Friday Finish ~ Twinkler Jelly Roll Quilt

 The Twinkler is finally finished!  My goodness it seems like I've been working on this thing for months.  Well I guess that's because it has been months.  It was started on September 12 then I made the test block on the 13th.

I'm happy with the way the quilting turned out even though it wasn't exactly as I had planned.  The arched lines in the sashing were supposed to cross over as shown in red below.  But when you don't want to pick out stitches you leave the error and call it a happy mistake.

The scraps from the Jelly Roll were used to make a simple quilt label using the font stitches on my sewing machine.  I like to add my labels to the middle of the backing before it's quilted.  This makes it hard to remove without ruining the quilt. I had no problems when quilting.

Someday I hope to find a cheap embroidery machine just for making labels.  The sewing machine fonts are not the best, but they will do for now.  It's better than any marker I've found. Yes, even the archival pens.  

The quilt was bound with the scraps from the white-on-white backing.  I used 2" strips so the binding would be thinner.  It's about a quarter inch on both front and back.  What you might not be able to see in this photo is I loaded the backing wrong with the white print facing inside the quilt...LOL!  I didn't realize it until I was trimming the quilt AFTER quilting!  Oh well she's still beautiful.

If you would like to make this quilt, I put together a tutorial with some basic instructions.  Some quilting knowledge is necessary.  It can be found here.

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Yummy Brown Bow-Tie Quilt Blocks

It might be time to address some concerns if your quilting project starts to resemble food.

It's not just any food we're talking about, but the wickedly delightful kind – sweets! 

Brownies, sweet rolls, cakes, cookies and puddings.

As I arrange the blocks for these pictures, thoughts of salted caramels, gingerbread, and pumpkin pie dance through my mind.

The photo shoot was over so the temptation should subside.  As the brown blocks were placed into the finished bin, my mind wandered off to a whimsical world of fruitcakes, M&M-studded chocolate chip cookies, luscious strawberry pies, and fluffy pistachio pudding speckled with marshmallows.

Then I started thinking about why?  How has my brain connected quilting with yummy sweets? Well, it's clever marketing, that's how and why.  It's hard to resist these sweet must have fabrics when they are connected to sweet food names that we all love to eat.  I bet just saying the words Jelly Roll triggers our brains to want sweets, thus causing us to impulse buy them as if they were delicious treats we could eat. Think about that for a bit.

Jelly Roll

Layer Cake

Honey Bun

Today's plan... keep my hand out of the cookie jar while I hand sew the binding to the back of my JELLY ROLL Twinkler quilt.  Wish me luck, for some reason writing this post has made me hungry.

HAHA!

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Finished Or Not Friday

 Hi quilty friends!  Progress is being made on the Twinkler quilt.  The quilting is fairly light with very little ruler work and a lot of free motion.  The quilt police might frown upon skipping the stitch in the ditch technique, but if they think it looks better, they can issue me a citation and move along. 

I'll start quilting row four later this afternoon.   I've got a morning and early afternoon jam-packed with excitement.  More about that tomorrow.

The brown Bow-Tie blocks are also coming along but at a pretty slow pace.

Half of them finished and the other half are almost finished.

Just 300 more Bow-Ties left! Woohoo! I'm eager to see all 900 blocks assembled into a beautiful quilt.

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Twinkler Quilt Finishing Instructions ~ Jelly Roll Quilt

Quilting the Twinkler quilt is underway at last!

Today I'm going to share how I set my blocks and some basic quilt information to help you recreate the quilt.

The first thing you need is a Jelly Roll or (42) 2.5 x 42 strips of fabric.  You can get by with 40" strips or a tad smaller because there's a little scrap leftover from 42".  

I used a Lori Holt Flea Market Jelly Roll plus (2) fat quarters because there were only (40) strips in this roll.  The background fabric is solid white.  I did not do the math for how much I used or what will be needed.  I let EQ8 do the work.  EQ8 says the quilt will need 6.75 yards of background fabric.  If I wasn't working from a full bolt of fabric, I would buy at least an extra half yard for human and computer errors.  So that would be 7.25 yards of background fabric.

Each Jelly roll strip makes one block.  There are (42) blocks.  (6) blocks across and (7) down.

From each jelly roll strip you will need.

B (4) 2.5 x 2.5

C (8) 2.5 x 3.5

Background cutting for the blocks only 

A (546) 2.5 x 2.5

D (168) 3.5 x 3.5

E (168) 2.5 x 3.5

You should have a small piece of scrap left over from each strip.  This is enough for one sewing or cutting error per block.

The star points were made using the flippy corner method.  Place Fabric A and C, right sides together, sew from corner to corner, then cut 1/4" away from stitched line. I pressed to the dark.  Pay close attention to the direction of your diagonal seams, we only have enough scrap fabric for one error per block.

For my quilt the blocks were set without cornerstones.  If you prefer cornerstones, you will have enough fabric leftover from the jelly roll to add them to your quilt.   Below is the sashing and border cutting for my quilt.

Sashing a quilt with no cornerstones isn't hard.  Here's how I make sure the blocks line up perfectly.  Below is row 1 and the first (G)sashing sewn in place.  Now that they are sewn together, you'll need something for making a small mark. I prefer a blue water-soluble pen, but anything will work as long as it doesn't show through your background fabric.  We will be marking on the backside of the fabric.

 

Make a mark in the seam allowance at the sashing seams.  Do this at the sashing between each block.

Here I've pressed the long sashing towards the sashing and added row 2 below row 1.  You can't see the marks because they are on the back of the long horizontal sashing.

Now flip row 1 onto row 2.  Line up the pen marks with the sashing seams between each block on row 2.

Of course you want the edges of the fabric to line up before pinning in place.  Pin at each sashing and each mark.  And anywhere else you would like to pin.  I'm a pin-aholic so I added several more to the area with blocks.

Sew the rows together, press to the sashing and TADA perfectly lined up blocks and sashing!  See that's not so hard and it's much quicker than cutting and sewing cornerstones.

Continue adding each long sashing in the same manner then add your borders.

For the backing I chose to use (3) yards of 108 wide backing from my stash.  Since this quilt is only 86" wide, I trimmed off the excess on the sides.

Here she is on the frame and patiently waiting.  There's a lot to do around the house today but I hope to get at least one more row quilted and make a few more Bow-Tie blocks. 

 

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Bow-Tie Blocks, Sorting Fabric and Quilting

 I did it!  100 more Bow Tie Blocks.  They aren't all orange but there is no repeat fabrics.  Woohoo!

Just 400 blocks left to make and squeeze into this bin. Back in my 20s, I managed to wriggle my size 10 bum into a size 8 jean—no stretchy fabric needed. So, I'm fairly confident I can tackle this challenge.  HA!

Last weekend, I loaded the Twinkler quilt onto the frame, and that's when the saga began. Basting the top edge turned into an epic three-hour battle of fixing one machine problem and causing another.  Shredded threads, broken needles and parts falling off. But victory was mine. By the end, the thought of quilting was about as appealing as a root canal.

There was gray and brown fabrics to be sorted for the Bow-Tie Blocks.  The scrap bins for both colors are lacking enough prints.  The decision was made to pull fabrics from the larger fabric stash to keep to the rule of no repeat prints.  I also had to pull from other colors.  My grays are now gray, black and whatever else I could find.  But there are 100 more prints and that's all that matters.

A 5-inch square is enough for one block.  So, I cut the small squares, and the larger fabric was placed back into the larger fabric stash.

   It might be a mistake, only time will tell but I decided to use cream prints along with my browns.  I'll make a couple test blocks with the cream fabrics before cutting all of them.  If the test blocks are to pale against the white background fabric, I'll pull more fabric from other colors to replace them.

It's hard to believe, but after digging in my stash for hours and cutting little squares, I'm tired of petting and playing with fabric. Mark that on the calendar!  So, today I'll start quilting the Twinkler quilt and when my back needs a break, I'll plop my bum in a chair while I iron the fabrics in one of these bins.  

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A Week Of Quilting

 Hi Quilty Friends!  This past week I was busier than a bee in a honeysuckle patch. Flitting about from one quilting project to another.  So, let's do a quick recap of a weeks worth of quilting, starting with a quilt finish.  Mr. Podunk's hunting/camping quilt.  

Since there is nothing fancy or pretty about a flannel and jean quilt, I opted to use up some serger thread for the simple straight-line quilting.

Hunting deer is a fall and winter sport, so this quilt needs to be warm.  Wool batting would be ideal but I'm allergic to wool clothing and assume wool batting would also be an irritant.  So, I added two layers of polycotton batting and a flannel backing from Joann Fabrics.

 

  Finishing at 90x95, it's large enough to be double it up for warmth or he could wrap up in it like a burrito.  Even if it isn't warm he should sleep like a baby under it because it weighs almost 10 pounds.  I think that could be considered a weighted blanket.

  

In between wrestling with Big Ben and normal chores I managed to press the orange fabric scraps for the Bow-Tie quilt.  Some of the oranges are yellow, it's the best I could do without repeating prints.

Over the last few weeks I've been trying to treat my sewing room like the rest of the house.  Clean it as you go that way it's never messy.  For some reason this rule has never applied in here, and I'd get overwhelmed by the mess and clutter.  So, when my back needed a break from standing at the frame and quilting, I took this as an opportunity to work on decluttering my workspace.  These cute little tins beside the sewing table hold bonus HST's to be squared up and triangle cutoffs needing to be made into HST's.

The rule for working with these is I can only use what is in the tins.  The rule is keeps me focused and not going down a rabbit hole of searching for fabrics and possibly making another mess to be cleaned.

The planned worked!  The 30 minutes of playtime gave my back the much needed break and I have a few more HST's to add to the ever-growing HST stash.

The Twinkler quilt blocks were also used as a back rest project.  I sat on the floor to layout the blocks with sashing strips.

By the end of the week and by the time the quilt came off the frame I had made good progress on the quilt top.  I'll keep piecing the top a little at a time as my back needs a break.  The plan for the week is to start cutting the orange Bow-Tie blocks.  This will take a few hours, and my back can only handle about an hour of standing over the cutting table before needing a break.

The last thing little chore I worked into the mix was working on the stash cabinets.  I want to put all my fabrics in the clear plastic Brightroom bins from Target.  The plan is a little at a time.  This week I bought for more bins for the yellow fabrics on the shelf.

The bins were quickly stuffed full of yellow FQ's, half yards and one yard cuts.  Anything larger will go into a larger bin sometime in the future.  The plan is to eventually get rid of the current cabinets and replace them with shelves or cabinets with clear doors so I can see the pretty fabrics without fear of dust.  Been there, done that years ago when I had my stash on shelves unprotected. 

Well, it's time to get moving, there's fabric waiting to be petted and loved!

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