New Finishes- Two New Quilts!

 

This is my Sea Swept quilt. The pattern came from Better Homes & Gardens American Patchwork and Quilting. It is entirely foundation paper-pieced. I love it! I quilted it with a cotton/poly batting and Aurifil monofilament thread. 

It's definitely better for summer but I love cuddling under it now.

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This is another version of the charm-pack-quilt I've made a few times. This fabric features unicorns and rainbows. I love it but I'm giving it away for charity at my next guild meeting.

I never really finished the Declutter Challenge; I watched Karen Brown's videos and realized that I did not have anything close to enough stuff to really declutter. I just need to clean up and organize a little better, so I've been working on that. I do find things to give away from time to time but not much honestly. My room is looking a lot better though! 

A Dino Quilt for Damien

I finished this quilt over a year ago; it was a baby quilt for a family friend. She wanted dinosaurs for her infant son and so I found a dino pattern and here it is. The pattern is by Made by Marney, here on Etsy.

It is foundation paper-pieced. Fabrics were mostly drawn from my Victoria Findlay Wolfe collection as well as some other things from my stash but Victoria's blues and especially the black and white stripe I used for the teeth seemed really fitting. I did not do the embroidery seen in the original pattern. The border fabric is an Eric Carle print that drew together the palette used for the dinos.

It was pretty fun to do though it did take a while. I quilted it with either Aurifil white or invisible/monofilament thread (I can't remember which), by machine. I used Quilters Dream wool batting for the little one to enjoy. Of course Eugenie had to photobomb. She's such a drama queen.

Sea Swept!

I finished the top!

I started cutting and piecing this quilt in September once I was good and truly settled into my new apartment (and my new sewing room).

It's taken me since then to complete the top, which is completely foundation-paper-pieced. Nothing about it was hard, but I needed tenacity as much as I needed a sewing machine and thread.

You can find the link here to purchase and download the pattern for Sea Swept.

Where Are My Dragons?

Well I finally finished my dragons quilt, now officially titled "Where Are My Dragons?" in honor of Daenerys Targeryan and "Game of Thrones" the TV show (I'm not into the books.)

I got the pattern from Maaike Bakker's wonderful book Spellbinding Quilts, which contains lots of paper-pieced patterns for dragons, witches, wizards, fairies and other supernatural and mythological figures.

This quilt is about 50x50 inches, machine-pieced and hand-quilted. The quilting was very difficult for me because the nontraditional blocks don't lend themselves to simple patterns. I didn't want to do straight-line machine quilting because that seemed bland and I thought it would disrupt the pictures. I didn't want to bother paying someone to machine quilt it either and so it sat around for a long time until I decided to just go for it and do free-hand patterns and stitch-in-the-ditch on the interior, and a Celtic border pattern on the borders.

It was also difficult because I used black quilting thread everywhere except on the dragons and wizard so I needed to quilt in excellent light!

I'm a big fan of Bakker's patterns and would definitely class them as intermediate paper piecing. These shouldn't be your first time at the rodeo but if you've done some basic patterns you should be fine. The blocks are between 5 inches and 15 inches on different sides (they are designed to fit together) and the most complex blocks have five or six units to connect. The dragons were easier for me than the wizard.

Overall I'm really pleased with it and can't wait to display it and show it off at my next guild meeting in September.

30s Reproduction Fabric Pillow

From yet another Craftsy pattern, for yet another relative's Christmas present, it's about 12 inches.

It's not perfect- you can see the two halves are slightly misaligned- but I'm pretty happy with it.

I'd call it a high beginner pattern. It was pretty easy, with big pieces for the most part, and even the small pieces were easy. I wouldn't advise it as a first pattern, but maybe as a second paper piecing project it would be fine.

The pattern has so much potential for variation- you could use two fabrics for the interlocking strips, or just one with a strongly contrasting backing. It would be gorgeous in batiks, cat fabrics, solids, whatever. You could have so much fun trying different combinations and I pieced the top in two afternoons, about 3 hours of work, with another hour to quilt it by machine and finish it into a pillow.

I used scraps for both the strips and the background.

If you're not using scraps, you'd need a fat quarter of each fabric if you're using 2 for the strips, or a half yard if you're using 1 for the strips and a fat quarter for the background (about). I always err on the side of having more fabric than necessary and I don't want to make promises but I think that would do it.

Have fun!

Frog Pillow- Another Christmas Present

This is another 12x12 inch paper pieced pillow.

I found the pattern on Craftsy, here.

I would call this a low-intermediate pattern. It was less complicated than the flamingos, but still calls for a little experience with paper piecing. It went together quickly for me.

Flamingos for Christmas

I made this pillow as a Christmas gift for one of my husband's relatives. It's a 12-inch block paper-pieced from a pattern I bought on Craftsy, here.

If you don't know Craftsy, it's a great resource for both free and low-cost patterns from lots of great artists and craftspeople. They offer online classes and tutorials, too.

I used pinks and greens from my scrap pile for the front and binding; I actually have a huge cut of the pink Hawaiian batik I used for the body and binding though.

The backing is a hula-girl fabric I've had for a while. I love it cut up so much more than I did when it was just yardage. Now I want to make all kinds of things with it!

This pattern would be appropriate for someone who's done a little paper piecing- I wouldn't recommend it for beginners but it's not that hard. And it came together just great. I can't wait to give it, except that I may need to make one for me now!