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Tag Archives: sparkle punch quilt

a tale of two quilts

20 Thursday Dec 2012

Posted by Laura C in quilts

≈ 13 Comments

Tags

finished quilts, fire drill quilt, quilting, sewing, sparkle punch quilt

Warning: after three-ish weeks of not posting any real content, I’m about to overload this post with pictures. So, if you’re faint of heart, opt out…now.

Quilt #1: The Mother-in-Law quilt Back in October, I started what I knew would be one of two Christmas gift quilts: my rainbow Fire Drill quilt, pattern from Elizabeth Hartman’s Modern Patchwork, color plan inspired by totally copied wholesale from this pin. Again, I reiterate, I COPIED this color scheme. I didn’t come up with it on my own! I wish I’d had the smarts, but I’ll take this quilt however I came by it. Because it’s gorgeous.

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(You’ll please to ignore my husband’s pajama pile in the right corner. I’ve tried, and can’t really do anything about it, so now I don’t really see it anymore either.)

Piecing this one went quickly and fairly easily, though if you look closely, I had some moderate troubles making my diamond points meet. This is a shrug-and-move-on trouble, though, because when you pull back, all you see is glorious color.

SONY DSCAnd when you look closely, all you see is lovely texture, from hours and hours of careful outline hand-quilting. With Gutermann’s handquilting thread and a #11 Black Gold quilting needle, natch.

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This is also my first ever pieced-back quilt. I love, love, love it. Scraps from the front to make spectrum “drips” across the back. The neutral is actually a sand-and teal colored dot from a Riley Blake line that I picked up on clearance. It’s perfect.

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And the binding is Chicopee Bleeding Heart. It was *made* for this quilt. (I actually purchased a Kaffe dot to bind this, but the Denyse was so much more appropriate, in spirit and in coloring.)

Quilt #2: The Momma quilt It wasn’t quite fair to make a quilt for my MIL when I’d never made one for my own mom. My mom quilts, though she has primarily sewn garments. When I first started quilting she gave me a HUGE box full of pre-cut scraps to start with, including about 500 axe-heads that I hand-pieced into a queen-sized monster. As my second quilt project. Ahem. Needless to say, I owed her one.

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This is, coincidentally, another Elizabeth Hartman pattern, her Sparkle Punch quilt. I chose turquoises, light blues, tans, and browns to match my mom’s living room. I love this pattern. It’s a perfect marriage of traditional and modern, and I thought it was a way to make something for my very traditional mother while still expressing my own quilting style.

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The “first” for this quilt is that it’s the first machine-quilted quilt I’ve ever done. I used a walking foot on my new Janome to do “straight” line quilting. I assume my lines will get Red-Pepper-Quilts-straight with more time and practice. For now? Good enough to gift, I think. (Don’t tell me if you think otherwise.)

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The backing is a Denyse print from Joann’s, that I picked up off the red dot rack for less than $4/yard (I know!). It’s perfect. I chose not to piece the back because I ran out of time because I thought that might be pushing it just a little too much on the modern quilting. You know. For my mom. The binding is that brown Posie print from Flea Market Fancy Legacy, and it’s all I can do not to go and buy like ten more yards of that stuff.

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Thoughts: When I went to take pictures of these (inside on a grey Massachusetts day, sorry sorry), I thought I knew which one I’d like to keep if I were being totally bad. My heart, I thought, was totally with that Fire Drill quilt. But, as I spread out the Sparkle Punch quilt, I really appreciated the texture that the machine quilting created, and I found the color scheme soothing and easy to look at.

Really, I love them both. Just like I love both my momma and my mother-in-law. I hope these quilts are much-loved, too!

Edited to link up to Crazy Mom Quilts’s Finish it Up Friday. participa

crunch time

10 Monday Dec 2012

Posted by Laura C in quilts

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

christmas sewing, fire drill quilt, honey cowl, janome 3160, quilting, quilts, sparkle punch quilt

Christmas is two weeks from tomorrow.

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We leave for TN in 12 days.

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It’s crunch time.

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So, while I haven’t been here in 10 days, I’m certainly still trucking. I have a lot left to do, but on Saturday, I felt for the first time like I’m actually going to get it all done. Or…enough of it. I’ve finished handquilting my MIL’s Fire Drill quilt, and have chosen the binding. I’m halfway-ish through quilting my mom’s Sparkle Punch quilt–more on that in a moment. I have about eight rounds left to knit on MY honey cowl, and then two small half-versions of the honey cowl to knit for my sisters (in the awesome highlighter-yellow and shocking pink MadTosh yarns above). And I have two quilted tote bags to piece, quilt, and finish, using this tutorial. And one or two more aprons. And one makeup roll.

It sounds like a lot! It is a lot. You may be all, I’m not optimistic it can be done. But I don’t take “not optimistic it can be done” for an answer. Because I have a new sewing machine:

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It’s a Janome 3160 QDC, purchased in a sheer panic at Marie’s Sewing Center in Woburn after my old 1996 Target Singer (inherited from my great-grandmother) broke on the way to my guild’s SAL on 12/1. I’ve had it 9 days. I think I’m in love. It’s the reason I’m already halfway through quilting the Sparkle Punch quilt that I couldn’t even get put together a couple weeks ago. (Did I mention I think my Singer was on the fritz? What I thought was acting funny–the tension in the presser foot–was what finally broke, I think the spring gave–and, really, it was time for a “real” machine.)

I hope to write a more detailed review of my thoughts on the Janome after I’ve used it for awhile. And I’ll definitely post as I finish this pile of projects!

Good luck with all of your crunch times. Will you make it?!

squaring up

26 Monday Nov 2012

Posted by Laura C in quilts

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

quilting, sewing, sparkle punch quilt

29 days left?!

Eeep.

I’m still squaring up.

 

Like, STILL squaring up. Turns out that this Sparkle Punch quilt isn’t so much 80 blocks plus some edges, it’s like, 80 times 4 blocks plus some edges. I’ve been working hard core on this the whole long weekend, and…am still not particularly close to a quilt top. Goal! Quilt top by Friday! Or bust!

Also I have to do a quilt guild nametag by Saturday morning, which has been kind of a stumper. I dislike embroidery. Reeeeally dislike. This is surprising given how much I like handwork, I know. I used steem-a-seam to applique some fabric letters, thinking I’d blanket-stitch around the edges to applique, but it may look super-sloppy on a small scale. We’ll see what I come up with.

Besides Sparkle Punch and nametag, my Handmade Christmas 2012 list looks like this:

1) Fire Drill quilt: finish handquilting (half done), trim, bind

2) aprons: have 5 complete, need 1 (possibly 2) more

3) quilted totes: need 2

4) makeup rolls: need 3

Can I do it? We’ll see. I keep picking up my Honey Cowl to knit at the end of the day (handquilting can be so physically exhausting) so I’m going to have to shape up if I’m going to pull it off.

Lastly, Thanksgiving! It was awesome. I hosted my SIL and her new husband here, and we had a low-key, low-stress dinner. And yes, I bought a Honeybaked Turkey Breast, and I am not ashamed; in fact, I am proud. I’m happy that all the leftovers are gone as of yesterday. And I’m happy the weather cooperated for a little outside jaunt to Breakheart, to walk off some of those homemade rolls.

About Me

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