WIP Wednesday - More Rose Quilt Progress

I'm almost halfway finished with the center sections of the first three paper pieced rose blocks. I'm getting close to seeing a finished rose.

I think it will be another week before I finish all nine rose blocks. I'm excited to see them.

Make It Monday - Rose Quilt Progress

I've been working on the first set of paper pieced rose blocks. Here is one of the three nearly identical blocks of the set. I'm about a third of the way around the largest section. There are three different reds in each rose block. I think I'll really start to enjoy the look when this first set is done.

WIP Wednesday - Roses Quilt Begun

I've started a new quilt, with a rose theme. I downloaded Rosie's Rose Paper Pieced Quilt Block from Craftsy.com.

The pattern's finished size is 6", but I wanted it to be bigger, more like 8" square or 133% of the original size. I tried several methods to enlarge the pattern with various computer programs, without much luck. I finally came up with printing a plain 6" square from Electric Quilt, taping the normal sized pattern section into it, scanning, then using Picasa to crop and print the square at 8.5", the width of a normal piece of printer paper.

Left: normal sized pattern section taped to 6" square.

Right: Scanned, cropped and printed so that the 6" square is now 8.5".

(I'm deliberately hiding the centers of the patterns, since the download is not free.)

Here I added 1/4" seam allowance to the edges of the pattern section, then marked the "corners" in red to avoid confusion later. I did the same process with the three remaining pattern sections, fitting them into a separate 6" square and enlarging. I printed the enlarged patterns onto tracing paper, which is transparent and pretty easily removable at the end of sewing the paper-pieced block.

I created a design in Electric Quilt sketch. Here you can get a rough idea of the finished quilt. Roses will look different than the simplified flowers seen above.

Fabrics - most from stash, along with a few new pieces

My plan is to mix up the combinations of fabrics so that each rose is somewhat unique.

I'll begin sewing in the next couple of days. The pattern is rather intricate, so I expect it will take several days to get the paper piecing done.

Debbie

Super Mario Brothers Quilt Finish

Last night I finished a Super Mario Brothers themed quilt, for Dominic, the young grandson of dear friend and co-worker Thomasina W. 

Super Mario Brothers

For Dominic, young grandson of friend Thomasina W. 

Original design

59" square

Completed 8/11/2014

Close-up

After a fruitless online search for Super Mario Brothers fabric that interested me, I had a small piece of theme fabric printed to order at Spoonflower.com.

A few weeks ago I shared a post on Facebook about a website where you could turn a photo into a quilt pattern. The featured photo was one of the Mario Brothers (http://tinyurl.com/l358za9). Thomasina came by my desk and told me that her grandson would like a quilt like that because he likes Super Mario Brothers. That got me thinking and within a few minutes I decided to make a quilt for Dominic for his upcoming birthday.

Thomasina and I agreed that the quilt pattern, with its many pieces, would be too complicated. I tried to find Super Mario Brothers themed fabric and ended up having a fat quarter printed to order at Spoonflower.com. I took the little bit of fabric and made a simple design around it. I'm happy with the way it turned out. 

Tomorrow is Dominic's 7th birthday. Thomasina will give the quilt during their family get-together. Happy Birthday, Dominic!

Debbie

WIP Wednesday - Slow Progress

I haven't done much quilting during the past week. Tonight I cut alternate plain squares in blue and sewed them to the Mario Brothers blocks.

The deadline is early next week. I'll get going on the quilt. It won't take long to finish.

Debbie

It's Pretty Black and White

It's Pretty Black and White prompt #artjournal, a photo by quilter4010 on Flickr.

I interpreted the prompt as something that was usually colorful, but that would still be pretty in black and white. I thought of a flower. Items used: junk mail, tear strip from a box, buttons. Stamp was made from an empty sewing machine needle case.

Debbie

WIP Wednesday - Super Mario Brothers Quilt in Progress

I've set aside the Superman Remixed quilt temporarily to work on a quilt with a Super Mario Brothers theme. The quilt is for Dominic, the grandson of my good friend Thomasina W. The idea came from a post that I shared on Facebook that had a picture of a Super Mario Brother, with a link on how to turn an image into a quilt pattern. See here. Thomasina told me that her grandson would like it becuase he likes Super Mario Brothers. Within a few minutes I decided to make a Super Mario Brothers quilt. We agreed that there were way too many pieces in the pictured quilt pattern (think counted cross-stitch pattern) but I figured I could find theme fabric and go from there.

After searching the internet for a while, I found the fabric above at Spoonflower.com. Spoonflower is not your regular online fabric store. You choose a design you like (or create your own), select a size and fabric, and Spoonflower will print the fabric for you to order. I bought from Spoonflower a few years ago -- the Boston Terrier themed fabric for Cristine's Bosties. Just to let you know, the fabric is a bit pricey, $14.00 plus $1.00 shipping for a fat quarter in organic cotton sateen (recommended over flimsier basic combed cotton). I ordered a fat quarter of the sateen both times.

Fabrics

Electric Quilt sketch

Light blue fabric represents the theme fabric. Normally I can squeeze nine 5.5" cut squares out of a fat quarter, and that's what I went with for this design.

Fabric cut 5.5" square - nine of these

Narrow red strips attached to the sides

Narrow red strips attached to top and bottom

Nine Super Mario Brothers blocks done

Wide blue sashing will be added next, followed by a narrow red inner border, then a wide blue border.

Dominic's birthday is mid-August. I plan to get the quilt top done in the next couple of days, and probably finish the quilt in next week so Thomasina can give the quilt to Dominic at his birthday party.

Debbie

WIP Wednesday - Superman Remixed Quilt Top Finished

Tonight I finished Superman Remixed quilt top.

Quilt top

Close-up

Much of the quilt top is made from leftover fabrics from two earlier Superman quilts. I filled in with other stash fabrics. I may finish the quilt this weekend. The quilt will be donated to a local agency that helps abused children and adults.

Debbie

Make It Monday - Superman Blocks Finished

I finished the last of the Superman blocks tonight. 

The blocks are made partly from scraps leftover from two earlier Superman quilts. I'll probably sew the blocks together tomorrow night. The quilt will be given to a local agency that helps kids and adults who have been abused.

Debbie

WIP Wednesday - More Superman Blocks

Tonight I made another set of five Superman blocks, made partly from scraps from two previous Superman quilts. Ten more blocks to go.

Debbie

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Make It Monday - Rabbits and Flowers Quilt Finish

Last night I finished Rabbits and Flowers, a quilt for co-worker Kristina R. Today was her last day at the office, as she and her family are moving out of the area. I found out about a week ago that she was leaving, and I decided to make her a quilt. My spy told me that Kristina likes rabbits, and when I did some spying of my own, I noticed a couple of personal items in purple.

Rabbits and Flowers
For co-worker Kristina R., who likes rabbits.
Partly from stash. Original design. 55" square.
Began 7/2/2014, completed 7/6/2014.

Close-up

Theme fabrics had been in my stash for years. I don't think they are from the same line of fabrics, but they work well together. Rabbit squares are fussy-cut.

I was able to get 12 fussy-cut squares in the rabbit fabric.

I got 9 squares from the floral. Trying a layout.

Another layout

Auditioning dark purples to fill the remaining spaces

I went with the one on the right, which is a tad lighter than the other.

This and the next couple of photos: trying out placement of dark purple squares.

This was my favorite. The diamond shape seemed to add some movement.

White-on-white squares attached

Sewn into five columns

Quilt top finished

Close-up

Once again, the finished quilt

I gave the quilt to Kristina this afternoon. She was surprised and happy to get a quilt. Her mom happens to work in the office and I invited her to the presentation, which made it a little more special. 

Enjoy your quilt, Kristina!

Debbie

WIP Wednesday 7/2/2014

I've set aside Superman Remixed temporarily to work on a quick quilt, for co-worker Kristina, who is leaving the office soon. My spy tells me that Kristina likes rabbits. My own spying of her desk area reveals that she likes purple, too.

I've had both of the fabrics in my stash for years. I don't think they're from the same line, but they look really good together.

Electric Quilt sketch

Rabbit fabric

Using template to make a rabbit the center of each square. Traced around the template with a Frixion pen. The ink disappears with the touch of an iron.

Square drawn

Was able to cut 12 squares from the 1/2 yard of rabbit fabric. These are the two variations. I'll cut as many squares of the floral print as I can, but there's only a fat quarter. I'll need to fill in a few squares with another fabric, to be determined later.

Each square will be surrounded by wide sashing in this white-on-white print. 

The quilt has a quick deadline. The design is simple, so it should go quickly.

Debbie

Make It Monday 6/30/2014

Fabrics for Superman quilt

Each column plus Superman print on bottom will make 5 scrappy blocks

Cut Superman print 13" square, set aside for later

Bottom layer, also 13" square

None of the second Superman print was 13" square. I'd have to layer scraps. Here I've cut the largest piece 13" wide and a little shy of 13" tall.

Second scrap - more than 5" tall and more than 6.5" wide.

Third scrap - same as above

There are areas of overlap, which will be resolved in cutting later.

This is probably the fourth layer. Having to do some overlapping again.

Fourth layer complete

Brought back the Superman square, placed on top.

First cut, through all 5+ layers.

Second cut

Third cut - added since last blog post. It makes the overall design seem more complicated, eliminates the need to trim a 1/2" from the edge of a long strip.

All four sections

Next I went through each stack, removing the "waste" strips.

Here they are for this first set of blocks.

Once I removed all of the waste strips, I re-organized the sections Stack the Deck style so that there was a variety of fabrics in each block, with no exact repeats.

First block, top and bottom pairs of fabrics sewn together

First block completed

First five Superman blocks done

I repeated the steps to make the second set of blocks - 10 Superman blocks done, in total.

There are three more sets of five blocks to go. I should have them finished by the weekend.

Debbie