Abacus :: A Finish

Another Sew Kind of Wonderful pattern finish. I completed the top for this one back in March 2013! Click here to read that post.

I still have four more quilts waiting for binding! But I am making progress. Now I'm starting to worry about where I'm going to put all these completed tops. Some may go to charity or be given as gifts.

Batik Urban Birthday :: A Finish

I'm still in the midst of my binding marathon! I'm very glad to be finished with the second and last of the batik quilts as hand sewing with batik fabric is not my favorite.

The top was completed back in May 2015. Click here for that blog post. I really like this pattern and have made two versions of it. This batik one and one using a French General layer cake. This pattern is a great one for a beginner to curved piecing so I'll be teaching it soon again, but this time at my shop.

Colorful Death Stars :: A Finish

My original name for this quilt was Circle Dance. I completed the top back in March of 2014. Click here to read that post. I made it as a class sample which I taught at my old LQS, before I opened my store.

When I pulled this one out to send it to the quilter my husband said, "I remember that one. It looks like colorful Death Stars." So that is now it's name. This one is currently hanging in our dining room.

Metro Rings :: A Finish

Another finish. The pattern is Metro Rings by Sew Kind of Wonderful. If you've ever wanted to make a double wedding ring quilt but haven't yet because it's a hard pattern, I highly recommend this pattern instead. The rings are strip pieced and then the rings are cut from the strip sets using the Quick Curve Ruler.

I completed the top in October 2015 but just recently got it quilted and finished. Click here to read the post where I shared the completed top. I've actually been getting a lot of things quilted lately. So stayed tuned ... the snow finally cleared enough in the backyard so I can get to the fence to take better quilt photos.

Pineapple Pillow :: A Finish

I got it finished and in the mail.

I had a cute green and white chevron fabric in my stash that I used for the back of the pillow. The binding is one of the greens from the pineapple tops - the only one I had enough of to use for binding. I put a piece of the chevron fabric on the back of the pieced top and quilted it from the back so I could use the printed chevrons as my quilting lines.

Happy Birthday Faith!

Pineapple Pillow Cover

I have a niece with a birthday coming up who loves pineapples. Over the weekend I pieced her a pillow cover.

Now to get it quilted up, finished and in the mail this week.

Mini Trees

'Tis the season for holiday sewing! I made up this fun runner earlier this week.

The pattern is a free pattern from Sew Kind of Wonderful. Click here to go to their free patterns page. You do need their Mini Quick Curve Ruler but the pattern itself is free. It was fun to make too! I really like their version in solids but opted to use print fabric for my version. Finished size is 20" by 45".

Mini Pumpkins :: A Finish

I finished my Mini Pumpkins quilt! This was so fun and quick to make. Although it did take me several hours to quilt it, about 5 hours.

The pebble quilting is time consuming but worth it! The pumpkins and stems are quilted in the ditch. If you want to see what it looked like before quilting, click here.

The finished size is 36" by 36". 

Pumpkins are In Season

The latest issue of Simply Moderne magazine contains the Mini Pumpkins pattern made using the mini quick curve ruler. I've been wanting to make this pattern for some time and decided that "someday" had arrived.

This went together pretty fast for me. It is only 36" square so that helped. Looking forward to getting this one quilted!

Mini Rings

I finished my Mini Rings top this week!

I've been working on it for a couple of weeks now in between customers, teaching classes and other stuff. It is a shop/class sample.

This is another really nice pattern by Sew Kind of Wonderful. It is essentially a mini version of their Metro Rings pattern and uses the Mini Quick Curve Ruler.

Metro Medallion :: A Finish

My second finish of the week!

This is my UFO completion for December. It took many hours to quilt but worth the time.

The finished quilt measures 51" by 63". I think it will hang in my dining room after Christmas.

UFO for This Month

I've been doing pretty good at finishing one completed top from my pile each month this year. I chose my Metro Medallion for this month. The link will take you to the finished top post. That was September 2013.

I only have the black areas quilted. I did not have a thread color I was happy with for the rest but I have ordered it and it has shipped. Hopefully it will be here in a few days and I can continue.

I've fallen into the pattern of giving you a store update each Monday. I forgot to take a photo of the whole space when I was there yesterday but I did take a picture of my first shipment from United Notions.

These boxes are filled with notions and pre-cuts for the notion wall and pre-cut wall. I promise to get pictures of the store space this week for you. A lot of progress is being made!

Modern Melon :: A Finish

I completed this top in August 2013. Click here for that post including a photo of the unquilted top. I'm happy to report that it is now a completed quilt.

For the quilting I did a back and forth pattern in the solid blue and then quilted flowers and loops on the print. You can see the quilting better on the back.

I used the block instructions for one of the blocks from my Curve It Up Quilt. The block is in the top left in the photo below. 

In the photo above, the center of the block starts out as a four-patch. For my quilt I used a single fabric. The finished quilt measures approximately 46" by 54".

It feels great to have an UFO completed!

Metro Rings :: A Completed Top

This will be the last time I subject you to this project until it comes time for quilting it. Like I said yesterday, it will be a while until I can quilt it since it will be going to Kathy's Fabric Trunk as a store/class sample for a while.

I absolutely love this quilt! The pattern is Metro Rings by Sew Kind of Wonderful. Look for it at your local shop or order online directly from Sew Kind of Wonderful. It is a Double Wedding Ring variation. If you have always loved the Double Wedding Ring pattern but never felt confident enough to make one, try this method.

The pattern requires the Quick Curve Ruler, which is available either from your local shop or Sew Kind of Wonderful. I'm not a big fan of specialty rulers in general, but this is one specialty ruler I'm really glad I own. I love most of the patterns Sew Kind of Wonderful puts out and have made quite a few of them.

I thought I would share with you this trick. If you have ever finished a top then set it aside for any length of time before quilting it, you may have noticed that the edge of your top may have frayed. Another issue is the seams along the edge may pull out if you don't backstitch as I don't. I noticed this with the very first quilt I made as a store sample. Store samples get handled a lot!

After that first unquilted store sample I started zig zagging around the edge of every completed top unless I planned to quilt it right away.

This helps tame any fraying that may occur and also helps to hold those outer seams in place for an extended period of time until I have the opportunity to quilt it. I've been doing this for a while with store samples and it has really helped them to hold up as unquilted tops. 

Maybe you don't make store samples, but I bet most of you don't quilt everything as soon as you finish it. If you are like me, you may move your unquilted tops many times before they finally get their turn to be quilted. Periodically I open them up to pick the next one I want to quilt and to refold them. Zig zagging around the outer edges of your tops will help protect the edges until they get quilted.

Another Metro Rings Update

I was going to wait to post about this again until I had the whole top together. But I'm so excited about how this is turning out that I had to take another photo for you. Besides, I didn't have anything else to show you today.

The top is almost finished. I had to clean off my design wall so I could get the whole thing up. At this stage the blocks are sewn into fours. I should have the top finished by the end of the day today. It will be a store sample at Kathy's Fabric Trunk so I will not be quilting it until it has done it's duty at her shop.

As you can see, I went with option #1 from my previous post about this quilt. The two grays I'm using are both Kona solids. The light is Ash and the darker is Medium Gray.

I also thought I would show you our autumn crop of potted cat.

Just one has come up thus far.

Metro Rings Triangle Tryouts

I am to the point with my Metro Rings quilt where I need to make a decision on the triangles. Yesterday I played around with four options:

Option 1

Option 2

Option 3

Option 4

I like all except option 2. The white triangles didn't do anything for me. Since I like all three of the others there really isn't a wrong choice. I just need to decide which one does the best job of setting off the rings. 

My decision is made and the triangles are cut. Stay tuned to see which one I chose. I hope to have the top together by the end of the week at the latest.

Metro Rings Progress

This is gonna take a while!

Everything is cut except the triangles because I still can't make a fabric decision on them yet. They are sewn on last before squaring up the blocks so I have some time.

It's time to put on a movie and sew some curves.

The fabric I am using is a jelly roll of For You by Zen Chic for Moda and Kona white.

Click here to read the first post about the making of this project.

Metro Rings

I've wanted to make this pattern since I first saw Jenny was playing with the idea of doing a double wedding ring with her Quick Curve Ruler. I plan to start on it this week.

My background will be white. I have not decided what fabrics I will use for the triangles, but I have several options. I plan to make a few rings and then try out my options before making a decision.

Spring Fling :: A Finish

I showed you the completed top on Friday of last week. Truth be told, I finished the top on Thursday of last week and got it basted. I quilted it Friday and did the binding, sleeve and label over the weekend.

I took an in-progress photo with it half quilted.

Here it is, all finished.

And a close up of the quilting.

The block pattern is Spring Fling, which is a free pattern using the Quick Curve Ruler. The link will take you to the block tutorial.

I used a jelly roll for my quilt. I made twelve 3-strip sets. From each of them I cut (1) 6.5" by 11" unit and then cut an additional one from (4) of the 3-strip sets for a total of (16) 6.5" by 11" pieces. These are what you cut your curved pieces from. From the rest of the strip sets, I cut as many 6" by 6" units as possible. This gives you quite a few leftover, but I wanted plenty to play with. You could use the extra on the back, or use them for another project (which is what I will do with mine).

I used Kona White for the background, sashing and borders. The sashing and borders were cut 2.5" wide by as long as necessary.

The finished quilt is 50.5" by 50.5" and is already hanging in my dining room.

Spring Fling

On Wednesday I remarked that my last three finishes have all been charity quilts and it was time for a "me" project. So I pulled out a jelly roll I have been saving and got to work.

To begin, I needed to sort them into groups of three. This is what is shown above. I sewed them into to three strip sets then started cutting and sewing again.

Slowly the pattern started to emerge.

When I was happy with the layout I assembled the blocks. Then added a bit of sashing and borders.

The block pattern is Spring Fling by Sew Kind of Wonderful. It is a free pattern and uses their Quick Curve Ruler. The block pattern was published over a year ago. I've wanted to make one since the first time I saw it, but just got around to it this week. I omitted the "flower centers" on mine. I tried putting them in but just like it better this way.

I have a stack of leftovers that didn't get used on the front. Originally I was going to do a pieced border, but this is already 50.5" by 50.5" in size. I want to hang this in my dining room and 53" is the widest I can hang. So this is the size it will be. I may put the leftovers on the back or I may save them for another project. A pillow would be nice way to use them. We'll see what they want to be.

Now to decide how to quilt this.