Dreamlines 2023 Quilt!

Here it is! My Dreamlines 2023 completed quilt.

I decided to echo the designs of the quilt blocks with my quilting. I thought about stitching flowers in the large yellow diamonds or doing some free motion interlocking rectangles in some of the larger rectangular blocks. This is such an angular quilt that flowers didn’t feel right and it’s already so busy I thought a busy quilting design would end up as a distraction.

The backing came out of my stash. It has so many of the colors of the quilt…and I got flowers included in this quilt after all! I used a scrap of the piecing as the label on this quilt and on another one too. All I had left was a small strip of the blue and yellow peaks!

Thanks to Brenda Gael Smith for this fun year long project!

Where's the Pirate's Treasure?

There is just one more month to go in Cheryl Arkison’s Quilters Adventure Playcation Treasure Map. This has been a free monthly program of prompts and tutorials on Cheryl’s YouTube channel. It’s really the project that I’ve had the most fun working on this year.

I chose the small format abstract improv option so that I can hang it up in my hallway. This month’s prompt was “X marks the spot” but my abstract Jolly Roger flag’s crossed bones is an in-your-face X. So I opted to make a small red arrow.

Each strip is now pieced, but I’m waiting for the final November prompt to decide on the layout of the strips.

Top to bottom:

Ocean, palm tree, volcano, hidden trap, compass (and a message in a bottle that I added), Jolly Roger, location of the buried treasure. In the bottom row I added the schooner, an illegible note, a “bead” curtain at the pirates hangout, the pirates!! and finally the marker for the hidden treasure.

What will November be? A trail of dropped coins? A trunk with the treasure? Time will tell. Cheryl did tell us it’s bit more complicated design…Can’t wait!

Dreamlines 2023 Quilt Top

Brenda Gael Smith is the host and creator of the free online #dreamlinesproject. Each month she has designed an improv linear strip block in two different sizes for folks who registered with her. I chose the larger format.

October’s strip is the last one for the 2023 project. Next month Brenda is going to offer ideas for putting the strips altogether. But I went ahead and created my own layout. I’ve made improv quilts which were a nightmare to sew together, but this wasn’t one of those! The pieces really went together rather well, with very few gaps.

Wherever possible, I used scraps from the pieced blocks to fill in gaps between the strips. There are only 3 filler strips that weren’t part of the original blocks. The quilt is a tad wonky…not entirely a true rectangle. I could probably block it into a true shape by steam pressing the quilt top, but I didn’t make as a show quilt, so I’ll probably leave it as is.

I’m going to shop my stash to see if I can find a back. But I’m not sure that will be successful since I don’t often by multiple yards of a fabric! And I need to decide how I want to quilt it. At the moment I don’t really have an ideas about how to do the quilting. I’m going to think on it for a while, and probably will go to Brenda’s website Serendipity Patchwork and her Instagram @brendagaelsmith to see how she’s done the quilting on other projects.

Hedgerow Quilt

The Hedgerow Quilt from the Makower UK “Hedgerow Panel” and coordinating print is done! I used three different quilting techniques to complete it.

There is big stitch hand quilting using #8 Perle cotton around the animals in the blocks, straight line walking foot stitching in the Returning Birds pieced blocks, and free motion quilting in the sashing and in the animal blocks.

I did free-motion echo stitching around the leaves in the blocks. It gives the block almost a trapunto effect even though there isn’t a 2nd layer of batting and the batting I used isn’t thick and lofty. I really like it. There is a similar effect with the hand quilting around the animals. I also stitched along the stems of the flowers in the animal blocks.

There is a lot you really can’t see on this quilt. It’s almost like the hidden berries and other wonderful plants in a real hedgerow!

On the sashing blocks, there is a running vine pattern. And each of the solid blue blocks has a free motion plant that is similar to the plants printed on the Hedgerow panel blocks.

You can see what I’ve done a bit better on the back of the quilt, but even there, some of it is essentially hidden! But I know it’s there, and that’s what counts!

The royal blue stitching on the deep orange backing fabric really jolts your eye when you flip the quilt over. It reminded me of the color study posts I did in the past. You can see some of the color studies I did by clicking on the Color Studies Tab above or just by clicking this link.

Big Stitch Quilting on the Hedgerow Quilt

While sandwiching the 3 layers of this quilt, I was looking at the blocks of the quilt and the designs in the blocks. I decided it would be fun to hand quilt around the animals in the panel blocks.

I picked a blue #8 Perle cotton thread and a sashiko needle to do the stitching and sat down to watch television while I quilted. But then this happened!

Quilting companion??

The dog eventually moved to the far end of the sofa and I was able to quilt both the squirrel and standing rabbit.

I really like the way that the blue stitches echo the woodblock look of the Hedgerow panel blocks.

But he got back in the action when I put the quilt on the floor to photograph the blocks!

In the end, the whole dog team got involved! I still have a lot of quilting to finish up, but so far, so good. And these two do amuse me!

Hedgerow Panel Quilt Top

In my last post, I showed you the Hedgerow Panel printed by Makower UK. Since then, I’ve cut up the panel, reorganizing the blocks. It was bothering me that the fox was looking at the rabbit. Now the fox is looking at the squirrel…I’m fairly certain there is no risk to our bushy tailed friend from the fox! And I moved the birds to the top of the quilt so it looks like they are flying in the sky. (Check back at my last post if you want to see the panel before I cut it up).

The tiny dark blue print is also from the “Hedgerow” fabric collection as is the the tiny running bunnies fabric.

The pieced block is called “Returning Birds”. It seemed like a good choice for this nature rich quilt.

The back will be a leaf fabric that has been in my stash. The fabrics were a misprint (the leaves should be in straight lines but they drift as they cross the width of the fabric) from Connecting Threads years. At the time I purchased a lot of yardage in multiple colors at a very low price. It has turned up in my quilts on and off. I’ve used 3 different colorways of the leaf fabric on this back, but they all coordinate with the quilt’s colors.

This quilt will be the size of a baby quilt…about 40 x 60 inches.

For my regular readers, I have company coming so there probably won’t be a post next Thursday.

Hedgerow Panel Quilt Design Process

Not having any idea what, if any, project I wanted to tackle next, I decided to clean up the stack of fabrics I’d pulled for potential quilts.

There, at the bottom of one of the piles, was this “Hedgerow Panel” printed by Makower UK. I purchased it last spring, after having resisted it for a while! I also have 2 other prints from this fabric line and a stack of coordinating solids and tiny prints.

Fall is the perfect time to be working on a quilt like this!

This is a panel which I am going to cut apart. The animal blocks measure 10 inches square. The long blocks are 10 x 21.5 inches which makes them a bit of a challenge.

I decided to use a pieced alternate block for the 10 inch squares. I printed up a couple of possibilities in my Electric Quilt 8 program. The design of one of them was clearly out of proportion with the animals. But I liked this “Returning Birds” block a lot.

The blue and yellow was good. But then I cut up the block I decided not to use and added 2 orange triangles. The second blocks is so much more interesting! And there is a bit of rust in one of the coordinating prints from the “Hedgerow” line so this is perfect!

I’m planning to make rows using the animals and the “Returning Birds” block. I still haven’t decided how to use the long bird and bunny blocks. I’m waiting to see the 10 inch blocks together before I decide what I should do next.

I've been so impressed with the fabric printed by Makower UK over the years. If a fabric pattern stops me in my tracks in the fabric store, it’s frequently a Makower. Makower fabrics are distributed in the United States by Andover Fabrics.

This “Hedgerow” line is now a previous season line. But there is currently still lots to be found with a Google search.

Update on Dreamlines 2023 Linear Pieced Quilt Project

It’s been a while since I last posted about my progress on Brenda Gael Smith’s #dreamlines2023 project. Brenda has been sending a new improv pieced strip pattern each month to the folks who signed up in January to do her Dreamlines Project.

There are just two more designs before we begin to assemble our strips into a quilt. Since the patterns are released on the first of the month, I expect I will sew up my quilt sometime during October. She offered two sizes of strips, and I chose the large version. It looks like it will work up to be a lap size quilt.

I pulled a selection of bold primary color solids in January but last month started to run out of sections that were long enough to complete the strips. So I’ve added some lighter colors and I think it’s turning out to be a happy accident (necessity)!

I have two strips sections of most of the patterns shown above, and the ones not shown are sometimes made with a different combination of colors.

This finished quilt is sure to be interesting!

Purple Pansys Lap Quilt

Here it is! The promised purple quilt. This pattern is “Cat’s Eye” from Just One Charm Pack Quilts and the charm pack “Pansys Posies” from Moda Fabrics.

This quilt design is was created using just half square triangle (HST) blocks. The number of designs you can create using HST blocks is just about endless. In fact, I was tempted to skip the pattern’s instructions and do something different. But when I starting thinking about doing something different, I had already made the exact number of blocks needed for the “Cat’s Eye” quilt, I decided just to stick to the pattern.

I quilted most of the quilt with a walking foot but included some of the decorative stitches built into my sewing machine on the swirly background fabric. I also sewed free motion flowers in the center of the quilt and the four outer corner triangles.

I used the large print pansy fabric to make the binding as this was a set of fabric in a kit from O’Sewpersonal Sewing Center in O’Fallon, Missouri. So, the second large print floral binding this month. Might be a tread!

The puppy turned one year old a week ago. He’s turning out to be an accomplished quilting dog! He does quality control on both the sandwiching of the quilt layers and the photography of the finished quilt. And he sleeps on the floor of the hall outside my sewing room. All very satisfactory! Mostly.

Still a bit over eager in his role as quality control inspector, the pup has yet to learn to lie on the floor next to the quilt with just a toe or a nose on it! But all in good time!

Picking My Neighbor's Flowers (and a few from my garden too)!

One of the things I love to do is snap photos of flowers I see when I’m walking my dogs. Six of these are flowers growing my yard. The rest live in and around my neighborhood. I love how colorful they are! I frequently use my flower pictures if I need a greeting card for someone.

Of course, none of these flowers were harmed, nor picked! Merely captured digitally! The dogs have learned to wait patiently while I a picture with my phone—it’s just a normal feature of their walks.

Purple Half Square Triangles!

I’m seeing purple! Which is odd, because I don’t really like purple! This new quilt will be comprised entirely of half square triangle (HST) blocks. You can see a sample of them in the photo above.

The HST blocks are all made and trimmed. That is as far as I’ve gotten as because I feel like August really is kick back and be lazy time! And I’m okay with that!!

Spring Violets Quilt

It’s happened again! I fell in love with a pattern I saw in print and only when I’d purchased it and really looked at the directions did I realize that it called for a lot of 1 inch finished squares. The first time this happened was years ago, and I really struggled to make what turned to to be a really small quilt. A bit more experienced this time, and because I really liked the pattern, I just got on with it!

I found the pattern, Flirty Floral by Louanna Mary Quilt Design, in the Connecting Threads catalog. The pattern didn’t call for scrappy fabrics but added the scrappy greens. I really like them.

This also has turned out to be the year of free motion quilted flowers in the alternate blocks in my quilts. This time I tried to echo one of the floral designs in the fabric in the center of each of the violets. Free motion flowers are actually one of my favorite quilting designs. I find them easy to do, and really like how they look on a quilt.

I also quilted a free motion design with hearts over the floral blocks. You can see it better on the back of the quilt in the photo below. I really liked the idea of that design I created for the block. It works well to quilt the block, but it didn’t turn out looking as good on the quilt as it did when I drew it on paper.

Free Motion Quilted Flower design

For the binding I used the medium sized floral fabric in the center of the blocks. I usually make solid color bindings or stripes, with the occasional tiny floral, polka dot or geometric. I think this is the first time I’ve ever used a mid-sized floral and I think that it works well. It also looks great with the variegated thread used with a decorative stitch on my outer border.

The back is straight out of my stash…a really bright pop on the back of a rather subdued quilt front!

More Blocks for the Treasure Map Quilt

I’ve taken off on a bit of an adventure of my own in the Quilters Playcation Adventure Sew Along hosted by Cheryl Arkison.

I’ve been worried for months that Cheryl might add a compass block. Makes sense to have a compass if you are hunting for buried treasure on an island. I’m thinking circles and tricky triangles placed around it. Doable? Yes, indeed. But I was dreading it. So, while Cheryl is taking August off from designing this monthly project, I decided to design a compass on my own. I chose a raw edge appliqué technique used by Carolyn Friedlander for her “Dino Patch” quilt that is in Cheryl Arkison’s book, You Inspire Me to Quilt.

I had used Caroline’s technique in 2015 to make patches of dog friends & family for one of my all-time favorite quilt projects! So I knew I could use it to design a compass block. And while I was doing that, I decided to also add a block with message-in-a-bottle…just in case a misadventure occurred while searching for the pirate’s treasure. At least maybe someone would find the bottle and get my side of the story about the treasure hunt!

Message in the bottle block

These two blocks were so much fun to make. And now have a third block in this online project that is my own creation. (The other one is the booby trap. The block design is my own but it is based on Cheryl’s prompt for that month).

Check out the hashtag #qpadventuresewalong2023 on Instagram if you want to see what other quilters have been doing!

Improv Jolly Roger strip quilt block

Since February, I’ve been working on the 2023 Quilters Playcation Adventure Sew Along—a Treasure map. I’ve designed both of the last two blocks. This month Cheryl Arkison’s prompt was a skull warning of danger. She demonstrated a skull for the large version she’s designing but hasn’t designed one yet for the small abstract version which is the quilt I’m making. So I took her ideas and ran with it.

I decided that rather than make just a skull, I’d make an improv Jolly Roger flag. My strips are narrow so I knew I’d need to place the crossed bones beside the skull rather than below it. Looking at images for inspiration, I kept seeing Jolly Rogers with the skull wearing a bandana. Not only does that add a pop of color, it adds some humor. Humor is definitely something I want to include in my Pirate Treasure Map.

Here is my little sketch planning out the structure of the block. In the end, I improvised on the sketch. But it was good to have a plan of construction.

Last month the prompt was a Booby Trap. Cheryl designed two traps that were based on Hollywood blockbusters and were full of knives. I decided to go with a low tech booby trap you could dig on a desert island with little or no tools. My block is a hole in the ground covered with greens. If an intruder fell in, it might break a leg. But more likely an animal would fall in and might provide a couple dinners! A win no make how you look at it!

Booby Trap block

Here are all the strips together. I’m need to make another one or two ocean blocks. They were the first blocks and the quilt strips have gotten longer as this project has progressed.

I’m thinking about designing a compass for my next strip. Cheryl is taking August off, so it’s good time to try a prompt of my own!

Quilted Doll Dinghy

Well, I’ve quilted quilts and doing piecing for clothing but this was my first ever boat! This fun pattern for a Quilted Doll Dinghy and Life Jacket is a pattern from Modern-Textiles.com. It’s intended for an 18 inch doll, but my smaller Waldorf type doll is just as happy sailing off his blue towel stream! (Though he’s bit too close to the waterfall for my comfort)!!

I’ve had this pattern for several years and picked out the fabric for this dinghy a year ago. I kept thinking that this was going to be a challenging project. Not so, as it turns out! The hardest thing, which isn’t hard at all but takes quite a bit of time, is doing the 1/4 inch walking foot quilting on a layer of fabric and batting—not a three layer sandwich—to create the fabric for the boat’s exterior. Once the fabric had been quilted, the boat goes together quickly.

The life jacket called for fiber-fill stuffing, but real life jackets these days have a slim profiles, so I simple sewed one layer of cotton quilt batting on one half of the long strip of fabric used to make the life jacket.

Must be a breezy day…can’t image why else he’s wearing his woolly cap!

Modern Textiles has a number of patterns of their webpage. Some of them, like this pattern, were created when Modern Textiles was brick and mortar quilt shop in Fargo, North Dakota. These days it’s only on-line and located in Alexandria, Minnesota.

Their other pattern I’ve long been tempted to make is Ruby the Bear Rug, made with faux fur. That pattern is now a digital download. I think about making him every time I look at Modern Textile’s online shop, but no plans to do that at the moment!

My Design Your Own Quilt Sampler Quilt Completed

This is the finished sampler quilt with all the sample blocks I made for our guild’s Design Your Own Quilt project. To read more about the blocks, click on my post from April 27, 2023.

The background fabric for this quilt is a low volume grey on white print which is reminiscent of a topographic map. I struggled with how to quilt this quilt for a long time. I finally settled on a free-motion stipple pattern. I almost never use stippling as an all-over quilting pattern. I think there is usually something that can be done that is more interesting.

I did think about quilting each of the blocks differently. But the designs and the scale of the patches in each block are so different, I thought that wasn’t a good choice. I ended up with the stipple because in a way it echoed the design in background fabric. I think it was the right choice.

And I love the striped binding. I think it really helps to connect all the blocks. Making all the blocks for this quilt was a really fun project.

My "Timeshare" 2023 Brown Bag Mystery Quilt

Every year Karen Montgomery creates a Brown Bag Mystery quilt for the shops that attend her Sewposium business retreat for quilt shop owners. The shops then choose fabrics and assemble bags with everything needed for the quilt top, with the option of also purchasing a border fabric to make the quilt a bit larger.

The shops all handle the bags a bit differently but basically they either show paint chips of the fabric colors in each bag, or may show one fabric in the bag with information about the coordinating fabrics. Basically both the fabrics and the pattern are a mystery, so this project is not for someone who needs to have total control!

This year Karen created a quilt that is lap size, with the option of buying two bags to make an 84 inch square quilt.

I opted for the lap size quilt and I did purchase the optional fabric for the border, but I ended up not using it as an outer border…more about that in a minute.

I knew that the fabric would have daisies or sunflowers—it actually has both. I was really happy with the fabrics that arrived, but as I started to do the cutting, I realized I was missing a fabric. I contacted the shop and they told me that I didn’t get the background fabric, which they promptly sent along, with apologies. That turned out to be a white on white fabric. Hmmm. It just didn’t do it for me. I just seemed too white. So off I went to my local quilt shop where I purchased the brown fabric, with tiny, scattered white dots, it use as my background fabric. (The white on white has been shifted to another project!)

This is actually a beautiful pattern, which can look quite dainty with some colorways. There is a central four patch with arrows arms inside a star, inside a circular motif. Unfortunately, because the two dark blue fabrics have essentially the same depth of color, the star in my quilt isn’t visible unless you squint or are looking at the quilt at a distance in real life. I’m disappointed that the star isn’t more prominent in my quilt, but looking at quilts getting posted in the closed Facebook group for the project, that seems to be the case with a number of quilts. In others, the star is a prominent feature!

I quilted the quilt on my trusty older domestic Bernina 440. I did straight line stitching using orange thread and then put yellow loopy daisies or a blue forget-me-not in the larger brown patches. There is a green decorative stitch in the border of the quilt. I think this the first time I’ve ever used four colors of thread in a quilt…5 if you count the cream thread I used for the binding!

So what happened to the border fabric I purchased? It was actually the fabric I saw when my bag was shown. It’s way bolder than what I’d typically pick but I fell in love with it. I had no idea at the time that it was the border fabric and not a fabric in the quilt. I think I expected it would get cut up.

When I finished the quilt top and laid the border fabric down next to it was a definite NO GO! I decided to skip the extra border and the large border print became my quilt backing. So it has been included in the quilt. Below is a photo of the fabric next to the top and a picture of the quilt’s back. I know some of you will love the border. I just found it a bit too intense.

And the binding? I actually made double the amount of binding I needed for the “Fairy Lane Quilt” which I recently completed. The turkey red and white stripes and brown and white stripes are perfect with this quilt. The aqua and white stripes are a bit of a stretch, but they do coordinate with the dark bluish green leaves in the fabric so I think it works.

I plan to make another “Timeshare” quilt with fabric from my stash to see if I can get a quilt with all three elements in the design clearly visible. I’ve pulled the fabrics but I think I’m going to upload them into the Electric Quilt 8 quilt program to make sure that what I think will work, actually does! Stay tuned for that quilt round about September!

My particular Brown Bag had some disappointing fabrics in it this year, but I still do like the completed quilt. And Karen Montgomery’s pattern is, once again, brilliant!

If you are interested, click this link to see my version of Karen’s 2022 Brown Bag Mystery Quilt, “To the Point”.

"Puss in the Corner" quilt

This is a quilt I made for a quilt guild project. The pattern is called “Puss in the Corner” but in my quilt, it’s Tula Pink’s Ladybugs in the corners! I love how bright and cheery this quilt is.

I quilted the blocks with straight stitches but then had a lot of fun doing a continuous free-motion floral pattern going from solid block to solid block. This double stitched flower is one of my favorite designs and I’ve used it on several quilts. I actually got the idea for the design from a pattern on the fabric backing one of my quilts! You never know where you’ll find inspiration for your projects!

Free-motion quilted flower design

"Nine Patch Challenge" Quilt

This “Nine Patch Challenge” quilt is another pattern from the book, Just One Charm Pack Quilts. You can read about the making of this quilt in my April 6, 2023 post.

I really enjoyed quilting this lap size quilt. I stitch just outside the ditch around the square patches but then put flowers and leaves in the alternate blocks. I started out thinking I would try to stitch the flowers in a continuous line from block to block, but after doing that once, I decided I liked them better as separate flowers. Can you spot the one place where I stitched from one block into the adjacent one?

I decided that the nine patch blocks needed to be anchored centrally. I initially thought I’d try to make a petal pattern but in my first attempt the petals were very subtle and I discovered I’d actually stitched out a loose, free-motion circle! I loved it. So I did that in all the blocks.

Free-motion free-form circle around the central patch in the nine patch block

The wavy line of stitching in the #4 stitch on my Bernina 440, set at stitch length 25. It’s one of my favorite stitches for borders.

I love the striped binding fabric chosen by O’Sewpersonal Sewing Center who kitted the fabrics for this pattern.

"Fairy Tale Lane" Quilt in Reproduction Fabrics

Here is my completed “Fairy Tale Lane” quilt, a pattern from Tula Pink’s book, Quilts from the House of Tula Pink. I used a stack of reproduction fabric fat quarters for the quilt so only the pattern is from Tula Pink.

I quilted this on my faithful Bernina 440. But because I was stitching free-motion houses which are quite large, it was a struggle. Each large block in the quilt includes a patch of fabric with dogs. I quilted a white picket fence on all dog blocks. Every dog deserved a fenced in yard if possible! I also quilted some trees, doghouses, flowers and one set of bushes. All the smaller motifs were very doable—even fun! Only the houses gave me trouble.

In hindsight, it would have been a lot easier to have rented a long-arm quilting machine to do that free-motion quilting. Then it would have been easy to stitch out those large houses. But I’m never sure how quickly I can finish a quilt, and I’d need to be done in a single day, so I’ve never done that.

While I was quilting, I was sure I wasn’t going to like the houses, but they are fairy houses, so I figured some quirkiness is allowable. Clearly the fairy builders didn’t own a level!! When I finally finished and looked at the quilt, it was much better than I’d thought.

Here are some close-ups of the quilting.

house

house

row houses

dog house

flowers

tree

house

picket fence

I’ll call this free-motion quilting “whimiscal!” But this quilt will definitely be a one-off! Though I do really like the “roads” in the quilt pattern!