Geometry Quilt

I finished my first quilt of the year (too bad it's almost July)! I have had this quilt on my mind for a long time, and I decided it was time to make it happen. Now that my baby boy is in a "big boy room" (insert ugly crying tears here), we moved my rocker into the living room. And in the house of a quilter, all furniture must have a unique quilt on it.

This quilt has many names depending on who you ask. Some call it 3D blocks, tumbling blocks, rhombus cubes, etc. I call it my Geometry Quilt. Geometry is the only math that I'm good at, so I wanted to combine a pretty geometry concept with quilt math and make a perfect piece for my living room.

                  

                                          

I made my own template for the cube, using a 60 degree diamond and triangles. I figured out a way to strip piece the blocks and eliminate the horrible Y-seam that comes with sewing cubes. If you look very closely, each of the teal diamonds is actually two triangles sewn together. This allowed me to piece the columns, then sew them together using a straight seam. 

I used solid Kona cotton for the grays and white, and a tiny teal dot for the tops of the cubes. I LOVE a striped binding, so I was happy to find this white and charcoal fabric at Hobby Lobby. 

                 

I usually straight-line quilt my pieces, but I couldn't do that with this design. Instead, I opted to do a meandering straight line. I have done meandering curves before, and this was definitely more difficult. I like the overall effect, because it's intentionally messy, but keeps from breaking up the pattern. 

I am going to enjoy snuggling up under this baby. It adds the perfect pop of color and pattern to my favorite rocker-glider. I still find excuses to rock both babies in that chair, whether it's in their nursery or not.

Scrappy Quilt: Finished!

I first posted about this quilt last year when I put the top together. It made a HUGE dent in my scrap bin, which I was thankful for. 

I actually finished this quilt late last year, but am just now getting around to writing about it. It was gifted to a sweet girl for her 2nd birthday.

The back of the quilt is a large yellow gingham that my Granny had stashed. It was perfect for the back of this quilt, and added some vintage softness.

The binding was my favorite...black and white stripe. This really is the most perfect binding fabric in the whole world. It's from Hobby Lobby, and if they quit selling it, I'm in trouble.

The quilt was quilted with straight lines outlining the vertical seams, and every other horizontal seam. It has great texture without being too overdone.

The quilt is pretty large, between a twin and full size. I hope it keeps this sweet girl warm for a long time!

Sweet Memory Quilt

I made a quilt a while back that honestly....really sucked to make. It's not that I didn't want to, but it was a sad quilt. A very young boy in our community died last year. Some of his classmates are the children of people I went to school with. They contacted me to work together to make a memory quilt for his family. 

They wanted it to be a good project for the kids, and something sweet for the family. Of course, I agreed.

The students and the teachers each made a block. The students had a picture of him, and each drew his portrait on white cotton. They collected the pictures and sent them to be to be made into a quilt.

To keep the focus on the pictures, I added simple gingham sashing between the blocks, and used the same gingham for the backing.

My favorite binding was used, a small black and white stripe to make a perfect framework.

The quilting was done in an all over meandering pattern, to mimic the look of puzzle pieces. I didn't quilt over the individual pictures so there wouldn't be anything distracting from them.

It was so adorable looking at each picture the kids drew. 

They're very talented at such a young age, and their interpretation of their friend was so neat.

I was sad to have to make the quilt, but I'm glad I got to be a part of this special memory for the students and the family.

Twin Quilts

I finished the quilts for my cousin's twins in plenty of time before they were born. This is different than my usual last-minute gift scrambling! I was so happy to put these together for their teal and orange nursery. I wanted to put names or monograms on the quilts themselves, but I wanted their mommy and daddy to pick which baby got which color.

I chose neutral backings for each quilt.  A pretty gray damask for the teal quilt...

And a gray and white polka dot for the orange quilt.

I quilted them with an allover grid, outlining the seam lines of each patchwork square. It adds nice texture without competing with the patterns in the fabrics.

They are of course bound with my favorite black and white stripe binding. The perfect frame for a finished quilt. These are slightly larger than crib sized, so they will last for a long time as warm blankets or soft playmats. I can't wait to watch these two babies grow and snuggle them!!

Scrappy Quilt Progress

I'm not sure of how many scrapbusting projects I've completed this year. I'll have to count soon to find out. All of my little projects have been cute, but haven't really put a dent in my mountain of scraps! I wanted to see if I could get a cute quilt top out of the scraps...so I started cutting.

I was surprised at how many large pieces I had in there. I decided to break up the large blocks a little and do 3 12" wide strips, and two smaller 6" wide strips in between them. I like the look of it.

Since I'm not keeping this one, I used as many of my pink scraps as I could! I want the pink out of my house if I'm not using it.

This quilt is pretty large (thanks scrap bin!) and will probably be going to the home of one of my favorite little girls later this year. But for now it's in my to-do pile waiting for me to find the perfect backing and binding fabric. 

Flying Geese

It was time for a new table runner. I'm still cleaning out my scrap bin and refusing to  buy new fabric this year for small projects. We have a lot of teal in our living room, so I wanted to use some of those scraps to make us a new runner for our TV stand. 

This was my first attempt at making "flying geese" blocks. After doing the math and cutting of the fabric, the piecing was actually much easier than expected. I don't think I'd want to do a whole quilt this way, but it made a nice border.

I arranged them to be "flying" around the border of my table runner. I made sure to throw a few orange geese in there too for a pop of color.

Most of the middle is covered by the TV base, but I quilted it with rows of straight lines, close together. I also quilted in the ditch of a few of the geese to hold everything together for when it gets washed.

The backing was another large scrap piece, from my Modern Herringbone Quilt. I love it, so I hate that it's now hiding on the back.

The orange and white striped binding added that last pop of color I needed. Sometimes having lots of patchwork and quilted items can make a house feel "old"... but if you make them in a modern color palette, with clean lines and patterns, they can look great in a modern home!

It's now happily resting under my TV!

Auditioning for Sew-Vivor

Rach at Family Ever After is once again hosting her fabulous sewing competition...."Sew-vivor". I have loved watching this competition in the past and am SUPER excited to be entering this year because....it's QUILT time!! This season is for quilters. 

While I do love sewing clothing for myself and my kids, there's something comfy and wonderful about quilting. 

We can enter ONE quilt to be judged to enter the competition. After lots of thought (and asking family members and friends), I decided that The Clemson Quilt was the way to go! I love some of my traditional quilts, but for this competition, I knew using my own design was the way to go!

This quilt took some serious math and a lot of graph paper. I wanted to get the "tilt" of the paw just right. The actual piecing is patchwork squares, and some half square triangles. The ombre fabric gives the paw some great dimension that a solid orange just couldn't have done!

The paw is orange ombre by Riley Blake, and the purple and white solids are Kona cottons. The bold orange and white striped binding is 2" stripe by Riley Blake.

The quilt is perfect for snuggling with two babies, measuring at 50"x 60". 

The quilting is an all-over meandering pattern. I usually love straight line quilting for a modern look, but the texture of free-motion quilting is amazing.

Because most of our time at Clemson is spent outside, I loved this gray woodgrain print for the backing! It keeps the quilt neutral, and adds an interesting pattern to the back. 

I'm looking forward to seeing the other quilts and quilted projects entered this year.

Fingers crossed that I get to compete against some amazing quilters!!

You can see some of my other favorite quilting projects under my Quilts tab at the top.

Tumbler Doll Quilt

When a sweet little Goldilocks asks for a blanket for her "friends", of course you dig right in to your fabric and start sewing!

I pulled out all of her favorite pinks and decided to try out making a Tumbler block! I made it the scientific way... measuring it out on the side of a cereal box, then cutting it out as a template. You'd be surprised how many of these fancy little "templates" I have in a drawer.

I love how well the blocks lined up.

I wanted a different quilting look, so I did some wavy lines all over in one direction.

She loves to grab it and show me all of the fabrics, then tell me what outfit they are from. Most of these fabrics were used for dresses or tops for her at one point.

Her "friends" love it. She rotates it between them so they can all stay nice and warm.

Everyone wins.

A Very Pink Quilt

I found another quilt in my house that I forgot to share with you! I say "found" because this one is buried in Goldilocks's bed.

 

I actually made this one for her for Christmas two years ago. It has seen a lot of love since then.

 

The fabrics are a beautiful assortment of pinks. I got most of them in a "pink bundle" from an Etsy shop. They are all Amy Butler prints so they are of course, gorgeous. Some of the prints are from my fabric stash, and I threw in a few solids as filler.

 

I let baby girl pick the back and binding fabrics. So yes, they're also pink. She did a good job though. This quilt got a classic grid, outlining the seam lines of all of the squares.

 

It's been washed sooo many times, and used for lots and lots of sleepovers already. I'm glad she still loves it even two years later.

Aviary 2 Quilt

I realized a while back that I never introduced one of our most-used quilts to you! This beauty lives on the back of my couch each day, and each evening you can find me curled up under it! I made it to match these pillow covers using Aviary 2 by Joel Dewberry with some mixed in solids for extra color.

I started this quilt back in 2012, and got the quilt top finished. I managed to get it basted together while SUPER pregnant with baby boy.

The day I "thought" he was coming, I sat on my giant exercise ball, behind my sewing machine and bounced for hours while sewing. It was the only place I was comfortable, and figured I could be productive too. Part of it got quilted. Baby boy didn't quite let me finish. He was in my arms later that night!

This quilt has been washed and used soooo much so it's probably the softest in our house. I still love the oranges, teals and browns. It's timeless, bright and beautiful.

If you've always wanted to tackle making a quilt, large or small, but don't really know where to start... check out the classes at Craftsy! I can't say enough good things about their classes when you're learning a new skill.