I took my finished Heart Value quilt along on retreat. I like to have a quilt with me as a little reminder of home and knew I would have some helpers for photos. I think it was the only time I ventured outside and away from my sewing machine.
This is definitely the largest quilt I’ve ever quilted on the studio’s Berninas. It’s a little shy in width to a King. One of my Facebook readers asked when quilting if I go north to south, and then turn to go south to north? This quilt was too large to continually turn, so I just worked my way out from the middle. I started with a vertical quilting line ½” from the seams and then went back to fill in. It was the first time I’ve used the stitch in the ditch foot that came with my Bernina’s walking foot to tack down the seams. It turned out perfectly.
Oh, all that lovely color.
I combed through my stash to find just the right fabrics for each heart. Again a perfect sample of archiving all your lovely fabrics in one quilt. No matchy-matchy required.
I lack in low volumes except for an insane amount of light pink.
More from the stash for back.
I have to say I’ve pulled quite a number of fabrics lately from stash that I bought specifically for backs and upon trying to square them up I believe who ever is operating the printing or checking the quality is not doing their job. The motifs are printed so off grain that they look horrible as huge cuts and can’t be used. I finally moved from my original prints and patched together a bunch of mostly flannel in a simple back.
I think I mentioned in a past post that I purchased a fabric favorite for the binding once I saw that it was reprinted. It’s a Sevenberry and ties in the colors of the back perfectly.
I try to get photos of quilts before I wash them and now that that’s done I threw it into the wash. I was super impressed with how supple it was when I pulled it out. It has an amazing drape.
It’s perfect timing. The morning fog has cleared and sunny skies are expected for Seattle by mid-day. It appears the season is turning just in time for the first day of summer making it time to pull the duvet and sleep with just a quilt.
This is just another example of how to use value in your quilts. You can follow the simple instructions in my value quilt tutorial to make your own.
Happy Week Peeps!
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P.S. I’ve added evening and weekend Open Studios to the schedule;) One can never have too many opportunities to quilt!
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.
