Spiral Quilting • 16 Comments

sarah • July 1, 2016

I love the Very Hungry Caterpillar and was so excited, many years ago, when the fabric came out. I used it to make my son's first quilt and to decorate his room. I have a twin-sized VHC quilt in progress for him (quilt top is done) and made a couple others with the same blocks I used for his. Then I had a few bits leftover. With them I made this little 24" x 24" quilt. I have no idea where the quilt is going, but I think I've decided this is the last thing I'm piecing with the fabric. It's cute, but I'm over it. ;-)

I've recently been admiring spiral quilting and decided this project was the right size for trying it out. Not a lot of bulk to get through the machine as I spin it around a million times. I marked the center circle by tracing a large Aurifil spool and used my walking foot from beginning to end. I am loving the Aurifil Marrakesh variegated thread (#3817, 50wt) that I bought to use on my son's quilt. I think the variegated thread helps to forgive the imperfections of my spiral quilting. (So will a good wash!) I used my walking foot guide and aimed for a 1/2" to 5/8" gap between stitching lines. Overall I am really happy with the look. My son and I agree that it's very fun to trace the spiral with our fingers. I'd love to try it on a larger project, perhaps with multiple spirals, but I think I'd shoot for spacing the stitching out more to speed things along.

Once again a lying "label"... I finished this one Yesterday, June 30, 2016. That's the trouble with labeling before quilting and binding. (It's small, but it reads "May 2016")

Have you spiral quilted? If so, walking foot or free motion? Are there any quilting motifs that you're itching to try?

Thanks for visiting! I'm linking up to Finish it Up Friday, TGIFF and the Q2 FAL Finishes Linkup. See all my Q2 goals here.

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Color Play Friday: Purplishous Gets Coffee • 8 Comments

sarah • June 17, 2016

It's no secret that my favorite color is purple. That's probably what drew me in to participating this week. I decided on a variety of purples and couldn't resist the grey and black from the cup. The real decision was in how to limit to 8 colors for the palette. I wanted to include the white, red and blue. In the end I opted in include the white and blue. Sorry, red.

I just couldn't resist using a unicorn fabric. I'm sorry that it's currently out of stock at Stash Fabrics (where I linked to it), but it is around for purchase still. I'm curious how many others will choose it this week. I liked that the black fabric has circles that remind me of the rings left by a coffee cup. Now I'm kinda itching to work with this color palette. I'll have to remember to come back to this when I need a new project. ;-)

I created my palette with Palette Builder 2.1 by Play Crafts.

Solids:
Kona Nightfall
Kona Bright Peri
Kona Crocus
Kona Lavender
Kona Snow
Kona Coal
Kona Black
Kona Everglade

Prints:
Unicorn Tapestry in Purple by Lizzy House, Andover Fabrics
Sketch in Iris by Timeless Treasures
Ring Spots in Violet by Robert Kaufman
Bitty Bows in Opal Metallic by Michael Miller
Confetti in Champagne by Lizzy House, Andover Fabrics
Crosshatch in Charcoal by Carolyn Friedlander, Architextures
Circles in Black by Simple Simon and Company, Riley Blake Designs
Ripples in Sea by Bari J. Ackerman, Art Gallery

Check out the other palettes this week at:

Laurel, Poppy & Pine - Lorinda
In an Otter Life - Trina
123 Quilt - Sarah
Flickr - Jennifer

TGIFF: R’s Pattern • 28 Comments

sarah • June 9, 2016

Welcome to TGIFF! Thanks for joining us this week!

A year and a half ago I started teaching my son how to quilt. My daughter was 2 1/2 at the time, and as soon as my son was laying out his squares of fabric to design the layout of his quilt, my daughter wanted in on the task, too. I had cut a pile of squares that I intended to use for a simple baby quilt that I could donate or give as a gift. I happily gave her my pile of squares. Well, she designed her own pattern with my squares, and it was clear from the beginning that this quilt would be for her. (The quilt is pieced exactly as she designed it, so the safari squares are not all going the same direction.)

I work on a lot of projects at a time, and as a result, things sometimes take a long time to get finished. This quilt was no exception. I gave it to my daughter last month for her 4th birthday.

Wanting to try something different, I chose to graffiti quilt it. I quilt on a domestic machine and this is the largest project I've done graffiti quilting on. I opted for three colors of thread to blend in with the different quilt blocks. The matching bobbin thread created an interesting variety on the back. My goal was to graffiti quilt on a larger scale than I have in the past, but I found that difficult and ended up with a lot of small scale, dense quilting. For the safari blocks, I generally tried to quilt in a way to feature the animals instead of quilting over them.