My First Quilt - A UFO Quilty Finish

About 4 years ago or so, I decided to take up quilting.  I had been reading quilting blogs and seeing all the beautiful modern quilts out there and it got me all excited.

So, I went out to my local fabric store and bought one charm pack which are 42  5" squares.  Forty two, I thought.  That will make a whole quilt.  Bless my heart.

Sorry for the picture quality.  They all have too much light.

Once I layed out the squares, I realized I needed more just to make it baby quilt size.  So, I cut out some solid whites and added those. 

Anyway, this quilt sat in the UFO pile for some time.  I didn't really like the fabric I had chosen and I didn't have anyone to give it to so I didn't see a reason to finish it.  Plus it was pretty wonky.  Seams that REALLY didn't match.  Borders that were just WRONG.  It was a hot mess.

But a couple months ago, I got it back out (in my effort to finish some of my UFO's this summer) and I quilted it and bound it.

It's still a hot mess but it's a finished hot mess.  I think that I will keep it so that I can see where I started and see my progress as I go along.  I still need to work on my binding but I'm getting pretty good at piecing and my quilting is improving.

And surprisingly, even then, I prefered a pieced back.

And always remember your label.

Statistics on this quilt:
Fabric - Moda but I don't remember the line, white fabric is also Moda.  The polka dotted fabric that I used on the back and for the wonky border was a fabric in the line.  My binding fabric, the green and white stripe, is from Scrumptious by Bonnie and Camille.
Size - Approximately 40 inches by 40 inches.

**Linking up to Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation and Crazy Mom Quilts Friday Finish

A Quilty Birthday Finish

I made up a sweet little quilt to give to my friend for her birthday.  I was 2 months late.  Sigh.  But that's okay because she liked it and that's really all that matters.

 My pictures stink.  Sorry about that.  I took them inside in low light and that was a mistake.  Especially, since I can't fix that.

Anyhoo, two of the blocks are paper pieced and the other two are regular pieced.  I've been itching to do the paper pieced circle of geese for some time now and I just love it.  She loved it too which made me wish I had made four of them in different colors.  The multicolored star on bottom is also paper pieced.  The green plus block and the scrappy patchwork are the regular pieced ones.  I used some of my favorite fabrics in the scrappy patchwork.  See the little yoga monkey?  That fabric is from Michael Miller and is no longer available.  The plus block is my favorite block of all the blocks I've done so far.  I don't know why.  Maybe because it's easy and clean looking.

The background fabric is Kona Ash and Kona White.  I quilted it on my home machine with my walking foot in a diagonal straight line.  I did mark all my lines so they are straight not "organic" like I usually do.  I used a white 50 wt. Aurifil thread, I think it was number 2021.
The fabrics are all from my stash.  We'd be here all day if I listed them all.  See the little elephants in the star fabric?  OH, how I LOVE that fabric.  I also have it in blue and orange but my blue is running really low and my orange isn't far behind.

This quilt measures approximately 24 x 24 inches.  It's bound with scrappy fabric binding that was the extra on other quilts but I made sure it all matched.

My backing is made up of more Kona Ash and some of the fabrics from the front.  See my cute quilt label?  I've been following the tutorial from My Quilt Infatuation for some time now and I just love it.  It makes a sweet little label.
I swear it wasn't all crooked in real life.  At least I don't think it was.

Thanks for reading!
Tricia
Linking up to Quilt Story for Fabric Tuesday**

A Friday Finish - Bird Mini Quilt

One month last fall, I can't remember which one, Karen K. Stone (author and quilter) came to our local quilt guild for a speaking engagement and also to teach a workshop. 

Her quilts are fabulous and all original.  I really enjoyed her talk and looking at the quilts she had to show us.  She does a lot of paper piecing, uses embellishments and does a lot of thread painting which I am in awe of.  She hand dies much of the fabric she uses and it was just beautiful.

Her book is wonderful.  The pictures are so great that I think it would make a wonderful coffee table book even if you aren't a quilter.  I love looking at the patterns and pictures.  I couldn't wait to snap up one after her speech was done.  

The workshop day was less impressive.  I'm just biting my tongue to keep myself from typing out all the things I'd like to say but I don't want my blog to come across as mean or snarky - unless I'm trying to be snarky which I'm not.
The online quilting community seems to always be so positive.  I rarely read a negative review about anything be it teachers or notions, books or patterns.  And lets face it, not everything is great.  Not every class you take is going to meet your expectations.  I also try to keep in mind that just because I didn't get what I expected from the class, doesn't mean everyone else was unhappy.

So that's all I'm going to say about that.  Here's my quilty finish that was started in Ms. Stone's workshop.  The pattern is her original pattern.  The outside sawtooth parts are paper pieced and the inside square with the birdie is fussy cut.  Her quilt, that used this pattern, had flowers that had been thread painted in the centers.  It was so lovely.

I ended up making just one block using the workshop material.  I decided to turn it into a mini quilt to hang in my sewing room.  I love the fabric that I used in the quilt - it makes me happy.  

I used it as sort of a practice block for quilting.  I did echo quilting in the center square.  

And free motion quilting on the rest.  I think it was my first free motion quilting project other than the sample sandwiches that I had been practicing with for some time. It's very densely quilted.  I think I was trying to get as much practice in as possible.  lol

 Here is the back.  You can see the echo quilting really well here.  This little quilt has lived in my sewing room for quite some time now because someone had never put the binding on.  Finally, someone - me - did.

 The little mini only measures 11.5 x 11.5 inches.

    The backing fabric is Wordplay from Benartex.  A lot of the fabrics used in the sawtooth paper piecing are from Michael Miller (Mirror Ball dots and the orange swirl), there are some Marblehead fabrics by Ro Gregg and the rest is just random from my stash.  The birdie fabric in the center is a clearance piece of fabric that I found at Hancock's.  I only bought 1 yard of it but I love it and now I'm afraid to use it.  The binding is from the Architextures line by Robert Kaufman.

This was a UFO that I was able to scratch off my 2014 list.  
I hope you liked my little quilt and thanks so much for visiting me at my blog.  Please leave a comment so I know you were here - even if it's just to say hi!
**linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts**

A Lovely Year of Finishes March Goal - Giant Starburst Quilt

My March goal for "A Lovely Year of Finishes" was to complete my Giant Starburst quilt.  I started March with the quilt top and back completed so it needed to be sandwiched, basted, quilted and bound.  I also needed to complete it because I had committed it for our local quilt show and it needed to be turned in on March 18th.

I am happy to report that I completed my March goal!  YAY!  It was also turned into the quilt show on time even if I only slept for 3 hours the night before.  :)

You can read about the beginning of the quilt here.  I found this pattern at CanoeRidgeCreations.com.  It was a giant starburst quilt a long.  She also has the pattern in a reverse giant starburst which is so cool as well and you can buy the pattern for the mini in her shop.  Click here to go to the instructions for the Giant Starburst.

I'm going to be honest.  I had trouble with this quilt from the very first second.  I purchased the amount of fabric that was required but for 2 of the colors,  I didn't have enough.  I purchased Kona cotton and it is not 45 inches wide.  It's about 42 inches wide - that is not counting the selvedge.  I don't use selvedge when I cut my fabrics.  I'm not sure if the pattern writter used the selvedge or if she just had wider fabric.  I ended up having to go buy more fabric.  

After that, it just continued to go downhill.  Lots of seams ripped out, points that got cut off or didn't meet.  Maybe it was just because I was on a deadline and wanted it to turn out well.  I was so glad when it was done.

I am kind of proud of my quilting.  This is the first time that I used different quilting designs in different parts of the quilt.  It's also the first time that I used different colors of thread.

 I used white thread in the white fabric areas, green in the green, purple in the purple, you get the idea.  I'm really proud of my echo quilting that I did here in the triangles.  This is the largest quilt I've worked with and it was hard turning it back and forth but I love the way it looks.  I really like this quilting style and I want to practice it a lot more.

 I'm not sure what to call the way I quilted the colored parts of the star.  Maybe long zig zags?  You can tell I have a long ways to go on my FMQ but I do think I'm getting better.
The white fabric is actually a text fabric.  It's a very subtle text.  I didn't want a dense text because I felt like it would change the color - some dense texts can read gray to me.  
I used a loopy meander on the white star areas.  The hardest part to do was the center square of the star.  It was hard to get through my machine and took forever.  I don't know what the deal was with that.

 This is one of the white corner squares.  I like to think of this quilting as creepy ghost fingers.

Here is my quilt back.  Once I finished quilting, I figured out that you couldn't really see all the different types of quilting that I had done.  You couldn't even see the different colors of thread and all because my back was so busy.  I'm going to have to consider that more in the future.  If I want my quilting to show on the back, I need to use a simpler back or even a solid color.

The quilt back is made up of leftover fabric from the front that was cut off when I made my HST's.  The floral fabric is the last I have of that - it is from Michael Miller's Pretty Bird line.  The yellow and white floral is from Riley Blake and the black and white dotted fabric is from Alexander Henry and is called "the dotted line".

 In this picture you can see the blue thread in the quilting on the Pretty Bird fabric.

This quilt label is the best one that I've done so far.  I loved how it turned out.  I got the tutorial from Kelly at My Quilt Infatuation.  Click HERE to go to her tutorial.  I love the idea of zig zagging it and then quilting over it.  I just hope that really is a permanent marker.

 I used my Grape Jelly Pearl Bracelets for the binding.  It used up all I had :(  But that's ok - that's what shopping is for, right?
My binding is a hot mess.  I put it on at 12 midnight on the night before the quilt show.  I knew I wasn't going to win any prizes with this quilt anyway (the competition was pretty stiff and I'm a newbie quilter) and at that point of the night, I just needed to get it done.  I do plan to remove the binding and redo it.  I love that fabric too much to leave it messed up.

 But it looks pretty doesn't it?

I love this text print.

My quilt stats are as follows:
Giant Starburst Quilt
pattern by Megan at Canoe Ridge Creations Blog
Finished size  60 x 60

Fabrics used in the quilt:
Solids are Kona cotton in turquoise, corn yellow, chartreuse, and mulberry.
Text fabric is Poppy Patio by Jill Finley for Henry Glass Studios
Lizzy House Pearl Bracelet in grape jelly for binding
Backing fabrics are listed above.

Pieced and quilted by Tricia Harvey on my domestic machine.  March 2014
Thread used was:
White Aurifil 50 wt. color 2024
Colored thread was all Mettler metrosene 100% polyester
yellow - color 0500
blue - 0890
green - 0952
purple - 0459

I learned a few new things while making this quilt as I seem to do with every quilt so I guess that makes up for the frustration I had during the process.

Thanks for reading!
**Linking up to NTT at My Quilt Infatuation and A Lovely Year of Finishes at Fiber Art of All Sorts**
**Linking up to Anything Goes Monday at Stitch by Stitch**

A Quilty Finish - QR Bar Code Quilt

**Personal note - I intended for this blog post to go up 2 weeks ago but unfortunately, there was a death in my family.  This combined with a preplanned short spring break trip and preparing for the local quilt show has put a stop to my blog posting for the last 2 weeks.  But I'm back now and I have a quilty finish to talk about today!**

Well, I've gone and done it.  I finally finished my QR Bar Code quilt and I only had to unpick the binding 3 times!

 TADA!  I love it when I finish something because most of the time I just feel like I'm spinning my wheels.

I like this picture because I think you can really see the pattern of the code because of the distance to the quilt.  The closer the quilt is, the more the pattern disappears.

 I went with an organic wave quilting pattern which I also did on my Martha's Cross quilt.

I love this quilting pattern.  It's fun to do and I think it looks great.  Especially on quilts like this that are all squares.

It is quilted with a light gray Aurifil thread number 2600.  I didn't want to use white because of the way it would have contrasted with the turquoise on the back of the quilt.  I wanted the thread to disappear more than white would have.

And this is the awesome back of the quilt.  I used all the leftover squares to make the rectangle of squares in the center.  I used Kona Snow to create a frame around the squares and then finished it off with Kona Turquoise.  I'm not sure if I like the back or front more.  :)

Pretty, yes?  The quilting runs vertically up and down the quilt.

 

This is my label.  I don't like the way I did it.  I found this tutorial online that keeps you from having unfinished edges by sewing 2 squares of fabric together and then turning it right side out so all the seams are on the inside.  Then, you attach it to your quilt back and quilt over it.  I can't remember where I saw the tutorial but I don't like it and probably will never use it again.  The edges are too bulky because of the inside seams and it looks terrible.

But, if you notice at the bottom of the label, there is a scanable QR code that Ebony Love sent me for my label.  If you scan it, my quilt means "HAPPY".

I have since found a tutorial on My Quilt Infatuation that is much better and I've used it 2 times now.  It makes a much prettier label.

And look at the binding.  Not bad huh?  I think I'm getting better.

Quilt Stats:
QR Bar Code Quilt which means Happy
Pattern by Ebony Love

Measures 43 1/2 inches by 43 1/2 inches
Pieced and quilted by Tricia Harvey
Quilted on my home machine, a Brother SE - 400
Finished February 2014

Made with all Kona Cotton in many different colors.  Quilted with Aurifil thread in light gray 2600.
Organic wave quilting.  Binding is the same Kona Turquoise from the back of the quilt.

Ok, now here is a neat FYI.  The is a website - http://www.qrstuff.com/ - where you can go and type in anything and it will give you the QR code.  You need to select "plain text" and then you can type in your name, your kids names or anything, get the code and make your own quilt.  I also thought it would be a neat wedding gift to put in the couples names and the date of their wedding and then make the QR code quilt.

**Linking up to My Quilt Infatuation**

A Quilty Finish - Martha's Cross Quilt

I started working on these cross blocks way back during the summer, I believe.  I blogged about them here and here.  This quilt was to be for a very special person who is one of the most genuine people I have ever met.  She has a pure heart - do you know what I mean?  It's hard to describe so I'll just say that you don't meet people like Martha everyday.

The crosses have a special meaning but I'm not going to go into all that.  Let's just say this was a very special quilt for me to make and to give as a friend.  
Although, just from a quilter's standpoint, I LOVE this quilt and I wanted to keep it so bad.  I love the simplicity of this block and the fabrics I used.  I think I'm going to make another one for myself just because I can't stand it if I don't.  LOL.

I know there are a lot of tutorials for this block out on the internet but I actually got my instructions from the book - Fat Quarterly Shape Workshop for Quilters.  I find this book to be a great reference book and for anyone new to quilting.  It gives instructions on 60 or so different blocks but it starts you out on easier blocks that have square pieces, then on to rectangles and then the tougher shapes.  I'd like to try to start at the beginning and work my way through the book to practice and build my piecing skills.

Anyhoo, about my gorgeous quilt,  I made the majority of my blocks with solid crosses in the middle using a variety of Kona cottons and also some Bella Solids.  The white background fabric is Kona White.  I mixed those up a bit with a print occassionally and the went even further by inverting the blocks.  So, I had 3 that had white crosses and print/solid backgrounds.  The blocks all turned out bright and cheerful which was my intention.

I quilted my quilt with an organic wavy line.  Organic meaning I didn't mark anything.  I just started sewing.  I really love how the quilting turned out and I think I'll be doing this quilting on the quilt I'm working on now.  It's basically straight line stitching but with a twist.  I used my walking foot and my little Janome machine, rolled my sides up real good and just went for it.  Also, I'd like to add that I use the 505 Basting spray on everything that I've done so far.  I've tried basting pins but I don't seem to have the knack for them and why mess with them when you can use 505. 

It looks pretty I think.  I used white Aurifil thread in 50 wt. in the color white.  Isn't it funny how it looks green on the green fabric?

This is the quilt back.  I used KonaWhite  for the top and bottom strips.  The middle strip starts off with a red/white dot which is a Michael Miller Ta Dot fabric.  The chaotic fun, colored fabric is my favorite print ever and it is from Robert Kaufman.  This was my last piece but since this quilt meant so much to me, it didn't hurt too bad to use it for this.

The binding is a black and white zig zag fabric from Mama Said Sew by Moda.  I think it finished of the quilt perfectly.  I machine bound the quilt front and back.  I stitch in the ditch on the front of the quilt to sew the binding on the back.  I'm getting really good at it too.  You can barely see the stitches on front.

Lovely and bright quilt back.

My lovely Robert Kaufman fabric.  You can see the cool quilting so well.

This is my lovely friend Martha holding her quilt.  She came over a few days before Christmas and I literally finished the binding that morning before she got here.  She seemed so excited about it and I was excited to give it to her.  

I am so proud of this quilt.  I learned a few quilting lessons when making it - especially about trimming blocks.
The quilt size finished is 48 x 60 inches.  This is the largest quilt I've made to date.

Thanks for reading!

**Linked up to Needle and Thread Thursday, Crazy Mom Quilts and Can I get a Whoop Whoop!