Mountain Majesties

I gave this quilt to my sister for Christmas, and can finally share it here on my blog.  After making this quilt (and this one), I can finally say I LOVE solids.  Not that I didn't like them before, but when shopping for fabric, I will generally always reach for prints over solids.  

But I think I might be changing my mind...Bold geometrics designs are everywhere right now, and solids sure do make a stronger statement than prints.

Several months ago, I took of screenshot of this instagram and I knew I had to make that rug into a quilt.  I love how it turned out...

 I used this gold stripe again.  It's still the perfect mustardy yellow. 

 Feathers on the backing.  

 I quilted in the ditch vertically and horizontally, with both white and black thread.  There was no way to keep the quilting thread completely hidden, but switching threads turned out to be pretty great.

Quilt stats:

Pattern:  Mountains Majesties, from Quiltville

Fabric:  front--Kona Black and Kona Snow.  back--Wonderland, Cheshire Feathers (Art Gallery).  Binding--Fantasia, Monokeros Stripe Ocre (Art Gallery)

Batting:  Warm and White

Pineapple Quilt

 This is another quilt I photographed in The Smoky Mountains. 

I love this quilt, one of my very favorites.  It plays with your eyes.  Almost feels like it's moving. 

Amanda-Jean posted a tutorial, a year or so ago, and I couldn't resist trying it.  I love the pineapple block and this tutorial doesn't use paper piecing!  These blocks are labor intensive, lots of sewing and lots of trimming.  I cannot remember how long each block took to make, but I could really only get one block done per sitting.

I used all scraps and stash, but went with a specific color palette, plums and teals and fuchsias and grass green and orange.  I used this image as my inspiration.

I had the hardest time deciding on a pattern for quilting.  I ended up quilting lines, so they intersected in the middle of the block, and went through every "pineapple".  I also stitched in the ditch around every block.  I'm still not certain I picked the right pattern, I feel like it might need more quilting.  On the plus side, it's a very soft quilt.

Bound in a pink stripe.  Can you see there are two pink stripes?  That was a make-do moment.  (As was the backing, I used larger pieces of orange, green, and fuchsia from my stash!)

Stats:

Pattern:  Pineapple block Tutorial by Amanda Jean (I made 20 blocks--4 x 5) 

Size:  61.5in x 77in (after washing)

Batting:  Warm and White

Fabric:  Stash and scraps.  Background is all low volume.  Binding is mostly Monokeros Stripe Candy by Sara Lawson.

Quilty Christmas

Happy New Year!  I cannot believe December is over!  I fully expected to post all my finishes from 2015 before the New Year...but I didn't.  The good news is, I have several finished quilts to share over the next few days (or weeks, as it usually is).  The first one being a Christmas Quilt.  I hope you will forgive me for bringing back Christmas in January.

I started this quilt a year ago with Lori Holt.  She hosted an Instagram quilt-along last December.  I had the funnest time putting this quilt together.  It's so different than what I usually sew, definitely cuter.  Most of the blocks are in her Quilty Fun book, but several were freebies she shared on Instagram.

 The original quilt was meant to be a wall hanging, but I made extra blocks so we could use it as a throw blanket.

 Quilted in an all-over cross-hatch pattern.

 The backing might be my favorite part...it's so soft!  We like to pretend those deer are actually reindeer.

Candy Cane Stripe binding is a must on a Christmas Quilt.

Stats

Pattern:  Quilty Fun by Lori Holt

Size:  49in x 60in (after washing)

Batting:  Warm and White

Fabric:  Stash and scraps.  Backing is Buck Forest by Bonnie Christine, Binding is Little Red by Tasha Noel

Cheerio!

I love this quilt.  For Thanksgiving we traveled to the Smoky Mountains and I don't often take photos of my quilts on location, but this time I did.  For those who've been there, this was along the Cades Cove loop. 

Every once in a while, a quilt block comes along that is fun to make and I whip through them.  This was one of them.  

I used this gold print from Art Gallery Fabrics, I think it's from April Rhodes, Arizona collection, for the binding.

I quilted it in this cross hatch pattern, which takes forever, but looks very cool when it's done.  My lines are about 1.5 inches apart.  I used the pattern of the snowball blocks as my guide, so I didn't have to mark anything.  (Yay!)

backing came from my stash.  Feathers and woodgrain.  

Details:  

Pattern:  Cheerio by Camille Roskelley

Size:  64in X 75 in (after washing)

batting:  warm and white cotton batting.

fabric:  mostly stash, those feather are from Martha Negley and are pretty old, but a favorite!  

coming

I've been busy finishing up quilts, but haven't taken pictures of them to share here on my blog.  I did make progress today, and collected them all in one place.  They make such a pretty stack.

Today is December 1st!  2015 has been the fasted year of my life.  I'm hoping to slow down a bit and enjoy this season.  It's my favorite time of the year.

Sundance Dresden Pillow

I have been quilting for almost 15 years, and I have never made a dresden plate block, until now.  It's shameful.  I don't know why I waited so long...well, I do know--I've always kind of been afraid of them, a little intimidated.  

But this pattern was NOT scary.  The technique for the dresden plate is a little different from normal piecing, so it was a fun change for me.  The pattern is for a pillow, but this would make a lovely mini quilt.

Pattern can be found here, at the Fat Quarter Shop, and there's even a video if you are a visual person.  I love that we can find a video for almost every task that we need.  I am definitely a visual person.

A couple tools I used to make this block easier:

dresden plate ruler, bigger perfect circles (this was awesome.), appli-glue (wonderful for getting your plate, and circle to stay put until you stitch them down.

If you are interested, Fat Quarter Shop has a kit for the pillow (from the video).

more farmers wife blocks

I'm slowly plugging along, working on my farmers wife blocks.  I go through spurts.  Sometimes I love making them and sometimes I really want to work on something else...So far I haven't used templates (as the book recommends), I've just been using math to figure out pieces, but I'm running out of blocks that I can figure out.  I'm going to have to go to templates or foundation piecing.

All my blocks together.

I haven't decided how big I want it to be.  Probably lap size.