Thursday, January 22, 2015

Fall Trees!


I was lucky enough to take my first piecing class with Lee Monroe at Sew Original back in November. Since I have been mostly self taught, I thought it would be great to pick up some extra mad skills from a master. I really liked the look of her Blue Ridge quilt pattern. Simple, modern. I thought it would be fun in fall colors.

Lee is amazing! You can find her at maychappell.com. She has lots of great patterns and offers a super helpful sewing tip every Tuesday. I learned a lot from her.


Check it out! Do you see all of these perfect points? I bought a Bloc Loc flying geese ruler which made squaring up all these geese a breeze. And Lee showed us a great technique for making sure they all line up. There might be one or two that are off very slightly, but the rest are dead on. And when I measured the quilt, I wasn't even off by 1/4"!!!! Amazing! Of course now I realize that my hanging rod is not actually level. Oh well, you win some, you lose some.

The quilting design was a bit of a challenge. I didn't really want to quilt it. I loved the simple look. I definitely didn't want to stitch in the ditch, especially since most of the seams are pressed open.


My first thought was swirls. I was thinking swirling winds across the whole quilt. But when I put a piece of muslin at the top of the quilt and stitched a sample pattern, I wasn't too sure. It just didn't look right. As a friend said, it was too messy a design for a simple pattern. I ended up turning the quilt this way so I could put my channel locks to good use and stitch straight lines across the whole quilt. I was going to stitch them all a 1/2" apart, but I liked the random look better. 


Dog approves:) This quilt looks great on my dining room wall. Just the thing to add some color to winter. 

Thanks so much Lee! Can't wait to take another class:)

Lorraine's Devil's Claw



Lorraine made this quilt using Betsy Chutchian's Devil's Claw pattern.


Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Lorraine's quilt


Lorraine's Blue Bonnets from the book, Prairie Song, by Linda Hohag.




Sunday, January 4, 2015

Cushion Covers Batch #1


Anyone remember the ocean baby quilts I made for my cousin's twins? Well my aunt loved them and asked me to make some cushion covers for her. She found a whole bunch of beautiful batiks and sent them to me. I managed to get a few done for Christmas.


They are all quilted with an envelope closure thank goodness! I can handle a few zippers here and there, but they aren't my favorite:)


And with the exception of the surf shack ones, they all have one sea creature fused on.