City Fusion

City Fusion is a free quilt pattern, originally named Shutters, by Art Gallery Fabrics. AGF created this pattern to promote the City Loft Fusion fabric line, and as soon as I saw the pattern, I fell in love with it. After all, I've never met a striped black / white quilt I didn't love. In order to make sure the stripes are absolutely perfect, I actually used paper piecing to make the striped units.

I enjoyed piecing this quilt a lot because of the beautiful fabrics, but the real fun in this quilt is the quilting.

I split the entire quilt into triangle units, and treated the background as such. At times I quilted them separately, and at times I fused them together. I really loved designing this ahead of time, and I just had to execute it once I got onto the machine.

One concept I had from the beginning of quilting is to extend the striped units to some of the background, and I did some dense back / forth quilting to simulate the stripes. I really love the way that looks!

I kept the quilting a bit simpler in the foreground fabrics so that it doesn't overwhelm the fabric.

This has been another 5-star off my pile of quilt tops, and it's been such a joy to finally work through so many of my favorite quilt tops!

Star-Crossed

Is it too early to call it? I'll do it anyway: Star-Crossed is my favorite finish of the year! I know the year is not even half-done, but I just have a feeling about this one.

The pattern is Star Plus and the pattern designer is Quiet Play. But perhaps one of the reasons this quilt is so precious to me is because it is absolutely non-repeatable. I have no idea what fabric line I used for this, so there's just no way I can make another one just like it. I know, however, that I purchased this fabric bundle quite awhile ago, before I learned that I should buy multiples of what I love, so this is it ... and I have no idea what it is.

I call my blog Savor Every Stitch but let's face it, sometimes it's hard to do that. But not this quilt, I know I enjoyed every part of putting it together, from the piecing to the quilting. The star attraction of this quilt is the fabrics, so the quilting is really minimal in comparison. I mostly did geometric dot-to-dot design that is quick to execute.

Since the scrappy nature of this quilt is the reason it shines, the quilting is consistent in every block to tie it together. I couldn't resist however quilting a little dense swirly design in the Grunge white fabrics. I had to quilt the swirls blind as it's virtually impossible to see the quilting when I'm doing it.

So here's a happy coincidence ... I named this quilt Star-Crossed because I like the phrase "star-crossed lovers", and the original name is Star Plus. It wasn't until I was almost done quilting it that I realized Star-Crossed is a very fitting name because the blocks are a bunch of colored crosses. Wow, I can't believe I never saw that the whole time I was piecing!

Just like last year, I hope to turn out one quilt a month this year, and so far I'm still on track for the year. Although my summer and fall seasons are quite busy usually so we'll see. I'm quite excited about the lineup for the year though, but as I said in the beginning ... I do think this is my favorite for the year, the unicorn nature of the fabric makes it kind of hard to top, and to me, fabric is king.

Modern Fans

Modern Fans is a pattern by Suzy Quilts, who masterfully combines modern improv elements and more traditional piecing in her designs.

I was immediately attracted to the quilt due to its graphic quality. I've never been able to resist a black and white quilt, and though I am really stressed by the fabric picking process in general, at least for this quilt I just had to pick one fabric to go with the black / white. I ended up choosing this icy blue fabric I got from a trip to Hawaii.

I knew I wanted to fill the background with a wavy design, but I wanted to add just a few visual elements in the background to break it up. This is a rare time that I actually marked the points and connected them with rulers, because I wanted them to look perfectly symmetrical.

The fan blocks are quilted very simply with just some straight lines and a simple geometric design. It doesn't really show, but then again, it's not supposed to.

This is one of those quilts where I could have just done horizontal lines across the quilt and it would have looked great too. But I also saw it as an opportunity to practice the wavy design over a large background space, something I've always wanted to do and haven't tried yet.

I'm really happy with how this quilt turned out. I used to be terrified of doing the wavy design, but it seems after More Fishies and now Modern Fans, I've finally gotten comfortable with it!

Dawn Star

I was walking through QuiltCon a few years ago when I wandered into the booth of Jennifer Sampou. She had Dawn Star displayed in her booth, and I fell in love with that quilt. I bought the pattern and fabric right then and there.

But it took me a few years to actually make the quilt because I was scared. Despite it being a "kit", because of the ombre nature of the fabric, there's a level of improvisation in the piecing, something that has always scared me.

But what doesn't scare me is the quilting process, as I had the idea of how I was going to quilt it before I even finished piecing it. Dawn Star had some fully complete double stars but also quite a few "incomplete" blocks, which is what makes it fun and surprising. I quilted it as if every star is complete, creating the ghost block outlines where necessary.

The quilting is mostly straight lines, geometric designs that emphasize the stars, with just a few patches of spaces where I couldn't resist but add a few swirls.

By a stroke of good luck, I figured out an efficient quilt path early on, making this a quick and fun quilting experience. The piecing was very stressful because of my tendency to cast doubts on my fabric choices at every turn, but the quilting was so enjoyable and relaxing!

Lotus

I did a lot of longarm quilting last year but I was not in the mood for piecing for much of the year. Finally toward the end of the year I decided to piece Lotus, because I just loved the fabric too much and it demanded to be played with. Both the pattern (Lotus) and the fabric line (Bluish) is by Brigitte Heitland of Zen Chic, who is my all-time favorite fabric designer.

When I started designing the quilting for Lotus, all I could think of were feathers. I love the beautiful elegance of feathers but they don't work for every quilt, but I just knew it'd look great here.

But I wanted to quilt a few blocks differently, so I quilted swirls in a block here and there.

I kept to very simple straight lines in the darker colored fabrics. Bluish is so stunning that I really didn't want the quilting to overwhelm it.

I was so excited to get to quilt all these feathers, and so happy with the final finish. Next to straight lines, feathers are one of the my favorite designs to run my hands over.

Compared to how heavily I usually quilt my quilts, Lotus is pretty lightly quilted, which means it actually feels kind of squishy in my hands. I'm really in love with it!

Trellis

Continuing my trend last year of quilting the "pedestal" quilt tops, the ones I really love and want to finish, I decided to start the year with Trellis. Trellis was one of two quilt tops that came out of my #100Days100Blocks2018 challenge ... and wow, I just realized that means it's more than 6 years old. Sometimes I can't really feel time passing, until I suddenly realize children I haven't seen for awhile are all grown up, or a quilt top I felt like I only worked on not that long ago is actually 6 years old.

But never mind the nostalgia train. I was very happy when I pulled out Trellis out of the pile and realized it looked as beautiful as I remembered. (Sometimes a quilt top is a lot less pretty than I remembered!) The pattern is by Tula Pink, and the fabric by Elizabeth Hartman. Since it is a sampler block quilt, the only parts tying it together is the frames, so I quilted those all the same: with simple lines.

The background calls for some dense swirls so that they recede into the space. The focal point of this quilt is after all the lovely and different quilt blocks.

The fun part of this quilt is really figuring out what to quilt for each block. I didn't do much advanced planning, and just quilted it with whatever I felt like at the time. I picked a few basic staples that always look good on busier fabric, and they are geometric designs, straight lines, feathers, continuous curves, and a few linear designs that look good on longer strips.

I usually plan every detail of the quilting out before I start, so doing this sort of spontaneously is a nice change. Even though each block is different, using just a few consistent designs and using the same design on the frames ties things together nicely.

I'm so glad I started the year off with such a rainbow beauty! I have a lot of plans for 2025 (not quilting related) so I don't think I can finish as many this year, but we'll see how many I manage.

Moon Lanterns

I rate all my finished quilt tops from one to five, and Moon Lanterns is an absolute five-star. In fact, it's one of the very few fully-solid quilts to land a five, because I typically prefer prints and near-solids to full-solids. But from the moment I saw this pattern, it carved a special place in my heart.

Moon Lanterns is made entirely of two blocks. I got the pattern from Amy Gibson's The Quilt Block Cookbook. Amy Gibson is literally my first quilting teacher, as I learned how to piece from her via her classes on Craftsy. Unfortunately she doesn't seem to be active in the quilting community right now, but she had written some great books, and this is one of them.

Most of the foreground fabrics consist of some straight line designs. I really love designing these dot-to-dot patterns, as I just start drawing, start connecting dots, and then see where it goes. The destination is sometimes unpredictable, but I've always loved the end result.

I used only 2 fillers in this quilt: pebbles and swirls. I use swirls all the time, but I actually rarely use pebbles by itself, but it felt right for this quilt! To me, there's an Asian / Japanese feel to this quilt.

I probably should have used a printed backing since the front is all solids, but I also really like how much the quilting shows on a solid-backing like this.

***

I've finished 12 quilts this year, possibly the most I've done in a year in a long time. I really hope to continue the momentum next year. I've already got a lot of favorites lined up. No longer am I putting some quilts on a pedestal, if I love it and have an idea of what to do with it, I'm quilting it!

Nova

When I was planning my quilting lineup this year, I know I wanted to include at least one ultra-special quilt in this lineup. By ultra-special, I mean quilts that have been elevated to pedestal status in my queue, to the point that I'm afraid to finish it. Usually it means quilts that have special fabrics, or took forever to make, or had a great deal of handwork.

Nova, designed by Tula Pink, is all of the above. It is an English paper-piecing pattern using Alison Glass fabrics that I fussy cut, and it took me about forever to make. I actually wrote 2 posts about the making-of, here and here.

How in the world do I go about quilting a quilt like this? Well, as it turns out, this quilt is already so beautiful on its own due to the fabrics and the pattern that there's not much I have to do. I just have to enhance it a little bit, and that I can do.

I quilted the background with some big swirls, leaves, and pebbles.

I kept the quilting in the star pretty simple, with just some geometric dot-to-dot designs to enhance the piecing. The hardest part about this quilt is actually keeping all the quilting facing the correct direction, so that whether they're pointing inward or outward, they're all pointing in the exact right direction. I kept a design diagram with me at all times to refer to, as otherwise I'd get easily confused when my face is a few inches from the quilting.

Nova is so special so it also deserves a special backing, so I used some of my out of print Tula Pink Freefall backing. It hurt a little to use it, but I'm also glad it has found a worthy quilt top to pair itself with.

I'm so glad I finally finished Nova! It is such a gorgeous quilt and I know I'll keep it forever.

Metal Skulls

I've been working on the schedule of finishing one quilt on the longarm a month, and fingers-crossed, I think I might make it this year! Since it's October, I figured it's time to bring out and finish my Metal Skulls quilt.

The pattern I used is Sugar Skulls by Tula Pink, and I actually first made this quilt top with Tula's purple fabrics similar to the pattern quilt, but I loved the piecing so much that I decided to make it again, so this metallic version, using Luster by Zen Chic, is actually my second quilt top with this pattern.

I filled the background with dense swirls, with an outer layer of irregularly shaped geometric echoes.

For the skull blocks, I did some very basic quilting that just echoes the shape a bit on the inside, but I wanted to add some details to the skulls to give them personalities.

Just like the first skull quilt I made, Bone & Chain , I had their eyes roaming all over the place, with a few that are actually dead ... and one that's just pretending to be dead. I also quilted their noses a little different each time for some added fun factor.

I enjoyed making this little quilt so much! It was so fun both to piece and to quilt ... but the piecing was definitely the best part, and I don't say that very often.

Springtime Reflections

It's September and I still haven't made a single quilt top this year (I've been focusing on bags, bags, and more bags in my sewing room), but on the bright side, I've been able to whittle down the massive pile of quilt tops I have in my quilting room by actually finishing them!

The pattern I used is Mountain Reflections by Sweet Jane's Quilting & Design, but I named my quilt Springtime Reflections because the fabrics, Flow by Zen Chic, just look so spring to me.

For the quilting I was going for something that would be simple but still striking, and so I chose to juxtapose the use of white space with dense lines. I tried that for a quilt called City Tiles awhile ago, and really loved the effect, so I wanted to try it again.

I chose a very simple geometric design for the colored fabrics, just something simple and easy to execute.

Although there's a border on the original quilt design, I opted to leave it out.

I'm really happy with how this quilt turned out, as the background has a very mesmerizing look. And since next month is October, I'm definitely planning to quilt a Halloween quilt next.