Summer Kaleidoscope Quilt

My daughter wanted a summer-weight quilt for her bed and I'd been playing around with some REALLY bright/busy/colorful jellyroll strips so we had a meeting of the minds and her bed now has a new quilt.

The jelly roll is called Kaleidoscope from Free Spirit and I had a charm pack of plain white so I figured I'd combine the two and see what I could create.  This is one of the few times I've had a vision in my head but no actual pattern to follow.  I was winging it and making it up as I went.

I started by laying out the strips and just worked in order as they came off the roll.  I sliced the charm pack in half creating 2 1/2" rectangles.  Then I used angled piecing to create a triangle within each strip and mirrored it for the next strip.

I kept stitching strips and rectangles/triangles, placing the white diamond shapes freely across the surface.  I'd splice strips or leave full width as I went without a real plan.  Once I'd gone through the stack with one of each color, I asked Jess how she'd prefer it to continue and she opted to have me do the entire set in reverse/mirror to the end.  Still randomly inserting the triangles/diamonds.

Gypsy was testing the top for comfort

Once I had the strips done, I felt it was too narrow for a bed quilt.  Just about 43" wide.  I decided to order a yard of the white and add some borders as well as a side panel.  I used a few more of the charm squares and almost ever last scrap of the prints to create a free-form sort of extension down one side.

As a final finish I added a narrow white border around the entire thing.  Jess chose a cheery yellow mottled backing and a swirly quilting design.  I had just received some new fun variegated colors of King Tut quilting thread and we found a great match to use for the top and a So Fine! yellow that matched the backing to use in the bobbin.  I love Superior Threads!
So onto the frame it went and I think I managed a record of getting it loaded, quilted, and bound in just 3 days!

Fender testing during binding work

Silly!

 

Quilted by me on my Janome 1600P machine on a New Joy Gold frame.  All cotton fabrics, Warm & Natural batting, & Superior Threads.

Quick, Little, and HIGHLY useful!

We are a three cat household.  Generally they are all well-behaved and lovely fur-babies.  However, Fender (our youngest cat) has a naughty streak and one of her most naughty habits is to chew wires.  Her favorite are thin wires like those of earbuds.
This has led to a number of destroyed pairs of earbuds in our family which has left more than one person upset with said cat at any given time.
Enter this quick little project that is HIGHLY useful to deter naughty Fender.

I'd seen it here originally and decided to give it a go.  Erin's Tutorial for this project is easy to follow - well written and I found I can whip one up in under an hour.  I do use a walking foot to sew through the multi-layers and that prevents any puckering problems for me.
I've made two so far - one for Steve and one for Jess.

Happy Sewing!

A Pinwheel Project

In a spurt of post holiday shopping I purchased two sizes of a really slick little template tool.  It's called a "twister" and allows you to transform standard squares into pinwheels fairly easily.
You can read/purchase here: I bought mine from Canton Village Quilt Works, but they are relocating currently and are sold out at the moment.
This is the progression on a project I'm making for my Mom.  I will update with fully finished once I get the quilting and binding done.

5" squares cut from my stash

Squares just sewn together

3" border added to squares

Twister Tool lined up on seams

First row cut and re-sewn

Row 2 added - starting to see the pinwheels

Swiss cheese left after all blocks cut from original piece

Pinwheels!

New border added to finish it off

At the moment this piece is loaded onto the quilting frame as I fight with my stitch length regulator and audition quilting designs.  Update will come...

UPDATE:  Finished photos - quilting is done with my Janome 1600P, King Tut Variegated thread in blues and the pattern is called "Billowy".  Binding is hand finished and of course - my quilt label.

Happy Sewing!

A new year - one month old!

Another new year has begun and I've been doing some sewing... though never as much as I'd like for various real life reasons - like taking care of my family!
They are worth the sewing sacrifice though of course. *wink*

Anyway - here are some random projects I've been working on in the past weeks.

Knitting needle roll/case w/ pocket

Another Knitting needle roll/case 

Series of black, white & red placemats - all photos are before quilting & binding

framed mini-quilt "night sky" paper pieced block

Another Knitting needle roll/case w/ pocket

scrappy Bargello placemats for my kitchen

Dishmat for our eldest daughter's new home/kitchen

Nothing tremendously exciting, but all very useful and fun generally speaking.  I really like small projects at times as it gives a tremendous sense of accomplishment to start, sew & finish in relatively small space of time.