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❣️

THE DACHSHUND QUILT ❤️

This adorable dachshund quilt is called All Wrapped Up and features Woof Woof Meow Meow fabric from Moda by Stacy Iest Hsu. Since the pattern is from 2017 the coordinating fabric line is no longer available for purchase.  I had my heart set on all those little doxies though so I searched high and low on the internet and found each little piece that I needed. Since I had to buy a quarter yard of each I had plenty of room for fussy cutting so that I could get the little dachshunds in the rectangles.  

This quilt is a Christmas present for my son and his wife's three little dachshunds ... Tesla Firefly, Tiberius (Ti-Bear) and Puppy Odin.

I had seen this quilt hanging at my favorite quilt store with an all over paw print design on it. They had used their Q-Matic computer to stitch it out.  I don't have a computer or a pantograph because I enjoy the art of quilting, in other words, doing it myself.  This was the one time, however, that I would have liked to have had the computer ... those little paw prints were seriously cute.  I thought of free motioning them all across the quilt but instead I used straight line quilting around the dachshund body and then ruler work inside the body.  I did, however, free motion one little paw print into the bottom corner.

This pattern also did not include an eye for the puppy.  I thought that looked a little weird so I appliquéd an eye on using some matching fabric then embroidered around it. I think that really added to it.

Although I won't post this blog until after the puppies get this quilt for Christmas, I finished this quilt in August.  This was the 30'th quilt that I finished on my Bernina longarm.  Which is sort of fitting, because the very first quilt I made on my longarm was for the puppies too!

Piecing the quilt was a breeze ...

Below you can see the difference between a pieced top and a quilted top.  The quilting gives it texture and dimension.

                      

Once I was done piecing the quilt I put it on my longarm, which is my favorite part of the quilting process.

 

For this quilt I used Quilter's Dream Wool batting to achieve that loft and softness.  I used Isacord thread top and bottom on the background.  And for stitching in the ditch I used MicroQuilter on the top and So Fine in the bobbin.  

I watched the last season of the original Star Trek series while piecing the top and then while quilting it on my longarm. When it came time to bind the quilt I started watching Star Trek - The Next Generation and fell in love with Jean Luc Picard.

My Master Quilt Holder at work!

I hope the puppies enjoy their Christmas present❣️ Remember to pick up a needle and thread and stitch some love into your world❣️

A matching blanket for their puppy crate!

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❣️