Zig finished

Some time ago, I asked my sister to trade me a knit hat for a baby quilt that she could give away.  She decided that she would prefer to be selfish and would like a quilt for herself.  I did plan on making her a quilt soon, and she's had quite a stressful past 6 months so I went ahead and made her a large, but simple, quilt.  It should live at the foot of her queen size bed as an oversized bed runner.  She chose the color scheme before Tangerine Tango was chosen as the color of the year.  So now I get to say she's a trendsetter.  I really like how the quilting stands out on the back of the quilt even though the pictures don't really show it.  

Finished size: 70x88"
quilted by me with zig zags
Fabric was lots of different oranges from Dear Stella, Mingle, PowerPop, Remix, Oval Elements, Lizzy House, Heather Bailey, American Jane, Chrysalis, Patrick Lose, and Kona School Bus and Tangerine.  Backing was a Key West Handprint that my grandma gave my mom 40 years ago and seemed perfect for this quilt.

Nearly straight lines

Yay!  The zig zag quilting turned out pretty well.  And from this distance, you can't tell that the quilting isn't perfectly straight.   Although wrestling the king size quilt makes a twin seem simple, I'm glad that I didn't make this a queen to cover her whole bed.  It'll be interesting how it washes since the back is pre-washed and the front is not.  Now to figure out the best way to square it up and decide on a binding.  Perhaps I should ask my sister since it will be hers....

Not quite two years and two finishes

I debated whether I could or should actually quilt a king size quilt on my machine.  In the end, I decided that it wouldn't quite seem like I made a king sized quilt myself if I sent it out.  It also was before I understood about bias edges and the importance of making things a little bit bigger and trimming down to size before piecing HST together.  I couldn't quite justify the cost to send it out for quilting for this particular quilt.  And I was a little scared that a long arm quilter might laugh at my imperfect piecing and pressing.  

I think my Viking has about a 6.5 inch throat and with lots of careful manipulation and an acceptance of less than perfectly straight pinwheels, it is finally done.  The resident quilt holder decided that he would be unable to hold it up himself for pictures so I currently only have a picture of it on the bed.  It's resided there since the quilting was completed even though the binding was not.  But now it is all done and washed.  

Since the first block of the Pinwheel Sampler was posted on February 20, 2010,  I barely squeaked this in under the two year mark.  And despite all the imperfections and all, I learned an awful lot with this quilt and am so happy to have it done, that it is usable and that I did it all myself (minus basting help).

Finish #2 is another Charm Square Baby Quilt from Oh Fransson.  This is destined for my nephew who hopefully won't be born for another month or month and a half.  Tomorrow is 33 weeks and hopefully he can stay in for at least 3 more weeks.  I quilted circles on the white sashing and then took the round zig zags from the owl chest for the quilting design on the charm squares.  Most of this is Metro Living and Urban Zoologie, with Bliss Flannel from Valori Wells on the back.  

Next up is the Big Zig quilt for my sister.  I have two trial zig zags quilted on the white part and hope to finish the quilting this week.  By the time I finish that quilt, I can start working on my Jewel Squares bee quilt.  I love all the blocks that are in the flickr group.  It's a bit weird to think that they are all coming back my way.  Guess that I am still not used to the idea of being in a bee and I can't wait until next month to make Alisa's block.  And if I can finish my bee quilt without starting another project, I will have no works in progress.  We'll see.  It is such a relief not to have the pinwheel quilt staring at me from the big clear unfinished bin.

Sew.Bee.Create February

Two sample blocks made for my month in Sew.Bee.Create.  Due to operator error on my part, the third is nearly done but not yet.  Lesson learned, always calibrate before cutting.  I picked out a selection of fabric to see how much fabric I needed to send.  Initial selection before errors might have made close to three blocks.  Oops.  Goal for the week is to package it all up in to bags and get them to the post office before the price increase next Sunday.

My inspiration mosaic for my Sew.Bee.Create quilt.

1. meredith block 2, 2. ATB rd 2 - from AJ., 3. ATB rd 2 - from AJ., 4. Jeweled squares for Helen, 5. Sew Buzzy March 2011 Block, 6. My lovely Kaffe Fassett quilt top, 7. Jewelled Squares., 8. IMG_8684, 9. Jewel Box Squares so far..., 10. French Botanical Top, 11. www.flickr.com/photos/madebymeredith/5419390654/in/faves-..., 12. Central Part of Red City Duo QAL Quilt Top

And by golly, if it is going to snow all day, it should be sticking to the roads.

Zig Zags constructed

The quilt top is pieced together and waiting for me to prewash the backing.  My mom had 6 yards of a Key West seashell print in her stash from her mother and it is the perfect backing for my sister's quilt.  About 14 inches of white added to the left side and 28 inches to the right for a twin size quilt.  The sun was already gone by the time that happened.   She's planning on putting this across the foot of her bed.  I have to decide if I am going to quilt the white with orange thread or white thread.  Not sure if my straight line quilting is good  enough to pull off orange thread.

Control freak meets random and haphazard

Leah asked us to "just be random and haphazard" with the following quilts as inspiration.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kirbylou/5724605728/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/alissacrafts/3666718911/

I was drawn to the blocks with the mini blocks making up the larger blocks so that's what I attempted.  Improv blocks are not easy for this control freak.  It did get easier for the final two mini blocks but the first two took more time and I don't think I like them as much.   When laying out the four mini blocks, it was difficult to figure out what would be the best arrangement and I couldn't make it look right with putting the top blocks on a diagonal from each other.   I didn't notice the parallel construction of the oranges and blues until I was cropping the photo.  I really hope this is what she had in mind.  Improv piecing for someone else was not a very "liberating" experience for me.  Well, I did start to like it better toward the end but only until I started worrying about whether I fulfilled her request.    

Leah, I did do my best and will have no problem whatsoever if you choose not to include it.  Or, if you decide to unpick all four and add more strips around instead.  

Solid Stars

My LQS had a sale on Kona today and is having a solid mini-quilt challenge.  I jumped on the interlocking wonky stars bandwagon (thanks to Fresh Lemons and Oh Fransson)  and made them with some of the semi-coordinating solids that I had on hand.  Hmm, analogous, complementary color scheme?  Is there such a thing?  Red-orange, blue-green, blue and orange.  Not my first choice of colors, but I kind of like the brightness.

On previous versions, I didn't notice the secondary design with the white solid, but that is what I quilted around.  I'm undecided on the binding or if I really will enter it in the contest.  I have over a month to talk myself in or out of it.