City Sampler Blocks 31-42

I've been catching up on my city sampler blocks.  Some of these pictures make these blocks look really wonky - I promise they are not that bad in real life.  Enjoy:

 

31

 32

 

 33

 34

 35

36 

37 

38 

 39

 

40 

41 

42 (my favorite of the bunch)

 

I don't love a lot of the above blocks but it all seems to work when they come together:   

Almost halfway there!  I am starting to get a little nervous about what in the world I should choose for sashing - I feel like that choice will either make or break this quilt.

Crackle Top Completed

Thanks for all of the love on the Super Kids quilts my friends.  I really appreciate it.

 

It was a little torturous, but I finally finished this CRAZY BIG "Crackle" top.  I cut the fabrics in March but didn't begin sewing them until May.  I had a lot of other projects demand a higher priority and the pieces from this project have been haunting me as I sewed other things.

 

There are 132 blocks in this top.  The worst was when I was putting together the last row and I realized that I was four blocks short.  Or maybe the worst was when, after assembling the whole top- borders and everything, and I realized that an end row needed to be flipped. But then again, I wasn't that thrilled to see how teenage-ish this thing looks.  It didn't seem so "young" until I actually started assembling the rows.  I actually feel pretty silly that it's actually king size (100x110)- I know I had planned for queen size but I guess I goofed. 

 

Seeing it held up at a distance, like the picture above actually makes me feel better about the whole thing. I really tried to choose light and dark fabrics instead of predomininantly "medium" value that so many of my fabrics are.  I think I achieved the contrast and look I was aiming for.

I will definitely be long-arming this as soon as I can save some pennies and schedule the time!

Super Girls Quilt

It's so fun to have children of both genders - one of the reasons being that it's a lot of fun to sew for each of them.  It would've been so hard to decide between the boy or girl Super Kid fabrics - so I am glad I had the opportunity to do both!

 

The "boy version" of this quilt was completed first because I was a little more scared of making mistakes with my precious girly Remix fabrics that I have stashed for ages.  I did make a few math errors intially and changed some design ideas with the boy version - it took me about 3 weeks to complete the top.  But once I had it all planned and the math was correct - the girl version took less than a week - in reality, this is a very easy quilt to make!

 

The quilt measures about 71 x 88 - a nice twin-sized quilt. 

These pictures show the quilting design I chose for the quilt very well: it's a computerized pantograph called "Shazam."  I liked the idea of using the "Boom!" "Pow!" type of  "speech bubble" look that you would see in older comics.  There is no way I could've done this design free-motion.  I haven't learned that much control on the longarm yet.

 

The only design difference between the girl and boy quilts is that I added a heart on top of the shield to emulate the design of a Super Girl on the fabric.

I used several different Kona Cottons within the quilt (Bright Pink, School Bus, Wisteria, Red, Sour Apple, Pacific, Lagoon, and Citrus).  I usually don't use solids in my quilts but I think it was a good choice for this quilt.

Once again, a very "old" purchase at Marden's came in handy to back this quilt: five yards of Michael Miller Candy Dots.  I don't know what I was thinking when I just randomly bought so much of that crazy-bright fabric but it obviously came in handy!

Thanks for reading!  Don't forget to check out Ann Kelle's post on this quilt, which also has a link to a full tutorial for this quilt, here.

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's SUPER KIDS!

I am so excited to share a project that I have been working on for the past several weeks: a pair of Super Kids quilts that I designed for Kelle's (of Ann Kelle designs) blog.  Kelle suggested that we feature the quilts separately and I thought it was a great idea.  Today I am going to share the "boy version" and tomorrow I will share the "girl version."  Kelle is sharing my projects on her blog, complete with a full tutorial, here. 

 

The fact that I am a huge fan of Ann Kelle fabrics should come as no surprise if you've read my blog for any amount of time.  She had me at the whales.  I know it's uncool, in some circles, to be so "fan-girl" but I can't help myself - her designs are so cheerful and fun.  It's a dream come true to have had this opportunity to make these quilts!

 

I had the perfect setting to photograph the boy quilt at a local comic store called Command D's in Dracut, MA.  The owner painted huge murals of a few super heroes around the parking lot of his store and he didn't mind me taking a few pictures there. 

 

 

 



 

The quilt is composed of three different 14.5" (unfinished) blocks meant to showcase the Super Kids, cartoon-ish vibe of the fabrics. 

 

 

One block design borrows a motif from the fabrics, the shields:

 

I have to admit that I dreaded doing the sashing between the blocks.  I consulted a Fons and Porter video on "row alignment" and the whole thing couldn't have gone better!  If you're curious, you can find the video here (it's free).   

 

Previous purchases at Marden's, buried and nearly forgotten in my stash, certainly came in handy to back the quilts.  The boy quilt is sporting a red geometric print by Jennifer Paganelli:

Tomorrow we will reveal the girl quilt and I will share more details about the design and quilting process. Thanks for reading!

Lowell Quilt Festival: Appleton Mills Boston Modern Quilt Guild Exhibit 2013

Right after manning the Thursday afternoon shift of the BMQG Lowell Quilt Festival exhibit, I wrote a blog post and accidently published it on the BMQG blog.  I was so embarrassed and only had time to delete it, email an apology to guild leaders, and now I am finally getting around to writing a similar post on the correct blog! 

 

I volunteered to take the Thursday shift from 2-6 and I have to say I was amazed at what a strong turnout our show had.  Last year, I did shifts on Friday and Saturday mornings and I don't remember there being as many patrons coming to the show.

 

Being a volunteer at the show is fun because I had kid-free time to chat with other quilters while doing quite a bit of seam-ripping on a WIP (a post for another day I suppose). 

These first two pictures give you an idea of what a gorgeous space we have to show our work.  Appleton Mills is an apartment building designed primarily for artists- it really is a jewel of Lowell (truthfully, not one of my favorite cities after doing almost 2 years of social work there before I had my first child). 

Show committee members did an excellent job in showcasing a few of the Quilts for Boston quilts.  Many people made comments on this display: asking more questions, informing me they had contributed blocks to the cause, and some expressed gratitude for the project.

I think my most favorite part of our guild participating in LQF is knowing the makers of every project at the show.  I love to see everyone's hard work all together. 

Here's Stephanie's Converging Corners quilt:

Grethcen's Heart Quilt:  (Pattern by V and Co.)

 Samantha:

Jen:

Jane:

Trish:

Natalie:

Jane:

Tina (I think this might have been my favorite- wow, the patience of doing machine pieced hexagons!):

Alexis:

These next two quilts are not only stunning, but quite LARGE!  I am glad to be in such good company- as I often get teased for creating very big quilts.

Rebecca:

Julie (Orange Peel pattern from Denyse Scmidt's newest book):

I submitted two quilts, Dots and Ties (Dotty for Dresden pattern by Sarah Fielke):

and my most recent creation, Under the Sea:

I didn't take pictures of everyone's quilts but a lot of people participated and it looked fantastic.

It is awesome to see how far our guild has come in such a short time.  I will admit that I sometimes feel nostalgic for the early days when our guild was a little smaller and my introversion wasn't as much of an issue for the large-group setting we know consistently maintain.  But truthfully, there really is nothing wrong with the positive growth our group is experiencing and it's awesome to welcome so many people to our organization who are all so talented and contribute so much to our community.  The Quilts for Boston project is a great example of the good that comes with such growth.  I know this all sounds a little corny but oh well!

Thanks for reading!  I am excited to reveal my SuperKids projects this coming week, so "stay tuned."

Under the Sea Quilt Finished

This is my latest finish, a project I thought might never resurface from underneath my sons bed -which is where it sat for a few years until this past year's BMQG retreat held in March.  I blogged about it a few times: here, here, and here. 

 

But it's finally finished and I am pretty happy with it!  I was able to use the Statler Stitcher at Laurena's recently and finally quilted it.  I let it sit for a while after the retreat because I didn't know how I wanted to quilt it.  I knew that I wouldn't be okay with a free motion rush-job after all of the headaches this quilt has caused me. 

 

I chose a bubbly-loopy pattern that was done in a few hours.  I thought using the computer-controlled longarm was more fun than I expected and I felt very satisfied with the results. 

My family and I visited Fort Foster park in Kittery, ME to take these pictures.  It was Charlotte's first time at the ocean and we had a lot of fun.

The quilt already has a sleeve on it so that it can hang at this coming weekend's BMQG Appleton Mills Lowell Quilt Festival exhibit.  I thought it would be fitting to enter it into our LQF exhibit because my guild members were encouraging (and sometimes shaking their heads in disbelief) when I was ironing and pinning constantly during the March retreat to finally get this beast completed. 

I never would've paired the colors plum, orange, fuschia, gold, aqua, and brown together to make a quilt as my own original combination/idea but I think it works well and it's very pretty.

 

This quilt measures 80 x 84.  I used about 7.5 yards of a Michael Miller aqua geometric print bought ages ago at Marden's for the borders, backing, and binding.  I added prints from my stash to complement the Mendocino fabric collection that dominates the clamshells.  The pattern is based on  the "Picnic Quilt" from Sandy Henderson's Sewing with Bits and Pieces. 

 

I used a Hobbs 100% cotton batting purchased on sale at Connecting Threads.  I was not impressed with the quality of the batting at all - it had a lot of pill to it and seemed to be pretty fragile (i.e. tear apart if I pulled on it slightly).  The quilt seems fine now, but I was nervous working with that poor batting while I was having the whole thing quilted.

 

 

 

It feels so good to finally have finished something since I have so many WIPs and lots of tops that need quilting.  Thanks for reading!

Fabric Friday: Nativity Christmas

I have been eyeing this matryoshka nativity fabric since last Christmas but I only knew of an etsy seller in China selling it and I hadn't pulled the trigger on buying it until I had a little birthday money recently.  It wasn't terribly expensive but there's something about buying fabric abroad that makes me hesitate.  I just adore this design - it's a cute Christmas fabric that features something besides candy canes and wreaths- it has a little baby Jesus and I think it's cute.  I also have a thing for these "Russian nesting doll" type of fabrics.

 

The etsy seller sent it right after purchasing it and it didn't take too long to arrive..... but imagine my surprise when I saw the selvage.......

 

It's a Joann's fabric!!!!  How ironic that I was pining away for what I had assumed was a rare print, produced overseas- to pay quite a bit for shipping - and then it turns out that it was made and sold in a store that I live within walking distance from!

Oh well, I still love it and it actually has a nice hand to it - especially for a Joann's fabric.