~ Next To Be Quilted ~ Bumpkin Pumpkins ~

Do you ever make a quilt top that you love and it becomes a UFO because you can't decide on the quilting?  It happens to me way too often.  That's why I have, at last count, 30 quilt tops waiting to be quilted.  They are tucked away with backing and binding waiting on me to make a decision.  So it's time to just get them finished.  No time like the present, right? So two days ago I pulled out the one I felt was the most important.  My Bumpkin Pumpkins quilt is one of  my published quilt patterns available in my Etsy pattern shop.  I absolutely love this bright and cheery fall quilt.  But I'm still drawing a blank as to what quilting design would look best.  So....it's still hanging just like this on the frame.  Maybe I should just put it on the frame and fly by the seat of my pants.   Sounds like a good plan.   If I'm still drawing a blank later this afternoon that's exactly what's going to happen.

There's plenty of white space for willy nilly background fills.  That sounds doable and easy.  I could give this whirly looking block a little movement with some free motion quilting.  And maybe those pumpkins would look cute with different quilted faces on each?  Hmm...I might be onto something.

And the Flying geese need a little help to fly south for the winter.  My first thought is to do simple free motion arcs from corner to corner but I do that on so many of my quilts.  Perhaps a little more quilting motif brainstorming is needed.

The multiple border is the part that is really giving me troubles.  I'm drawing a TOTAL blank.  I could quilt them separately or together.  Overthinking might be the biggest problem!

My go to quilting design is feathers, feathers and more feathers.  But would feathers work on a Autumn/Halloween-ish quilt?  Well phooey, looks like it's off to Google and Pinterest for a little more quilting inspiration.

 

Hope to see you soon with some quilting in this monster.  

~ Dutch Delight Finished ~

 Every once in awhile a quilt comes along and I'm immediately swept off my feet.  Dutch Delight by Jill Finley is one of those quilts.  From the first time I laid eyes on her I knew I would make it as soon as I could get my hands on the pattern.  

She was introduced at the Spring Quilt Market this year.  Jill and her husband designed one of the cutest booths for market that won a award.  You can see her booth with all the quilts designed for her new Conservatory fabric on her website by clicking here.

It would have been nice to use her new line of fabric but I'm trying really hard to SIMPLY(my word of the year).  Simply means more than keeping thing simple.  It also means to use what I have if possible.  So I dug into the stash looking to recreate her color pallet as best I could.  You can see my fabric pull on a previous blog post by clicking here.

Since this quilt design had a fairly small amount of applique I decided to do turned edge applique instead of my go-to method of raw edge applique.  It would be nice to have the time(or the want to) to hand stitch the applique in place.  But honestly I don't like handwork.  So invisible machine applique is the next best thing.  It takes a quarter of the time and looks pretty close to the "real" thing.  Using Mono-Poly thread by Superior Threads is my secret to faking hand applique.  If you would like to see how I make my invisible machine applique click here.

Even with this speedy method I needed to take a break about halfway through stitching it into place.  Breaking one of my number one rules in the studio by bringing in my coffee.  The only rules in my studio are No Drinks, No food, No Pets.  Of course I was the only one home at the time so no one else knew but me and now you.   Shh...Don't tell Mr. Podunk, I run him out of here when her brings in a drink.

This quilt finishes at 64 x 64, a nice size throw quilt that is sure to be used often.  So I wanted to keep the quilting fairly light for a nice cuddly quilt.  I also wanted it to quilt quickly.  So I used the quilt piecing as my guide.  What does that mean?  It means very little marking, I just line up my quilt rulers with the seams or intersections (the orange dots below) of the piecing.  I did mark the long crosshatching (red arrow) because I felt it would be quicker to have them marked than to mess up and need to pick out stitches.

The binding is my favorite part of the quilting process.  It's so exciting to be on the home stretch to a completed quilt.  With this quilt I did what some call "a true quarter inch binding".  What this really means is it's a tiny binding that finishes 1/4" on the front and about 3/8" on the back, just enough to cover the stitches from stitching the binding down on the front of the quilt.  Most bindings are cut between 2" wide and 2.5" wide , the most common being 2.25" wide. (I rarely cut at 2.25).  For this binding I cut  1.5" wide strips.  Yep that's tiny, but it really isn't any harder than the larger widths.  Why would a quilter do this.  Various reasons I suppose.  I did it because this quilt doesn't have a border, so if the binding is too wide on the front it will cut off my points on the piecing.  And I like for my binding to be about the same size on the front and back of the quilt.  I made a chart for me to reference the different finished widths of binding.  You can find the free printable chart on a previous blog post by clicking here.  

She's so pretty.  I can't wait to get her washed and tossed over the back of my rocking chair.  The simplicity of this quilt is swoon worthy.  It was quick and easy, but so satisfying.  If you would like to make this quilt you can find it on Jill's website.  PDF pattern here.   And the mailed pattern here.  You can also find her Conservatory  line of fabric on her website.  Or buy them together as a kit here.  She has several of her quilt patterns kitted up and ready to ship.  Even if you don't want this quilt you should go check out her other quilts. She's an amazing designer with such a creative eye for applique.

Pulling from my stash was fun.  It gave me a chance to use some older fabrics that haven't seen the light of day in years.  Like this backing fabric, it's from the 1990's or at least that what I was told.  The blue on the label is another oldie fabric.  I'm not sure how old but I know it's over 10 yrs old because I purchased it 10 yrs ago at a local quilt show in a scrappy grab bag .

~ Hunkering Down Quilt Finished ~ Free Pattern ~

 Every quilt has a story tell, some more interesting than others.  Until I started publishing patterns most of my quilts were made out of emotions.  It could be something as simple as a new baby in the family or as complicated as a terminal illness.  Honestly I like the quilts constructed with emotions much better.  They not only are made with love but they become more precious to me and the receiver due to the emotion that went into the design and every stitch.  

My Hunkering Down Quilt falls under quilts made from emotion only because of what is going on across the globe.  The real story behind this quilt is far more simple and happy.  But before we get into the quilt story lets take a look at the finished quilt.  Below is a closeup of the quilting.  With so much white space I had to quilt it to death.  It just wouldn't have looked as nice with something simple or an all over design.

The backing is pieced with the same yellow and white used on the front of the quilt.   A simple label was also made from the same fabrics and stitched to the quilt back before quilting.  This is my new favorite way of adding a label.  The simple design is quick and so is hand writing the information on the label.  And in order to remove this label a person would need to damage the rest of the quilt.  I like knowing my beauties will always have a little bit of history attached to them for future generations.

But a word of warning before you sew your label onto the backing.  Check your spelling, several times.  I read this a blue million times.  I even sent my best quilting buddy a picture of it so she could look it over for errors.  We both overlooked the misspelled Pademic Pandemic.   Oh well, nothing is perfect and it adds just a little more history to the quilt.

Speaking of history lets get back to the history this quilt on Podunk Pretties.  It's simple really.  Someone on Facebook was looking for the pattern for this quilt block.  She only shared a cropped image of the block.   I searched high and low looking for a quilt pattern or block. 

 No luck.  So I decided to draft it up in EQ8 and write a tutorial so this nice lady could make the quilt.  I had no intentions of making the quilt myself.  My single block made for the tutorial was going to be made into a pillow for my bed.  Well I fell in love with the block and the fabrics and YADA YADA YADA we have a quilt called Hunkering Down.  You can find the Hunkering Down Block tutorial here.

The story continues....Yesterday I shared my Hunkering down quilt on Facebook and Instagram.  A man shared my post on Facebook.  A man I didn't know, had never heard of, I found this odd so I had to check out his FB page.  His FB looked pretty normal, nothing suspicious....Like I know what I'm looking for....HAHA!  An internet detective I am not!    

 Look at his title for my quilt post.  HMMM....who is this fella and how is he connected to MY quilt.  Yes I'm stressing because I felt like he was saying this was his quilt.  And for that Jeremiah I owe you an apology, I'm Sorry. 

He will be the recipient of the quilt made by the  Nina Woodgate,  who posted the picture wanting help finding the pattern many weeks ago.

The great thing about yesterday's interaction with Jeremiah is he shared where the original quilt can be found.  My excitement immediately turned to worry of copyright infringement.  But as before there was no need to worry.  I'm not infringing on anyone's pattern.  Thank goodness.

So here she is in all her glory the original quilt called Summer Winds.  Summer Winds is the name of a quilt block pattern but not this one.  It was the quilt block they thought looked the closest to this one.   But I have the book they used as a reference and it is not the same block.  If you would like to see the entire article and quilt history, you can find it by clicking here.  

Shew!  we can finally get to the measurements for finishing your quilt. This is basic information.  Some math will be required on your part.  WARNING  Yardage calculations are done by the EQ8 program.  I rounded up the estimates to the nearest whole number.  The calculations are for the entire quilt top, blocks, borders, yellow binding.as shown in the image below.  If you want a white binding like my quilt add 1 more yard to the white.  Backing is separate and calculated using 42" wide fabric.  It is also calculated with overage for longarm quilting.  If you scroll down you will see the entire back of my quilt to give you an idea on how to piece your backing.  Mine is 2 colors because I ran out of yellow.

There are some uncommon cuts in the borders.  You can round these up or down to suit you.  I prefer exact measurements but it's your quilt do as you like.

White Fabric  7 yds.

A    (9) 12.5" squares

B    (3) 18 3/16" squares,  make two diagonal cuts from corner to corner on each(your cutting an X on           the square.

C    (2) 9 5/16" squares, cut from corner to corner ONE TIME

D    (2) 3.5" x 68 3/8"

E    (2) 3.5" x 74 3/8"

H    (2) 6.5" x 76 3/8"

I     (2) 6.5" x 89 3/8"

Yellow Fabric   3 yds.

F   (2) 1.5" x 74 3/8"

G   (2) 1.5" x 76 3/8"

 

Backing   8 1/2 yds.

Happy Stitching!