Tag Archives: lap quilt

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I really appreciate whoever came up with "quilting and collecting fabric are two different hobbies." While I actually have a very usable stash for the type of quilting that I generally do, I have been collecting Halloween fabric for quite a few years. And every year October 1st rolls around and I wish I had a Halloween quilt. Then I very accurately realize there's just not a high likelihood that I could start and finish a Halloween quilt before Halloween.

You've heard of Christmas in July, right? Many crafters who make handmade gifts begin making those items in the summer. Last year, I decided that if Christmas in July was a thing, so was Halloween in April... and I marked my calendar for April 1st of this year to start my Halloween quilt. Surely, if I began a quilt in April could have it done by October.

April came and went and I finally started the quilt in May. I chose the Strip It Down pattern by  Quilt Theory. It's a great pattern that could easily go together in a day, except of course that I work on many projects at once and I had to order my background fabric. I had a finished quilt top by the beginning of September, so I selected the backing fabric (which I didn't photograph, but you'll have to take my word is an awesome purple polka dot on black) and sent the quilt to Tami for longarm quilting. I chose a computerized spider web panto that I'd seen her use on another quilt, and a variegated orange thread. I'm thrilled with how her quilting jazzed up my quilt.

The large panels in each strip are a great place to feature fun prints and there are no seams to match up. The background panels are great for a solid fabric to feature an interesting quilting motif or a nice patterned fabric. I'm a firm believer in using a striped binding whenever reasonable and I'm happy I went with this black and white stripe. It made me a little dizzy to look at the yardage, but these skinny little strips are just perfect!

 

You can see my goal in this post. Linking up to OMG October Finish Link-Up and TGIFF at Anja  Quilts. I've also linked up to the 2017 Q4 Finish Along link up. See my whole Q4 list here.

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Last June to October I took part in the Star Light Star Dark quilt along with Jess from Quilty Habit. I even started quilting it promptly... but then some other projects got in the way. I finally got back to the quilt this month and I've finished quilting it and sent it off to it's new home. You can see the nod to Jess in my orange peel quilting in the center  of my large light purple star. Orange peels are her signature. :-)

To recap, I chose to make the smaller, four block, two color quilt which finishes at 51" x 46". Purple was obviously going to be one of my colors. I opted for yellow and orange to be my second color, pulling lights and darks of each of these. In the end, I chose to set my blocks with like colors on the diagonal from each other instead of having the purple half all together.

This was such a fun project. The quilt top went together very quickly and I love the giant size blocks. I opted to use a different free motion quilting motif (some more dense, some less dense) in each section. It's such a great way to test out or practice different motifs without committing to a larger area. Clearly, I like this strategy.

My husband gave me Shape by Shape Free-Motion Quilting with Angela Walters for Hanukkah and I made excellent use of this new resource in finishing this quilt. How did I not own this book yet!? And more importantly, when am I getting Volume 2?

I quilted each quadrant in a different color of 50wt Aurifil thread, Yellow (#2135), Light Lilac (#2510), Dark Violet (#2582), and Burnt Orange (#1133). Here are a few shots after it was washed and crinkly.

I backed the quilt with fabrics from my stash. In a "make it work" moment, I pieced two different prints that coordinated with the quilt top. The orange star print also appears in the top surrounding the large yellow star.

I always label my quilts. And I attach the label before I quilt them so they get really well attached. Unfortunately, this means that sometimes the label is made the month I think I'm going to finish the quilt and then... I don't. Do not let the label fool you. This quilt was finished January 15, 2017. The label lies. ;-)

My binding plan started out by choosing my purple remnant binding and I quickly decided I wanted to make it scrappy. I know I did calculations (way back in September) and made additional purple, yellow and orange binding. The completed binding was then set aside for months. This week, I got it attached to the first side before realizing I had way more binding than I needed. WAY more! The quilt required about 200" of binding. When I was done I had 340" of extra binding. I'm unsure what went terribly wrong with my calculations, but let's just say you'll be seeing this binding again. Or I will get tired of looking at it in the remnant binding box and give it away. ;-)

Overall, I love the bold color and especially the texture of the quilt. My favorite part may be the area around those little purple stars. I'll be using that FMQ again soon!

I had some little helpers for my photo shoot. I don't usually have quilt holders, especially the wiggly variety, but we had fun. They really enjoyed running around the courtyard while I took all of the shots of the quilt on the ground.

Thank you for visiting! I'm linking up to Needle and Thread Thursday, Finish It Up Friday and TGIFF.

Six more days until issue one of my newsletter (packed with color and design ideas!) will be in your inbox. If you're not already a subscriber to my blog, you can subscribe here for creative inspiration and blog updates.

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Nothing like a deadline! It became obvious on social media the past couple days that I was in good company with many other quilters finishing up (or, in the case of some, just starting) our QuiltCon submissions for tonight's 10pm PST deadline.

Submitted!

Here's my sneak peak of my quilt (full reveal when I blog about the entire project), Perspective, which I submitted for the American Patchwork & Quilting Nine-Patch Challenge. I enjoyed playing with the geometry of a nine-patch by piecing skewed blocks. Then I had this wonderful recommendation (I'm looking you, Sarah N.) to pebble the background. I estimate I spent about 13 hours over the past two days to pebble the quilt. (My arms are so sore... so it totally counts as a workout, too, right?) I'm very pleased with the results of those marathon quilting sessions. And I'm feeling quite confident with pebble quilting now!

I also submitted my Retro Trailer mini quilt.

Now that the Thanksgiving holiday and my QuiltCon submissions are behind me, I can settle back into a more normal routine and get focused on some goals: quilting, blogging and otherwise. Oh, and bee blocks for November. Thank you for your patience! ;-)

Thanks for visiting! Happy sewing!