Tag Archives: free motion quilting

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Free Motion Quilting

This week I finished the quilting on the light yellow/orange quadrant of my Star Light Star Dark quilt. Then I set it aside in favor of finishing my other two baby quilt gifts so I could deliver them.  Here's what Star Light Star Dark looks like at the moment.

 

Finishes

Then I went on to finish two baby quilts that I shared about in recent posts: Caterpillar Fizz and Hummingbirds. Hummingbirds is already being enjoyed by the baby girl who it was give to and Zoom Zoom, which I finished last week, has gone to her big brother. I didn't end up seeing the third recipient as I expected I would, so Caterpillar Fizz will be delivered in the next week or so. Here's the pile of those quilts all pre-washed and ready to give.

 

Bee Blocks

It's a new month, so I have two new bee blocks to make. The pick for my do. Good Stitches group is improv curves in a very Fall color palette. I chose a couple beautiful Alison Glass fabrics to go with my neutrals.

The inspiration for the Quatrefoil blocks we're making for my Bee Hive group is water lilies. I may tweak my palette, but my initial fabric pull features more Alison Glass fabric (I just noticed that! I really love her fabric.). I'm planning a purple flower with orange and yellow center.

 

La Passacaglia

I made a bit of progress on my La Passacaglia project. I'll tell you, I'm not loving basting the tiny triangles. And there are 50 of them in this rosette. Please, nobody tell me how many of them are in the entire quilt. That said, once I managed to baste them, it was super quick to piece the stars together. Now to baste the other 40 triangles. ;-)

 

Thanks for visiting! I'm linking up to Midweek Makers and Needle and Thread Thursday.

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I have two more Very Hungry Caterpillar quilts to quilt and bind, but this one is done! It's even wrapped and ready to be gifted.

I've loved this fabric line since I first saw it before I had kids. I've used it numerous times. One of my current unfinished projects is a twin-sized quilt for my son. When I decided to make him a twin sized quilt, I was also at the point that I decided I was beginning to feel done with this fabric. (I've been using it over the past seven years.) So while I was making Fat Quarter Fizz blocks (free pattern from Fat Quarter Shop) for his quilt, I just kept making more. I ended up having enough blocks for an additional small lap quilt and this baby quilt. I even made a doll sized quilt with the leftover pieces when I ran out of blocks. I'm not actually out of the fabric, but this made a very large dent in my Very Hungry Caterpillar fabric stash.

I was inspired by Cynthia's quilting, and used these large spirals, which are rounded corner rectangles on the outside and become ovals in the center. Our motifs are a little different because my centers don't come to a point like hers do... this was just a result of not taking another look at my inspiration when I was actually sitting down to do the quilting. I found this pattern easy to quilt on my domestic machine. There were just a couple places that I ended up with a bit of wonky space and had to fill in with a non-spiral. I don't think I got any shots of those "creative areas." ;-)

I backed the quilt with this wonderful rainbow fabric. I may love the back even more than the front.

Since the front was very colorful and the back is a vibrant rainbow, I opted for a black an white (with a spec of red) fabric for the binding.

I named it Caterpillar Fizz, a nod to the pattern name. Here's my simple label. I attach my labels before quilting, so they're extra held in place by the quilting stitches.

This 36" x 36" quilt is going to a little 6-month-old and I hope he loves it to pieces.

Thanks for visiting!

I'm linking up to the Q3 Finish Along finishes party. See all my Q3 WIPs in my goal post.

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I'm so happy to be sharing this finished quilt. I bought the race car fabric quite a while ago and hadn't found a reason to use it until recently. I designed this quilt to feature the race cars without chopping them up to small. There are a fair number of partial seams, but I already mastered those while making my Purple Ninja quilt. I love bright colors and enjoyed pulling together the blender fabrics to accompany the race cars. I ordered the Ta Dot print in Apple and Crosshatch Sketch in Tangerine since I didn't have the right green or orange in my stash. So five of my seven fabrics are from my stash.

Each section is quilted in matching Aurifil thread (Red #2250, Burnt Orange #1133, Canary #2120, Spring Green #1231, Turquoise #2810). I chose to use the same motif in each matching section of the layout, and I wanted a variety of curves and lines. The cars each have a freeform, flamelike pattern (in Natural White #2021). The square sections each have a square spiral. I used large pebbles (I like to think of them as river rocks) in the top of each pair of rectangles and switchback quilting on the diagonal in the lower rectangle. The long, skinny rectangles were each quilted with a curvy zigzag that ended up looking like shark fins to me. It's been a while since I've done much free motion quilting, so it was fun to get back in the groove. It's so much more fun than quilting a bunch of parallel straight lines (that quilt will be done soon so I can share it!).

I had a great stripe in my stash that I chose for the backing, which drove the size of the quilt. It finished at 34" x 40". I think it's a great baby quilt size, even though this one will be going to a 4-year-old. It's still a great size for cuddling up with at that age. Certainly big enough to cover himself on the couch for reading or TV watching.

Since the quilt was full of color and the backing was, um... loud, I decided to bind it in a black and white. It's the first time that I have made a straight grain binding which I found a little more picky to work with, but I wanted to keep the crosshatch pattern on the binding on the diagonal.

What do you like best about making quilts for kids?

Thanks for visiting!

I'm linking up to Finish It Friday, TGIFF and Needle and Thread Thursday, as well as the Q3 Finish Along finishes party. See all my Q3 WIPs in my goal post.