Finally, A Patchwork Quilt

I finished my first patchwork quilt! It was on my to-sew list ever since I started quilting. Back in August I pulled out lots of blues, greens and greys. I used some of my treasured prints (that I received for my birthday) and some that were part of the first and only giveaway I ever won online (thank you Lizzy House!).

I cut them up into 5” squares.

And started to lay them out:

It was hard to place the squares randomly without repeating the colours/ hues or the prints. I think it took hours to lay out the squares and stack and label them neatly. When I was sewing them together I mixed them up (in the last 4 rows) and I was too lazy to sort that mess out again. I finished the flimsy at the end of August and it was put aside so I could start sewing christmas gifts.

Last week I took it out again. Pieced a backing. Predried the batting. And started basting while the receipient was doodling with crayons and felt tips. He kept showing off his pieces of art “accidentially” stepping on his future quilt.

(Note to self: Put that sweater away. It is too short for him now – or throw it away if the felt tip ink does not wash out)

Without further ado, here comes my “Hues and Values” Quilt (name inspired by the Value Added Quilt Along that started back in October, when I was already done with my quilt top…):

The pieced backing is made of flannel – super soft and super cozy.

I was at a loss as to how to quilt it. I wanted to sew straight lines with my walking foot but after the disaster of Emma’s Quilt I opted for giant free motion circles instead. One circle per square. I didn’t mark them beforehand and they are far from perfect. But I don’t care, I hope that once the quilt is washed and dried the crinkles will conceal most irregularities.

I love the look of quilting on the back (that’s apparently where I took my inspiration from in the first place (o: )

I used white thread for the top and matching blue thread for the back.

I chose a light grey print for the binding and attached it with my preferred triple zig zag stitch. It is almost invisible on the light grey binding, so here’s another photo where I accidentially stitched a bit too much into the square:

All that’s left to do now is washing and drying. My favourite part.
Oh, and gifting. That’s even better (o:

Have a nice week!!!
Christine

Modern Mosaic - A Quiet Quilt

My christmas gift for my mother.

You saw the work-in-progress here and it was also part of my Finish-A-Long Q4 List.

She asked for a quilt that matches their new sofa which is dark grey. The walls are beige and brown-beige and I wanted to make a quiet quilt – few colours, no complicated design, just one block to rest your eye upon.

So I took my fabric colour chart along and chose the colours that match the room perfectly. I pieced five mosaic blocks and put them together to one big cross and put it off-centre in a large dark grey space.

I free motion quilted within the white narrow stripes of the cross. Then I quilted some irregularily spaced straight lines in all four directions of the cross. I wanted the cross to “radiate”. The negative space that was left was filled by “cobblestones”: free motion quilted rectangles with rounded corners. I wanted to revisit the design of the mosaic though in a calmer way.

I used a lighter grey thread to let the quilting show a bit better. I did not want to let it blend in completetly with the background as the negative space takes such a great part in this quilt.

I finished the quilt with a beige binding and my favourite triple zig zag stitch.

And here is the picture that inspired me to make this quilt:

I saw this church flag during our summer holidays and wanted to turn the design into a quilt. We passed it several times during strong winds and I never stopped to take a photo. I alwas wanted to but never had my camera ready. Oh how I regret that! On our last day I remembered to take my camera – and there was nearly no wind at all )o: I had to wait several minutes for a gust of wind to take this picture.

Here’s hoping that next time I’ll remember to take photos of inspirations right away instead of waiting… At least they didn’t pull down the flag for good…

Happy Quilting!
Christine

A Baby Boy Quilt that I nearly named “Stalactites and Stalagmites”

It’s that time of the quilting year again. Quilt Market is here again and for all of us who are staying at home, Amy is hosting Blogger’s Quilt Festival again.

My entry is one of those UFOs from my FAL Q4 List that I could not show you then. I kind of prepared the quilt top when I found out our business partner was going to have a baby boy. Then it turned into an UFO and sat waiting. The baby boy was born 2 weeks ago and his name is Henning.

Our Local Fabric Store now carries Fat Quarters from India. They are called “Flat Fats”. As quilting is not very well known in Germany, these FQ are the first they ever carried. I simply had to support them and bought some. I didn’t want the quilt to be too baby-ish and chose a small stack of FQ in blue, a yellow print and two matching blue solids by the metre. It was my very first experience with improvisational cutting and piecing and I have to admit, I really liked it – despite the fact that some passages turned out awefully crooked. I simply sliced the bulky and misshaped blocks into strips and added them to the better shaped blocks.



I backed it with a dotty blue print from our LQS and added a pieced binding with a white and yellow striped print as a little extra something. I used a triple zig-zag stitch to stitch the binding in place and I think this is goint to be my future go-to binding method. Quick and neat.  And secure.



I had already used the same method to raw-edge-appliqué the letters but I wouldn’t probably do that again. Much too difficult when it comes to stitching the corners.



I quilted some wide-and-uneven-spaced, more or less straight lines with my walking foot and used different threads: white, yellow, blue and some red. Just for good measure. I wanted this quilt to be soft and cozy, so no intense quilting this time.

Taking photos of this quilt was a nightmare. There were two days between the time that I finished the quilt and the moment it was gifted. Two days of rain. Non-stop. So no outtakes. Indoors the light was very bad and the selected photos above were the only close-to-acceptable-ones I was able to take.

Writing this blogpost, I discovered http://www.befunky.com/ and “cartoonized” one of the photos: This is the quilt hanging on one of our armchairs. Makes me feel funky indeed (o:



All in all I LOVE this quilt. I like the combination of colours and values and the little quilting. Regarding the composition I might as well have called this quilt “stalactites and stalagmites”. LOL.

I didn’t measure it, but is has to be nearly crib size. A bit shorter infact. It was hard to let it go but so nice to get a phone call from Henning’s Mom who assured me of her pleasure receiving it. Hope he will like it himself when he grows up!

edited to add: Best category: Favorite Baby Quilt, Favorite Two Color Quilt

I’m linking up to Amy’s Blogger’s Quilt Festival Fall 2012 and I guess I’ll see you there?!

Have a nice weekend!
Christine

P.S. What do you think, is this quilt too modern for a baby or do you think it is appropiate? I’m still pondering if I like more baby-ish quilts better for babies…