Quilt for Baby H

My old roommate had her baby! A healthy happy baby boy from the pictures! And, I've just about finished the top. I was going for an abstract beach day, to go with the estuary theme of the nursery.

Quilt up on my living room wall! Small picture is postcard size if you're determining scale. 

I think it went a little too abstract, so I'm going to piece the back in rows with a bunch of cute prints. That way she can use whichever side she wants! My favorite part is the sun, where the curves all meet up. I think the part I don't like so much is the ocean - I should have gone a little darker with my 'foam' color. It's too close to one of the sky colors. 

Close up of piecing. 

I made simple quarter circles and cut every block down to 6", then pieced the top together. The curved piecing was a lot simpler and faster than I thought it would be, I just used a pin at the center and one at the start and worked my way around.

Blocks laid out - colors are off!

I had fun playing around with the blocks before I settled on the layout. I liked the feeling of this image, even though the colors are way off. Maybe I'll make a half square circle quilt...that's the curvy equivalent of a half square triangle, right? 

Finished Night Music

Finished Quilt!

Well, I got home from that vacation and just went to town quilting. I am really attempting to minimize my works in progress, so I REALLY wanted to finish this quilt before starting on another...which I already have planned, and am motivated by the imminent due date of my old roommate's baby boy (as long as I get it to her while the baby is under 1 year it still counts, right?). Needless to say, the motivation was there, and I just had to figure out how to quilt it. I decided on a square spiral originating in the center of the quilt. Due to my aversion for marking lines it gets a little squiggly from time to time, and the crispness of the angles is off, but I think it works as a whole. I even used my walking foot guide, so these are the most even lines I've quilted so far!

Quilt Back

I backed the quilt in two prints I picked up that I felt really went well with the color scheme and feeling of the quilt. The one on the left is Anna Maria Horner and the one on the right is Tula Pink (not solid blue!). I forgot to add a label while I was binding, so I appliqued one on after it was all done. It's in the lower left corner, and is my typical stamped label (no close up - whoops).

The whole shebang. 

I designed the layout myself, and made it a row quilt. The center is made up of 12 blocks, then on each side there are two rows of 6 log cabin blocks, and the ends are flying geese. My process involved cutting all the strips for the cabins and adding in some red, yellow, and lighter blue strips in each size. As I went along I used the kona jade and black as my base colors and added in other pops randomly. I didn't get to see what it would look like until I put it up on my design wall. Regarding my design wall, I only have one when I've finally bought some batting and am about to piece a quilt top, so they are temporary fixtures in the apartment. I don't usually lay out blocks on the floor, so it's all guesswork until I get to the end. I added in some of my leftover fabrics as spacing between the rows and as a border around the quilt. I also bound the quilt in some of the scraps. I like how the quilt maintains the feeling of colorful chaos, but there are still places where your eye can rest. 

Quilt and end of summer flowers (not mine, I went to a park on the waterfront).

Now the quilt is resting on the couch under a cat, and I'm all set to start my next project!  

Round Trip Quilts Center Block

I had a GREAT time in Honduras. I was in the Bay Islands on Roatan and Utila. So pretty, and some of the best snorkeling in the world from right off the beach! You just walk out a few yards and swim among the fish in the reef! It was a little frustrating because a lot of tourists don't respect the reef (I saw people standing on it while I was on the beach), but overall an awesome experience, and a very affordable vacation.

Well, once I got back I had a huge case of the lazies. Usually I'm busy doing several different projects for work and sewing, but for the past two weeks it was all I could do to prep for one class that I'm teaching this fall. I did have time for sewing (and I finished my Night Music in the Desert quilt - hopefully I'll post later this week!), but I just didn't feel like blogging. Now that my schedule's filling up again blogging has returned as my favorite means of procrastinating.

Right now I'm just finishing up my Round Trip Quilts center. I've got the block all done, I just need to work on filling out the notebook that will take the trip with the quilt.

Here's the block: Feathered Edge Star (with borders). 

My mom bought me 'A Flock of Feathered Stars' by Carolyn Cullinan McCormick, which is where I got the pattern for the center star. I love the look of feathered stars, but all the ones in the book are very dated, not made in fabrics that I would have chosen. I wanted to brighten up the star with my fabric choice, and I think I'm happy with how it turned out. I used the freezer paper method of paper piecing, which I like because I just had to trace the templates (rather than photocopying), and I could reuse the templates for each section as many times as I needed to get the required pieces. The downside (for me) is a slight loss in precision, so I lost some of my points, and some of my joints don't meet as crisply as I would have liked...but I'm fine with that. I'm finding the more improve I do the more willing I am to lose a few points - even when it's not on an improve project!

I wanted to make the 'feathered' portion more like a border. 

I got the fabric with the paper planes and boys in Innsbruck, Austria.
I like getting fabric as a souvenir - Thanks Mom!
(even though I probably could have found it in the states, too). 

I'll be attempting to keep up with all the quilts in the tab at the top of my blog, as inspired by Jennifer. And if you want to get to know the other members through their blogs, here they are:

Heather at QA Creations

Leanne at Devoted Quilter

Kim at Ties That Bind Quilting

Mary at See Mary Quilt

Christina at WIPs and Tuts

Jennifer at Never Just Jennifer

Chelsea at Patch the Giraffe