Ham and Eggs

Last year, while searching for the perfect finishing fabric for a baby quilt at Country Carriage Quilts, the cutest wool applique kit jumped into my arms.

What wouldn't I love about this? Cute pigs and chickens! Even the same color eggs as my hens lay.
And don't you appreciate the puzzled look on the piglet?

Rachel's Of Greenfield Ham and Eggs Quilt Kit makes a 13" x 15" wall hanging. Pigs and chickens share a space surrounded with checkerboards.

After each step, the quilt seemed more destined to live on my kitchen wall. First I made the background, then cut out and appliqued the animals and finally added buttons, embroidery and beads. 

The close-ups below show some in process work --  the lazy daisy and bead grain, the outline and filler quilting. It was a very enjoyable take-along project.

Rainbows and Dinosaurs

Here's a scrappy quilt; a perfect way to use up tons of those squares you cut from scraps in a moment or hour or week of craziness. My grandson and I began this quilt with a dig through those squares. He was three. He'd helped finish the quilt for his bunk. This one would be for his baby brother's bed in a couple years. His mom and I decided to make a could more rows, but arrange them in groups of two just so the two would be a bit different.

Quilting with small children poses its own set of problems and its own opportunities for joyful giggles. Attention span might be shorter and your little one may exhibit the "oh shiny!" syndrome. If your partner in sewing lives on the other side of the world, it can be even more of a challenge.

We began by sorting out colors from the 2 1/2 inch square bin and sending pictures of the target color back and forth via email. Rowan would makes suggestion as to which block should come next and which had to sit next to each other. Over a few weeks, we put together rows for most of the colors in the rainbow. These rows were sewn together and just waiting for me to find a good sash fabric. Turns out it was a good thing that it sat on the shelf a couple months.

The first sign of a problem sailed in with a shipping company's ship.  The companion quilt, also a rainbow quilt arrived in Sweden. It was made of 3 1/2 inch strips...so instead of a mere 27 blocks per row, we now needed 39. Sigh. It's a good thing that my seam ripper and I are buddies. Adding more blocks often meant taking bits and pieces apart to improve balance between prints and shades.

The quilt also needed a bit of  redesign to expand the width. As it was, the sash strips were about the same width as the rainbow strips. It lacked interest visually. After brainstorming, we decided to border each set of blocks with a matching border. That added enough with to use a 2-inch sash.

If I Ran the Circus...

A fabric-inspired baby quilt

and their matching blocks:

Annie's Garden Quilt

Flowers on a lattice

Shop Hop 2011 -- Here It Is

We saw a lot of the state following the maps from shop to shop in Western Washington. From the north end of the state to the south and out on the peninsula and the islands. It's a beautiful trip and we got to see new fabric lines and unique quilt, bag and garment patterns.

[Finished picture coming soon we hope]

Part of the 2011 quilt shop hop fabric this year has cartoons. How cool is that?

(Work in progress -- add a picture of the fabric line including the cartoons.)

Although the three S's weren't all that impressed with the 2011 hop shop fabric, the fourth of our group loved it at first sight. Years later, she still loves it. The rest of us are planning to put it together, quilt it and give it to her as a surprise. So far she has no clue although I don't know how she can not, especially since we designed a block with her initial.

"We made such good progress on it this summer but sadly now its locked in a plastic storage bin waiting for time. We are falling slowly more and more behind on the quilt shop hops. However I feel that 2012 will be the year we catch up," S said hopefully in the fall of 2011. I opened that box a few weeks ago and decided that it was time to finish it up. A majority of the blocks -- 39 of them -- were ready to trim and several more we partial completed.Due to busy work schedules, we haven't been quilting much this fall but that's all going to change. Every January we, the three S's, swear this is the year we finish all the the half-finished projects and this year we will. Woot!

Individual Blocks

The Sailboat Block from Harbor Quilts is partially paper pieced and partially traditionally pieced.

Dresden Block variations
This quilt has a lot of Dresden plate blocks. Some of them like this one below is a mini Dresden. Look at how small the individual pieces are. Next photo op we will have to picture the mini Dresden with a coin to give some perspective.

Pointed Dresden Plate
Material Girls Quilt Shop

We would have had fewer of the cute little blue dresdens had I not miscalculated while cutting. Oh well, they fit the style and are cute.

Each year one of the quilt shops in Tacoma designs a block featuring a wonky pine tree. I look forward to seeing how different the current block will be from past ones. The 2011 block features a single simple tree with a border really sets off the block and ties it into the rest of the quilt.

I thought of adding gentle snow drifts with gray running stitches across the white. We may still add that embellishment.

Wonky Pine Tree from Evergreen Quilting

Whirly Gigs
As part of the quilt shop hop the whirly gigs enter the finished block pile. That's right we have enough finished blocks to call it a pile. Go us. These are a little wonky right now but trim them iron them and they will be a perfect addition to the quilt. We are still debating on how to set all the squares. The last quilt shop hop we set with stripes in between the squares.

A Train Blog complements of Trains Fabric, Etc in Tacoma.

If you're a beginning paper piecer, this is a wonderful starter block. I enjoyed putting it together as well as ideas for wheels -- buttons, yoyos... We're thinking of embellishing with a bit of smoke streaming out of the smoke stack. An alternative would be have the label flowing out of the stack, "Western WA Shop Hop 2011."

Spool of Thread from Wiole Rose Quilt Shop in Orting and Two Spools from Quilted Strait. Spools? Woot! One of the S's really likes spools. She made this block as a test to see if she wanted it into make a whole quilt. I think she decided to add it to the "maybe" list. Will we see a whole quilt made out of this pattern here soon? Maybe. Wait and see. In the meantime here is another addition to the 2011 shop hop quilt.We are making progress slowly. But hey; the turtle won the race, right?

Sewing Machine Block from Fabric-Etc
It only seems right to add a sewing machine to the quilt when you have spools of thread.

If you look closely, you'll notice that the "thread" is the same as one of the spool blocks and we're sewing up a triangle of this year's theme fabric.

A variation on Cathedral Windows, from the Paisley Duck Quilt Shop

Circles, from the Aunt Mary's Quilt Shop. Technically, the top two are blocks made using the pattern. The last block is comprised of trimmings from one of those circles. I hate throwing away quilt stuff that might work into a new block...

Embroidered Lady from Heirloom Quilts

An intricate block from Country Carriage Quilts -- both the embroidery and the border. Check out those tiny half triangle squares! Included as part of the shop's kit was an iron-on and wash out pattern. It was certainly easier than tracing.

After that block, we thought we deserved a couple quick and easy ones so we did the mouse cushion and the clothes line with a tiny blue bird.

Clotheline created by Gathering Fabric and an adorable mouse pin cushion block from Keepsake Cottage.

Strawberries and Blossoms from Creative Quilter
At first this block simply didn't do it for me and I put it in the probably won't make pile. My brain couldn't wrap around blue strawberry blossoms.

Then inspiration struck and I only tossed the theme fabric. Engaging a bit of creative liberty, I replaced it with the white backgrounds with black chicken scratches and tiny red blowers. The block turned out adorable.

This block from The Quilt Nest may be my favorite. How can you go wrong with an old board barn and a couple chickens?

I wasn't sure about a wing on the hen since she was so cute but once the rooster had been all dressed up, she looked naked without one. We're tempted to add a little straw peeking out the barn's window and some blades of grass; however, other block beckon.

Lucky Cat (get real name) from Shibaro Dragon. This block's a lot of work but perfect for someone who enjoys anime.

An Asymmetrical Block from Rachel's Fine Fabrics
We found this block appealing so made two, using slightly different fabrics and the opposite twist.

Choosing a Setting

Falling Leaves

Was it an excuse to buy tons of colorful batiks? Maybe.
Was it an opportunity to experiment with colors? Sure.
Is it time to finish her high school graduation quilt? Definitely!

Follow along as we piece it together

The journey begins at the Evergreen Quilt Guild Annual Book Sale. I picked up a copy of Fons and Porter's Our Best Seasonal Quilts. The bunny quilt is really cute, the bee and flower garden quilt is on my someday list, but the Impressions of Fall wall hanging leaped off the page and directly into my imagination.

(Image coming as soon as it's quilted!)

Could we use this design, but make it into a queen sized quilt? L took on the task. She used her graphic design software to increase the block size, add more leaves twirl them into place and finally printed up a both colored and an unfilled patterns. Next step was to take out our stashed batiks.

The quilt has three main types of blocks: square, half-triangle square and stem block -- and a few more complex blocks where two colors of leaves overlap. [Add half-triangle square tutorial] The empty two spaces will be two colors leaf edges. Once arranged, I would carefully sew that section of quilt top into strips. It didn't take long to discover that this is not the perfect pattern for a person who can't easily determine rotations.

In addition to traditionally pieced, the points on the large leaves was paper pieces. You can see the three blocks at the point of this red leaf. Confession time...not all of these turned out quite so well. I published one that matched lines fairly well. Some were a bit less than perfect. We reminded ourselves that leaves so have serrations.

What colors shall we use for these leaves? We scattered fabrics across S's living room. The kitty was so excited but not a ton of help. We folded and arranged fabric piles into leaves. So we'd remember our design, we colored and labeled the pattern and the fabrics. Time to sew! The picture to the right shows a bit of quilt that hadn't been planned yet. I sent out this photo the the S's for input.

Eventually all 30 strips of 26 blocks were pieced together and the strips sewn into the inner quilt top.

The quilt was a bit small so we wanted the border to increase size as well as complement the pattern. For the inner border, we choose a narrow strip of gold print. We finished it with a leafy, 4 1/2" wide outer border

Oops!

I don't understand how we could have missed this mistake. While ironing the inner border, it leaped out at me. I sent out an emergency messages to the three S's, "Fix or leave?" The vote came back quickly:

✓ "I vote fix."
✓ "Fix it. That's terrible."
✓ "I think that might drive you bonkers if you leave it."

Four "rip it out and fix it" (that was my vote, too); zero "pretend you didn't notice." I fixed it. The fabric's pattern isn't all pointing the same direction now but that it definitely not such a blatant error.

The next stop is Trains in Tacoma where we'll put it on the long arm and do some quilting. We plan to use a washable wool batt. Watch for an update with our finished quilt. I'd estimate we'll schedule before mid April. How do you think we should quilt it?