Heart Builders: My Farewell Quilts

Last week I had the pleasure of quilting 4 quilts for Heart Builders, a charity run by Cotton Cuts. As a longarmer for Heart Builders, I just have to receive the quilt tops pieced lovingly by other members, request materials, and get to work.

First, I received a lovely top pieced by Jan Snyder. I quilted it with swirls because well ... texture, speed, and beauty!

Also, I received 3 quilt tops from Jan Ochterbeck. The first top is a triangle design, and her points are just perfect! I quilted this with a combination design with swirls, feathers, and paisleys ... in larger scale, of course. This is supposed to be a cuddly quilt, after all!

For the next quilt, I used a paisley design. I'm not sure what this pattern is called, but some sort of delectable mountain?

For the final quilt, another triangle pattern, I actually tried a design I've never done before ... loops. After I used this design, I can see it's they're popular. It's so FAST!

And because I love quilt stacks, here's a picture of them all stacked up before I send them off!

After 2 years with Heart Builders, I've made the decision to leave. I learned a lot and truly enjoyed my experience there, but I've recently reduced my quilting time in order to pursue other passions of mine that I neglected while I ate and breathed quilting. I do plan to quilt every day still, but I also want to squeeze in other things, as well!

#100Days100Blocks2018: Trellis

The first quilt top I got from the #100Days100Blocks2018 challenge is complete. Trellis is the layout I used for this one because I love the graphic, high-contrast look of the frames with the colorful blocks.

This quilt required some advanced planning, as I knew I wanted a rainbow effect that washes diagonally, and the colorways in Pacific allowed me to do that. I drew a color chart in advance so I knew how many of each type to make. Once I finally finished the blocks, I laid them out on the design wall.

Once the layout was complete, it was time to make the sashing strips and to assemble everything. While I liked the rainbow look by itself, once the graphic sashing frames came on, it became so much more beautiful.

It took me a few days to assemble this, and once it was finished, I was so incredibly happy with how it looks!

I'm not sure when I'll get to quilting this, but just finishing this top is good enough for me, for now!

Aurora Borealis

The On Point Triangle quilt is from way back in Season 2 of the Midnight Quilt Show. Now, I'm not sure if I would have chosen this pattern if I just saw it in the wild, but after watching Angela make it, I was determined to make one myself. I'm just a sucker for presentation, and I can't think of a better presentation than seeing it made on the Midnight Quilt Show!

The pattern calls for a jelly roll, but I'm using fat quarters instead. After one of the most intense fabric auditions ever, I decided on the Wanderlust bundle curated by Jen Rossotti for Stash Fabrics. On a cursory glance, I recognize some Katarina Roccella, Alison Glass, Me + You, Leah Duncan, and Libs Elliott. The colors are so beautiful and the Aurora Borealis inspiration really comes through!

I haven't done tube piecing since Lakeside, and there's a good reason ... I think it's so hard. Piecing the individual blocks wasn't bad, but because of all the bias edges, assembly was a total nightmare. I can't stand the smell of spray starch so I don't use it, but without it, the edges literally stretch if I just look at it wrong. (It didn't help that there's also multiple substrates in here!) All in all, the piecing looked so easy on the Midnight Quilt Show ... but it sure wasn't.

The fabrics are easily the best part of this quilt, so my only job as a machine quilter is to not mess it up. I kept the quilting simple with some echoes and dot-to-dot so that the fabric really shines.

Of course, around the pretty focal fabrics, I like to quilt more heavily in the negative space. Make that a lot more heavily. I did a swirl chain and then, to try something new, I quilted a leafy chain. It was an experiment but I think it turned out alright.

Not every quilt that comes off the frame becomes my new favorite, but this one sure has. It turned out better than I had hoped for, especially given my shoddy piecing job. I adore the fabrics, the quilting, and I even love the binding. So all in all, I'm totally in love with it!

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Linking up with: Crazy Mom Quilts, My Quilt Infatuation, Busy Hands Quilts, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Cooking Up Quilts, Sew Can She, and Powered by Quilting.

#100Days100Blocks2018 Blocks 64 - 70

Finally, finally we're at this point. This is my last week of #100Days100Blocks2018, and it's been a long journey. I always knew I was going to make it here barring unforeseen circumstances, but I didn't realize it'd be so much dragging my feet. I blame myself really, I got the idea to do 2 quilts, doing 1 would have been less mentally exhausting. But now that I'm done with the blocks ... I look forward to assembling them!

#64:

After block #64, the rest of the blocks will only be completed with the black/white colorway. That's because the quilt layout I'm planning for the Pacific colorway is Trellis which only has 64 blocks.

#65 + #66:

#67 + #68:

#69 + #70:

At this point, I'm so excited to put these quilt tops together!

#100Days100Blocks2018 Blocks 57 - 63

It's week 9 of #100Days100Blocks2018, and I'm so close to the finish line that I can taste it. This is my last full week making blocks using the Pacific colorway, as I'm only making 64 blocks total for that quilt.

#57:

#58:

#59:

#60:

#61:

#62:

#63:

Shades of Blue

The first black and white (with some color) quilt I made was Crossroads, back when I had first started. I've been wanting to make another black/white/color quilt for some time now, but I was looking for the right pattern. That seemed to come up one day when I was looking at quilt photos from Cheri House's City Quilts.

So I purchased a copy and waited for it to arrive with excitement. When it did, I flipped through the book immediately to find the pattern, but couldn't find it. I checked the table of contents in confusion, and then I realized it ... this quilt, called City News, was not in the book as a pattern. I had bought a book for a pattern only for that pattern to not be in the book!

But I still wanted to make this quilt, so I couldn't let a thing like a missing pattern (but seriously, false advertisement, C & T?) stop me ... so I drafted the pattern myself.

I used a combination of black/white prints from a Kim Schaefer bundle, and Kona cotton in various shades of blue. I love the way the beautiful blues look with the black/white. The black and white fabrics create octagon shapes in repeat, and I'm really enjoying the visual effect! I played with secondary patterns by creating diamond shapes in the space between the octagons and filling it with a contrasting design to the swirly background.

I did some dot-to-dot designs in the black/white areas since that's my preferred design for prints. I usually draw the shape on a whiteboard, pick out some dots, connect them, and it almost always looks fine as long as it's symmetrical.

The original quilt by Cheri House was done in black / white / reds, which feels energetic. My version, however, feels tranquil due to all the blues. I love how changing up the color changes the feel completely!

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Linking up with: Crazy Mom Quilts, My Quilt Infatuation, Busy Hands Quilts, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Cooking Up Quilts, Sew Can She, Powered by Quilting, and The Devoted Quilter.

#100Days100Blocks2018 Blocks 50 - 56

It's week 8 of #100Days100Blocks2018, and even though I'm feeling a bit burnt out by this point, now is not the time to quit! This week features more triangles.

#50:

#51:

#52:

#53:

#54:

#55:

#56: