Red and White Hunter’s Star

I was marking my lone star quilt off the UFO list on the sidebar, and noticed I missed some that were finished last year. At some point a few years ago, I decided we “needed” a quilt for Christmas for our bed. Christmas prints weren’t appealing, and I chose a traditional pattern – Hunter’s Star in solid colors. If you haven’t seen it before, the Rapid Fire Hunter Star tool from Studio 180 simplifies the process. The vast majority of the quilting was done with the pattern Cleo from House of Creations. I don’t remember exactly when I finished this huge quilt, but it was in 2021 — it made it on the bed for Christmas. As a bonus it works for Valentines as well.

Its Time Finally Came

As I’ve mentioned before I’ve been playing along with the American Patchwork and Quilting UFO Challenge. The number for this quilt was drawn in February, and 14 years after making the top, and after two weeks of intense quilting it is finished!!! If you want to read about the process on the top you can here, here and here. I may have gone overboard on pictures, but this is more about the quilting. I’m including the pictures of the commercial patterns I used in the quilt, none of them whole. The rest of the patterns I created myself using my IntelliQuilter. There were some lessons learned, and I would approach some of it differently were I to do it again.

Town Square Sampler

This quilt was the number drawn for the UFO Challenge in March. However, I actually finished it in February so worked on some other lingering projects during March. My best guess is I made the top in 2005 in a block party at Ruth’s Stitchery. Nobody in my immediate family remembers me working on it, so it had to be while they were at work and school and I was at home. I changed out the words on the banner, but other than that followed the directions from Eleanor Burns’ book.

I chose to quilt it with an allover pattern “Sea of Stars” from My Creative Stitches. This is the first time I’ve switched thread colors part way through the quilt when doing an allover quilting job. The top is quilted with blue and the bottom portion with white. I was very careful about lining up the pattern so the division between rows was over the seam between sky and ground. I still had to clip off a little of the pattern where it would have interlocked. While I did most of the quilt with an allover design, I chose to do custom work on the angels.

I’m very pleased to mark another one off my list!

Our Home Town – Down this Country Road

I was looking through my UFO list on the side of the page, and noticed I hadn’t crossed this quilt off my list. I put it up on the Facebook American Patchwork and Quilting UFO Challenge page, but not here.

In my mind this one barely qualified as a UFO since I started it in January of 2019 and finished it in July of 2020. This quilt just makes me happy. One of the reasons is I only purchased three fabrics specifically for it. A lot of the fabrics are scraps from previous projects, and the rest from my existing stash. The quilt is “Our Home Town” from the book Down this Country Road. One change on my part, was converting the flowers on the lower left to applique rather than piecing tiny bits of fabric. It is quilted with what I consider a variation of the Baptist Fan design from Three Sisters Fabric.

Below you can scroll through detail shots of the quilt sections.

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Nolan “has finished” His Quilt

Technically this was NOT my UFO. Nolan saw the Abstract theme fabric when we were in Oregon. He was around 11 (He’s 26 now). He haaaaaad to have that fabric. He promised if I would buy it for him he would make the quilt! With supervision he did use the rotary cutter and then sewed one block and some of the units for other blocks. After that everything ended up in my collection for about 15 years. Finally because I’m trying to clean out and clean up, I pulled it out and finished it. I actually finished the binding within 5 minutes of the binding of Snowmen A to Zzzz. I couldn’t decide which to finish first and Jesse suggested I do both at the same time. So I alternated between them one needle of thread then switch to the other. I know, I do strange things to entertain myself. Now that the quilt is finished, Nolan is taking credit for the great job he did.

Anyway, it is Maple Island Quilts’ BQ pattern. I had been looking for an excuse to buy the quilting design Vortex II from House of Creations. So I did get something out of it besides a little more storage space.

Snowmen A to Zzzz – Finished!

Snowmen A to Zzzz was on my UFO list last year. The top was finished (in 2011) expect for replacing a section that was stained while it was on display as a sample. I replaced that area sometime in 2020, but didn’t have the chance to quilt it. Last week was when the quilt had finally “aged appropriately.” It is now quilted and bound it. I’m so happy with the results!

The center is quilted with the edge to edge pattern “Whisper” from My Creative Stitches.

The border has snowflakes in the center white sections and a pattern I created on my IQ in the outside white and aqua inside section (it doesn’t show much in the aqua since the thread matches so well).

The backing is flannel and I intend to use it as a throw.

Mark Another Off the List

This quilt has shown up here before, as a finished top. I started it in 2001– that’s horrifying, almost 20 years! I actually finished putting the binding on it in October during a road trip to Oregon. There’s lots of time for hand sewing if one doesn’t get car sick during 42 hours of riding (that’s round trip).

The quilt is from the book Stack ‘n’ Whackier. If you look close, some of the blocks used the wrong side of the fabric to get a kaleidoscope effect. It is quilted with Feather Dream from My Creative Stitches.

First Finish 2021 – Bunnies on the Go

I’m still working on American Patchwork and Quilting’s UFO Challenge. It has been a real motivator! In 2020, I finished all the tops on my list. Bunnies on the Go from Darcy Ashton‘s book Bunnies & More, was number 11 on my UFO list last year. I don’t remember which month it was picked, but I finished the top in May while we were in Oregon. I’ve mentioned before, this quilt is for Guy. I guess it is a reward for going to a quilt show with me once. He saw the sample and requested it. I started working on it sometime between 2013 and 2015.

Since I quilt for others, it can be a challenge to get my own quilts on the machine. I had a slight lull at the end of December and managed to quilt this by the 31st. Binding was completed last week.

The technical details for anyone who cares — The applique is all turned edge using the starch and press method, then hand stitched. The carrot in the border was in the book. I digitized it in Art and Stitch and arranged to fit in the border at the same time. I imported the border into IQ as one design with jump stitches between the carrots. Once it was in IQ, I split out the jump stitches. Because I didn’t want to start and stop between each carrot, I used the record feature on IQ to record a meandering line between carrots. I did two or three recordings. Then I was able to copy the designs I recorded and “randomly” use them to connect the carrots. Voila a continuous border. I freehand quilted all the rest of the white background. For the bear paw blocks, I used Ocracoke Sashing corner from My Creative Stitches to create a 3/4 block and fill groups of three in one pass. Finally I used line pattern on the IQ to do the continuous curves in the triangles. The backing is flannel and the batting is Hobbs 80/20 that was preshrunk. Guy is very pleased to have a finished quilt.

Tranquility

Happy New Year! I know we are over a week into 2021. And no matter what external forces bring to the table, I believe the year will be what I choose to make of it. There were some real lows in 2020, and yet I can say it was a good year!

I noticed I have finished some of my UFO list from the side bar, and finally had almost enough space again to take a picture of one of them. This quilt is “Tranquility” by Wing and a Prayer. I taught it as a Block of the Month in 2018 so the top was finished then. I quilted all but the vertical borders in December of 2019 (and then customer quilts moved it to the back burner). I snuck it in to finish those borders in September or October of 2020 and put the binding on while driving to and from Oregon in October. I chose to make the quilt bigger than the pattern, so it is 118″ square. Which means I have no where to open it completely for a complete picture. Here you can see it with one side folded back to show the backing.

I did custom quilting on this. In hindsight, it was a waste of time, as it doesn’t show well on most of the quilt. Following are a few close ups. I used the Tranquility set from Wasatch for the quilting. If it hadn’t been in the set, I wouldn’t have done parallel lines in the long skinny borders. Live and learn.

Stargazing

I finished Stargazing the beginning of August. I started it in December of 2018, and completed the blocks fairly quickly. It was a sample for Ruth’s Stitchery, so some of the blocks hung for a portion of 2019. Once I got them back, the quilt went together last fall.

I offered to make this quilt, because I loved the quilting in the sashing on the pattern. I finally had a chance to start quilting it in April and expected to finish in May. However, life went sideways in May. I ended up taking it off the machine to work on a customer quilt. It went back on the machine in July and I finally finished quilting it. This quilt and the customer one I did in between have convinced, my once again, to stop doing custom quilting for hire. The quilting alone took close to 80 hours.

Other than some stitch in the ditch and the X’s on the individual colored squares in the sashing everything was done with the Intelliquilter.

I have dropped it off at Ruth’s Stitchery, and I think it is hanging there now. They are making more kits for this quilt.