Quilting is in my Blood

If you spend much time on Instagram, you may have seen all sorts of gorgeous strip quilt tops and even some patchwork squares and improv layouts. Alison Glass has been hosting a Kantha sew-along where participants simply piece colorful quilt tops and then embellish them with simple Kantha running stitches. I really wanted to make a Kantha quilt, but what I realized when I finished sewing my color gradient strip quilt top is that I wanted it to be quilted fairly quickly and NOT by me! I have started a Kantha pillow cover that is about one-ninth of the size of my quilt top, which is much more doable for me. I’ll be sharing my progress about my Kantha pillow next week. But today I am happy to share my Color Gradient Strip Quilt finish that is made mostly with Alison Glass fabrics with a few favorite Giucy Giuce fabrics thrown in. The quilt measures 54″ by 78″.

I sent it to Cara@Sew Colorado Quilting to quilt a modern waves design, and she did a lovely job and got it back to me within a very decent timeline.

Right now it is folded on my recliner in the living room, but it might have to spend some time on my bed in the near future, so I can enjoy all the colors.

Linking up to Sarah Goer Quilts: TGIFF .

My May 2022 One Monthly Goal was to make a beautiful and colorful quilt top using the Nene pattern by Eye Candy Quilts and Giucy Giuce’s gorgeous Quantum panels (second and third pics below).

I first saw these amazing panels in the Nene quilt made by Eye Candy Quilts on Jessie@Threaded Quilting Studio’s blog post Hiring a Longarm Quilter: Footnotes Edition. If you open the link, scroll down to the fifth photo to see this spectacular version. I have used coordinating Kona solids for the stained glass strips (Mediterranean, Celestial, Oasis,Glacier, Ultra Marine, Prussian, Grass and an unknown darker green–because when I first started quilting, I didn’t label my solid fabrics, Grellow, Papaya, Cedar, Cerise, and Berry) and Kona Charcoal to outline the triangles. My background fabric is Kona Titanium. This has been a project I’ve wanted to make for over three years, so I’m excited that I’ve finally made the quilt top. The blocks measure 11 3/4″ x 22 5/8″–not the most straightforward block dimension!

I have sent the quilt top and backing off to Rebecca@Rebecca Grace Quilting. I’m on her long-arm quilting calendar for the week of June 20th. We’ve decided on a quilting design and have discussed possible thread choices that will be finalized once Rebecca receives the quilt. I can’t wait to see this project quilted!

Linking up to Elm Street Quilts: One Monthly Goal May 2022 Finish.

I thoroughly enjoyed participating in the Stay at Home Round Robin (SAHRR) 2022 organized by Quilting Gail. Because I sent my quilt top off for quilting, I was not able to participate in the SAHRR 2022 Finale Parade. I’ve had it back from Melissa@Sew Shabby Quilting for a few weeks and finally got around to getting it finished this past weekend. I would’ve liked to have taken a nice outside photo, but I live in northern New Mexico with a wildfire that is scarily close, and there’s no way I will expose any of my quilts to the ever-present smoke in the air. Hopefully the firefighters will get the fire fully contained in the near future, and going outside will once again be a good thing.

Here is a close-up of the center French Bulldog block that shows a little of the royal blue minky backing with the Scribble quilting.

I wrote about each border in the following posts:

• Curves
• Diamonds
• Stars
• Signature Blocks
• Applique
• Shoo Fly Blocks

I made a quilt with many of the same borders for my stepson, Drew, with a paper-pieced Boston Terrier center block, in honor of Drew’s beloved Boston Terrier named Sushi. Read about the finished quilt here. And see a cute pic of Sushi with the Sushi quilt below:

Now I can’t wait for SAHRR 2023!

Linking up to Faith and Fabric: TGIFF.

My May 2022 One Monthly Goal is to make a beautiful and colorful quilt top using the Nene pattern by Eye Candy Quilts and Giucy Giuce’s gorgeous Quantum panels.

I first saw these amazing panels in the Nene quilt made by Eye Candy Quilts on Jessie@Threaded Quilting Studio’s blog post Hiring a Longarm Quilter: Footnotes Edition. If you open the link, scroll down to the fifth photo to see this spectacular version. I will be using coordinating Kona solids for the diamonds and Kona Charcoal to outline the diamonds. My background fabric is Kona Titanium.

This has been a project I’ve wanted to make for over three years, so I’m excited to get it started!

Linking up to Elm Street Quilts: May 2022 OMG.

My April 2022 One Monthly Goal was to sew together the first quarter (January, February, and March 2022) of the THREE temperature quilts I am making this year. Below is a pic of Jan-March units sewn together with my town in New Mexico (NM) on the left, my stepdaughter’s Bay Area city in California (CA) in the middle, and my stepson’s city in Washington (WA) on the right.

I am using the same Kona solids to depict each temperature range, and when they are finished, it will be so much fun to see the quilts next to each other and compare the different temperatures for each state. I’m using Accuweather to track temperatures. The large triangles (geese) are the high temperatures, and the small triangles (sky) are the low temperatures. On January 1st the geese for NM, CA, and WA were all pointed up. If the temperature stayed the same or increased, the geese for Jan 2nd pointed up as shown with California and Washington, but since the high temperature decreased in New Mexico on Jan 2nd, I pointed that goose down. I’ve used 16 of my 21 color ranges so far. They are: <0 Orchard Ice, 0-9 Violet, 10-14 Magenta, 15-19 Geranium, 20-24 Dark Violet, 25-29 Purple, 30-34 Noble Purple, 35-39 Surf, 40-44 Ocean, 45-49 Celestial, 50-54 Mediterranean,  55-59 Cyan, 60-64 Glacier, 65-69 Clover, 70-74 Kiwi, and 75-79 Chartreuse. I’m using Kona Charcoal to sew rectangles to the end of the columns for the months that don’t have 31 days.

I’m using 2″x4″ finished flying geese in all three quilts. I am paper-piecing all the flying geese using Lee@Freshly Pieced’ Perfect Flying Geese and keeping track of the date, state, and colors on the paper to help keep me organized.  At first I was making flying geese for several days at a time, but I’ve found making the flying geese units on a daily basis works best for me. Here is what the back of the units look like:

When sewing the units into columns, I sometimes had to match up the points of the geese. At first I tried to use David Sirota’s tip on How to Get Points to Align Perfectly using dental floss, but that was going to take too much time. Next I just tried to eyeball where the points matched with not very good results, so then I thought I would use a long flower pin inserting the pin as I did with the needle threaded with dental floss:

I sewed very carefully up to pin which helped my points match fairly decently (meets my “good enough” criteria!)

I sewed the units for the three columns in four different groups first sewing NM Jan 1st to 2nd, then CA Jan 1st to 2nd, and then WA 1st to 2nd tearing off the paper right before I sewed the units together (but taping little labels to the back of the some of the units to keep myself straight). Then I reached around and clipped off the two units for NM and CA and added Jan 3rd to each column, then I clipped the two units for WA and added Jan 3rd, etc. When I had added units through Jan 8th for each state, I started again with the Jan 9th units. I felt that I had to use this rather meticulous method to not get my dates mixed up.

I won’t lie, making three temperature quilts at one time is time consuming, but my organizational system is working pretty well, and it was definitely reinforcing to see the first three months sewn together for all three temp quilts. So far I’m current with April. I’m looking forward to using Kona Citrus when the temperature in one of the three cities I’m tracking hits 80-84.

Linking up to Elm Street Quilts: One Monthly Goal April 2022 Finish.