Quilting Plan ~ Scrap Buster Baskets ~ UFO

 For the last couple of weeks my Scrap Buster Basket quilt has been hanging on the design wall patiently waiting for me to decide on a quilting plan.

She's such a cute, happy little quilt and is eager to strut her stuff as a completed quilt.

Many hours have been spent on Google, Pinterest and Facebook quilting groups looking for the perfect new quilting design.  The time finally has arrived, she's off the wall and on the table, covered with plastic so I can test out the new quilting plan using a RED dry erase marker on the plastic.  Oh well, work with what you have.  I have a partial plan for the body of the quilt.  The free motion scallops idea came from a Natalia Bonner YouTube video.  

Keeping things quick and easy for me means doing as little ruler work as possible.  But there's almost always a little ruler work required in order to make the quilting pop.  The markings below are the plan for the basket but since I only have one dry erase marker that works and it's red, I pulled it off to the side so you could see the plan.

More free motion for the flower in the basket.  Of course there will be some ruler work around the basket.  The quilting for the alternate block of crossing flowers is still up in the air.  I played with several ideas but they don't seem to play well with the basket block. 

So I move onto the quilts final border.  Maybe when designing the border quilting I'll get inspired.  The border has it's issues, well I have issues with the border.  The first issue is the print.  I like the print but it's bold and I feel speaks for itself.  What quilting design can be seen when the print is so loud?  Feathers, piano key or arcs?  I'm drawing a blank.  I really don't know.  The second issue is no matter what design I choose for the border can I make it look symmetrical.  This is my design flaw.  I should have adjusted the borders to make them easily divisible... but here we are.  The work around is to use register tape cut to the length of the top and bottom, then another one for the sides. 

Fold the each in half three times.  Each fold line is the spacing for whatever symmetrical design I choose.  This works most of the time.  The difference in the size of the spacing is a little larger than I expected.  Can I come up with a border quilting design that isn't noticeably out of proportion?

As I cut and folded the tape I was thinking about something similar to the border you see below.  But now I'm not sure this will work.  Sigh....once again I'm walking away and giving my mind time to work it's magic...hopefully.  

There's other things that can be done as I mull over new ideas.  The backing is ready and waiting.  NOPE....once again I forgot to make and put a label on the back before adding my backing to the frame.  As you all know I like for my labels to be quilted onto the back so they can never be removed without taking out the quilting.  So the backing will need to be removed but not today.  

That's okay too.  My binding is cut and ready to be pieced and I pulled some scraps for the label.  

I'm going to give my brain until Friday night to come up with a plan.  If she can't come up with a plan by then I'm going to put the quilt top back in the UFO pile and pick another quilt top to finish.  There was progress made on this one and that's a good thing.  I'll have a backing with the label already attached and the binding will also be ready as well.  I really don't want to put her back in the pile so if you have any suggestions leave me a comment...PLEASE!

Until next time...

I hope you find time to stitch up something sweet!

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Throwback Thursday ~ Hillbilly Hookup Quilt

Hello Quilty Friends!  Come on in!  Grab a cup of whatever, pull up a chair and lets take a little stroll down memory lane.  When you've made as many quilts as I have over the years, you tend to forget about a few.  My Hillbilly Hookup is one of those quilts.

There's no pattern, it's my own design based off of a double wedding ring quilt.  The arcs were cut from panels I made by string piecing together strips of scrap fabric.  Instead of buying a double wedding ring template I used the EQ6 program to print out the arc template.  And instead of doing the traditional curved piecing of the Double Wedding Ring, this one is 100% appliqued on on large piece of background fabric.  You can read more about that process here.  The day I finished the quilt can be found here.

The big posy to cover where the arcs come together was a cute way to finish off the non traditional Double Wedding Ring quilt.  I absolutely adore this quilt and wish I had made it larger.  It finishes somewhere between 40 and 60 inches, I don't remember and right now she's taking a much needed soak in the washing machine.

So what made me remember the quilt?  Well, I've been doing the yearly washing of the displayed quilts I have around the house.  Believe it or not I sit right beside this one several times a week for hours on end but never even notice it being right beside me.  The little green cabinet below(made by me and Mr. Podunk) is beside my sewing machine(on the upper left of this picture).  Hillbilly Hookup is near the bottom of the stack in the cabinet.  Today I'll also be washing the small quilts you see at the top of the picture.  Those are sitting on top of one of my fabric storage cabinets.

The yearly cleaning of the quilts often leads me down an organizing and cleaning rabbit hole.  So don't be surprised if I bring you along for that mess.  Winter is a good time to get things done inside because it won't be long before we start planting the veggie garden and doing tons of yardwork.  YIPPEE!  I love yardwork and gardening. I truly do!

Until next time...

I hope you find time to stitch up something sweet!

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~ 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 .

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~ Welcome Fall ~

Yeah!  Today is officially the first day of Autumn.   Soon we'll be carving pumpkins and roasting marshmallows.  The fall preparations have already begun around Podunk.  Out with the summer decor and in with the new warmer colors of fall.   The first finished project of the season is this cute little welcome banner called "Welcome Fall".

This quilt was inspired by all the black gingham I've been seeing in fall decor at just about every store.  As you all know I'm a gingham lover but not a big fan of blacks and browns.  There's not to many of either color in my stash so I needed  a quick trip to the local quilt shop, Coffee Cup Quilting.  The tiny gingham was perfect.   All the applique is fused with Heat N Bond lite, and stitch in place with a small machine blanket stitch.

While looking for just the right fabrics(and finding little)  I happened to see a bolt of muslin. The creamy muslin was perfect.  The little specks of brown and black added a nice texture to the project. I love it when all the fabrics I need for a project can be purchased in one place.   The green leaves fabric was already in my stash but it too was from the same shop.     

Before making a quilt I usually draw it up in EQ, then play with the colors.  More often than not I make the quilt in a different color than originally planned.   Here's a couple of the color options.  The Black one!   I might need to make this one too!  Love it!  Do you every feel like you're in an episode of The Twilight Zone?  It's Bizarro land.....Lea Anne likes black! 

I had so much fun with this one.  The quilt inspired me to make the pillow you see in the chair and the wreath.  The wreath was made with wild grapevines on our property, wild flowers and a few Blanket flowers from my garden.  Mr. Podunk loved this so much he took a picture to send to his mom who is a Garden Club member.  This is a first!  He took picture of my work! 

The Welcome Fall pattern is available in my Etsy and Craftsy shops.  $3 for PDF and $5 for a mailed pattern.

~ Lea Anne ~

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~ National Sew a Jelly Roll Day ~

Hi Happy quilters!  Did you know this Saturday, September 15 is National Sew a Jelly Roll Day. 

  This event is sponsored by Moda and encourages us to open up those cute little rolls of fabric and create.   If you need some jelly roll quilt project inspiration you can find tons of it over at their website...Project Jelly Roll.

I have to admit I rarely buy the cute little bundles because I'm a yardage kinda gal.  But I did design a quilt just for using a jelly roll or 2.5 strips from your stash.  My Christmas Memories Truck quilt was designed last year during the 2017 #projectjellyroll. 

It has since become the best seller in my Etsy and Craftsy shops.  

Pdf downloadable and mailed patterns are available in my Etsy shop here.

And PDF downloads only are available on Craftsy here. 

I'm excited to announce it can also be found as a kit at Regals Fabrics and Gifts.

~ Lea Anne ~

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