Quilt catch up

This blog has been very quiet...a lack of a garden has given a lot less to write about. The drought is in full force and most everything in the yard is dead other than my fruit trees and grapes. On the sewing front I have been working on a lot of projects at once and only just started finishing some up, just in time for the Fair!

The Ruby, Pearl and Opal quilt come from the Moda Bake Shop and uses the Moda fabric Ruby. When I first saw this quilt I loved it. I put the top together over a few days between Christmas and New Years last year, it then took me until this summer to bind and quilt it. I love the colors!

The top

The back

Quilted and finished

A closer look

A look at the binding and back

Next is the Kite Flight quilt which uses Kona solids. This quilt kit came from the web site Craftsy which is a newer one I am really enjoying. This quilt was a challenge because I cut the pieces wrong. I ended up having to buy a second kit and cut that onto make up for the cutting. I now have the pieces to make a second one of the quilt when I become motivated. For the back of the quilt I wanted to go with a solid, Katie picked the color if you could not tell.

Here is the top

Here is the completed quilt

A close up

And a look at the back

Rag Quilt

For my next quilt project I wanted to use up some of what I have laying around my crafting area. I have made several baby quilts out of Moda's Lily and Will is the past and had a lot of 5" squares, I also have lots of scrap batting. Together these two items crate a rag quilt. I purchased three packs of Moda Bella Solids squares in Porcelain which is an off white color.

First I sewed the sandwich which is a white square, a 4" batting square and a print, an X is sewn across the square. Next I laid them out to find the best size arrangement and color organization.

Next the squares are sewn into rows, then the rows are sewn together. The key to a rag quilt is the frayed edges of all the squares, the seams are sew out and then snipped. This time I purchased a pair on snips which made this much easier. I have washed and dried it twice to get the fraying going and it will still need a few more cycles. Here is the finished quilt:

A little closer look:

And closer:

And here is the back:

Wrens & Friends Stacked Coins Baby Quilt

This is a quilt pattern that I have made a few times before. This time a baby was coming, gender unknown, my AmeriCorps team mate was having a baby and was six months along, this was the first quilt I thought of. When discussing colors with her she said she was decorating with greens and oranges and of course Snoopy. I saw the fabric set Wren & Friends by Moda and it fit perfect.

The back was a brown print and the binding orange.

The back also had a strip of coins across it.

Here is the wide view of each side.

Baby is due December 3rd and has not arrived yet but we cant wait to see him/her!

AV Fair Wrap-up

The AV Fair has come and gone, here is a wrap-up of what was entered.

Vegetables - It was a bad year all over the AV and this was clear by the entries. We did not submit nearly as much as we had planned and the total turn out was really low. Here is what we entered and how they placed: 

Japanese Eggplant 1st Place

Banana Squash 1st Place

Hubbard Squash 3rd Place

Tomatillo 3rd Place

Pumpkin 1st Place

Canning - We entered the most in canning

Carrots 3rd Place

Bread and Butter Pickles 2nd Place

Cucumber Pickles 1st Place

Blackberry Jam 1st Place

Strawberry Jam

Apple Preserves Honorable Mention

Apple Jelly 2nd Place

Jalapeno Jelly 1st Place

Lemon Jelly 3rd Place

Mint Jelly Honorable Mention

Blueberry Chutney 2nd Place

Golden Gossip Chutney 2nd Place

Dried Zucchini 3rd Place

Quilting - I entered two quilts and actually did well with one, I have never placed at all in quilting

Halloween Jelly Roll Race Quilt

All Framed Up Quilt 1st place and Best of Division

It took first for its category, machine pieced and machine quilted and best of division. All quilts are split into two divisions based on size so it took the top ribbon for all quilts 42" and under. I was pretty excited about this!

Katie's Jelly Roll Race Quilt

When I was making the previously posted Halloween Quilt I was also working on a quilt for Katie that was supposed to be a Christmas gift but was a little late. I used fabric from Moda's Meadow Friends by Deb Strain. The method was the same as the previous quilt.

I used white fabric to frame it and the pink firefly print for the binding.

The new technique I tried was in the quilting. All my previous quilts I used a stipple pattern. For this quilt I used pink thread and did a swirl pattern. It took more thread but I really like the results.

For the back of the quilt I used a combination of a print from the fabric line and a pink. 

If you use Google for your photos have you seen that they create gifs from your photos? I took several of Katie posing on her quilt and this was the result.

All Framed Up Quilt

This quilt is again from the Moda Bake shop and called All Framed Up. I finished a few months ago but did not get around to taking pictures of it. It is also the last quilt I made before my machine fried so it might be awhile until I get to finish any others.

The quilt name comes from a group of different sized squares that get framed and then those squares go together. Here are the cut pieces.

And here is the completed quilt. It was a baby quilt but I went with a different fabric line Moda's Circa 1930. It has a vintage feel and I really like the line.

And here is a glimpse of the back and the binding.

Easy Strawberry Fields Bricks Quilt

This quilt is the quilt that took forever.I first began this quilt in September of last year. and finished it just in time to enter it in the fair this year. The quilt is called Easy Strawberry Fields Brick Quilt and is again based on a project from the Moda Bakeshop. I was really excited about the Strawberry Fields fabric line coming out and bought the fabric for this quilt first. I have made several other projects with it since.  It began with 10 inch squares, a layer cake of the print fabric.

These are cut in half making a brick.

A white square is attached to each brick then the bricks are sewn into rows. The rows are then attached together. The op of this quilt did not take too much time to create. My issue became that I was intimidated by machine quilting a quilt this size. The top sat for awhile and I ended up quilting a larger one in the meantime. I then decided to sandwich the quilt and baste it. I then had two baby quilts to get made with the deadline of births. So this quilt waited a little longer. I finally began quilting it and broke my free motion foot for my sewing machine. It took a few months to get a replacement but finally I was back to sewing in June. At one point I looked at my stitches and realized the tension was off and had to pull the stitches out of about half the quilt and redo it. Eventually I did finish it last month and quickly put the binding on and dropped it off at the AV Fair. Of course I did not take a picture of the completed quilt but did get one of it hanging.

I really like this quilt, the colors are warm and the pattern is simple but pleasing.

Cartwheels Quilt

My latest quilt was completed using Moda's fabric Charlevoix and the pattern Cartwheels Quilt. The piecing was not too difficult but this is the largest quilt I have made on my own. Here it is ready to be pinned. 

The back of the quilt is a cream color and has a stacked coin band running across it.

The binding is is red, here is a look at the back, binding and front of the completed quilt.

I liked this quilt because it looks like it is moving from a distance but up close  it is an alternating pattern of rectangles.

The quilt also has a border at the top and bottom of little squares which completes the quilt. Overall I am very happy with how it turned out.