Southern Quilter » Quilt in Progress

Urban Blooms

Rachel — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 15:39:24 +0000

It’s been far too long since I sat behind my sewing machine and created., far too long since I’ve started a quilt, and far too long since I’ve finished a quilt.

Sewing and quilting is cathartic and peaceful. I love the creative process and the accomplishment.

And so we start a new year and 2012 promises to be filled with lots of quilts! Yipee!

2012 musts:

Make quilt for a bff who moved recently
Finish quilt for a cousin’s wedding (ahem…she got married a long time ago…gack!)
Make quilt for another cousin’s upcoming wedding present
Make baby quilt for a cousin’s first baby
Finish Ellie’s quilt
Make a quilt for myself

First up is called Urban Blooms (unless I come up with a more creative title ). I’m loosely using the Lemon Squares pattern by Fresh Lemons. More than a year ago I bought a quilt kit that was on sale. It didn’t have the pattern with it, but that was fine, because I bought the kit for the fabric anyway. I loved the colors and I loved how the colors were out of my normal repertoire/comfort zone. I’ve been waiting for the perfect occasion and perfect recipient, and I found it. This one’s for you B:

City Blooms by Benartex

Block “A”

Productive Quilting Day

Rachel — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 15:34:43 +0000

Yesterday was a very productive day for quilting. I pin basted the Lavender Fields quilt top, quilted it, and sewed the binding to the front of the quilt. Now I just need to hand sew the binding to the back.

Lavender Fields?

Rachel — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 02:01:58 +0000

I’m making a baby quilt for my cousin’s friend’s baby. The colors are purples, greens, and browns, and these are the fabrics I came up with.

I’m having a heck of a time coming up with a name for this quilt. Sometimes names can be so hard!!! So far I’ve come up with Lavender Fields. Do you have any other suggestions?

Hawg Wild

Rachel — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 13:10:44 +0000

I’m finally getting back into quilting. I had to take some time off to get a few time involved work projects finished up. On Tuesday, one of our kiddos’ beloved swim coaches told me her husband got a new job in another state, so they are moving. I am beyond devastated. She has had such a profoundly powerful and positive influence on our children, that she will be missed immensely. That said, I am very excited for her and her husband and life’s newest journey.

So I think this occasion calls for a quilt, stat! The swim team’s colors are red, black, and white, so how about a little red, black, and white quilt? I think that sounds perfect, and luckily I had mostly everything I need to get this quilt started and finished asap!

Aren’t these pretty?

Sandy Dunes

Rachel — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 04:25:36 +0000

I’m working on a quilt for one of my cousins who recently got married. Yes, another late wedding gift, and I also have another late wedding gift that I must start asap. Anyway, she lives near the beach and likes a softer color palate.

A few years ago I bought a bunch of charm packs of Swell by Urban Chicks for Moda when they were on clearance. I went through the packs and took out all the reds and pinks, which left soft blues, soft greens, soft yellows, and a little bit of brighter green..and they “spoke” to me and I got a real beachy feel. I generally like bolder brighter colors, but, as it turns out, this is a really pleasing color palette.

It’s pieced, bound, and quilted. Now on to the binding.

Summer Soiree

Rachel — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 19:25:08 +0000

A friend of ours in Oregon had her second baby girl this past week. A brand new baby is such a great excuse to stop everything I’m doing and make a baby quilt! I love the coin pattern, and it’s so simple to make (I used the stacked coins pattern from Moda Bake Shop). I’ve had some charm packs of Soiree, by Lila Tueller for Moda, that I’ve been saving to use for this very quilt, and finally someone had a girl!

I involved my kiddos too. As I sat at my sewing machine I had them pair up the 2.5 X 5 rectangles and then they gave them to me to sew. They loved it, and I love how proud they are when they see their work turns into something cool.

I got the top and back all pieced together and realized I didn’t have anymore white batting. So last weekend I hunted through town, and didn’t find any on sale, so when I came home I ordered batting (read: a lot of batting), and waited until the batting arrived. I was so excited when it was delivered on Wednesday that I got straight to work basting it.

Now onto quilting this beauty. I think I’ll call this quilt Summer Soiree only because I can’t come up with anything else. If you think of a cool name, let me know! Thanks!

Summer Lovin’

Rachel — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 05:21:34 +0000

Two years ago I was very much a newby at quilting. I had been quilting for all of 2 months, and we had a terrible ice storm. We were in the house for an eternity and my hubby who was out of town on business could not get home because of all the ice. So what’s a quilter to do? I ended up making 54 blocks. My seam allowance consistency was awful, but hey I was new and I was having fun. When I finished the blocks I had all the intentions of making a nice quilt with them, but away they were stashed in one of my drawers for the last 2 years.

I took the blocks out recently and studied them. I love the cheerful colors and the mix of of small and large squares framed. Each block was *supposed* to be a 12.5 inch square. Ha!!! I don’t think any of them (ok, maybe a few) actually turned out that size. So I decided to trim the blocks down to a 12 inch square. Now the one thing I absolutely loathe about quilting is squaring my blocks. These days I generally don’t have to since my seam allowances are quite consistent, but these blocks needed it or else the quilt would have been a disaster! Squaring the blocks actually took less time than I thought, and now I wish I had done this long ago and not waited 2 years!!!!

Fabric Trimmings

Anyway, the squaring is done, and I now have a nice new quilt top, which will be a later wedding gift. Hmmmm, late wedding gifts seem to be a recurring theme…. I will also be creating another wedding gift quilt, which is, you guessed it, late.

Variety of fabrics, but lots of Summer in the City by Urban Chicks for Moda

Ethan’s Quilt

Rachel — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 04:07:45 +0000

Today was Ethan’s turn to layout a layer quilt for his quilt. Boy did he have a blast! I helped him out in the beginning by talking to him about mixing up the squares so that not all the yellows are together etc. Once he got comfortable with the idea of randomness (he’s pretty linear and really wanted to make a pattern with it like, one green, one yellow, one red, one blue etc, but I told him that was a great idea, however, we didn’t have the same number of each color), he did awesome, and loved it!

Ethan’s layout.
(Fabric is Make Life Sweet by Sweetwater)

Helping to pin the fabric.
(the black on his right forearm is from last week’s swim meet with his heat info)

Helping to sew.

I will never hold back on buying layer cakes and just having them. It has been wonderful to just pull one out and have the kiddos design their quilt without having to wait for them to arrive in the mail. So here’s to not holding back on fabric buying!!!!

Ellie’s Blush Quilt

Rachel — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 17:22:13 +0000

My 5 year old princess has gotten really interested in quilting, and she said she wants to make a quilt. Wanting to nurture this interest I decided to pull out a layer cake (Blush by Basic Grey for Moda) I already have and let her arrange the squares any way she wanted. She’s helped me arrange blocks before, but she was so excited about this being her quilt. I did give her a few tips about not putting all the squares that are similar in color together. She wanted me to help her with the first few squares, and then she wanted me to go back to my sewing machine and work on something else while she finished arranging the squares.

Princess Ellie’s layout.

She loved every minute of it, and she did a great job!!!

She “helped” me sew the squares together into rows and then sew the rows together, and by “help” I mean she stood right in front of me as I sewed. One of these days I’m going to give her some fabric and let her practice sewing.

Binding Breezes

Rachel — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 00:59:14 +0000

I’m in the process of hand stitching the binding on the Cool Breezes quilt, and I can’t wait to get it done, because I keep adding more projects to my must do ASAP list! I think I’m adding way too many to my list, but it will be fun to see just how many I can get done. I’m definitely in the “I want to get lots of projects done” mode.