BQF 2015 Small Quilt Category

Posted on May 15, 2015 by katyquilts

If you are visiting my blog for the first time, welcome! I hope you will take a few minutes to look around. I love traditional quilts, modern quilts, art quilts, pretty much anything and everything quilt related.  For those of you that already follow my blog, you have seen this quilt before. I am reposting it here as my second entry into the Blogger’s Quilt Festival for spring 2015. It is my City Sampler done in all solids and I am entering it into the Small Quilts category.

  Here are some detail shots. I had so much fun with the quilting on this one!            All the thread on this is Glide from Fil-Tec. I changed color for each section and used white on the background.
 Here is a shot of the back:  

  

  Check out the other quilts in the BQF SmallQuilts Category here. If you would like to vote for this quilt for Viewer’s Choice, you can do so here. Thanks for stopping by!

 

AmysCreativeSide.com
Also linking up with Prairie Sewn Studios for Crafty Comment Karma.
Posted in BQF, Free Motion Quilting, Modern Quilts | 31 Comments

Bloggers Quilt Festival Spring 2015

Posted on May 15, 2015 by katyquilts

It’s that time of year again! I love the BQF hosted each spring and fall by Amy at Amy’s Creative Side. If you are visiting my blog for the first time, Welcome! I hope you will take a few minutes to look around. I love traditional quilts, modern quilts, art quilts, pretty much anything and everything quilt related. If you are a regular big reader, you have already seen this quilt but I am sharing it again as my entry into BQF.

So without further ado, here is Fiesta!

I made this quilt for my daughter after she discovered a similar quilt on Instagram made by Jeliquilts. She has a free pattern available on Craftsy. I loosely followed her idea. I didn’t have the same fabric selection and my blocks are smaller. I started with roughly the same colors in the upper right hand side and just started playing from there.

My finished quilt measures 36 inches by 42 inches so it just fit into the Mini Quilts category for BQF.

I had a blast quilting this! I used Glide thread from Fil-Tec in Khaki.  Here are some closeups of the quilting. 
          

Here is a shot of the back taken before the binding was applied:

IMG_2326Check out the other quilts in the BQF Small Quilts Category here. If you would like to vote for this quilt for Viewer’s Choice, you can do so here.

Thanks for stopping by! And enjoy the Spring Blogger’s Quilt Festival!

AmysCreativeSide.com
Posted in BQF, Free Motion Quilting, Modern Quilts | 27 Comments

Throwback Thursday

Posted on May 14, 2015 by katyquilts

Still fighting a cold which means no sewing progress. So here is another TBThursday post. These small quilts are about 18 inches square. They were all quilted on a domestic machine. It is nice to see that my free motion work has improved!

      

Have a great day!

Posted in Art Quilts, Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Work in Progress Wednesday

Posted on May 13, 2015 by katyquilts

Once again, I went out of town for the weekend and came home sick. Blech. Thankfully, I had yesterday off as I had originally planned to stay one more day than I did. I did a bit of hand piecing on my Hexie quilt while traveling. Here is a shot of it now.

 

That partial row bothers me. Hopefully enough that I will finish that row this week. 
I did get the last solid border added to the QOV I am working on and I got it loaded into the frame.  

 

Since I had no energy to quilt, I will contemplate the design for another day.

Linking up with See Fresh Quiltsand Freshly Pieced.

Posted in Uncategorized | 10 Comments

DWMonday

Posted on May 11, 2015 by katyquilts

I’m on the way home from a great weekend visiting family. Before I left, I spent don’t time playing with designs for my paper pieced log cabin blocks on EQ7. Here are a few I came up with:

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Still not sure which way to go with these but EQ sure is easier than pinning these up on the design wall.

Linking up with Patchwork Times.

Posted in Uncategorized | 11 Comments

Finish It Up Friday

Posted on May 8, 2015 by katyquilts

One of my goals for May was to finish this vintage log cabin top that Mr. Wonderful  gave me for Christmas 2013.  

It needed a few seam repairs and didn’t exactly lay flat or square. It looks as though someone washed the top before I got it. 

  

 I removed lots of frayed snarls from the back! I decided to quilt a random grid across the top like I did with my vintage cheddar top. It has a few tiny tucks here and there but overall, I am quite happy with this finish.  

  

  

  

 As you can see, my lines are not evenly spaced. I eyeballed them and quilted them freehand. If this top were perfectly pieced, all the pink squares would line up. As you can see, they are not even close! So perfect spacing of quilting lines would emphasize the imperfection in the piecing.    

I used a plain white for the back and a solid navy for the binding. I looked at this top in the same antique shop for years before it became mine. I am so glad it is now finished!

Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts, Richard and Tanya Quilts, Confessions of a Fabric Addict! A Quilting Reader’s Garden.

 

Posted in Finishes, Vintage Fabrics, Vintage Quilts | 17 Comments

Throwback Thursday

Posted on May 7, 2015 by katyquilts

I am traveling today so I prepared a few blog posts ahead. I thought I would share another  of my older quilts. This one is hand pieced and hand  quilted. 

   

This one is a cover girl of sorts, having appeared on the cover of both QUILT and  Quilt Almanac magazines in the late 90’s. 

  

Quilt magazines sure have come a long way, haven’t they?  

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments

WIP Wednesday

Posted on May 6, 2015 by katyquilts

I’ve been working on a small quilt for the swap hosted by Lori of Humble Quilts. I started with this: 

But it was lacking. So I decided to add more and got to this.

Better, but I’m still not in love with it. It seems too simple, too predictable, too……something.  Or maybe not enough…….

While sewing these together, I started using the small scrappy squares as leaders and enders. 

I am making little 16 patches like the one you see here. Linking up with Freshly Pieced and Sew Fresh Quilts.

 

Posted in Civil War Repro Quilts, Doll Quilts, Uncategorized | 8 Comments

Scrap Busting!

Posted on May 5, 2015 by katyquilts

I have a large enamelware container that I have been throwing all my little civil war repro scraps in for my paper pieced log cabin blocks. Now that I have finished these blocks, it was time to deal with that overflowing container. I think it looks worse than when I started! Clearly my 64 log cabin blocks didn’t make a dent!

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Last night, I decided it was time to get to work on this mess. These are all quite small pieces. So I pulled some small dies out for my die cutter and went to work. I have an idea for a quilt using small rectangles so I used this die with the bigger scraps. 

  And ended up with these. 

I also needed 1 1/2″ squares for a project so I used this die on the smaller scraps. 

  
And got these. 

 I may even use these as leaders/enders.  I had quite a few very skinny strips that I hated to throw out so I pressed them and put them here for a future paper piecing project. 

 These are all about an inch wide or less. Crazy, I know. Again, I have an idea for for these. 

And now that container? It’s empty!  I did throw out all the scraps from cutting the pieces shown above. It’s amazing how much less space this all takes up!

I have another overflowing basket of civil war scraps that I need to tackle but that has much bigger pieces. It will wait for another day.

A while back, hubby brought home these snap together containers. They are perfect for storing precut scraps like those I created last night.    

Have a scraptastic a Tuesday!

Linking up with Free Motion By the River.

 

Posted in Accuquilt Studio Cutter, Scraps, Uncategorized | 10 Comments

Design Wall Monday

Posted on May 4, 2015 by katyquilts

We had a gorgeous weekend here weather wise! My outdoor sewing room worked out so well! 

The enamel pan to the left holds my scraps. I put the tray on top to keep my pretty scraps from flying away in the breeze. The one on the right served as my trash bin.  

 I finished the last 9 blocks that I needed. Here they are on the design wall. 

 These proved to be a perfect piecing project for working with the hand crank. Here is my stack of 64 finished blocks. They will finish at 4 inches.

Between loads of laundry today, I plan to play with designs on EQ7.

I mentioned our gorgeous weather this weekend but in the midst of that, we did experience an earthquake.     But we are tough people here in Michigan as shown by this post from Facebook. 

Have a great day! Linking up with Patchwork Times.

Posted in Uncategorized | 9 Comments