Friday Finish: Chicopee Plus Quilt!

Here's an old finish for Finish It Up Friday.  I'd finished this quilt a while ago, but didn't want to over share it in case the new owners decided to check my blog.  You never know, and never want to ruin a surprise.  Anyway, I downloaded the pictures to the computer and completely forgot about them until a few days ago when I decided to tidy up my folders.  Yay!

This was a kind of joint collaboration between my mother and I, one of my cousins got married recently and she decided that a quilt would be the perfect present.  Luckily, I was already thinking about a quilt, so she helped me with some of the supplies and then let me have free rein.

I went with Denyse Schmidt's Chicopee line because it just works together, but seems to have a little of all the colors.  I wasn't sure what my cousin would like, so I wanted to give them all of them, in a way that wouldn't blow their eyes out.  And Chicopee does this really weird thing where it's loud and subtle, masculine and feminine, large prints and small prints, retro and modern.  I don't know how it's possible, probably magic.

I modified a pattern for neutral pluses on print backgounds, though for the life of me I can't remember which pattern I used.  And I'm really glad that I gave all those prints some room to breath.  Bonus, it gave me a lot of negative space to quilt!

I used Aurifil Spring Green and a discontinued Isacord in teal.  I would quilt a little in one color, then switch when I got bored.  The effect is subtle on the Essex Yarn Dyed Black linen, kind of like green and teal shadows.  (I really wish I'd gotten better pictures, but it was a rainy week, and my only chance for photos was a half hour window at the reception when it wasn't pouring, on the soaking wet ground.)

I rotated between a handful of quilting patterns in the pluses, all in, more or less, coordinating thread.  This star pattern ended up being one of my favorites, that will get put into the usual rotation.  It's super fun, and doesn't have to be exact to look nice.

Linking up with Amanda Jean for Finish It Up Friday!

Oh My Stars!

So I have to admit that I'm a bit of a fabric hoarder.  When I really like a line, I buy all of it and just stare at it.  I'd love to make pretty things out of it, but I either have too many good ideas and can't settle on just one, or I have some okay ideas, and can't bear to cut into the fabric unless it's for the perfect project.

Example: I have fat quarter stacks of both the Flea Market Fancy reprints and Comma.  They've found homes where I can look at them while I sew, but that's it.

And the same was true of my stack of DS Quilts fabric from Joann's.  It was girly and flowery, but not over the top.  And it had the perfect mix of flowers and geometric prints.  I managed to find them all in the clearance section.  I'd search through those giant shelves and do a happy dance when I'd find it marked down to $6/yd.

Swirls and pebbles!

Then, one day, I decided that I wanted to do something traditional with them, but not boring, and I found the Solstice Stars Quilt Series at Fresh Lemons.  Trying out a bunch of different star patterns would be fun, and using only these fabrics would keep it from looking too crazy!

One of my favorite stars is the first of the row of four.  So many little pieces though!  And the wave quilting on the far left is one of my favorite patterns to do.

I made a few of the Solstice Stars, but didn't have the courage to try the paper pieced ones.  Then I searched through the Gen X Quilters Block Library for a few more to get some diversity.

I was trying to figure out the layout, and was considering making the whole top out of stars, but my friend Jess suggested the big chunks of fabric.  Genius!  It looks modern, and you get to really see how awesome that fabric is.

The quilting was really fun too.  I did a bunch of different patterns within the stars, and then all the different fabrics have their own pattern.  The quilting doesn't really show up well on the chunks, but it adds a lot of great texture.  

I'm still deciding whether to sell this one in my Etsy shop.  I like it, but it's so different from anything in my house.  I'll probably just hang it on my wall for a while and see how I feel about it.

Linking up with Quilt Story for Fabric Tuesday, I Have To Say for Show and Tell Tuesday, and Funky Polka Dot Giraffe for Too Cute Tuesday!

An Arkansas Traveler Top Finish!

So I think I'm ready to declare that this quilt top is finished and ready to be quilted.  It was in the short stack that I shared for WIP Wednesday, and even as I posted that I still wasn't sure.

Sorry for the weird lighting, my only option was inside at night.  Still looks pretty good.

I really started making this top after seeing Faith's progress pictures on Instagram.  And her Arkansas Traveler quilt turned out awesome!  (Check out these pictures on her blog, Fresh Lemons!)  I just had a stack of fabric leftover from another quilt, and an urge to make something.

My son loved playing with the diamonds.  He needs some tangrams.

So I started piecing the diamonds, totally skipping the paper-piecing part and just going for it.  And it didn't turn out too bad, I just made sure that when I trimmed the squares, that my points were a 1/4" in from the seam.

Go little matching points!

After I put the all the blocks together, I hit my roadblock.  I couldn't decide if it needed borders.  And to really make that decision, I kind of needed to see it, but I didn't have any sizable scraps left to mock it up.

I don't think any of these are really working as a border.  They just take away from the awesome geometric shapes.

The only solution was to order yardage of a few of the colors I really liked, that I wouldn't be too heartbroken if they just ended up joining my stash.  So the top got shuffled to the bottom of a pile o' projects waiting for fabric.  And then when I got the fabric in, I'd totally lost interest in the whole project!  Ugh!

Really thought one of these two would be the winner.

But now I've seen it with borders, and decided that I didn't like how it looked at all.  So I just sewed on a thin strip of the background fabric so that the diamonds don't get lost in any squaring up that I might have to do after I quilt it. 

Not exactly finished, but out of the project stack and into the to-be-quilted stack!  (Now to get inspiration for the quilting design...)

Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts for Finish It Up Friday!

Plus Quilt

I'm totally in love with these colors.  Aqua is my go to color for just about everything; clothes, wall paint, toys.  Even my glasses are aqua.  And orange is just a given.  Everything benefits from a little bit of the right orange.

But I was a little scared and in love with the citron in Denyse Schmidt's Hope Valley Line.  I bought a bunch for another quilt for a friend, but only ended up using a little.  So I've been staring at the rest of it, trying to figure out how to use it.  Turns out, if you just add navy, everything plays nicely. 

I used a tutorial from For The Love of George (now you can just download the PDF!).  She provides all the measurements and cutting requirements for a queen size and a toddler bed sized quilt.  It's really a quick and easy pattern to follow.

I used two citron prints and one of the orange prints from the Hope Valley line, and the aqua and the other orange are both from Denyse's line for JoAnn Fabrics. The navy is from Dear Stella, and the teal is an Amy Butler print.  I think the aqua dots are from JoAnn's as well, though I bought it so long ago I can't be sure. 

The back is a big piece of Four Square.

For the quilting, I wasn't really sure what to do, so it hung off my shelf behind my sewing area for quite a while waiting for inspiration.  I love doing super dense quilting, but couldn't think of what motifs would really go with the plusses.  I almost did it alternating straight lines and pebbles, but I think the textural contrast would have been too weird here. 

So in the end, I went with all straight lines done with my free motion foot in a color that matched the fabric of that plus sign.  I just eyeballed the distance, trying to keep the last line just to the outside of my free motion foot, so they ended up being around a half inch apart.  At the ends of the line, I just looped gently to the next instead of stitching in the ditch to get a crisp end of the line.  I think it's more fun this way.I also alternated which way the lines went, so each plus sign's quilting runs at a 90 degree angle from the one plus signs it touches. 

Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts' Finish It Up Friday!