My best friend (also named Mary) and I worked together on this quilt for her sister, Debra. We started it almost two years ago cutting the colorful fabric from a jelly roll that I think I bought from Craftsy and recently got it finished and in the mail to her sister. It feels good to get this old UFO done! It was one of my 2017 Qtr 4 Finish-A-Long Goals.
Linking up to Sew Can She: Show Off Saturday. Also linking up to 2017 Qtr 4 Finish-A-Long Finishes.
My niece, Mary Frances, has a wonderful dachshund named Slinky. One of her friends gave him the nickname of The Ambassador of Joy, and it totally fits him! I purchased Elizabeth Hartman’s Dogs in Sweaters pattern earlier this year and a few months ago decided that the lap quilt would be the perfect Christmas gift for Mary Frances (and Slinky!) this year. This is one of my 2017 Qtr 4 Finish-A-Long Goals.
I gave Michael at ThreadBear free rein with the long-arm quilting, and I could not be more pleased with how this quilt turned out. (And a big shout-out to my brother, Bill, and sister-in-law, Sharon, for paying this custom quilting!) Below are some close-up shots. Just look at how the different directions of the straight-line quilting accentuate the dog’s face and body! Each dog’s sweater has a different quilting motif, and this top dog has snowflakes quilted on his sweater. The quilting in the negative space around him is reminiscent of dog bones.
Dog # 2 has flames on his sweater and is surrounded by clouds.
The third dog, also known as The Smart Dog, with appliqued glasses, has chess pieces quilted on his sweater, and the quilting around him looks like scientific symbols. This guy is my absolute favorite!
And the last dog who is in the middle of different sized pebbles has a couple cats quilted on his sweater. Slinky lives with two cats and would love to be better friends with them if they would let him!
Here’s a photo of the cats on the back:
Both Mary Frances and Slinky are fans of quilts. Below are a couple of pics with Slinky snuggling in quilts. The first one is him with the Morning Coffee and Cream Quilt that I made for my sister.
And here he is all cuddled up with the Fashion and Food Quilt that I made for Mary Frances in 2015.
Feel free to check out more photos of Slinky on his Instagram The Slinky Chronicles.
Linking up to My Quilt Infatuation: Needle and Thread Thursday, Busy Hands Quilts: Finished or Not Friday, and Crazy Mom Quilts: Finish It Up Friday. Also linking up to 2017 Qtr 4 Finish-A-Long Finishes.
I have a happy finish to share today! When my friend, Sarah Goer, released her Back and Forth Baby Quilt Pattern in October, I knew immediately that it would make a great Christmas bed runner for me (and my cats!). I love decorating for Christmas which now extends into my bedroom. I found Sarah’s instructions to be clear, especially regarding the partial seams which were easy to do. And the graphic design of this pattern is so awesome with large scale prints, especially my red snow leopards!
I love the grey snowflake fabric that I found on Etsy along with the Moda Jol Reindeer fabric that I used as the quilt backing. Since I decided not to put a label on this quilt and also chose to hand-stitch the binding, it is completely reversible!
It is probably obvious from the photo below that the Christmas palette I am most drawn to is the red/aqua with neutrals, though I do have a touch of green in my llama pillow which was one of my 2017 Qtr 4 Finish-A-Long Goals. And equally obvious is that I like animal fabrics!
Linking up another time to Cooking Up Quilts: Main Crush Monday. Linking up to 2017 Qtr 4 Finish-A-Long Finishes.
This is the hardest post I have ever written. Some of my closest quilting friends know that my beloved sister died unexpectedly in August, but I haven’t shared this sad news on my blog until now. My sister, Jacqueline, who I called Jackie, and I were very close, though not geographically as we lived almost 2000 miles apart. She was my biggest supporter in so many ways including my quilting and blogging, and she commented on many of my blog posts.
During a visit to Michigan in June of 2016, Jackie pulled out a bow tie quilt top that had been completed by our mother in the 1990s. Our mother, Cleo, who died in 1997, was a gifted quilter. Unfortunately, when my mom was alive, I wanted nothing to do with quilting and literally groaned every time we went to another fabric store. Jackie asked me to finish the quilt for her but told me there was no big rush as she knew I had several other quilt projects I was working on, and she had planned to pay for the longarm quilting. I brought the quilt top back with me when I visited my sister in June 2017, so we could strategize together on how she wanted it finished. I wanted to give the finished quilt to Jackie for Christmas this year. I wrote about this quilt top as one of my 2017 3rd Quarter Finish-A-Long Goals which I rolled over to 2017 4th Quarter Finish-A-Long Goals.
Jackie had planned to place the folded up quilt on the bench at the end of her bed, and I think she probably imagined pulling up the quilt on occasion to snuggle underneath when taking a nap. I decided to go ahead and finish the quilt for my brother-in-law who greatly misses my sister who was his wife of 52 years. My brother and sister-in-law generously offered to pay for the quilting of this bow tie quilt which measures 66 inches wide by 90 inches long. The original quilt top was 48” x 72” but Jackie requested that I sew on asymmetrical borders of six inches on one short and long side and twelve inches on the other long and short side using the grey grunge fabric that we both loved.
My original plan was to use four extra blocks on a pieced quilt back, but I decided to make it simpler for myself and put the blocks away to use in another project down the road. I used 108” wide fabric for the quilt back and called it good.
I’m pretty sure both my mom and sister are very pleased with this finished bow tie quilt.
Linking up to Cooking Up Quilts: Main Crush Monday. Also linking up to 2017 Qtr 4 Finish-A-Long Finishes.
I decided this morning to choose a different Dec ‘17 One Monthly Goal (see below about what I was going to work on). I have decided that I can’t live with the machine binding I did on my cat quilt which is going to be a Christmas gift for a friend in town, so I started ripping it out this morning and am going to hand sew it down. Like other quilters, ripping out seams is NOT my favorite task, but I used the wrong sewing machine to sew down this binding. My Juki would have handled it just fine, but I had a limited supply of the “right” color thread and did not want to chance winding a bobbin for my Juki and running out of thread. So I opted to use my little Brother machine (which handles piecing just fine but really cannot do any heavy lifting) because I had a bobbin with the right color thread already wound for the Brother machine. Lesson learned!!! On a positive note, I really like the pick-up sticks quilting that Michael of ThreadBear did on this cat quilt.
What I was going to choose as this month’s OMG was to finish my Wayward Transparency quilt top made with Kona Aqua, Sage, and Emerald solids. (See rather dark work in progress pic below). This Quilt-Along is being hosted by Yvonne of Quilting Jetgirl who designed the beautiful pattern. I have until January 11th to finish my small lap quilt top and join the Finishes Linky party, so maybe this will be my Jan ‘18 goal.
Linking up to Elm Street Quilts: Dec ‘17 OMG.
I am so grateful to Patty at Elm Street Quilts for hosting One Monthly Goal this year. So far I’ve been able to meet all my monthly goals, and I’ve used these goals to push me a little. For my November ‘17 One Monthly Goal, I set a goal to get five pillows quilted and finished, and I was able to do so along with plenty of other sewing/quilting this month. Because these pillows are Christmas gifts, I definitely would have gotten them done at least by mid-December, but getting them done earlier takes some stress off of me which is important during the crazy holiday season. Below are the five finished pillows:
I basted these pillows with a glue stick which worked really well for these small projects, and I loved not having to baste outside as I do with spray glue. For more information about this basting technique, see Kat & Cat Quilt’s How to Baste a Quilt with a Glue Stick post.
All five of these pillows were 2017 Qtr 4 Finish-A-Long Goals. Linking up to 2017 Qtr 4 Finish-A-Long Finishes.
Linking up to Elm Street Quilts: Nov ‘17 OMG Finishes.
My One Monthly Goal for November ’17 is to finish five pillow covers. The first two are very simple Christmas pillows featuring Michael Miller’s Llama Navidad fabrics:
Next is a Hazel Hedgehog pillow I will make from the block below and may add some appliquéd glasses.
For a cat-loving boy in my life, I will turn this paper-pieced stretching cat block made from one of Quilt Art Design’s patterns into a pillow cover:
The final pillow will be made from the roadrunner block below:
I will quilt all of these pillows very simply, most likely with organic wavy lines or straight line quilting.
Linking up to Elm Street Quilts: Nov ’17 OMG.
When my friend, Sarah Goer, published her Back and Forth Baby Quilt pattern about a week ago, I decided it would make a great little Christmas quilt to use as a bed runner during the holiday season (It was one of those Drop Everything and Make it moments which is a term coined by Sandra of MMM Quilts that many already-too-busy quilters totally understand!) And let’s be honest, my cats think any quilt I make, big or large, is just for them. With that in mind, I knew I had the purrfect feature fabric, Snow Leopard in Red in the Cotton and Steel Noel Collection and decided to use one of the coordinating prints in this collection as well, the Snow Fuzzies in Aqua. I love the popular but less traditional red-aqua-grey palette that is being used in many modern Christmas projects, so I found other fabrics in my stash that would work including a subtle grey and red snowflake fabric. And I used a Cotton and Steel Navy blender that ties in both with the blue in Snow Fuzzies fabric and the dots in most of my fabric choices. This quilt top came together quickly even with the partial seams, and for anyone who is a little fearful of partial seams, I have to say Sarah’s instructions are incredibly clear and super easy to follow.
I plan to quilt this project myself using organic wavy lines as shown on the cover of the pattern, hopefully by the end of November. Sarah includes a tutorial for bias binding in the pattern which I plan to try, and I also I am going to use her Machine binding tutorial with this project.
Linking up to MMM Quilts DrEAMi Linky #9 and Cooking Up Quilts: Main Crush Monday.
My Oct ’17 One Monthly Goal was to finish two quilt tops, and I’m happy to report that I did finish both of them. I actually really like both of them, but my favorite is the Dogs in Sweaters quilt top using Elizabeth Hartman’s pattern that is going to be a Christmas present for my dachshund-loving niece. This was my first time sewing with cotton/linen blends as well as flannel fabrics which made me a little nervous, but they behaved themselves quite nicely! It is currently at ThreadBear waiting to be quilted.
The other quilt top that I finished earlier this month is my Random Intention Baby Quilt top. (Please click on the link to learn more about this quilt that I designed for the Five Fat Quarter Fun Contest). I’m planning to do the quilting on this baby quilt, probably diagonal quilting.
Linking up to Elm Street Quilts: Oct ’17 OMG Finishes.
I finished my quilt top yesterday for the Five Fat Quarter Fun Contest. I used five fat quarters from some of the Kona solids that I am using in my Summer Sampler 2017 Quilt (link updated): Berry, Cerise, Emerald, Sage, and Aqua with Coal for the background and border fabric. To qualify quilt tops need to measure at least 34″ square, and my baby quilt measures 36″ square. I’m planning to make a scrappy binding with leftover fabric from my fat quarters.
I’m calling this quilt, Random Intention. I experimented with half-square triangles with corner triangles ensuring that each 4 inch-square finished sub-unit had three different colors along with the coal background, and each diamond formed from four intersecting corner triangles had four different colors. The repeating design had random placement of the colored trapezoids with corner triangles more intentionally selected. I sewed and designed one row at a time, and I found it helpful to use the little triangles cut off when making the corner triangles to design the next row.
This completed quilt top is part one of my October ’17 One Monthly Goal.
Linking up to Cooking Up Quilts: Main Crush Monday.
Author and illustrator Robin Koontz
Dream in colour, create in fabric, thread, yarn, words, whatever you have to hand
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