Where to start? We’re pretty much being spoiled brats around here right now.
Our Northern Irish have invaded and it sure doesn’t seem 2 years ago since we parted at the steps of a cafe in Spain. It’s only like we saw them yesterday. The calendar has been filled with the usual Seattle summer adventures we do together as a family. We’ve spoiled ourselves with full menus for breakfast, lunch and dinner and shared our love of margaritas. We’ve jumped off the raft in Lake Washington, shivered in the Sound and added floating down the Yakima River, laughing that we were eating quiche and that our cans of Rainer were chilled by the river just like our butts.
Many a birthday to celebrate in July. John’s passed with a raised glass to him, who knew our last goodbye would happen on those same steps in Spain.
Jefe celebrated another anniversary of his 21st,
and in the keeping it real department, my brother in law Jeremy’s 50th is at the end of the month. Living 4+ years with ALS he is still bossing us around. Everything’s different, yet everything’s the same he says.
His partner of 20+ years, Hallie is our hero and his rock.
Oh yeah, and quilting has happened here and there too. This quilt is an oldie.
I remember moving into the house and piecing this double-trouble quilt top in the little room that is now the kid domain. The crumbs that started the quilt are half square triangles from Roan’s quilt. I simply added improv stitch and flip triangles (you can find the technique in Quilting Modern) on the neutral side of each hst.
The scrap bins got a sifting through for the perfect fussy cuts of kid prints.
I placed and pieced the blocks on point to form the squares rather than diamonds. And then it sat patiently;)
I used the top as a template for building quilt backs in my class a few months ago. I figured when I was cleaning up the design walls after class that I might as well just sew together its back. One stage done and onto the next.
I ran the quilting a quarter inch along the seams vertically and horizontally first, before deciding to fill in more with the diagonal. I used a light blue Metler thread.
This quilt is a perfect eye spy with its bits and pieces from clothing I made Roan as an infant and the receiving blankets that my mom sewed.
Of course there’s fabric from stash on the back, some favorites in fact, all pieced willy-nilly together. It screamed green or orange for binding and the last of the Flea Market Fancy went towards that.
It looks kind of summery and cheerful.
Since I love having quilts in all various stages, I’ve got 2 more basted and a finished top up on the design wall, not to mention all sorts of play with the Split Personality block drifting around. It’s hard to say it but I’m trying to wrap my head around a few classes for fall coming up here. I’m excited to get to the samples, something new and fun.
Until August Peeps;)
Well hi there;)
| Inspiration |
| Quilting |
I didn’t always feel this way. Often it was where I stalled out on a finish. I didn’t feel I had the skills or vision to free-motion with the amount of precision I desired. I know, I know, ‘practice is the best teacher,’ and I did that, but I was just never feeling it with free-motion as I did with a straight line.
Once I just started quilting straight lines I lost the anxiousness AND actually started finishing quilts at a faster rate. Straight-line quilting felt intuitive to me. Another unexpected discovery was I liked my quilts more. Now they’re a 100% ME from start to finish.
| Binding & Backing |
My technique for this is to strip piece some panels and sub-cut them to the binding’s width. I sew it on until I’m about to turn a corner and then I’ll add a larger strip of one fabric that accommodates the turn so that I don’t have seams stuck in the miter. Once the corner is turned I reattach my pieced binding and continue until I come to the next corner.
I haven’t bought backing fabric in ages, just pulling and piecing from stash, I don’t see a noticeable dent honestly. Apparently I bought up all of this flannel so that none of you could have any. I’ve used it to back 
All in all I love it;)
I completed this lovely ages ago and have just needed a brighter Seattle day to photograph it.
| Inspiration |
| Quilting |
| Binding and Backing |
I love the controlled chaos happening in it. I’m going to make a larger one for our bed once I finalize the color way. Decisions decisions. I am slow moving, but am working on a pattern for this quilt.
So I kind of reincarnated this quilt. It really is the original 
To remake this quilt I took out all the quilting, removed three seams, switched around some rows, and sewed it back together. I know, a little crazy. Some things take more then one try to deliver favorable results. It’s a little wonky around the edges and one row too long, but better in my opinion.
The thing about quilting or practicing any art is sometimes the finish is so satisfying, and sometimes…well, it’s just kind of ‘meh.’ But all these finishes lead to the next great idea. Besides discovering that I should never remove quilting ever ever ever again, I learned a couple of new things. One, I don’t think the imprint from the long arm quilting will ever really dissipate, and two, any quilting that has sharp points to it creates really tiny stitches at the turn that are strong and difficult to remove, even with my 
What I do know is that I still love myself a scrap quilt. Every little bitty one;) You can see more of this block if you want, I’ve collected some of those images 
Happy week Peeps!
Two quilts for welcoming babies.
