Sunrise and Twilight

A couple of weeks ago I bought a small charm pack of Kaffe Fassett shot cottons. They were so beautiful I wanted to make something right away that I could enjoy. Time for a little selfish sewing! A quick back of the envelope calculation showed that there would be just about enough fabric to make the fronts of two pillow covers.

So I stitched them together into quarter square triangles in the same rainbow order they came in the pack. And when this groovy Brother Sister Design yardage showed up in my mailbox later, I knew it would be perfect for the borders and envelope-style backs.

The cooler colors remind me of the sky in the late evening, so this pillow is Twilight. I quilted it with my walking foot in straight lines about an eighth of an inch on either side of the diagonal seams.

The warmer colors look like a rosy dawn to me, so this pillow is Sunrise. It is also quilted by walking foot, using an easy, liberated orange peel design. All told, the quilting on both pillows took less than an hour, and the piecing maybe an hour and a half. Fast and fun!

We anchored last night in the Caloosahatchee River, near the town of La Belle, FL. We dropped our dinghy and went ashore for dinner. When we returned, lights from onshore made our boat ride on her reflection in the dark, calm water. I love my floating home and am tickled pink to have new pillows for the couch!

Friday Finish

This baby quilt is called Butterfly Garden. It's made from a charm pack and some yardage, using the free Moda Bake Shop pattern "Building Blocks."

I started it after learning that a friend is expecting her first baby, a little girl. However, I have since decided on a completely different quilt for her, which is still a secret.

The backing is a single piece of a soft mottled orange that reminds me of orange sherbet.

 

The quilting is widely spaced spirals radiating out from each corner. I used my new walking foot with the spacer bar to keep the lines nice and even. These big spirals went so much faster than the tiny ones on Bright Astrodelic.

I really like how the spirals meet in this diamond pattern right in the middle. The cream neutral fabric has butterflies, birds and flowers on it, and a few French words and phrases.

The charm pack also featured butterflies and flowers in these cheerful pinks and oranges. The binding is flanged with orange and pink from my stash. That mottled green is from the big batch of freebies sent to me by Lydia.

After its spa day, Butterfly Garden is super soft and textured. I haven't decided what do to with this quilt yet. I might tuck it away for another baby, or I might send it in to my Project Linus group. It seems like I should have a few finished quilts in my stash for fast gifting, although we don't know many folks in the new baby stage of life. 

Gift placemats

My nephew Andrew is getting married in the spring, hooray! As an engagement gift, I made a set of quilted placemats. I heard through the grapevine that their kitchen decor was going to be black, white and gray. I also heard that niece-in-law-to-be Sarah's favorite color is teal.

So I made scrappy little pieces in two variations, each with a touch of teal. Each placemat also has a different walking foot quilting design. One piecing variation has the scraps in the center with white background edges, running across the short side of the mat. This one has overlapping spiral quilting.

The other variation has the scraps on the edges with the white pieces in the center, running the long direction. This one has my new favorite standard quilting motif: wavy lines inside straight lines. How's that for a catchy name? Hm, a bit unwieldy. How about Straight 'n Wavy?

This radiating lines quilting motif is fun to do and gives a nice sort of sunrise effect. I learned this in Jacquie Gering's Craftsy class.

This quilting is a bit hard to describe. I found it in Angela Walters Shape by Shape book. It starts in one corner and goes in a straight line to two inches beyond the second corner, then to two inches beyond the third corner. This pattern repeats and the line spirals inward. I'm sure there's a name for this mathematical pattern; anyone know what it might be?

The back of each placemat is this busy black and white print, and the binding is a black and white stripe. I figure if they have kids, this side will really hide the stains. That little navy blue bit in the upper left corner is the older design of my premade labels. All the fabrics were already in my stash, so these were fun and shopping-free pieces. Hope they like them!

Doggone quilting

The quilting for C's Canines is finished. This is a design that I used on one of my earliest table toppers. The other day I was sitting at the salon table, looking at the topper, and thought about how much I liked the texture. I also remembered it being really easy to do.

It's a completely walking-foot design of straight lines interspersed with fairly uniform wavy lines. Not as organic as more random wavies, not as unforgiving as strictly straighties. Because this quilt is big square blocks, I first stitched the straight lines from corner to corner on each block. Then I measured one third the distance between the lines and marked two more in-between lines with my Hera marker. Then I visually divided those in half just by eyeball. After that, I did all the wavy lines in between, trying to make the waves match at the peaks and valleys.

I've found that my walking foot quilting is much more cooperative when traveling on the bias. All the stretchiness helps moosh things into place, I think. That's a technical explanation, yo. I don't love wrassling the corners of the quilt through the harp, but it's nice to have no puckers.

I was so pleased with the results of the quilting on the dog quilt that I also quilted a Christmas quilt the exact same way and finished that yesterday, too! Here's the back of that one; the front is still secret. I used a variegated thread on this rather plain cream fabric. More (and hopefully better lit) photos when I get them both bound.