Maxed Out

 I'm currently using this blog space as a reference for my completed custom quilts.  Please join me on Facebook and Instagram for regular updates, Etsy shop news and more!

After 10 years (!) of having a small but highly satisfying quilting business I decided it was time to stretch myself just a little and opened an official Google storefront, mostly to expand myself locally and just make it easier to be found. (Google The Quilting Violinist to have a look!)  And wouldn't you know just a couple of days after the site was published someone contacted me about making a crib/memory quilt out of a collection of dress shirts for baby Max, who was not yet born but due soon.

One of the nice things about a local business is the face-to-face (or should I say mask-to-mask?) encounters I get to have with my customers.  Max's mom and I had a fun discussion about what type of quilt she had in mind.  She had a huge bag of dress shirts from both her husband and father, giving me 2 generations of shirts to work with.

Luckily for me she had really definitive ideas of what she wanted.  What she couldn't decide was whether to get a quilt made out of squares (for a classic checkerboard pattern), or 1/2 square triangles.

In the end she decided on one of each!  A WISE DECISION.

For the triangle quilt the shirt fabrics were paired with a white-on-white polka dot. 

I hadn't made a 1/2 square triangle quilt in a long time so this was particularly fun.  Plus I learned a new trick that made the blocks come together really quickly:  The Magic Four.

Try it!  It really works!

Also included on this quilt:  one monogram each from dad and grandpa.  And a striped binding! 

The second quilt was a checkerboard pattern made from the shirts paired with a light silver gray solid, which was also the binding.

Both quilts have batik fabrics on the back:  

   

 

Max was born last week.  I hope he loves his quilts!

 

Play Time

This morning I was consumed by the urge not only to sew but to take a break from All Scheduled Projects and do something completely spontaneous.

I love half square triangles and haven't done anything with them in a long time, so I decided to cut some out and just see what evolved.

 I used the 4 1/2" HST cutter for the Accuquilt Go.


Fabrics used were leftovers from this quilt and this quilt

The triangles come out of the cutter already finished-- no pesky dog ears to deal with, and no trimming needed after sewing them together.

A pinwheel design starts to emerge.

Oops.  I did say "pinwheel design, right"?

Seam ripper to the rescue!

That's better!

A table runner starts to emerge.

Now that's what I call a Fun Sunday Morning!

Pinwheel Quilt Completed

I took the pinwheel quilt with me to work this week, and finished the binding during lunch breaks.  I wish I could play violin and quilt at the same time!

I quilted it by stitching "in the ditch" with invisible thread around the large blocks, then used cream thread to go diagonally across the pinwheels.

I've named this quilt "Pinwheel Garden" because of all the vibrant and flowery colors that are in it.

You can see the diagonal quilting a little better here.

The blocks are 12" finished.  The whole quilt measures 48 x 60".











Sunday Morning Market coming up this weekend, come celebrate springing forward with me!
I'm hoping for another fantastic market day!

More Half-Square Triangles

I have found myself still obsessed  thinking about half-square triangles.

 This quilt was so much fun to make.  But as you recall, it required a new adjective to describe it:
Piecey.  As in 364 pieces, which is an awful lot of pieces for one lap size quilt.


You'll recall that I made the triangles with the 4 1/2" Accuquilt die.

Luckily, a lot of the dies are available in multiple sizes.  So I bought the 6 1/2" die.

 Shopped my Stash for a selection of fabrics in grass green, raspberry, a few touches of gold and brown

Drafted a pattern for a Pinwheel quilt.  As you can see, I have a very high-tech approach to making quilt patterns.

Sorry for the dark picture-- I don't have a design wall, I have a design living room rug, and it was a little dark when I laid out the blocks.

But you get the idea.  No sashing between the blocks, and no borders, just a collision of color.  Each pinwheel block is 8 pieces, and there are 20 blocks total.  160 pieces went together a lot faster than the zig zag quilt!

My goal is to finish this in time for the next Sunday Morning Market which is a week from this Sunday. And I have a few small projects to finish for that event as well.  AND I have a full week of orchestra work coming up.  Well.  Guess I need to get busy!

Half Square Triangle Quilt Complete!

This was really fun.

I named it "Zig Zag Adventure" because it was a completely new experience for me.





I ended up doing a variety of quilting on it.

I felt obligated to put some zig zag stitching in there, seeing as it's a zig zag quilt.  So that's along the edges.  There's also straight line stitching.

Plus free motion flowers to fill in, and soften things up a little.  It's still a thrill, and a little bit of a surprise, for me to say, "Yes.  Free motion.  I can do it!"  There's still plenty to learn about it.  But I feel like I'm bridging the gap between how I WANT things to look and how I'm ABLE to make things look.

I love this fabric on the back.  My mom always said that pink and orange don't go together. Your mom might have said the same thing.  But I think she was wrong.

This quilt crinkled up DELIGHTFULLY after washing and drying.  I'm assuming all of the bias edge on the triangles would have had something to do with that.


Wiregrass Market tomorrow 10 - 3, come by if you're around!  You can read more about it here:




 

It's So Piecey

OK, I know that "piecey" is not really a word.  But perhaps it should be!  It comes to mind when I think of the Half Square Triangle quilt top, now completed, pin basted and ready to quilt.

I took this pic before basting.

It's a lap size quilt, 50 x 54".  But it contains 364 fabric triangles!

I mentioned earlier that this was my first real adventure with half square triangles.  So I learned a few things as well:
Triangles make points when you sew them together.  Points make for bulky overlapping seams.  You can see that the individual square blocks were sewn as normal, with the seam pressed toward the print fabric.  But it became apparent when sewing the blocks together that the seams were going to have to be pressed open, it was going to be too bulky and bumpy otherwise.  So one lesson learned :  plan on pressing seams open.  Should I have gone back and pressed all of the individual block seams open as well?  I don't know-- but I'll let you know if I get a citation from The Quilt Police for Inconsistent Seam Management.

Another, related item:  when dealing with bulky overlapping seams, sewing with the walking foot will make it go much easier!  I struggled with the first row, then realized it could be a lot easier if I just switched sewing machine feet.  Problem solved.

It felt just a little tedious to piece this quilt, although I'm thrilled with it now.  But I thought about it, and realized why, and why the term "piecey" is so appropriate.

 

This quilt:  15 pieces.

68 pieces.

38 pieces.











You get the idea.  364 is a lot of pieces.

I'm still meditating on a quilting pattern, but I'm thinking about a strong, straight line grid of some sort, maybe following the rows of zig zag.  I do really like it when quilting looks "thready" (yet another made-up word, yet it's so descriptive!), that is, when the quilting is big part of the whole look of the quilt, not just holding it together.  Particularly on a modern and scrappy quilt like this, it's a look I really like.

182!

182 half square triangle blocks!

Here they are laid out in a zig zag pattern.

After laying them out, I labeled them with their row and number in that row.  Yes, it was a tedious process.  But I'm hoping to keep them in order AND turned the right way when sewing the rows together.


So I guess I have my work cut out for me this weekend!

An Obsession is Born

On January 3rd I mentioned here that I was thinking about a new style of quilt (new for me, that is), one using half square triangles, something I really haven't done before.

I started cutting yesterday.  Oh boy, am I in trouble.

WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME?  Oh, I get it.  Some things you just have to find out for yourself.  And that is:
These are just way too much fun.  I made a bunch and then started playing with them.  There are, of course, quite a few possibilities for block arrangement designs:

 The classic All In a Row.  It's hard to go wrong with this layout.

Is there anyone who doesn't like pinwheels?

This is a really interesting use of positive and negative space.  How about a little applique flower in the middle of the solid block on the right?

But this is the one that's getting me all excited right now.  Zig zag.  It looks fresh and fun, especially with the mix of the solid taupegraybrown-ish and the bright prints.  So the first quilt will be this pattern.  But I will probably have to make a bunch of these just to get them out of my system, and explore all of the design possibilities.

So let's declare 2011 The Year of the Half Square Triangle!

 In other quilting news, I completed a third Bohemian Baby quilt, this one in more girly colors than the previous 2 have been.  The cool pink and brown peace and love fabric on the border is also on the back.  And don't we love a 36" square quilt:  a one piece back, and small it's enough to baste on the dining room table!

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New Year, New Projects

I think my favorite quilts from 2010 were the Intermission series.




This one, which sold on Etsy.

And this one, which  I sold at work.


I love the look of the scraps paired with the solid cream. There's just something about it that I really love.


So I was thinking about continuing this series of quilts.  But let's not forget our New Year's Resolution:  keep learning (and having fun).  So to expand the Intermission series, I decided to take the same basic idea (scraps paired with a solid) but shake it up a little.

I'm fascinated by this color :  Stone, by Moda fabrics (it's from their Bella Solids line).  Is it grey?  Not really.  Brown?  No.  Taupe?  Negative.  And isn't there just the tiniest hint of lavender in there?  Well, obviously the Fabric Namers at Moda also had no idea what color it is-- I mean, what kind of a description is the word "stone", anyway?  So this greybrowntaupe-ish color will be the solid shade for the next Intermission quilt.

  And look how it changes color when placed on a lighter surface!  I do like how the colored fabrics kind of glow against it.  (I haven't actually chosen any other fabrics to go in this quilt, those were just ones I had close at hand for the picture.)







Also in the 2011 version:

Half square triangles!  I chose the 4" finished size of the Accuquilt die, which made the most sense, as I already have the 4" finished square die.  Yes, I know how to make them the Old Fashioned way.  But this will be much faster and more accurate.  And no little dog-eared points to trim off!  I've done very little work with triangles so I'm looking forward to this project.


Hope everyone has an exciting project to kick off 2011!

2010 wrap-up

Hope everyone's been having a wonderful Christmas/New Year holiday!  Mine's been delightfully quiet, as the orchestra has been off from work since Dec. 20.  We'll resume rehearsals on Tuesday. In the meantime, I've wrapped up some small projects.

  A new Bohemian Baby quilt.  This is similar to the last one I did.  The pattern is the same, some of the fabrics are the same but not all of them.  These little quilts have been fun and fast.  And the small size (36" square) meant that I could baste them on my dining room table, instead of crawling around on the (cold) floor.

  I must be the last quilt blogger on the planet to make a mug rug.  But here it is!  The applique block is left over from a past project, and I simply added the orange side borders to complete it.  There's a nice dark purple batik on the back.  These might be the Ruffles Salt and Vinegar Potato Chip of the quilting world-- you can't make just one!
Also on this little project, my biggest accomplishment of 2010.  Note the free motion quilting.  No big deal, just a stipple pattern I call "Disorganized Doodling".  But I finally feel like I have control over the process, rather than it controlling me.

A new product for me, the Office Lunch Set.  I can't take credit for the idea (my mother-in-law came up with it, and she's generous enough to share!) but I think it's a fantastic one.  A single matching placemat and mug rug to keep at your desk to make the working lunch a more civilized experience.  A fun, fast, unique and useful project.  I couldn't be more pleased with the concept.  This is the first set I've made, but I'm planning more.  I think this and some mug rugs would be great to take to the next Wiregrass market,  coming up in February.


Have you made New Year's resolutions?  I usually don't.  But 2010 was an unusual year for me.  I went from  being a violinist with a quilting hobby to being The Quilting Violinist.  It's been more work and more fun than I could have imagined.  In my very first blog post this past July, I mentioned that my quilting philosophy has never been about being perfect.  It's always been about learning and having fun.  So for 2011, let's make a resolution to continue learning and having fun.  Thanks to all of you for helping make 2010 an amazing year for me, and Happy New Year!