Thursday, August 6, 2020

Season of Gifts

At first, I just wanted to take a little break from blogging. Just a few weeks. But then, once I got off the schedule, it became easier and easier to just let it keep slipping. And before I knew it ... a few months slipped by. I've been spending less time quilting in the past few months and more time on other endeavors, but I managed to finish a few gift quilts finally.

The first one is a quilt and pillow set for my daughter. She is going through a massive unicorn phase, so I knew she'd love this panel set by Sarah Watts from her Crescent collection. It was a rather large quilt so it took awhile, but I did a simple allover paisley design.

Next up is another large panel I quilted for my mother. When she requested a quilt, she wanted two things: black / white and no piecing. I found a gorgeous Aztec inspired panel on Honest Fabric which was then printed on demand, and I quilted this with straight lines. I won't lie ... this was a really hard quilt because without piecing and seam lines to follow, it is really hard to keep the lines straight across the quilt. Overall I still think it looks nice and I sure hope my mom likes it!

After that is another challenging quilt, but challenging for a completely different reason. My mother-in-law had given me a very old quilt that her mother had pieced years ago, and it was by far one of the most challenging tops I'd ever wrestled with. The whole thing was wavy, puckery, and the fabrics were stretched badly in areas. I almost gave up on it and wanted to send it to someone else to finish it, but in the end powered through. I used a loopy design that was at least very quick to do, though I could not avoid quilting a lot of tucks into it. I probably should have sent it to someone else who had a better idea of how to handle tops like these, but I knew it'd mean more if I finished it myself. At the end of the day, I can only hope she's happy with it.

Finally, piggybacked onto the vintage quilt, I finished a table runner for my sister-in-law as a housewarming present. Never mind that she moved into that house several years ago! She picked the fabric and the pattern, and I really enjoyed making this modern and beautiful table runner. The pattern is called Calamity Crosses by Jenifer Dick. I quilted this with straight lines only in an improv kind of way, and I really like how it turned out.

With these gift quilts off my plate and off my mind, I will now have to decide which of my own quilt tops to quilt next. It's not an easy decision because I have ... 93 of them. (There, I said it!)

8 comments:

  1. Oh, 93! That's very brave of you to fess up.
    It's a bit like, "Hi, my name is Liz and I have a quilt problem". But dont despair, we are all the same to some degree, but you may well win the nu brrs game!

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  2. All of the quilts finished up beautifully, and I can definitely relate to and understand how difficult the vintage quilt top was to quilt. Have you considered numbering your quilt tops and using a random number generator? I hope whatever you work on next, it brings you joy.

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  3. Wow! Thanks for sharing. You did exceptionally well on all of them.

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  4. Beautiful quilts! Can’t pick one I like better than the others! I know how you feel with that stack of quilts. I’ve been trying to quilt/bind some of mine and have to say, I feel more accomplished after each one. Even the ones I didn’t like that much—finishing them improves them...and your attitude!

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  5. I enjoyed this post, seeing what you have been working on. The quilt and pillow for your daughter is very cool. The black/white for your mom looks great! The table runner is a very neat design. I think it's great you worked on the vintage quilt; now you have that knowledge under your belt, and you'll be better prepared when/if another vintage comes your way. And 93 quilts is nothing to be ashamed of. Have fun with them!

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  6. Awesome quilts and quilting, as always, Liz! I would've done the vintage top the same way you did. Looks great! You have been productive, with 93 quilt tops. I have total confidence in you, because you are an amazing longarm quilter!

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  7. You've found some really great panels and quilted them beautifully! The vintage piece looks like a real challenge. I find it difficult to work with other people's tops, but don't mind putting together their blocks into my own tops. Best of luck on your 93 UFOs. It's not the larger number that's daunting, it's the thought of slowing down on making even more new tops in order to finish the older ones...

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  8. Great finishes all of them! I loved the unicorn panel and almost bought it for my daughter (but it would not fit on her bed and I did not have a good idea on how to make it larger). I think that the vintage quilt quilting looks really good. Especially once it is washed and crinkled, any imperfections will be less noticeable. The housewarming runner is awesome too, I love that deep burgundy!

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