finished: my sunday morning quilt

Tags

finished quilts, low volume, sunday morning quilt

Warning: so many pictures ahead. After an awful Feb-April, this week we have finally been blessed with weather so beautiful as to almost be obscene.

I packed up the kid

and the just-finished quilt

and headed to Endicott Park in Danvers for a real outside quilt-photo session.

I made this quilt to be a wedding gift for either my cousin or my little sister’s childhood best friend, both of whom are getting married on June 29. I figure I’ll make two quilts and get my mom and sister to help me decide who gets what.

Even as I sewed down the binding last night, I had doubts: is this quilt too scrappy to gift? (How DO we feel about gifting scrap quilts? Do you gift scrap quilts, or do you only gift “special” quilts?) Is it a quilter’s quilt, in that only someone who’s looked a lot of quilts will appreciate its low-volume gorgeousness? Is it too modern?

But these pictures of the quilt spread out on the green, dandelion-spotted grass did it for me. If I saw these pictures published by anyone on any blog or on Flickr, I’d covet this quilt. I’ll trust that one of the brides-to-be will, too!

Quilt stats:

Pattern: Cheryl Arkison’s Sunday Morning Quilt, published in Sunday Morning Quilts (Nyberg & Arkison, 2012). Blocks constructed as written, but I did 6×7 blocks to make a throw size, ~60”x70”.

Fabrics: all kinds of low-volume scraps and stash from just about every place you can buy fabric. The big pieces on the back I scored from Pink Castle Fabric’s Sale section (swoon) and were like less than $5/yard. (Marked down to $5, and they were running one of their super-awesome 20% off any purchase promotions.) The binding was also from the PCF Sale section, though it was slightly more than $5/yard. It’s a print from Simpatico, I believe, and was a perfect frame for this quilt.

Quilting: is just more straight-line quilting, .75” apart. I actually used that weird measure bar thing this time. I’m not crazy about that little bar, but it allowed me to make my lines further apart. Quicker quilting, a softer, drapier quilt.

Linking up to: Amanda Jean @ Crazy Mom Quilts Finish it Up Friday (hey, this quilt’s from her book!); Pink Castle Fabrics Blog

ETA: also linking up to Rachel’s Festival of Strings, as this was a string quilt I finished in 2013 (started after she announced the contest idea, so I feel definitely on the up-and-up)!

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lotta things

Tags

celery cardi, low volume, moth cardi, string fever, sunday morning quilt

(That’s Lucy’s new “thing” to say: we make a verbal list, colors, animals, whatever, and she goes, “Lotta things!” Gotta love a two-year-old.)

My Sunday Morning quilt is in the floor, ready for smoothing and basting. Why, yes, I WILL write a blog post to put off the agony of smoothing-basting for just a few more minutes. Bound for more straight-line quilting. Cannot. let. it. go.

Sleeves on my Moth Celery cardi are…done-ish. They’re probably as as done as they’ll ever be. Yeah they’re rough. And also! Knitters! Do you see my egregious error!? If I finish this thing without trashing it I’ll own up to my horrifying/embarrassing mistake. I lost a whole night of sleep over this cardigan last weekend.

(And no, I’m NOT going to frog. The thing is MOHAIR. It won’t frog for crap. I’ll finish it and wear it as penance.)

Plucky yarn that is too nice for bad knitters, purchased in the triumphant post-cabling-shawl-knitting adrenaline rush of early March. Now I think I probably should be punished with some acrylic Joanns yarn.

Fabric pull for the Seacoast Modern Quilt Guild’s first Block-of-the-Month raffle. (Bring a buck and a block, the more bucks-blocks you bring, the more entries you get, winner gets the blocks.) We’re making these!

You’re planning to kill your string stash with Rachel @ Stitched in Color’s Scrap Attack String Fever, right? I know I am. Hoping to use her tutorial for ziggy string blocks, but need to do a block or two first before I know for sure. And I think my Sunday Morning quilt technically qualifies, too!

Hope you have a “lotta things” on your Monday too. Happy Patriot’s Day/Marathon Monday!

paper bag quilting

Tags

low volume, sunday morning quilt

Lately I feel like all the best quilts come out of paper bags.

I love the instructions from Cheryl Arkison in Sunday Morning Quilts: “Throw in all the…strips and mix them up well.” Trader Joe’s bag + pile of scraps = Scrappy TAL, and now also = my version of Cheryl Arkison’s Sunday Morning quilt.

Super-relaxing to sew. (You don’t even have to make sure the fabric lines up correctly; a little wonk is good!)

Super-easy to look at. I love that tulip print; it came in a scrap pack from Sew Fresh Fabrics (Peg has a new, non-Etsy website!) and it totally shines in these blocks.

It’s also going quickly, too. I reckon I can have a throw-sized top finished by Friday!

(And, a little brag: I’m one of the three finalists in Rachel @ Stitched in Color’s Shelburne Falls contest! I’m more than pleased to be picked. Stitched in Color is one of my favorite quilty “places” to spend time on the web, and it’s super-exciting to be featured there! Go look at the awesome Shelburne Falls projects and cast a vote!)

Linking up at the Let’s Get Aquainted Blog Hop, this week over at Made in Home (another lovely knitty-quilty “place” to spend your time!)

finished: Denyse Schmidt low-vol HST pillow

Tags

DS HST pillow, low volume, shelburne falls contest

So, obvs, I’m not great at naming finished objects. Fabric/Designer + Pattern = Long Obnoxious Name Meaningless to Anyone Who Doesn’t Sew. Maybe this pillow does deserve a better name?

 

Because while it started as an exercise, an idea I wanted to try out, it turned out really pretty cute. It has exactly the kind of worn old vintage-y (kind of crappy homemade, even) look that I really, really love. I put it on my green Ikea chair with my white knitted throw (a gift! I wish I could take credit) and I love it there. It’ll probably never move.

 

I started out wanting to try my hand at Rachel @ Stitched in Color’s Shelburne Falls challenge. But when I went to buy fabric, the prints from Shelburne Falls that really begged to be bought were the low-volume prints. For example, I love, love this print and bought it in two colorways. And I want to buy like a ton more, of the Lilac especially. (Should we be telling people what fabrics we are planning on buying and hoarding…?)

I’m cranking through a PILE of scrap right now, trying to sort and start a couple of low-volume scrap quilts for wedding gifts. Low-volume seems sort of bridal to me, for some reason. I also dug through my stash and pulled everything that was remotely low-volume. I realized that Denyse Schmidt (isn’t she practically perfect in every way?) is a dab hand at low-volume prints with lots of movement and interest.

 

So I cut: my brand-new Shelburne Falls, my Flea Market Fancy Legacy, my Chicopee. I had a low-volume print from Joann’s that I love (that lime green flower-navy blue nut print in the bottom row of the above picture), and, as luck would have it, Pink Castle sent a Greenfield Hill print in their February blue Stash Stack. (It’s the light blue hash-mark print.) I itched for teeny tiny low-volume HSTs. There are 144 of them in this pillow top; I started with 2.5” squares. 144 HSTs, five beloved Denyse Schmidt fabric lines, one pillow top.

I am still practicing my FMQ, and chose Angela Walters’ flower pattern to quilt this pillow top. My husband was impressed with my practice swatch, so I promise, if you could see the quilting, I wouldn’t be all that embarrassed. But this pillow is decidedly not about the quilting.

This isn’t the coolest, sharpest, or best-sewn pillow I’ve ever made. It is perhaps the scrappiest, the most vintage, the most hand-made-looking. It’s made of a stash of fabrics I love and have held on to for too long–and some brand-new fabrics I’m glad I had a reason to buy!

Watch this space for LOTS more low-volume. 🙂