Quarter Hour Quilting

Because of the inspiration from visiting the International Quilt Festival and a desire to try to preserve what sanity I still have, I thought I'd try to break a quilting project down into 15 minute increments. So I thought I'd detail my steps in hopes that it can help others. Too often people say quilting is too time consuming -- but if done in small steps, I think it can be accomplished without spending hours at a time. We'll see how this little experiment works!

Of course, I didn't decide until after I cut the fabric and just now thought of the journaling aspect, so I dont' have pictures of the early steps -- but here's what I've accomplished so far.

The pattern is called Top Hat Tessellations by Rebecca Boline. It's one of four twin size quilt patterns I received when I bought a fabric bundle at the quilt festival. There were 5 1-yard fabrics in the bundle.

Day 1: Cut the fabric into the initial strips called for in the pattern.
Day 2: I sewed the  larger strips together.
Day 3: I ironed the strips in preparation for cross-cutting.
Day 4: I cross cut the strips.
Day 5: I pinned the first set of strips to the left side of  one set of the cross cut pieces.
Day 6: I pinned the second set of strips to the left side of one set of the cross cut pieces.

Not a very exciting picture -- but this is what they look like now. I've got 72 of these to sew over the next few days to create two different blocks.

International Quilt Festival

Last month, I had the chance to go to the International Quilt Festival with my step-mom. We had a great time and there were an incredible number of beautiful quilts there.

Here are some of my favorites.

Mike's Quilt

It's scary that already almost a year has passed since I've posted anything. Since then, I finally completed Mike's quilt.

Bless his patient heart. I stopped and started on this so many times. But it's done.

It was machine pieced and hand quilted. Given my thumb issues, it's probably one of the last large quilts I'll do by hand, but wanted to do so with his.

This is called a box-in-box pattern. It was designed on EQ6. I was able to scan in the fabrics and Mike and I were able to play iwth the design to get this effect. I'm glad he liked the optical illusions. I do too.

The colors go with our family room.

Mark's quilt

Here are pictures of Mark's quilt. I made it for him for Christmas. He loves gambling and I found a collection of fat quarters depicting various aspects including poker and slots. It seemed the only way to pull such a variety of fabrics together was with the use of a tone-on-tone black border. This quilt was also stipled.

He loved it!

Remembering Jay

I'm still catching up.

It's been 2 months since my step-dad passed away. After a long, courageous battle with cancer, he died at home, under the quilt I made him. I put it together in just a few weeks after he cancer returned. While a simple pattern, it has a variety of fabrics that represented his favorite things such as University of Kentucky, Nascar, Jack Daniels and his beloved chihuahua Peanut. I wanted him to remember that I was with him, even when I wasn't and hoped the quilt would be a replacement.

I'm glad he enjoyed the quilt for as long as he did and now my mom has it as part of her many memories of him.

Catching up

While I'm pretty slow to make quilts, it seems I'm even slower to post pictures!

Because of some homework, I just realized how dated my blog was.

This a quilt I made for myself. While the piecing was pretty simple, it was by design. In order to use the bold pansy fabric, I needed to find a large pattern. It was machine quilted with a stipling design. The quilt has pink flannel on the back and is very comfy when curling up on the couch.

Belated post on Christmas presents

I just realized I added these to my Facebook page -- but didn't update the blog!

Here's how I spent my spare time in November and December.

The checkered quilt was made for my mom -- and includes fabrics from a wall hanging I made her last year where each Grandmother's Fan square represented a grand child. I chose fabrics that showed their interests (Tyler's had golf, tennis, music -- while Rebecca's included school, soccer and dance). I need to post a picture of that one too! But anyway -- in addition to the grand child fabrics, I included those from my step-father's quilt and Mary Cate (the latest niece). It has a flannel back to keep her warm on the couch!

The second quilt was made for my dad and my step-mom. It's a friendship star pattern. The inspiration fabric was a Cincinnati Reds piece I was able to find on e-bay because it's out of print. I didn't have much to work with -- but I think it works. My dad loves baseball and the Reds and hopes to spend part of his Florida winter trip at spring training. The quilt back (and self binding) is a baseball fabric. They are using the quilt in Florida now...

These were my first and second attempts at machine quilting. It's quite a change from hand quilting -- but there are so many wonderful options. Everything else I've done has been stitch-in-a ditch hand quilting.
I'm now working on a quilt for my hubby!