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. 

Charleston update

Just a quick post to let you know that we are not anywhere near the active hostage situation in Charleston.

We've had some serious medical news from both my and my husband's families in the last 24 hours, so we're particularly on edge today. Please hold good thoughts for them!

We don't normally watch the news during the day but I'm currently at the eye doctor's office and saw the local news. This office has wifi but no phone coverage so I thought I'd put up this fast post.

I did finish a gift baby quilt this morning, but no photos to share until it arrives at its new home.

Boat maintenance sewing

Yesterday I tackled a couple of small canvas jobs for the boat. I dislike this type of sewing, but it's my responsibility so it was time to suck it up, Buttercup, and get it done. This little table is made of teak and has a lip all the way around it to keep your wine glass from sliding off. Unfortunately, that lip also collects rain water, so the table needs a waterproof cover.



I made one four years ago from a pretty floral fabric that was supposed to be weatherproof, but it faded badly. Then I made a quickie cover out of a vinyl tablecloth, which disintegrated in less than a year. So I finally did what I should have done in the beginning, which is make a cover from Sunbrella, which wears like iron. It's also like sewing cardboard, but it's finished now and looks nice so I'll stop whining (maybe.)



The bottom is elasticized with bungee cord for easy removal.



You may notice that the top isn't flat. That's because even Sunbrella will eventually soak up water if it puddles for several days. So we stuff this Nerf football underneath to peak the center of the cover up. Then the rain rolls right off!

In the background of the top photo, you can see several blue Sunbrella pillows. The first two I made using regular cotton thread, which degrades in the bright sunlight. I have since started using UV stable thread, which is thick and waxy, like dental floss. Eventually, one of the ties that holds the pillow to the railing fell off, and I stitched that back on yesterday since I had the UV thread loaded in the machine for the table cover.



I also did a repair of our life raft cover. The life raft in its container is about the size of a suitcase, and sits on the back port side corner of the upper deck, hoping to never be used. To extend the life of the fiberglass case, I made this simple, boxy Sunbrella cover about three years ago. There is a rather sharp piece of the raft that sticks up underneath on one end, and it rubs against the cover when the wind is really blowing and flapping things around.



That rubbing eventually caused a small tear, which I repaired with an iron-on patch from underneath. However, it still didn't seem quite secure enough, so I also ran a line of UV stable stitching around it. The tear still shows, but that doesn't bother me much. No one is closely examining the life raft cover! I also decided the minor amount of mildew on the cover was acceptable for the same reason. I'd rather see a bit of black or green gunk than remove the waterproof coating with harsh cleaning chemicals.

After wrassling with thick, waxy UV thread and bulky, stiff and dirty Sunbrella, I'm looking forward to slipping some nice Aurifil into my bobbin and getting back to quilting on cotton!

Happy mail!

I received a very sweet gift in the mail last week from Kat as a thank you. She traveled to New Mexico and was away from her blog and sewing machine this summer and I lent a hand. Aren't these great southwestern souvenirs?

The soap smells heavenly, and the arrowhead fabric coordinates really well with this Laurel Burch horse panel I bought last year. I also had the smaller horse print, which has really subtle touches of blue. The arrowheads bring that blue into focus, and I'm looking forward to using these pieces together soon. Thanks, Kat!

I also received a big batch of fabrics that I had ordered on eBay. All these fat quarters are either architectural motifs like bricks and wood grain, or natural themes like trees, sky and water. I think these come from the estate of a quilter who created landscape quilts. 

I also bought this fun woodsy panel to add to my stash of more masculine themed fabrics. Not that we gals don't love a good moose, too! I like how this print has both realistic animals, and sort of woodcut silhouettes.

I'm writing this post on the train from New York to Charleston, and scheduling it to publish on Sunday so I can link up with Molli Sparkles' Sunday Stash. By the time you read it, I should be home again on the boat and back to my sewing after a week away.

Squirrelly

What happens when you should be quilting the last two recently finished WIPs and an Anita Grossman Solomon book shows up in the mail? Why of course you pull out an old FQ bundle, add in some coordinating blenders, and piece up 48 Old Italian Blocks.

I love this block, but it always looked a bit too complicated and fiddly to make. Anita's book has a super simple method to cut the oddly shaped pieces without even measuring. I like the way she thinks: why do it the hard way?

Actually, I made 50 blocks, because I still struggle with value and contrast. These two looked great when I put the fabrics next to each other, but turned into mush in the blocks. The colors and scale of the fabrics are just too similar. With Anita's method, you get two reverse blocks from each pair of fabrics, so I ended up with double mush. Oh well. It only took a few minutes to pair up a couple with much better contrast and these will be set aside for who knows what.

And then, once you've made 48 (or 50) blocks and need to be packing for your week long trip to New York, what's a girl to do except try six different flimsy layouts then stitch them all together? I still see a few blocks that where the contrast could be better, but overall I'm happy with this. I'm thinking I might do a completely scrappy version and really, really concentrate on each block having the strong contrast that makes the "X" pattern shimmer.

The top is currently 36"x48", so it could be a wheelchair quilt as-is, or perhaps I'll add some borders to make it bigger. It felt good to do this whirlwind of sewing right before I had to leave my quilting for a week. 

Linking up with Sandra's DrEAMi party, since I dropped everything to chase this squirrel!

Cat on a quilt

Lily Pad Quilting has an annual link party called "Pets on Quilts" and this is the big week to join in. Seems like many quilters have furry quilt inspectors! Since many of my pieces get donated, I try my best to keep Angel off of them. But as you can see, I'm not always successful.

I realized that I never shared the finish of this quilt, which has actually been done for about four months. Last time I blogged about it, it was an unfinished flimsy with only the blue polka dotted border. It felt a little small, so I added the piano key border in bright pinks to help the triangle points pop out a bit. Many of the fabrics are Kaffe Fassett.

The border is a striped fabric, not pieced, and I quilted between each stripe to make it look pieced. That was actually quite tedious, and next time I think I'll just piece instead! The rest of the quilting is straight lines about 3/4" from the seams. This is a wild and busy quilt, but soft and snuggly. It hasn't named itself, either. Any suggestions?

You can see a little of the back in this arty-farty sky photo. It's a pretty abstract floral in all the same bright colors on a white background. There's also a bit of grey, which matches Angel's fur on the front. 

We're taking Angel to the kennel today as we will be out of town and off the boat for a week. I didn't have the heart to boot her off the quilt last night since she's on her way to cat jail. 

Charleston County Lines

Today's little quilts are both made using the County Lines pattern. This is the second (and third) time I've used this pattern; it's fast and easy. Sewing both flimsies at the same time allowed for a lot of efficient chain piecing. 

This fall-themed quilt is called Anticipating Autumn. The fabrics feature leaves, pumpkins, apples, and gourds. The green fabric is a neat basketweave print from the lady who donated 15 pounds of fabric to me last month. I used a mottled cream sashing to keep it light.

The wind conveniently flipped a corner up to show the single piece backing. It's a tone on tone leaf motif in rusty orange. A brighter orange blender binding makes the little pumpkins pop. I think the colors look really nice with our boat's new paint color, "Moondust." Much more coordinating than that ratty blue line, which is worn out and ready for the trash. I have brand new navy blue lines that I'm rather overly excited about. The yellow thing is our power cord.

For the quilting, I did a variety of FMQ motifs in the squares and rectangles. With the busy fabrics, it was pretty much a waste of time! The quilting is almost complete invisible. So here's another photo of our neighbor's pretty little Down East boat. The teak brightwork (wood) on this boat is gorgeous, so I didn't use my clips to hold the quilt in place and almost lost it into the water. Yikes!

I did get in some good FMQ practice on Anticipating Autumn, so that's a fine thing. I also decided not to stitch in the ditch or quilt the sashing at all, just to see how that looks after washing. It was nice to let the harvest-y fabrics remind me that cooler weather is coming, since it's been so hot and humid here.

The second quilt is called Charleston Catch, and features fishing fabrics and mossy green sashing. There are fish, seagulls, fish, guys with fishing poles, more fish, and boats. 

Specifically, the fabric shows this type of center console fishing boat. These are very, very common in South Carolina, so I thought a local retired fisherman would get a kick out of using this on his or her lap. The binding fabric is a dark blue with little bubbles on it. Having learned my lesson on the last one about FMQ and busy fabrics, I just did a simple large stipple on this one.

Another one of our marina neighbors has a (very nice and expensive) center console, so I tossed the quilt over the gunwales for a photo. It's considered quite rude to climb aboard without permission, so this was as much as I wanted to touch their boat. Our boat is in the upper right corner of the pic, with four large, lurid orange ball fenders protecting it from bad drivers (we've been hit once already in this marina.)

Here's another shot on the center console, which is actually the tender (small, auxiliary boat) for "Tika Dika," the large sailboat behind it. 

If you'd like to purchase your own boat, here's the sales office. It's kind of a sales shed, but quite a nice shed. I used their advertising/sandwich board to display my quilt, and the southerly wind held it nicely in place. No flapping in the wind! I'll have to remember that for more photo shoots.

I have six little quilts in the washing machine right at this minute, and I'm eager to see how my various experiments in quilting and puckering have fared.