Tag Archives: finished quilt

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I'm super excited about my lated finished lap quilt. I love the palette and look forward to cuddling up on the couch with it.

Three years ago I started Amy Ellis's Waterfall Quilt. I really loved the wash of color over the quilt. She had made two monochromatic versions in blue and green. At the time I started, solids were quite minimal in my stash.

The majority of my stash is blenders, fabrics that read as a single color, so I focused on those prints. I started with my favorite palette: navy, turquoise, and lime green, and added from there. It was a challenge to pull all the lighter values for this project, but everything came together from my 2018 stash once I chose to add in the mustard yellows.

Part of the charm of this pattern is that there is a gradient of color or value with pops of other fabrics occurring throughout. My finished quilt is approximately 45" x 54", which I'd consider a one person lap quilt. :-)

I color blocked the back of the quilt with fabrics from my stash. I absolutely love the jellyfish print and was glad to use that fabric on a project that is staying in my house.

Hard to see here, but you can see my simply organic curvy quilting in the photo below, and the first photo at the top of this post. I really enjoy how this block-based quilt doesn't look like it's made up of blocks.

I finished with a scrappy machine binding, mostly from fabrics used on the quilt top.

Happy to finish this one up from my WIP list.

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My friend Ellyn and I are both inspired by architecture for our quilt designs. Earlier this year we decided it would be fun if we exchanged photos as our inspiration for mini quilts.

The photo that I gave Ellyn was of a door at the Rock of Cashel in Ireland. I took so many photos of the great architecture (and nature) while on my trip to Ireland in 2019.

Her mini quilt is 13" x 13 1/2". I enjoy how she emulated the uniformity and angle of the elements of the door in her piecing. And her quilt laying on the stone in her photo is on point with the stone surrounding the door in my photo! You can read more about her project over at Ellyn's Place.

Ellyn's photo was taken in a small town in Northern Texas. Photo by Ellyn Zinsmeister, used with permission.

I used the direct inspiration of the colors of the building together with the architectural design of the pops of color in the architectural detail at the top. (Sometimes when one is improv piecing, the little bits start skewing downhill instead of the uphill that you intended, and you just go with it.) My finished mini quilt measures 9" x 7". I used walking foot quilting and finished with single fold machine binding.

Do you use photos as inspiration for your quilt designs?

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Welcome to my stop on Bobbie's UFOvember Blog Hop. I shared an intro post with the list of everyone participating in UFOvember at the beginning of the month and a few days ago I shared a list (with photos) of all my WIPs. (I realized today I missed one, so it's been aded to the list.) I find that knowing what all the projects are helps me make decisions about prioritizing what to work on. This week folks were resuming a UFO. "Pick up a UFO right where you left off, get it done, happy ending!"

With a newly updated list "in hand" for the first time in over two years, I began working my way through the quilts that just need binding, focusing on the little ones first this month. So I'm happy to share eleven finished quilts with you for my stop on the hop. These mini quilts were all quilted and trimmed, so I spent time this week making and attaching the binding on each of them.

Typically, I bind my quilts with double fold bias binding by machine. But the bulk of double fold is a little much for a tiny little quilt, so I followed Quilting Jetgirl's lead to use single fold binding for my mini mini quilts. I used her Binding Mini Mini Quilts Tutorial as a jumping off point and adjusted as I needed. Most notably, I decided on 1 1/4" wide strips for my binding, because my batting is very low loft.

So now, a little quilt parade. Nine of them are artist trading card sized, 2 1/2" x 3 1/2".

And these two are the big ones, 5 1/4” x 2 3/4” and 4 1/2” x 4”.

These were such a fun way to play with my tiniest scraps of solids using my Scrappy Slab technique. I teach my Creating a Scrappy Slab workshop for guilds, offer it as a lecture/demo presentation on Zoom for guilds, and have an on-demand Creating a Scrappy Slab class available for individuals.

In all of my planned improv work I set parameters for myself. This series started out as monochromatic and built only from my little scraps of fabric. I'd initially been thinking to make them business card sized, but settled on the 2 1/2" x 3 1/2" artist trading card size, which made them roughly playing card sized.

Here's a peak at the backs.

Thanks for visiting! Be sure to check out the full list of UFOvember blog hop participants. So far folks have shared their UFO inventories, including tips for keeping track of yours, and their plans and finishes resuming some of those projects. In the last two weeks of the month we'll hear from people who are reworking and rehoming their UFOs. Lots of good stuff!

Have you resumed work on a UFO lately? Tell me about it in the comments!