Hadley Quilt

I finished stitching down the binding on my Hadley quilt a couple of weeks ago.

 

If you've been following the progress of this quilt, you've probably seen the front already (in this post). I'm really happy with how the front turned out - basically, for each row, I stacked five fat quarters and sliced them into four fairly even strips, creating improv curves as I did so.  I then trimmed the resulting blocks into nice even squares.  This trimming process left me with quite a few offcuts, which I used on the other side.

For this side, I really wanted to push the retro vibe I was getting from the Hadley prints.  At first I thought I would just set the pieced strips in the cream background fabric, but they didn't look quite right so I ended up framing them with a teal shot cotton.  Technically, this side is the back but I think I like it just as much as the front (and maybe more...).

All that negative space meant that getting the quilting right was important.  This is a pretty big quilt (70" by 84") so I wasn't that keen to tackle it myself.  Instead, Sue Burnett quilted it for me using a digital pattern we found together.  I think the figure eight design is very characteristic of Denyse Schmidt's quilts and I thought it was right just with her fabrics.

For binding, I used the same teal shot cotton that I used to frame the strips on the back.  It's a Kaffe Fassett shot cotton and super soft.  I don't know if I would want to use it for ultra precise piecing, but it makes the most lovely, almost silky, binding, and is a delight to hand stitch through.

Finally, I thought I should include a photo of my quilt holder for these photos.  My youngest brother held this quilt up on his own (I made another quilt the exact same size recently, and my friend Lyndy and I could barely hold it up for photos working together - 84" is 7'!).  I think he is pointing at a speck of dust he wanted me to pick off the quilt.

Quilt Stats 

Pattern: my own improv-ish design

Finished Size: 70" by 84"  

Fabric: Hadley Fat Quarter bundle designed by Denyse Schmidt for Free Spirit Fabrics

Backing: I think it is Michael Miller Cotton Couture in Soft White

Binding: Kaffe Fassett Shot Cotton in Jade

Pieced by: me

Quilted by: Sue Burnett

I will be linking up at finish it up Friday at crazy mom quilts.

Bloggers' Quilt Festival - Equilateral Triangle Quilt

This is my entry for the bed quilt category of the Bloggers' Quilt Festival running for the next couple of weeks.  If you've come from there - welcome and thanks for visiting!  

I started making this quilt back in September last year, and I blogged about the design process back in October.  I had the quilt top finished by late October, but it waited several months for me to quilt it.

Eventually, I realised that it was at least partly the basting process that was daunting me, so I had the quilt basted by Sue Burnett, a local long-arm quilter.

Sue might have laughed at me (in the nicest possible way) when she realised that I intended to quilt this monster myself on my little 25 year old domestic sewing machine (you can read all about my little Bernina, and why I don't think you need a fancy expensive sewing machine to make lovely quilts, here if you're interested).

Once the basting was done by Sue, it only took me about a week to finish the quilting, using straight lines (very) approximately 1/2" apart.

Even though this is a pretty big quilt and will probably take its fair share of washing, I hand stitched down the binding.  I really enjoy that last hand stitching process, and the finish.  I gave this quilt to my brother for his birthday in April, and he immediately wrapped himself up in it like a very very large burrito.  I wish I had a photo but I was too slow with the camera!  I'm sure he is really enjoying it now the colder weather has arrived.

By the way, if you are interested in making your very own equilateral triangle quilt, I have a couple of tutorials that might be useful, on how to cut equilateral triangles and how to sew equilateral triangles.

Quilt Stats

Finished Size:  Approximately 87 inches by 84 inches.

Fabric: Assorted cream, grey and taupe solids, assorted cream, grey, mustard, blue, red, brown and taupe prints.

Backing: DS Quilts print from Spotlight.

Binding: Woodgrain print from Joel Dewberry's Aviary 2 line.

Pieced and quilted by: me, on my domestic sewing machine.  Basted by Sue Burnett on her long-arm machine, and basting threads removed by me and my mum (thanks mum!).

WIP Wednesday

This is what I'm working on this week (amongst other things) - hand stitching the binding on to my brother's equilateral triangle quilt.  Because this quilt is so large (about 84" by 87"), I had it basted for me by local long arm quilter Sue Burnett.  It was so nice not to have to spend hours on the floor pin basting this, and I loved not having to take pins out as I was quilting - I consider this totally money well spent.

The time spent wrestling this quilt through my little machine was worthwhile - I really love the texture that straight line quilting at 1/2" intervals has given this quilt.

Two more sides to go - I can't get wait to get this one finished!

What are you up to this week - and have you ever had a quilt basted by a long arm quilter?

Linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced:

WIP Wednesday

Over the weekend, I made progress on my wonky stars quilt top from last week's WIP Wednesday.

I also made a really excellent and high quality design wall, by taping a couple of spare strips of batting to the wall with painter's tape.  It did the job though, and I finished the quilt top - it has ended up at about 40" wide and 49" high.

I am really really happy with this quilt so far, and I have the backing and binding fabrics chosen already. My plan for this week is to baste this quilt, so I can at least get started with the quilting on the weekend.  Wish me luck, because I have work functions on both Thursday and Friday nights!

What are you working on this week?

Linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced:

A Lovely Year of Finishes - March Goal

I thought it was about time I set my March goal for A Lovely Year of Finishes.  My goals for January and February were both "gimmes" - things I was close to finishing and knew I would have done before the end of the month.

This one is a much bigger challenge.  Literally. 



Regular readers are probably sick of seeing this quilt top by now.  I finished it in October last year, but it is still hanging around (again, literally, it is hanging over the bannister at my parents' house) unquilted.  The size of the thing (84" by 87") has me daunted. 

I did come up with a cunning plan to try and talk my local long-arm quilter into teaching me how to quilt it, but to no avail.  I am determined to quilt it myself, so I have come up with another cunning plan - I will get it basted by my local long-arm quilter (no pins!), and then just go for it.

This quilt is for my youngest brother, and his birthday is in early April, so I am setting myself the goal of completing the quilting by the end of March.  I will give myself the first couple of days of April to finish the binding.

Phew, I'm glad March is a long month...

Ask a quilting man

I have mentioned before that my boyfriend quilts.

His first quilt

Although there are some seriously talented and famous male quilters out there (Kaffe Fassett probably being the most widely known), men who quilt are a bit of an anomaly.

Quilts in progress - both these tops are now complete

Thomas Knauer, sewist, quilter and fabric designer, has done a series over at Sew, Mama, Sew!, called Sew, Papa, Sew!: Thoughts on Fatherhood, Sewing, and Gender Expectations (subsequent posts here and here).

Experimental work in progress

I found Thomas' thoughts on being a male quilter really interesting, and I would love to know a bit more about other male quilters out there.  To start with, I thought I would interview my boyfriend about his quilting.  Then, I thought I would approach other male quilters to see if they are willing to be interviewed for my blog.

But, I need your help.  I have a few questions in mind, but I would love to know what you are interested in finding out.  Also, I have a few male blogging quilters in mind to approach, but if you have any suggestions, please let me know.

Equilateral triangle quilt - coming together

I had a big push on this quilt over the long weekend, and got all the rows of triangles sewn together.  I have sewn 10 of the 14 rows together in two lots of five.  I will sew the other four rows, and the final three sections, together over the course of this week.

These photos are of one section of five rows, without pressing the seams between rows.

My incredibly sophisticated row marking system

It's a bit hard to tell before pressing, but I think the points on this have come out quite well given the number of bias edges.  I will do a little post about the ruler I used to cut the triangles, because I think it really helped with accuracy.

This quilt top should be finished by the weekend.  My plan is to get my brother to help choose the backing fabric (and to help me get some photos of the finished top).

My first swap

This weekend, I signed up for my first swap - the Scrappy Swap being run by Flutter.Kat who blogs over at Diary of a Flutter.Kat.  Part of the appeal is that it is low pressure (we are swapping a fat quarter's worth of scraps, a small scrappy handmade item and and a small local item), and that it is being run out of Australia which means that at least some of the participants will be over on my side of the world.

Below is my inspiration mosaic - I love bright colours but often don't use them in my quilts.  I hope my partner likes brights as well so I can make a bright little something.  We are being allocated our partners soon so I am looking forward to doing a bit of stalking and coming up with a plan.

1. A Light in the Dark - mini, 2. Patchwork Prism Quilt - front, 3.www.flickr.com/photos/38984834@N06/7949985500/in/faves-on..., 4. New iPad case for me to #travelhandmade to @sewingsummit, 5. Butterfly Quilt, 6. 2012-06-28 Drunkards Path Wall hanging, 7.tallahasee blocks, 8. Quilted!, 9. I forged ahead

I have also joined the flickr group for the Value Added Quilt Along, and I have started working on my own value quilt - a faux gingham quilt inspired by this one.

I am strip piecing it, so it is coming together quite quickly.  However, I bought four metres of fabric and I am using it all (apparently I have some kind of sickness that means I have to make every quilt as large as possible), so it will still take a while.  But I am already planning the binding - some bright and crazy print to offset what would otherwise be a very minimalistic quilt.

Umm, and I might also make another value quilt, because I think this one is too simple.

Equilateral quilt - the design process

I have blogged before about the equilateral quilt I am making for my youngest brother here, and I wanted to share a bit of the design process that got me to the final mix of fabrics and layout.

First, my brother asked me if I would make him a quilt.  I'm not sure if he was totally serious, but I will leap at any excuse to make a quilt so I said yes.

Then, I had already bought an equilateral triangle ruler after seeing this post from Megan at Jaffa Quilts (another Kiwi quilt blogger, yay!), and thinking that an equilateral triangle quilt might not be as tricky as I had first thought.  So, I was looking for a reason to make an equilateral triangle quilt, and decided that this was a good opportunity.

Then, we talked about colours.  The colours in my brother's bedroom are grey, white, and touches of red, so we thought that those would be a good place to start.  Since he is 18, and won't be living at home in that room forever, I thought those colours would also work well in other settings and shouldn't date too much over time or become inappropriate as he gets older.

Next, I sat down at the computer with my brother, and showed him some pictures to gauge his enthusiasm for (1) an equilateral triangle quilt and (2) a quilt made with all solids.

The following three quilts are from Carson Converse's etsy shop, Carson Too.  Sadly, he doesn't seem to have any quilts for sale at the moment, but these were a good start to show what I meant by an all solid equilateral triangle quilt.

I couldn't hand on heart swear that we looked at this quilt, but I found it when I was searching google images for pictures for this post, and I think it is a stunning example of an equilateral triangle quilt made with a mix of solids and prints.  Not really the look I was going for for this quilt though.

Finally, I thought I would show my brother the famous triangle quilt made by Audrie at Blue is Bleu.  I know the triangles are not equilateral, but seriously, this quilt is stunning.  I wish I had the talent to put unexpected colours together like that.  My brother's comment - "I don't hate that".  Translation - that is pretty damn cool.

So anyway, I went home thinking that I would make a quilt using all solids, with crisp whites and greys, with a splash of red.  Audrie's quilt, with its mix of colours, was in the back of my mind though. 

After thinking about it for a couple of weeks, I eventually went to my stash and started pulling out all my white and grey solids.  When I put them together, it was looking a bit dull.  So I put back some of the darker greys, and pulled out a range of creams, taupes, tans, and light greys, and then found all the brown prints in my stash, and then a started grabbing a couple each of aquas, reds, and mustardy yellows.  Much better.  This is what I ended up with - 24 fabrics, in a mix of prints and solids.

The fact that I was able to pull so many fabrics from stash might give you an insight into the state of my stash (gulp!).  I did much prefer being able to make my selection at home rather than at a quilt shop or online (don't get the impression that I don't love shopping for fabric though).

I thought about consulting my brother about my fabric selection, but I decided not to.  I knew that if he didn't like it, I would be very happy keeping the quilt myself.  He seems to be happy with it though, and I put him to work laying out all of the cut triangles into a pleasing layout.  Although there is an eight year age gap between us, out of all our siblings (I have one sister and two brothers) we are probably the most similar in personality, and that came through when we were doing the layout - he was as keen to ensure even distribution of colours and value as I was.

I am still rather daunted at the thought of putting this quilt together, but can't wait to see it finished.

Has anyone else done a project like this, where someone else was involved in design decisions?  I am enjoying working a bit collaboratively, but it would be fair to say that I am seeking input and keeping control over ultimate design decisions.

Blue and cream checkerboard

Finally, an update to the man quilt post I put up a while ago.  This is the finished quilt in its entirety.

When I first started quilting, my Mum recommended that I read a few chapters of The Art of Classic Quiltmaking by Harriet Hargrave and Sharyn Craig.  When my boyfriend T said he wanted to make a quilt, I made him read the same few chapters.  His quilt is based on a pattern in the book, which I scaled up so that he could make a full sized quilt without too many tiny pieces.

All fabrics were sourced from local quilting shops.  The dark fabrics are japanese indigo quilting cottons.  The medium blues are random quilting cottons, and the cream is actually quite an interesting slightly textured fabric with light brown and blue stitches in it.

The backing fabric is rather lovely, and reflects T's love of chillies.  The quilt is bound in the same fabric.  The quilting was again done by Sue Burnett on her long-arm machine, in T's design.

My contribution (other than the teaching) is a matching pillow in the same fabrics and pattern, scaled down.

This was a good way to use up some of the scraps and "reject" blocks that didn't make it into the final quilt.

The quilt and pillow together.  Teaching someone totally new to quilting was quite an interesting experience.  T did very well on the cutting and sewing side of things, and put the quilt together well and very quickly.  The part he found most difficult was choosing the fabrics - I think it was a bit of an exercise in frustration for him.  He obviously enjoyed the experience overall though, because this is not the last quilt he has made.

Equilateral triangle quilt

I spent the weekend cutting triangles for this quilt for my youngest brother.  I laid out the triangles I had cut at my parents' place after our weekly family dinner to work out whether I had cut enough and hopefully make up a pile for each row so I could start putting the quilt together.

I worked out that I didn't have enough triangles (I cut approximately 270 and decided I will actually need about 360) and that more solids would be good.  So I didn't get to make piles to start stitching the rows, but it was progress nevertheless.

Apologies for the blurry photo - it is taken with an iphone under artificial light.  I am very happy with how the colours in this quilt are working, and looking forward to getting it underway.

Fabric aficionados will recognise many of the prints - a non-exhaustive list includes a couple from Lotta Jansdotter's "Echo" line, a couple of Joel Dewberry prints, from Modern Meadow and Aviary 2, some Martha Negley Feathers, a couple of the cross-hatch sketch prints from Timeless Treasures (in cream and red/orange), a couple of prints from Anna Maria Horner's latest collection, Field Study, a grey print from the Monsterz collection from Cloud 9, and a blue from the DS Quilts range I picked up a Spotlight.

A man quilt

You might think from the title of this post that this is a quilt made for a man.  That is true, but it is also a quilt made by a man.  More details to follow this weekend when I take some better photos.