The Maker's Quilt

The Meet The Makers Quilt is a modern quilt that was introduced at the 2018 Quilt Market.  It uses Riley Blake Confetti Cotton Solid Fabrics. It's called Meet The Makers because each block was designed by a different maker and then the blocks were assembled together into a quilt pattern that was offered as a limited edition quilt kit.  This quilt is for my niece, Kari.  

This quilt is 70" X 70".  It's made with 1760 tiny pieces. There are five different blocks in this quilt for a total of 49 blocks altogether.  If you look at the corner blocks, those are called alternating blocks and there are 25 of those.  When stitched together with the other blocks these alternating blocks form irish chains in light and dark blue.  The actual colors are called Navy and Petunia.  

Riley Blake Confetti Cotton Solids are beautifully made.  They have a very nice hand to them.  "Hand" refers to quality of a fabric assessed by feeling the fabric between your fingers and thumb and seeing how soft it is.  The confetti colors in this quilt were ...

White, Navy, Peacock, Grass, Daffodil, Green Smoothie, Lilac, Petunia, Rouge, Orange, Crayola Tickle Me Pink, Cranberry, Sweet Mint, Crayola Blizzard Blue, Vivid, Cayenne, Lipstick, Sugar Pink and Daisy. These fabrics come together to create a beautiful rainbow of colors.  

The alternating block is made using six different color ways.  The cut pieces are shown above. This block is made up of four-patch pieces, strips and flying geese pieces.  Block #1 is made up of squares and half square triangles.  Block #2 is made up of squares and half square triangles. Block #3 is made up of flying geese pieces and squares. And block #4 is made up of flying geese pieces, squares and rectangles.  

 

Once the 49 blocks were assembled it was time to put it on my longarm.  For this quilt I used Quilter's Dream white polyester batting.  I used white because of all of the white in the quilt top.  Using a cream batting behind white fabric makes it look dingy.  But if you use the white batting it helps to make the quilt top pop.

I used Aurifil monofilament thread for the quilt top and MicroQuilter #7017 for the bobbin.  I turned the tension down to 1.75 and sewed with the bobbin set up 200 TOWA.  I also increased the machine speed since this was mostly stitch in the ditch work.  This was completely quilted by using ruler work.  I used a straight edge and one circle. I also outlined the Irish chains to add a secondary design to the quilt.

This quilt is for my husband's niece.  He is my Master Quilt Holder and he held it up for me to take a picture of it after he went for his COVID shot at the VA.  

Remember to pick up a needle and thread and stitch some love into your world❣️   

The Satellite Quilt

This Satellite Quilt is all about circles and color.  I made this quilt for my great-nephew, Grayson.  It's made out of colorful batik fabrics. 

To make this quilt you group your fabric together in light and dark groups and then sew those groups together into 9 inch square strip sets.  

Then I took a special template to make inset circles and used it to cut out large and small quarter circles, which were then sewn together. Most of the circles on this quilt are made in "pac man" shapes with a quarter missing.  The others are complete circles. 

Once I had all the circles inset into 9 inch squares I sewed them together. Then I made a border using leftover sections of the strip squares.  Once the borders were sewn on I put the quilt on the longarm. 

I used rulers to stitch diagonally across the circles and "pac man" shaped circles.  Then I used circle rulers and just doodled circles all over the quilt to fill the space.  

I used Quilter's Dream batting in polyester. For the backing I found a blue batik fabric with little circles on it to match the batik fabrics used in the quilt top.  I used Aurifil Monofilament thread on the top and a light blue MicroQuilter thread on the bottom.  I would have liked to have used a darker blue thread on the back, but I used what I had on hand here because with COVID numbers rising we don't go out shopping.  

This is one of those quilts where the colors are better seen up close and in person. My "master quilt holder" braved the cold and held it up for a picture outside.  

Make sure to pick up a needle and thread and stitch some love into your world❣️

THE ITTY BITTY BIRDIE QUILT 🐦

This is my itty, bitty, birdie quilt❣️ It was a block of the month wool appliqué quilt. This was my first time doing wool appliqué and I had a ball! Working with hand dyed wool and hand dyed thread is an absolute joy!

Although this is a tiny quilt measuring in at only 24" X 24", this is the most expensive quilt that I've made to date.  Hand dyed wool and hand dyed thread are costly.  

To start with I purchased all of the hand dyed threads that I would need. Then, each month I would get a tiny envelope with tiny bits of wool in it and directions for a new little birdie.  It was always a surprise as we were only shown a black and white outline sketch of the quilt without the borders when we signed up for the Block of the Month.  That meant we had no idea of what the actual quilt would look like when it was done. 

Once I got that month's package I would get to work cutting out the wool and whip stitching it to the background piece.  Then came the fun part ... embellishing it with all sorts of stitches.  The embellishing is what takes the birds from flat to three dimensional.

You can see in these photos that there is quite a difference before and after the birds are embellished. 

The lavender bird below is one of my favorites.  It's just so silly!

There were nine little birds altogether.  One month a rather plain little bird pattern arrived and so I stitched it differently and made it my own.  I also decided to put him in the middle of my quilt and not use the arrangement that we were given.  This little bird took his time showing up in my mailbox.  I thought he was lost for sure.  It turned out that the post office had held it because there was a hurricane off the coast of North Carolina.  I'm in Charlotte, which is inland, and we only got a quick shower of raindrops and nothing more but the post office held it anyway.  We did, however, get an earthquake while I was doing this birdie.  It was a 5.1 at its center and the strongest quake here in North Carolina in 104 years.  In our eleven years here it was our second one.   

At one point, while waiting for the next month's little bird to arrive,  I tried making my own pattern and stitching a hedgehog.  I would like to design my own quilt someday.  I'd love to make a tree of life in the middle and use the hedgehogs in the borders with hearts in between them.  

For month #10 and 11 the borders arrived in the mail.  They sent two different green wools as the background for the borders, but it was a shade of green I didn't care for at all against the blue backgrounds of the birds.  I made the borders anyway, but was kind of on the fence whether or not to send away for another color of wool and just design my own borders, because I really didn't care for what was sent. I finally decided to keep it as it was since the wool is so expensive and I had worked really hard on the borders.

Then I put the tiny quilt on my longarm.  Once I stitched around the birds they really popped up fat and fluffy! I stitched little sticks with leaves on them and some flowers then pebbled around them.  

 

Remember to pick up a needle and thread and stitch some love into your world❣️