Thing One & Thing Two

Sometimes it’s too easy to name a quilt. Especially one for a little guy who likes heroes. So, not the most original name in the world, but just about right.

Superhero Inc Quilt

I actually pieced this several years ago and then put it aside. I had made two of them and was so tired of looking at the fabrics. I had also made a quilt for the husband with these same fabrics, so YES. Very tired of the fabrics.

I quilted these 5 inch squares with an all over loopy design. It didn’t take long since the quilt is kid sized. I used some fun scrappy binding, making sure I didn’t use “girly” colors. It really turned out fun.

Labels’ R Us

The quilt is now on its way to the birthday boy. I used a fun flannel for the backing, so he’d be nice and toasty since winter is upon us.

In other sewing news today…. I finished a small quilt that’s been in the basket for a couple months.

Ribbons Pattern by Donna Jordan

This is my favorite pattern for layer cakes. And this is the third one I’ve made. The previous two were made using a limited color palette, so they look completely different. Anyway, for this I used Moda fabrics by Lella Boutique. I made the border a bit different, cutting the squares into “tumbler” shapes. (Like a thimble.)

Sometimes one does this as a design element, but not me. This fabric line isn’t recent and none is available anywhere, so one uses what one has and makes it work.

Meandering flower quilting

I had hoped to use a different quilting design but this one is so easy and natural for me. And the fabrics have flowers so it works.

The front of the quilt is lovely with the texture of the flowers, but the back is gorgeous.

Back of Ribbons quilt

I wish I had better lighting. The backing fabric is plain but not boring. The flowers looks so pretty, IMO.

I don’t have any other plans for this quilt, now that it’s finished. I have an idea of who I’d like to have it, but I’m going to wait a while and think on it some more.

Such pretty colors

I hope you all have a good weekend, friends.

LL

“Sugar & Spice”

And everything nice! That’s a perfect description of my friend. There’s much more to her than that, she is very dear to me and others who know and love her. Today is her birthday so I gave her this quilt.

Sugar & Spice

This is a free pattern by Donna Jordan, at Jordan Fabrics called Galaxy. The one I made, using gray, white and cream looks totally different than hers. I backed this quilt with a pretty pink fabric, because it needed some sweet color and PINK is my go to!

The label and backing.

This quilt actually has it all. A many-pieced block, sashing and two borders. I put the top together in the Spring, when the quarantine lockdown began. Then I put it aside, waiting for Nancy’s birthday.

The block has lots of pieces but if I remember right, it really goes together easily.

One block….

I didn’t get all matchy matchy when I put everything together, which was hard for me. Too many possibilities of “sames” ending up right by each other!

It was very freeing though and I was happy with the result.

I quilted “cursive L’s” (also known as loops) all over the quilt. It’s not perfect, but it IS finished and in the hands of my friend. I hope it keeps her toasty this winter.

Have a great day, friends.

LL

“One for you & One for me”

Both of these quilts are favorites at my house. I absolutely HAD to make the pattern as soon as I saw it at Jordan Fabrics. It is called Ribbons and uses a layer cake bundle. I’d been saving my Bee Inspired LC for a while, so since it’d be for me, I used it! I mean, how often does one find fabric that needs to stay at our own house, right?!

Bee Inspired Ribbons Quilt

This pattern uses every bit of the layer cake, which I think is awesome. Of course since I “saved” this fabric for so long, borders required a trip to Shipshewana. When one waits a year or more to use a jelly roll or other precut, one has difficulty finding fabrics from the same line. Luckily the designer has created several versions of Bee lines, so I lucked out big time. I believe she has another one releasing in the next several months too. (Yay, can’t wait!)

Backing of Bee Quilt

While in Shipshewana I picked up a few yards of this fun fabric for the backing of something. It happened that my Bee quilt was the perfect size for it. Yay. I didn’t finish this quilt until just a few months ago during the quarantine.

My husband suggested I finish some tops, so this was one of the first. I quilted it with “swirl hooks” because I’d just done another with the floral meander and needed a change. It, like all my quilts, isn’t perfect but it’s finished, and that’s always a good thing.

Last year I wanted to make another quilt for my husband for his birthday, but I needed it to be kinda easy. In looking through my layer cakes I found a group of Japanese fabrics. I don’t remember buying it, so it’s quite possible he gave it to me as a gift. It was the perfect thing, since I knew I loved the Ribbons pattern, and he’d said my (then) bee quilt top was cool.

Love

I really like how his turned out too. The colors are pretty together and even though it’s “pretty,” he uses it every time he watches tv.

I’ve found that a limited color palette works the best for this pattern. It’ll work with a larger one, but limiting colors seems to keep it a little organized. That’s my opinion anyway.

Plain backing on his

I quilted his with the floral meander because those were perfect for this line of fabrics. I used a soft, plain backing for his…trying to use what I’ve got these days.

So we both have a Ribbons quilt. Only his has a label, I’ll get one on mine soon.

I like mine more.

Have a great day, friends!

LL

“The Same Only Different”

The Stay Home free pattern offered by Cluck Cluck Sew early on in our quarantine was one I definitely wanted to try. I had a 20 pack of fat quarters, so finding a few more was pretty easy.

The first one I made used some pretty Japanese fabrics I’ve had for a while. Favorites include little pandas and some pink buildings.

Cute little panda!

The fabrics in this group are really vibrant and fun. I especially liked the turquoise, this bright purply color and the black prints.

Home Sweet Home

The peach color along with the whites really lighten things up on this quilt. I used a burgundy thread to quilt this with arc or C shapes. At the time it seemed like a good idea. By the time I finished, I was not happy with it at all.

I put the binding on and put it to the side. It’s still there.

Very densely quilted

It’s grown on me a little, but for now, it’ll sit until I decide what to do with it.

Which brings us to the second Stay Home quilt. I cut my own fat quarters this time, from my stash. It took so much longer but I had a plan. Some of the fabrics are favorites I’ve had for a while, others pretty much matched the faves.

How about that green!

It went together really well, as did the first one. The pattern is so simple and really fun to do. It’s easy to get all matchy matchy, so I developed a system to avoid that. There are three groups of each fabric set (background and house) so a little bit of matching is ok. It’s just very tempting to put a light with a dark, and a print with a solid…..so I took one of the piles and did the picky matching thing.

With the other two I flipped one set upside down and one right side up, then took whatever was on top as a house set. (Background and house.)

I quilted this with a large meander using cream colored thread. I forget how relaxing it is to quilt this design, it’s never my first choice. But this quilt needed to be finished today.

“The House of God”

The backing is a cream Henry Glass fabric with little circle stars. I’ve had it for years and it was perfect. I had enough for binding too, so it’s obvious this was the quilt it was meant for.

This quilt is not quilted as densely as the first one. It drapes beautifully and is already comfy and soft. I’m guessing the less dense quilting makes this so.

So different.

I’m planning to give this quilt to a dear gentleman at our church. He is having cancer treatments now and we are all praying for healing for him.

If you’re the praying type, his name is Don.

Have a great weekend, friends. It ain’t over til Monday this time!

LL

“I Spy…”

I Spy quilts seem to be pretty dated. I made one years ago for my daughter, using the hexie and triangle method. It wasn’t perfect but she didn’t even care. It was fun.

During a sew along this spring, I decided to make one for my niece. Using the snowball block, sashing and simple borders, it turned out very cute and fun.

I Spy…

It’s so fun to choose the fabrics for this type of quilt, but making them all work together can be a trip. The day I asked, her favorite colors were “pink, purple and red.” She is three now, by the way.

I definitely wanted to include some of my favorite things…

Piggies

Puppies

Toast?

Toast? This fabric cracks me up, and I know it’ll be fun for her too.

And to honor her daddy and his favorite Dr Seuss character….

The Lorax

My husband chose the red sashing horseshoe fabric. I wasn’t 100% for it until I put the cookie cornerstones in. Finding a border to work with it was challenging. I never thought the quilt would “read” red.

I used a red/white check that worked out just fine. The back is pink, as it’s a favorite color of mine and it made the niece’s list.

Unoriginal quilt name….

I didn’t have enough of the red/white check to make a binding so I decided to try the scrap binding on this one. There are a few things to “spy” so it should be fun.

I quilted this with cursive capital L’s, or loops if you want to be particular. I want it to be floppy when it’s washed, not all stiff.

Scrappy binding

This might be the third or fourth quilt I’ve given this niece. Her brother has a few too.

If nothing else, they’ll be warm!

Have a great day friends!

Don’t be crabby.

LL

“BIG Thimbles”

Some days I want to sew fabric pieces together but I don’t want to have to think. I don’t want to measure, trim or press seams open.

I just want to put fabric together.

If you’re a quilter, I know you get it.

Something that makes me annoyed is the fabric waste. We buy the precuts, right. We cut them up to sew them together. With certain patterns, we have to cut away half an inch at the start! Of course I understand it’s to accommodate the seam allowance issue, but man, cutting that half inch away bugs me!

Today I wanted to try something to see how it’d work. And here is my pile of “cut offs.”

A little bit of cut offs

I had a Paris themed layer cake which has been sitting around for years. I figured it would be a good one to use just in case this experiment didn’t work out.

So I started with ten inch square pieces. I measured 1.5” from each top corner towards the corners at the bottom. This gave me the big thimble shape. Many people call it a tumbler too. (Even though I cut off a fair amount, I think I can use some of the pieces for another quilt that needs 1” x 5” pieces. SCORE!)

This isn’t really anything new or amazing, but being kind of willy nilly with my fabric was freeing.

I tried several layouts for the pieces. Sometimes one can try layouts all day long. I wanted to get to sewing! The first one was just random. I didn’t even take a picture. The second one was planned, and I hated it.

Matchy matchy

I thought I’d like this more, but it was just too much of the same fabric in one spot. I decided to leave the dark fabrics together and move the others all around, “randomly.”

It can take a long time to be random!

Random-ish

No, it didn’t take long. Not really. I think I spent two+ hours on this today. It measures around 54” square. Since the fabric is old, I doubt I’ll find matching border fabric. That’s ok, I’ll figure something out.

I used every bit of this layer cake (ten inch square set). (I plan to trim the scraps, so they’ll be used too.) Since the layout is six by six, I only used part of the set for the thimbles. The last few I cut in half so I wouldn’t have to cut off part of my thimble!

Doing that made me feel very clever.

Until I realized the directionality of the pieces.

I mixed them up the best I could, and I’m happy enough with it. It will join the pile of 14 tops I’ve made since March.

So I had to measure, I had to trim, but I didn’t have to press seams open. Two out of three isn’t bad.

I hope you have a great day, friend.

LL

“As You Wish”

One of our favorite movies is The Princess Bride. It just has everything! There is adventure, swordplay, humor and of course, true love! This quilt was made for a dear-to-me young lady and her “true love.”

I watched this young woman grow up. She colored on my wall with crayons. She is always kind to everyone. She is a natural teacher, with some serious skills. I love her and think of her as one of my favorite girls.

I asked her sister about colors for a quilt, and about style. Modern was the choice there so that’s easy enough. But colors…..black and purple are their fave colors. But red and yellow are special to them. These colors are not my usual, at all.

Especially purple. And yellow. Together?

The only way to make this work, IMO, was to use batiks. Luckily I happened to have two rolls of batiks laying around. This was good because I had about two weeks to get this done. (You know how long delivery is right now for fabric orders!) So I picked out the proper colors from the 80 strips and chose the pattern I used for my recent Grunge Quarantine quilt.

Blocks to be.

I could tell right away that these colors were really going to work well together. I was thrilled to see this and got most of the piecing done in two days.

Wavy line quilting

I quilted wavy organic lines across the quilt. I would have rather specialty quilted it, but my machine was acting up and wouldn’t cooperate. It ended up looking pretty nice regardless.

Backing fabric

I found the perfect black and purple batik for the backing and binding. I mean PERFECT! I was thrilled to find one with their combined fave colors. Score!

Labels ‘r us

As I’ve said before, my husband is a rock star at naming the quilts. He is way more talented than you’d think. I told him I was thinking something to do with The Princess Bride, like “Love, true love” but then he said “As You Wish.” It’s perfect, just perfect.

The last two quilts I’ve labeled, I’ve sewn the label into the binding so I only have to hand sew two edges. Some might say it’s cheating, I say it makes my life easier on my hands. I’m all about what’s easier these days.

I’ve already heard from our bride-to-be that the fiancé loves the quilt too. You quilters know how this makes the time and effort worth it. She said he wrapped up in it and loves it.

And that is why we quilt. The receivers of quilted gifts are usually special people. They know we sew and create something FOR THEM. They have a long lasting gift. But as the maker and giver, it warms my heart that this couple “loves” their quilt.

Have a great week, friends.

LL

“Sweet Baby Girl”

This simple baby quilt was made for a very premature baby girl. She was under two pounds when she was born and now is over six! Yay!

Caroline’s Quilt
My doggie

Yeah, I couldn’t get the boy dog to jump down so he’ll be famous one of these days.

The pattern is from the Charming Baby book. It was so fast and fun to do. I love the fabrics and I love that this was completed in 2.5 days.

Parts of the quilt before sewing

I did not use that weird gray square with the deer on it. I didn’t need all of the charm squares, so I left out the two that didn’t appeal. The layout was pretty straightforward and didn’t take long at all.

Sideways on my design wall

The fabrics probably show a bit better in this picture, color wise. I really have loved navy in quilts lately. I wish someone would design fabric lines with navy as the main color, not just an add-on.

Swirl & flower quilting

Because I know I can do it quickly and easily, I chose to swirl and flower quilt this one. Some of the stitches are a bit large, but that just proves that a human did it, not a machine.

Well, a human with a machine.

I don’t especially strive for perfection every time. I try to do better than I did before, and sometimes it is. Sometimes it isn’t. I think quilters are too hard on themselves at times. Like any skill, it takes practice. And it’s going to be challenging at first. And it’s probably going to be weird and choppy and pointy and strange. And maybe even ugly-ish.

The muscle memory comes with time, practice and lots of mistakes. If you haven’t tried free motion quilting, you should. It’s lots of fun, even when it’s not perfect.

Back of Quilt

I love using pink for baby girls. I love that the quilting shows. I love the flowers. The swirls still need some work.

Hoping the baby and her parents enjoy this gift.

Have a good week, friends.

LL

“Quarantine Grunge Quilt”

My first introduction to the Grunge line of fabrics by Basic Grey (Moda) was several years ago. My first thought was that it looked like someone rubbed it on concrete, distressing it in the worst way. But now, after seeing how versatile it can be, as a background especially, I just love using it!

There’s a TON of colors available as they release new ones every year. For this quilt I used a Jelly Roll that my husband gave me for Christmas some time ago. I saved it for the perfect project, which was actually a very simple and plain quilt. The pattern can be found at http://www.unitednotions.com/fp_grunge.pdf

Quarantine Grunge Quilt

The pattern is truly one of the simplest I’ve ever seen, but I love the impact! Squares in squares!

When I first started sewing them together I was very methodical, doing one at a time making sure it was “just so.” I made certain that the colors worked with each other and tried very hard not to be matchy matchy. (It is really hard for me NOT to be matchy matchy.)

Squares in squares.

After I noticed the blocks were looking kind of “typical” I decided to put some light colors together, and dark colors together. And colors that I didn’t especially like with those that I love!

Pink Grunge on the back!

Even if I didn’t love each individual square, the overall effect is interesting. And symmetrical, as my husband likes to say. Modern quilts are not his thing, but he liked this one well enough. “Its symmetrical.”

Light yellow with white makes it fun!

I loved making this quilt. It didn’t take long once I started. It sat around waiting to be quilted, and once I decided on that awesome pink backing, it was complete in two days.

I quilted it with something Angela Walters calls the Swirl Hook. I’m not great at it, but I love how it looks here.

Up close and personal with the Swirl Hook.

Originally I’d planned to quilt this one with straight lines using navy thread. Why? Who knows, at the time I made it that just seemed right. But by the time I got to piecing the backing and figuring out binding, the pink was the clear winner. The original plan was to use gold grunge for the binding too, but that also changed. The more pink, the better in my opinion.

See that pink thread?

Years ago when I first started quilting, I used any old thread for every part of it. Not the cheapo stuff, but not the most pricey either. It makes a difference, but that’s a discussion for another day.

I have discovered that I really, really like using a thicker thread for the quilting. I don’t think this is common but I’m not sure. I just like it. I don’t want my quilting to blend into the top, I want it to show. I’ve worked hard to get it half way decent looking, and I think thick thread is pretty.

I had two spools of the pink thread, that matches the back perfectly, and I just prayed it was enough to do the whole quilt.

That rotten thing has happened to me before. I have run out of a certain color of thread before completing a project, more than once. What quilter hasn’t?

So it was plenty of thread for this project! And I’m so glad.

Approved by Bo.

I’ve got several other projects in the works right now, at various stages of completion. This way I can decide what I want to do and find the appropriate project.

Or I start something new. (Eye roll) It’s a hazard of the hobby.

Have a great week, friends.

LL

“Enchanted” “Friendship”

Baby quilts are one of my favorite things. That they’re not humongous is the the main reason. I love, love, love working on a small quilt that I can make easily and quickly.

Of course, this easily and quickly business in no way diminishes the importance of the purpose or recipient of the baby quilt. Even if the pattern was written one way and I did it another.

“Enchanted” for Miss Haddie

Using a Charm pack and some background fabric this little quilt went together very nicely. I used a fabric from the line for the border and binding. I love how it turned out.

I usually free motion quilt the meandering flower on girly quilts because I love everything about it. The curves, the repetitive movements and the texture it gives the quilt. For this one I did one flower, starting the quilting in the middle.

I LOVE IT!

Big flower!

See what I mean? Oh, it’s the same on the front. Since this quilt is square, it was simple to do this design. I’ve been wanting to try it for a long time, so I was glad it worked out for this baby quilt.

Today the husband and I delivered another gift to a dear friend. I had finished her quilt right before we were all put on lock-down, so it’s been done and ready for a while, except the label. And since I was labeling the baby quilt, I also labeled this one.

“Friendship”

For this quilt I used two Charm packs of Rosa, some grunge and some pretty teal with gold accents fabric I’d found right before the lock-down. The pattern is Oh My Stars by Pat Sloan. It is free on her website. I did make the border a bit wider so I wouldn’t lose the star points. (That’s happened to me a time or two. Or a gazillion)

I absolutely love the Rosa fabric! It is just so colorful and the designs are so lovely. I did leave out the very light ones, they just looked weird once I got the pieces up on the design board. And grunge! Grunge has become my new GO-TO for backgrounds and such.

“Love the Grunge!”

This quilt was also free motion quilted with the meandering flower, but I did lots of them instead of one big one. It is my favorite design of late. I used a dark thread which really only shows on the lighter prints and in the stars. The backing is the floral print directly above the pink one in the photo above. Very busy but very cute.

I’ve gotten a lot of sewing done this past month. But not a lot of quilting. I recently pieced this Stay Home top, the pattern is free from Cluck, Cluck, Sew.

“Stay Home”

The name of this quilt pattern will also be the quilt’s name when I finish it. I find it funny that there are no doors on the little houses. (It couldn’t be any easier!) During this time of staying home, that is so appropriate.

Since I used an oriental theme on this, I think I can probably use a fabric that I’ve been saving for over 20 years for the back. It’s one I have never wanted to cut up, and the main color is gray, so I think it will be perfect.

And I’m hoping to start the FMQ on it tomorrow. Maybe the husband has a point about that finishing things up thing.

Have a good day, friends. Be safe.

LL