Worktable Wednesday- A “Ghastlie” I do

I missed out on the Alexander Henry Ghastlies prints last year so I made sure to purchase them when they were rereleased this year! I even knew when I bought them that I wanted use them with the I Do pattern from Cherri House. I think the large piecing and simpe design of the quilt works beautifully with these fabrics.

The original pattern called for 12 prints and 12 solids but I felt that would look too busy. I’m not a super scrappy quilt type person. Ultimately I used 12 prints, nine from the Ghastlies and three that I had in my stash. I’ve cut way back on my fabric purchasing this year by focusing on buying fabric that I love. Rather than purchase twelve new prints because that’s what the pattern called for I bought the nine prints I loved. And I think the three prints from my stash work beautifully!

Since the color scheme of the Ghastlies prints is fairly limited and I prefer a limited palette I only used six solids- white, black, two shades of gray and two shades of pink. I wasn’t sold on the pink at first but I went with my gut and LOVE the results. I’m not normally a pink person but this is an exception.

My goal is to have this finished by Halloween but between work and school I think next Halloween is probably a more realistic goal!

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Worktable Wednesday: The Unoriginal Quilt

Catchy title right?

I have seen at least two quilts almost exactly like this one and while I wouldn’t change it I feel the need to own my lack of creativity. I will say that I mixed it up a tiny bit with the pieced tone on tone border but lose any credibility because even the actual quilting is the same as at least one other look alike quilt.

I intended to do a free motion floral design and even got it started but I hated the process and stopped after finishing less than one fifth of it. So I ripped it all out and went back to basics. After all I make things as much to enjoy them as to express my own artistic vision. So my quilt may lack originality but it will still keep me warm when I travel!

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Worktable Wednesday: Cleaning out the WIP pile!

In celebration of my recent birthday I’ve decided to clean out the WIP (work in progress) pile. I’m someone that prefers to finish a project before moving on to the next but for a variety of reasons these projects all got set aside.

Except for the quilt tops which needs to be quilted (those are completely out of hand) the pile isn’t really too bad.

Starting from the oldest I have this quilt top from Bee Modern 1 (I bowed out 2/3 of the way through but some of the other ladies went on to finish a second round) which still needs a back. I started piecing the middle strip but couldn’t decide how I wanted to piece the navy blue sections. I thought about piecing a variety of blues in a variety of widths and lengths (the same way I did the border on the front) but that just feels like too much. So this weekend I went a purchased yardage of basic navy blue and I’m going to use that.

Next up is the Amy Butler Weekender Bag. I started this before we moved! I originally got frustrated with the cording and then put it away “for the move.” My new goal is to have this finished and use it on my upcoming trip to Denver. I got quite a bit done on it this weekend but it certainly involved a lot of four letter words! Me and my sewing machine were made for quilting not luggage making.

Third is this quilt made from the Echino bird print. Since it’s small I thought it would be a good time to try my hand at free motion quilting on my regular machine. I made it through three flowers and while I was certainly getting better it was not an enjoyable experience for me and this quilt has sat for months waiting to have the quilting finished. This weekend I admitted that I will never finish free motion quilting it so I ripped out all of the quilting and plan to do random straight lines.

Finally I have

1)

2)

3)

4)

Quilt tops that I paired with quilt backs and now need to take some time on the longarm to complete.

Once all these projects get done the only outstanding work in progress I will have is the hand quilting on my Single Girl but I’m not planning on rushing my way through that.

I’m trying to make myself finish all this before I start anything new but it’s hard! TH got me a framed purse kit for my birthday and since it’s such a quick project I could definitely finish it before Denver. And those quilts…. considering my work travel schedule it will take me weeks to finish longarming them. Do I really want to wait? Of course if I don’t and I do start another quilt I’ll just have that many more to get through. Hmmm… Maybe I’ll try to stick to non quilt projects until I work through my pile. We shall see.

What’s on your worktable today?

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Worktable Wednesday: Modern Meadow Half Square Triangle Quilt

When I was staring at a stack of 210 squares that needed to be trimmed and squared I thought I would never finish! But once I brought it over to the couch and worked on it while hanging out with TH I was able to finally knock these out.

Please excuse the poor photo quality, I brought the trimmed squares with me on my work trip so I could lay them out sans cats. It also makes me feel like I’ve done something creative in the midst of the corporate grind.

I love how this is coming together. It will be big by the time it’s stiched together 72 inches by 96 inches to be exact! But it needs to be big since its destined to be our couch quilt. The one we’ve been using isn’t quite long enough but this one will be 🙂

My goal is to sew everything together next week (after my finance final is over). Then I need to add fabric to this quilt and pair the two together. I’m getting excited…

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Worktable Wednesday: Lush Quilt Top DONE!

After taking so long to find some of these Lush prints and then hoarding them for the “perfect project” having this quilt top done feels a little anticlimatic. I think it’s because there are so many other prints in here that it doesn’t feel like a “Lush” quilt. My intention was to add interest and color with the other prints but now I feel like the deer prints have been lost in the mix…

Don’t get me wrong, I love this quilt and I love all the colors in it. I just think the next time I won’t use anything but solids with the Lush prints and I’ll stick to the predominate color scheme of blues and greys so that the deer stand out. Oh well.

What are you working on this week?

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Worktable Wednesdays: Rubiks Cube Blocks

These blocks are time consuming! I spent most of last weekend cutting out the 153 squares and surrounding solid white fabric then spent most of this weekend assembling the cubes. Too bad I’m only half way finished with them! I think I need one of those cutting machines…

I was worried the quilt would be boring if I used all blues and greys so I tried to add interest with the red, yellow, and green. I really like how it is coming together! I have to finish 7 more of the cubes and then attach the surrounding white fabric to complete the blocks. Once that’s the done the entire top should go together in an hour or so.

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Worktable Wednesday- Modern Meadow Triangles

Here is the start of the reverse side of my modern meadow wheel quilt. I’m pretty excited to see it come together, not quite so excite about cutting 210 7 inch squares. This one may take me awhile….

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Worktable Wednesday: Back to Basics

After tackling curves on the Single Girl Quilt and Y Seams on the hexagon quilt I needed a simple project. You know stack, wack, and stitch- instant quilt top 😉

I pulled all of these fabrics from my stash and despite the fact that I’m no longer in love with any of them I think they look beautiful together! Originally I was going to pull out the pinks and greens from the fabric with the brown background but when I looked at my stash I had a lot more of the oranges and yellows. I think it looks better this way and I’m glad I went in this direction.

I’m going to use five of the blocks and hopefully the rest of my brown solid fabric from my stash to make the back. Once it’s is done I’ll donate it. I’m proud of myself for making two quilts back to back with fabric from my stash and prouder still that I’m making them to donate 🙂

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Worktable Wednesday: Y Seams

I didn’t have a plan for the size of this quilt. Instead I cut 90% of the fabric up and started playing around with the hexagons on the floor. Since I had dramatically different amounts of each fabric I stopped when I felt like I didn’t have enough variety to continue. Initially I was going to do something on the back of the quilt with the remaining hexagons but having pieced 5 rows together I have no desire to piece any more hexagons then necessary! The remaining hexagons will go into the scrap bin or be cut into squares for a pieced back.

Don’t get me wrong Y seams aren’t hard, the only real trick is stopping 1/4 inch from each edge when sewing them together. The problem is that doing so makes the process quite tediuos. Normally when piecing straight lines the rows go together quickly and the quilt picks up momentum but with Y seams and hexagons piecing the rows together is actually more time consuming then sewing the hexagons into a row.

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Worktable Wednesday: Hexagon Madness

This past week that stack of fabric became this stack of hexagons

I’ve been observing the hexagon trend for almost a year now and bought the plastic template about six months ago. The fabric is mostly Deer Valley by Joel Dewberry with some Del Hi thrown in to mix things up. Originally I purchased these to make a cross quilt from my husband but I could never settle on a design and he wasn’t in love with the colors so I threw that idea out entirely and decided to finally try out a hexagon quilt. Once it is done I’m going to donate it so someone else can enjoy the fabric and a handmade quilt and I can try out a new technique. I’d like to make more quilts for donation this year, hopefully six or more!

I also want to use more fabric from my stash. I don’t think my stash is to out of hand but I do have fabrics that were purchased months or years ago for a specific project and either I haven’t started the project or I started it and decided I didn’t like it so I stopped. Ideally I want all these “orphaned” fabrics to find their way into quilts before I make any more large fabric purchases.

I imagine this whole project is going to take me awhile since I’ve never tried Y seams before. The trick, apparently, is sew to 1/4 in from each edge so the seams lie flat. Since I’m not very good at eyeballing distances I’m actually marking half of my hexgons so I have a guide when I sew everything together. Let me tell you marking 1/4 in from each edge on a hexagon takes a long time!

What are you working on this week?

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