CRYSTAL WATERS QUILT 💦

This Crystal Waters Quilt is made from hand dyed batik fabric using a Cross and Crown pattern.  The fabric is dyed to resemble tropical crystal waters at various times of the day ... midnight waters ... quiet morning waters and sparkling afternoon waters.  I made this quilt for my great niece, Devan, who lives in the midwest but loves to visit places with tropical waters 🏝  It's my hope that this bohemian quilt will remind her of warmer climates in the midst of icy cold midwestern winters.

I don't always love my quilts when they're done but I love this one.  I was tempted to keep it for myself.  I just love all those colors❣️

Before I started sewing this quilt I washed all the hand dyed batik fabric with Synthrapol to wash away the extra dye from the batik dying process and set the colors.  I also threw in some color catchers to pick up the dye so that it wouldn't wash back into the fabric. I divided the fabric into several loads ... dark, medium and light colors and then did separate loads for the larger backing and background fabrics. Then I had to press the fabric and treat it with Best Press to give it its shape back.  Once this process was done I cut out the pieces and and got them ready for sewing.

The blocks are fun to put together.  I love the fabric colors in this quilt. It has a very bohemian look to it.  

The most difficult part of this quilt was choosing thread colors.  The backing is such a dark blue that it's almost black and the background fabric on the quilt top is a soft white pattern.  When that happens you have to pick a bobbin thread that won't come up to the top and show in dark little dots across the white background.  Yet, you want something for the backing that looks nice too.  I ended up picking a light blue for the bobbin which complemented the lighter blue spots on the dark backing fabric and a MicroQuilter thread in white for the top thread to do all the stitch in the ditch work around the piecing.  Then I ventured out into a public place for the first time since March and braved the quilt store to pick out some matching thread for the piece work.  I ended up with Violet, Raven, Hazel, Sea Green, Sky and Denim ... all in Glide thread.

Scraps for the thread matching process.

Once on the longarm I started the top border only to realize that I had forgot to pick out a thread color for that so it was back to the quilt shop again that day.  Once that grape thread arrived home I did the top border and worked my way down the quilt to do all the stitching in the ditch and then the bottom border. Then I rolled the quilt back up to do all the background stitching on the white fabric.  Then I rolled the quilt back up one last time to do all the quilting in the colorful piece work.  

I used Quilter's Dream White Polyester batting in this quilt.  Normal batting is a cream to light brown color and if you use that it shows through the white in the quilt top and makes it look dingy.  Using the white makes that quilt top shine.  

The Binding Baby 

To bind the quilt I chose a color that had both blue and purple in it so that it would connect that midnight blue backing with all of the different shades of purples and blues on the quilt top.  

It's not easy to photograph a quilt and get the quilting to show.  I have to shoot it in the semi-dark and then go back in and brighten all of the settings.  That's what I did in the above picture to show the quilting.

I also made a matching quilted drawstring bag to gift the quilt in.  Now I just have to ship everything off to Devan.  I hope she loves her quilt!

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

My Master Quilt Holder at work❣️

A little Faith, Trust and Pixie Dust ✨

Postscript:  I love when people send me pictures of themselves with the quilts I make for them 💙 

Love and Stitches Quilt 💙 💚 💛

This Love and Stitches Quilt is a pattern by Megan Collins.  In this pattern Megan has solved the problem of getting a pieced heart to actually look like a heart.  Typically a pieced heart is squared off and never looks right.  Megan takes two halves of a circle and puts them on a square and then sews the quilt on point.  It's a brilliant solution.  

I ordered this pattern and joined in the Love and Stitches Quilt Along for October and November.  The material I ordered for this was a preorder from Australia so it wasn't going to make it here in time for the start of the sew along.  So, in order to be a part of the QAL I made up a smaller version of the quilt using Alison Glass scrap fabrics.  

The hearts in this quilt pattern are huge.  The blocks are 12 1/2" square.  I wanted something smaller so I reduced the pattern by 38%. I'm used to rewriting patterns all the time.  My longarm is a nine foot and most longarms are twelve feet so there are quilts I want to make that won't fit my longarm.  I usually solve this by reducing the pattern. If it's an appliqué pattern it's simple.  You just reduce the templates and all is well.  But a pieced quilt is harder to figure out.  Quilting is all about the math and not many people realize that.  I can't believe how many quilters on Instagram that I follow that are engineers and scientists. They just come by the math naturally and are drawn to this art form. This quilt was hard to reduce because once it got smaller the templates around the half circle couldn't be used because there wasn't enough of it left to make a seam width on both sides.  I just kept working at it until I came up with the math to get it all to fit together.  My squares turned out to be 8 1/2" square.  Once my border was on I had a 40" by 40" baby quilt.  

This was perfect because that was exactly the size that I was aiming for.  I had been looking for a quilt pattern with allover hearts that I could use to make preemie quilts using scrap fabric from my quilts and the leftover batting pieces.  Quilting fabric and good batting are expensive so I wanted a useful way to use the leftovers.  I thought that making preemie quilts for the NICU that my son was born in was a perfect idea. That's why I wanted a heart pattern.  So, those babies could be wrapped in love!  My son was born at 24 weeks and weighed 1# 10 oz. He was in the NICU over 4 months.  I thought that sending parents a quilt filled with love from someone who knew what they were going through would be a wonderful way to use up my extra fabric.  

Once I got the math down I was able to make the pattern smaller and get nine hearts on the quilt instead of only the four that the original pattern would make.  It took a lot of work but was well worth it.

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

THE DANA QUILT 🌸

This gorgeous little quilt is called the Dana Quilt by Amber of Alderwood Studio.  Amber is one of the @quiltersofinstagram that I follow.  When I saw this quilt I knew I had to make it because I've never been able to find something to match my weird shade of green couch.  

The pattern for this quilt is well written.  It even provides pressing directions for piecing which makes things as simple as can be.  It goes together quickly and easily.  

I used Kona fabric in Spruce, White, Ice Peach and Celadon.  I used the Celadon for the backing and the Ice Peach for the binding.  We're still quarantined here so I guessed at the thread colors.  I ordered Isacord in Swamp, Shrimp, Jalepeno and White.  It's really hard to match colors online.  

Once my pieced quilt top was done it was time to load it on my longarm ... my favorite part of the quilting process! This quilt was only 54 X 54 and I would be rolling it back and forth a lot so I decided to float my quilt top instead of rolling it onto the bar.  

First I did all the stitch in the ditch work as I outlined everything.  I used Aurifil Monofilament for my top thread and So Fine in the bobbin.  I used a 2.0 tension with a stitch length of 9 and slowed down my machine speed to 240.  Then I rolled the quilt back up and did the entire background in orange peels.  This takes some work as you have to tuck them behind the patterns.  I used Isacord in Swamp with a tension of 4.0 and a stitch length of 9.  When that was done I rolled my quilt back to the top and did all the peach areas then went back and did all the white areas and finally all the celadon areas.  I used the same colors in the bobbin as I did for the top so the backing, which is celadon has some very colorful threads. 

I used Quilter's Dream Wool batting.  I couldn't decide between Dream Wool and Dream Orient but I thought those large flowers might look nice with the puff that Dream Wool provides.  

I used ruler work throughout the entire quilt.  I quilted leaves on the four corner patches of each flower to make it look more like a flower.  

Binding all rolled up on the Binding Baby.

I've ordered some pillow patterns and I hope to make some matching pillows for my couch.  My couch is a very hard to match green color. It's a Danish Ekornes couch and the color is called Seagreen.  It's got a blue green vibe to it. The Kona Spruce fabric is a darker version of it and blends well.  

Here it is on my couch ...

My quilt was featured by Alderwood Studio on Instagram!

My Master Quilt Holder in action ...

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

My Autumn Quilt 🍁 Blown Leaves

This month I participated in the first annual #wesewtogether2020.  This is a national online quilt sew along for charitable organizations put together by Suzy Williams of Suzy Quilts.  Suzy is a BERNINA ambassador.  

My donation is this autumn quilt called Blown Leaves and it's going to Hospice in loving memory of my Mom and Dad ❤️

 

This quilt is made up of four blocks, each a different colored leaf. I assembled the blocks one group at a time.

 

The only difficulty that I had was with the green leaf blocks which were filled with "Y" seams.  I have heard quilters complain endlessly about "Y" seams to the point of not buying a pattern if it has them in it and now, let's just say, I know why.

Pressing my "Y" seams.

Once the quilt top was assembled it was off to the longarm, which is my favorite part of quilting.

I used Aurifil Monofilament to quilt the leaves themselves and MicroQuilter in black to do all the stitch in the ditch work and background quilting.   I chose to quilt one fourth inch lines in the black background which serves to pound down the background and make the seams seem to disappear.  This takes forever.  I had it on the longarm for over a week.

  

I used Quilter's Dream Black polyester batting.  This works well when your background fabric is black.  My backing is also black so that helped with that too.  Most batting is white or off white and can show through the black.  Using black batting helps deepen the color.

 

My Master Quilt Holder in action!

I'm happy to donate this quilt to Hospice in loving memory of my parents ❤️  And I thank Suzy Williams for starting this annual sew along.

Don't forget to pick up a needle and thread and stitch some love into your world ❣️

ONE FISH 🐠 TWO FISH 🐟

ONE FISH 🐠 TWO FISH 🐟 RED FISH 🐡 BLUE FISH 🎣

I made this quilt for our Florida family ... Dave, Sabrina, Ethan, Tyler, Dylan and Katie ❤️ They love to fish and so I made them a fish quilt.

This quilt was fun to make!  It's made out of eight "impossible" seams.  That's where you cut the same curve out of two fabrics laying on top on one another and then when you put them together to sew together the curves are going in opposite directions.  Hence, the impossible part. You have to slowly force them together.  Then you add three block strips and four borders and your "lake" is done.  

Now you're ready to add some fish.  You cut out your pieces and appliqué them to the "lake" on your sewing machine.  My machine is 46 years old and it doesn't do a great zigzag but I managed.  

All ready to appliqué onto the background of the quilt.

Then it was time to put it on my longarm, always my favorite part of the quilting process.  I loaded it on the longarm upside down so that I could make sure and center my "signature" in the bottom corner.  I signed this quilt with some fish bones.  I do have quilting labels with my name on but I always feel a bit pretentious stitching one of those onto a quilt.  I don't know, it's just me, most people do it.  Instead, I've started this thing where I sign the quilt with something other than my name.  I signed my brother's aLiEn quilt with an aLiEn and a puppy quilt with a paw print.  So, this time I paper pieced fish bones with the scraps from the quilt.  Kind of like a before and after shot of the fish.

I used Aurifil monofilament to stitch this with.  That's basically fishing line, if you think about it.  And MicroQuilter in a soft blue for the bobbin.  The backing is actually green but the blue blended right in. I turned my tension down to 1.25 because the thread is so thin and I did all the quilting in a day. I used Quilter's Dream Orient batting which is soft because I knew the appliqué would be stiff and I didn't want to make the quilt even stiffer with a cotton or poly batting.  Quilter's Dream Orient is bamboo and silk and very soft.  I quilted this doing stitch in the ditch around all the appliqué and the "impossible" curved seams.  And then I line quilted part of the lake and filled the rest of it in with random bubbles.

While binding the quilt by hand I watched Star Trek - A Search For Spock on Amazon Prime.

The binding all wrapped up on the Binding Baby and ready to be stitched on.

Then it was time for my Master Quilt Holder to go to work.  This time I made him walk down our hill to the boat ramp and take a picture next to the No Fishing sign.  (I can't believe they put that up there.) 

We had wanted to drive down to Florida this year and deliver the quilt in person but, you know ... COVID.  So.  In the mail it went.

I hope they enjoy it.  I'll always remember Dave fishing at night in our mutual backyard, using a glowing bobber and getting a bite from a gator.  Way to go, Dave!  We sure do miss them!  

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

THE ART DECO QUILT 🧡 💛 ❤️

 I made this quilt for my god-baby, Tiffany.  I have four god-daughters and Tiffy is my second one. At first I wanted to quilt something very contemporary for her. But the more I thought about it I decided to search for a quilt pattern that had more of an art deco vibe to it. I found this pattern and loved those little squares all over it.  They definitely reminded me of art deco design, especially in the architecture of that period.  

The pattern for this was well written and sewed up like a dream.  It took forever to do all those tiny one inch squares but they're just so pretty that I didn't mind at all.  This time while stitching I watched the original Star Trek series.  I was ten when it came out in 1967.  

I hadn't realized that this quilt is on the smaller size. It's only 48.5" X 63.5", but that still makes a nice couch quilt to snuggle with.  To that end I used Quilter's Dream Orient batting which is made up of an exotic blend of Bamboo, Silk and Cotton.  This batting has been hard to find during the COVID virus but I scored a couple of them awhile back so I had it on hand to use.

Then it was time to put it on my longarm.  This is always my favorite part of quilting.  I wanted to preserve the art deco look so I stuck to geometric ruler work.  I used Aurifil Monofilament thread which is invisible and can be used to stitch across all the colors.  For my bobbin thread I used MicroQuilter 7007 in a light gray. Then I lowered my tension to 1.0 to accommodate the finer threads.  

 

After binding the quilt it was time for my "Master Quilt Holder" to go to work.  My husband was a joy to work with this time because with the smaller size of the quilt he was able to hold it up easily.  When I do a large quilt he can never get those top corners to stay straight and I have to keep reshooting the picture making him just a tad bit grumpy.  (Did I say that?) Anyway, I hope that Tiffy enjoys her quilt! 

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

The Master Quilt Holder at work!

THE BROKEN QUILT

This is my Broken Quilt.  It's actually called a Color Block Quilt which features a rainbow of solid colored fabrics.  That beautiful rainbow is featured across 1840 tiny fabric pieces.  I made this quilt for our Florida neighbors, Dave, Sabrina, Ethan, Tyler, Dylan and Katie ❤️ whom we love and miss. Unfortunately, the pattern had more than a dozen errors in it, which is why I've called it my Broken Quilt.  The finished result was not something that I would take pride in gifting to someone, so,  I will have to make them another quilt.  

This blog has been my way of keeping a personal journal of all the quilts that I make.  But it's also meant for other quilters on my quilting boards to follow so that they can learn from my successes and from my failures.  To that end I like to document when something goes wrong. This quilt went wrong, which is why I call it my broken quilt.  In fact, if this had been the first quilt that I had ever made it would probably have been my last.  The problems that I encountered along the way all had to do with the pattern itself.  The pattern was filled with errors.  I don't know if I received an earlier version of the pattern that was later pulled and replaced with an updated version or if that's just how they left the pattern stand. I do know that there was no errata listed for this quilt on the internet.

Some patterns are easier than others to follow, but normally all the directions are correct.  Usually, a pattern has been tested by a handful of pattern testers before being published.  I actually applied to be a pattern tester for a series of Star Wars quilts.  The patterns were gorgeous!  I was very excited because I would be making and testing the Baby Yoda quilt pattern.  However, the company had to withdraw their patterns at the last minute because it turned out that the person who sold them the drawings did not have the intellectual property rights. I was so disappointed.  But even with a dozen or so pattern testers an error will sometimes get through.  One of my earlier quilts that I made had the templates marked wrong.  Once I found out that the quilt was not going together right I discovered the mistake.  I contacted the quilt's author in Australia and she apologized.  She said that the company that published it knew of the error and would not put out an update.  She gladly sent me all the corrections by e-mail.  So, this kind of thing does happen.  

With this quilt, however, there were many errors.  There was even a whole paragraph of instructions for one step missing.  You're told to cut out the wrong amount of fabric pieces several times. And after you cut out 248 squares of fabric to use to cut templates with, the templates given don't fit that size, leaving you with a mess to sort out. All of which meant that this quilt is not made with any precision because a lot of the pieces were simply off.  When this happens you can't really match your corners or square things up nicely.  I struggled to do so anyway.  I enjoy quilting and all of its processes but the mess that all these wrong pieces left me with took that joy away.  I toyed with the idea of throwing it out ...  several times.  But quilting is not inexpensive and so about a third of the way through I decided I would just donate the quilt.  Once I had decided to donate it I just stitched it up the rest as fast as possible not caring what matched and didn't match.  The object was to just get it done because it wasn't fun anymore.

There is a quilter, Angela Walters, of the Midnight Quilt Show fame, who teaches that "close enough is good enough".  Yeah, I get that.  But when I spend a month or more cutting and piecing a quilt and then a week quilting it on my longarm and binding it by hand. I want it to be my best effort, especially when it's a gift.  And even more so when it's a gift for someone you love.  And if I'm going to make mistakes I want them to be my own mistakes, not mistakes made because someone didn't test their pattern and left me with a mess to fix.  

The frustrating part is that I couldn't even contact the company because they went out of business this past May.  I still can't understand how this many mistakes got by.  Unless, the original pattern was pulled and I just happened to get one of those.  All in all, it just makes me appreciate those quilters who do spend the time and effort to successfully make a pattern and who go through the pattern testing process to deliver a well executed product.  

This quilt is made up of 1840 pieces.  That's a whole lot of pieces to cut out. 720 of those make up 80 nine patches.  872 of those pieces make up the half squares and squares and then 248 of those pieces make up the template pieces to make all the circles with.  All of those tiny pieces are sewn together to make twelve large blocks which are then sewn together to make the 74" by 92" quilt top.  I used Quilter's Dream Orient batting so that it would quilt up soft.  Quilter's Dream Orient is made up of bamboo, silk and cotton and is extremely soft and pliable.  Due to the Covid virus I had to wait a long time for the batting to come as batting was in short supply.  I had also wanted to go to the quilt shop and pick out different color matching threads to quilt it in.  It's very difficult to match thread to fabric online.  We have stayed home since March because my husband is at risk, so, even though they reopened the quilt shop I didn't go.  Instead, I made the decision to quilt it with monofilament, which is an invisible thread.  That way I could quilt across the colors.  

Putting a quilt on the longarm is always my favorite part.  It takes a flat quilt top and gives it texture and personality.  It can also take a less than perfect quilt and hide some of that "less than perfectness".  That's what I was hoping for with this quilt.  This quilt was such a mess, however, that I just quilted it quickly, again not caring if any points matched as I was just going to donate it. 

Although, this is the messiest quilt I've made it still is colorful and very soft because of the more expensive Orient batting.  When it was done it occurred to me that it might still make a good enough quilt to toss in the backyard when my friends fish in the lake behind their home. To that end, I think I'll make them another quilt and send them both.  

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

My Master Quilt Holder in action!