Tag Archives: finished quilt

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Some finishes are a long time coming. I participated in Cheryl's 2015-2016 Midnight Mystery Quilt and had a finished quilt top in March 2016 at the end of the the quilt along. My projects without deadlines often get stuck at this stage. In April 2017 I had it quilted, then it sat folded up in a pile... with the binding all made and ready to attach. Projects with deadlines, including challenges and patterns, took priority. Well... I finally attended my first sew day with Bay Area Modern last Saturday and brought my mystery quilt along. It was a rocky start with frustration and seam ripping, but I managed to get the binding on that day.

A little recap on my project. The mystery called for four fabrics and in order to pull my fabric entirely from my stash I chose for each of those colors to be scrappy. Orange and pink were chosen because at the time they were the most plentiful (and least used) colors in my stash. I chose the blue and light grey to round out the palette.

Tami quilted it with the Modern Curves panto. I asked her to load the quilt sideways so the waves would be vertical on my quilt.

The quilt is backed in Tula Pink Mini Owl in Pacific, one of the prints I used on the front. It's bound in Kona orange... except for one section of the right edge which used one of the orange prints from the quilt top.

I'm so glad to finally have it finished and am thrilled to add it to the pile of quilts that my family enjoys. It's sure to be used to make a fort in no time!

One of my favorite parts of making a mystery quilt is seeing how everyone else's versions turn out. Check out the Midnight Mystery Quilt Reveal Parade.

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Or... Not So Mellow Yellow.

I knew this week's Project QUILTING challenge would be extra hard since I was leaving for QuiltCon on Wednesday morning. That left less than 70 hours for the challenge, including sleeping and packing. Step one, make it small. Maybe really small.

I was pleased for it to be a color challenge, as I knew I could make it work in the short period of time. The first palette I considered was this year's QuiltCon Charity palette. First, it included a bright, cheerful yellow. Second, I've loved the palette since it was first announced. And third, since I'm an Individual Member of the MQG I wasn't participating in making a charity quilt with those colors. I had already purchased the solids a while back, knowing I would someday make a quilt in this palette. My fabrics were Kona Corn Yellow, School Bus, Red, Geranium, and Bright Peri. (Why use a neutral when you can use more color instead?)

I chose a simple, single star block. "Work small," as my friend Mel reminds me for short challenges. So, I decided on an 8-inch sawtooth star block. I wanted to use all the colors, which led to the decision to piece the background sections by building a slab from the non-yellow colors. I edited out the School Bus orange in favor of the three darkest values: Red, Geranium, and Bright Peri.

 

Here's an accidental alternative setting. I dig this one too, but it wasn't what I initially had in mind and I wanted to stick with plan A.

Once the block was pieced, I intended to add a border of the scrappy background and a yellow binding, but I would have had to build a new slab and I was crunched for time. I didn't like the idea of putting a solid yellow binding on it without the borders since the star points would touch the binding. It was clear to me that the right answer was a scrappy binding that would blend with the background.

It took a little planning to be sure that my corners wouldn't have seams, and that the binding fabrics weren't matching too much with the background fabrics. Though honestly, it probably would have been faster to build more slab for borders and use a single piece of fabric for binding. That said, I'm thrilled with the results.

Not So Mellow Yellow finishes at 8.5" x 8.5". The walking foot quilting was done with 50wt Aurifil #2120 (Canary).

I'm linking up to Project QUILTING 9.4. Be sure to check out all the submissions and vote for your favorites. (Mine is #70.)

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The products featured in this post were given to me by Island Batik, including products from Hobbs and Aurifil.

My second project as an Island Batik Ambassador was to make a small Valentine for a friend. I opted to make two mug rugs in honor of Galentine’s Day, a celebration of some of my best gal pals.

 

I chose to use four of the fabrics from my Valentine's Island Batik bundle. As soon as I saw the bundle I knew I had to feature the print on the top (which I think is Mixed Berry Mini Dots from the Plum Delicious collection). That's how I chose it for my background fabric. I chose the pale pink for my hearts to contrast the dark tones of the background.

#islandbatikambassador Valentine's Day palette of Island Batiks with purples, pinks, cream, and red

I pieced two sizes of heart blocks. The smaller ones fit in the palm of my hand. I opted for a triple heart in the small size heart blocks for one mug rug and used a single larger heart for the other mug rug. I like the idea of the main design of a mug rug to be on an edge or corner so it can still be enjoyed even with a mug and a snack in place.

#islandbatikambassador #islandbatik tiny pieced heart block

I used the same ultra-thin polyester Thermore Hobbs batting that I used in my last quilt. I'm not sure polyester is the best choice for a mug rug, (anyone have thoughts on that?) but I like the idea that it'll stay flat and not get crinkly when washed. I used one layer of the batting on my triple heart mug rug, and on my single heart mug rug I doubled the batting and added a third layer under the heart. On that quilt, I started the quilting by stitching the perimeter of the heart, then I cut away the third layer of batting as shown below. This gave the heart just a little more puff to it, especially once I added the dense quilting to the background. It's subtle, but I like it.

#islandbatikambassador #mugrug quilting on the perimeter of the pieced heart by Sarah Goer Quilts

#islandbatikambassador #mugrug showing extra layer of batting under pieced heart

#islandbatikambassador #mugrug cutting away extra layer of batting under pieced heart by Sarah Goer Quilts

 

I opted for loops and hearts on this first mug rug and went for pretty dense all over quilting in the background. This was my first time using Aurifil 40wt thread. The Antique Rose (#2430) from my ambassador box was a perfect choice to contrast my background fabric. I the second mug rug I omitted the hearts from my design and used a slightly larger scale loop motif.

#islandbatikambassador #mugrug loops and hearts free motion quilting

#islandbatikambassador #islandbatik #aurifil Antique Rose thread was used for free motion quilting.

In order to incorporate two more fabrics I made a flange binding. I pieced the cream and pink fabrics for a pink binding with a cream flange. The binding was attached by machine with a Light Beige (#2310) 50wt Aurifil from my stash.

 

These are my 12th and 13th quilt finishes in 2018. The triple heart mug rug finished at 10.5" x 8" and the single heart mug rug is about 10" x 7.75".

 

Check out some of the other Galentine's Day projects by my fellow Island Batik Ambassadors.

Myra @ Busy Hands Quilts

Steph @ Steph Jacobson

Jeanette @ Inchworm Fabrics

Connie @ Kauffman Designs

Joan @ Moosestash Quilting

Maryellen @ Mary Mack Made Mine

Jackie @ If These Threads Could Talk

Laura @ Slice of Pi Quilts

Annie @ Masterpiece Quilting

 

Next month's Island Batik Ambassador challenge is to try a technique that is new to us. Maybe I should have saved my flange binding for next month! ;-) I'm looking for ideas. Leave me a comment below with your ideas for a new technique for me to try.

 

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