of my favorites and horded fabrics.  My lobsters are always in my nautical quilts.  But I added in my Moda nautical from my flying goose quilt, along with my sea horses and and loved Barnegat Bay fabrics, named for the bay where I live.  A blue rope print frames is perfectly as the binding.  

The back is a navy anchor print that was just perfect for this quilt.  I free motion quilted swirling waves all over this quilt.  Perfect for my Jersey Shore quilt.  

I am in love with this quilt.  I think it is the perfect quilt to finish this season of Project Quilting.  I'm sad that is it over , though.  Can't wait for next year!

'Cause Down the Shore Everything's Alright

48" x 64"

2.5" squares 

All cotton 

Created in Lanoka Harbor, NJ - On the Jersey Shore ;) 

Project Quilting Season 8 - Brighter the Better

We are up to challenge 4 with Project Quilting this season and the challenge was "Brighter the Better".  Now, this was right up my alley.  I love bright colors. 

My mind went right to this great bundle of  batik fabrics that I was given from a friend.  I had no idea what I was going to use it in and this was the perfect challenge for it. 

I decided that a plus quilt would be perfect for this challenge, so I set to cutting out a ton of 2.5" squares from this bundle and my overflowing batik scrap stash.  As I worked I kept cutting more and more squares since I decided I was making this one to do double duty for PQ and the Scrap Quilt Challenge. 

I cut so many of my scraps, but it still looks like I didn't touch them! The quilt is free motion with a large meander all over the quilt.  The binding came from stash and has so many of the colors of the fabrics in the quilt in it. 

My On the Bright Side plus quilt measures 52" x 64" and is made up of 832 2.5" squares. 

I backed it with a mustard yellow print from my backing stash that was prefect for the quilt.  A little stained glass action in the sun, too. 

 

Photographed on a perfectly bright warm day this February. 

 

On the Bright Side
52" x 64"
95% scraps
All from stash
Made in Lanoka Harbor, NJ

Tangled Thread - Project Quilting Challenge 3

Last night I finished up my Project Quilring Challenge 3 season 7 quilt. This week we were inspired by thread. All I could think about when I thought thread was a dropped bobbin box from last week. I had dropped one of my boxes, of course not the one that really holds the bobbin, but the old one and they were a mess. 

I took that idea and went with. Whole cloth mini quilt this week. I pulled from my stash of 12 weight Aurifil and pearl cotton and started stitching away. I started with a few circles and then added some random lines around them going here and there. 

This was a fun mini to make. I felt absolutely no pressure to make in any specific way and that was totally freeing. 

Tangled Threads

20" x 20"

Aurifil and Pearl Cotton on Kona white 

Pellon Corton Batting 

Made in Lanoka Harbor, NJ

Of course I had a helper when photographing my quilt. She seriously thinks all quilts are hers right now haha. 

Project Quilting Season 7 Challenge 2

It's challenge 2 of season 7 of Project Quilting. This weeks challenge is Seasons. I wasn't sure what to make then,while looking through some pictures, I was reminded of a birch tree quilt I made in the summer. I decided that was how I was going to roll with this challenge. 

I dug out my scraps from the past birch tree quilt and set to work. 

I represented each season; summer, fall, winter, and spring. 

Each season is quilted wih different designs being leaves, loopy snowflakes, flowers, and waves for the different seasons. The birch trees have a simple squiggle to mimic the bark. 

Birch Trees Through the Seasons

22" x 19.5"

Made in super snowy Lanoka Harbor, NJ 

My snow puppy Maggie helped when taking pictures of the quilt. 

Confetti and Streamers

Another year of Project Quilting has started. I always look forward to January for the new season. It jump starts my year of quilting.

Season seven is starting with a celebration. Confetti was our challenge inspiration. I jumped right in with batik 2.5" squares for my confetti and some strips to add in streamers. 

I did a free motion meander over the center where the squares are and a squiggle along the streamer border.  

It's backed with a coral color sid that lets the quilting stand out. 

There are a few half square triangles mixed in for fun too. 

I love how colorful the quilt turned out. I just kept pulling fromy batik scrap stash for this quilt. 

So excited for another year of Project Quilting. 

Confetti and Streamers 

44" x 54"

Batik scraps. 

Maggie wanted my attention when I was taking pictures. She makes me smile. 

Simple Purple Baby Quilt

Day 2 of the 31 day blog challenge. Today I have decided to share a baby quilt that I was asked to create by my sister. She always comes to me when she needs a baby gift for a friend or coworker. Because of her work travels, my baby quilts are all over the world and that makes me smile.

This baby quilt I decided to keep simple. Sometimes, simplicity works best for these little quilts. I pulled from my stash of purples and cut them into 3.5" squares. I alternated the purples with a creamy print. 

I also decided to do nice straight line quilting to emphasize the blocks.  The backing is a simple print with little birds   

This baby quilt was very happily received by the family. Hope their little one enjoys it. 

While I was photographing the quilt my helper puppy was playing in the leaves. 

Stash Bee 2014 Hive 4

Last year for Stash Bee I asked my hive mates to make me circle blocks.  I let them use any method that wanted with a low volume and texty print background and a fun selection of colors for the circles.  I asked for some patchwork in the background or circles.  And the blocks could be any size between 8" - 16".  I received such a great variety of blocks.  Over the past year I made a few more here and there to add to the quilt to make is a good size.  Since I am on a UFO kick, I decided this was a great time to cross this top off my list.

It took a few layouts to find the perfect fit for the blocks and lots of piecing in to fill int he gaps.  I have to say how lucky I am that my friend Peggy (from Stitchin with Peg)had recently given me a great stack of texty prints that fit perfectly with this top.  (I can't thank you enough Peggy!!!)

The layout of the hive blocks and a few of mine

Over a few days I worked on putting the circles together, adding in filler sections and extra circle blocks where I felt it needed it.  I am so excited to have the top together.  Now to figure out a backing and how to quilt it.  

Circle quilt top is 54" x 60"

And just for fun, Maggie was jumping and playing in the sun while I was taking pictures.  

Batik Strip Quilt

So it has been a while since I updated my blog and I have been crazy busy sewing away.  So over the next couple of weeks I plan on posting my projects and sharing the number of finishes.  Also talking about my grand plan for my quilting.  

To start my project sharing I think I will start with a quilt that I began in the beginning of the summer.  I started to become overwhelmed with my ridiculous amount of scrap stash so I figured this supper to join in the Purge quilting that was going along.  I began with my batik scraps.  I pulled out a bunch of 2.5" strips that were left over from projects, collected from my LQS scrap bin, and from scraps from the AQS show.  I am an equal opportunity scrap saver, anything over 2.5" square was used in this quilt.

I randomly started piecing the strips together into a long strip as if I were creating a jelly roll quilt.  I sewed the strips together with straight seams, but you will notice there are angle joins, too.  Those were already pieced and just added in as scraps.  It was an anything goes quilt.

As it was coming together, I was not so sure about the mix of colors since it ranged so much, but figured why not give it a chance. I am so glad that I kept going with it.  I kept sewing the pieces together then adding those together, and so on until I had a really long piece sewn together.  I have no idea how long it was, I just figured long enough.  I then used the jelly roll race technique and sewed the strip to itself.  That continued until I had a squarish quilt top.

For the back I chose a light purple batik I had gotten from an estate sale and added in a strip of dark purple batik I had sitting around that was a gift from a friend, Jane.

Once I had it all sewn and basted, I decided on a loopy figure eight for the quilting.  This was the last quilt I was completly able to quilt on my Simplicity machine.  The next quilt I worked on it broke, so this quilt has a special place in my heart.

The quilt is hand bound with a scrappy batik binding.  So many colors are in this quilt.  I can probably make at least another 2 tops like this and not put a dent in the batik scrap stash.

Batik Strip Quilt
Cotton fabrics
Pellon 100% cotton batting
48" x 48"

Flowering Lone Star and Bursting Lone Stars Pattern Review and Giveaway

The fabulous Melissa at Sew Bittersweet Designs has come out with two new patterns.  The can be used separately as two tops or together as a front and a back.

The first is the Flowering Lone Star.  This pattern is for a single large star.  You use 4 fabrics for the main, middle, part of the star and 6 for the outer border around it.  There are some y seams, but with how large the pieces are I did not find them difficult at all.  I chose to create both these quilts with Christmas fabrics because I needed a good excuse to play with my expanding collection of Christmas material.  Seriously, I have 2 shelves of just Christmas!

When sewing the outer diamonds together, I found a trick I learned a while back of trimming off .25" of the end of one diamond helped me to be able to line them up with the offset easily.  I also found when sewing the diamonds that pinning where the points crossed first then the rest of the seam really improved my accuracy.  Melissa talks about how to make sure your point line up nicely in her pattern, too.  She has included so many photos to make sure you can see each step, which I find very helpful in a great pattern.

This was a great pattern that came together quickly.  I love how I can feature some great larger prints in the middle.  I took my time working on this top and it came together in just a few days, but I am sure I could make it in even less time now. (I am easily distracted when I sew in front of a window overlooking the pool ;)  )

The second pattern that Melissa wrote is actually the back for the one she created.  It is called Bursting Lone Stars.  I love it too much to use it as the back, though.

This pattern shows off 5 stars of 2 different sizes.  What is great that after creating the first quilt, you already have practice with nesting the y seams.  I was able to put this entire quilt together with cutting, sewing, and lots of pressing in just a couple days of sewing here and there.  

As usual, Melissa's instructions are clear and very detailed.  Just don't go mixing up the pages like I did between the two patterns or you will totally confuse yourself, haha.   Melissa takes a lot of time and uses many photos to explain nesting the y seams so don't worry if you do not have experience with it.  I would say that if it is our first try to give the Flowering Lone Star a try (lots of busyness going on if your point aren't exactly perfect ;) )   

Although one can be used for the back of the other, I think I am keeping them as two separate quilts.  I really like how they both turned out so much.  And bonus, I have started my Christmas sewing already! 

I would say that when creating these quilts, don't be afraid of a good dose of Best Press.  I think I had a perfume of Peaches n' Cream for a few days as I worked on these.  It helps to keep the bias parts of the fabric from stretching.  And if you get a little bit of a wavy issue (like I did on one small star), a spritz of 98% water and 2% Best Press and a hot iron can flatten things right out.

I have no idea what I will be backing these with yet, but I have already planned straight line quilting and a scrappy binding for the Flowering Lone Star and I am not quite sure yet for the Bursting Lone Stars. 

Thanks Melissa for writing up two more awesome patterns!   And for giving me the excuse to play with my Christmas fabrics ;) 

Now for the giveaway!  :)

One visitor to my blog will be selected randomly to win one pdf pattern of their choice of either the Flowering Lone Star or the Bursting Lone Stars.  All you have to do to win is to head over to Melissa's blog at Sew Bittersweet Designs and follow her there.  Then come back here and comment that you did.  

And for a bonus entry you can also head over and like Melissa's Facebook page.  Leave a second comment after you like her page.  

I will close the giveaway and select the winner on Friday, August 8 at 10 pm.