Bloggers Quilt Festival Color Wheel Quilt!

It's time again for the Bloggers Quilt festival!  This year I'm entering 2 quilts - here is my Color Wheel quilt that I finished late last year.  I'm entering it in the "ROYGBIV" category. My Mendocino Doll Quilt (entered in the "2 color quilt" category) is here.  My incentive to finish this quilt was the arrival of my in-laws from France for a 3 week visit.  I wanted them to have a nice quilt on the wall of the guest room!  Click the button above to see hundreds of quilts on display in many cool categories!  

Pin basted and partially quilted

I made the quilt using the Color Wheel quilt pattern from Purl Soho and Joelle Hoverson from the book Last Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts.  

Orange and pink

I started with a Color Wheel Quilt bundle, also from Purl, but then I added a BUNCH of Denyse Schmidt as well as other designer fabrics that I love.  You only need a fat eighth of each fabric! (Purl also offers a color wheel bundle using Liberty prints - very decadent!)

Pink and purple

The hardest part is deciding which fabrics to use and in which ORDER!!  Laying them out on my flannel design wall helped a lot!

Greens and yellows

You put together the quilt in quadrants, and it's pretty simple to assemble.

Center quilting detail

After assembly, I marked the lines with a ruler and a hera marker.  I was surprised how easy it is to see the lines.  Straight line quilting went pretty fast! Instead of stitching in the ditch between the fabrics, I stitched just on the edge of each fabric.  It feels more sturdy to me when done that way.

The blue side

The white center and edges as well as the binding are made from Kona white.

In the garden

I made a sleeve for the back and used an old piece of baseboard trim I had in the garage to hang it on the guest room wall.  It's the perfect size for the room!

Greens and pinks

My mother in law loved it, my parents got to enjoy it on their stay, and a friend who stayed recently threatened to steal it!  : )

Some of the bright colors

Quilt stats:
Design: Joelle Hoverson - Last Minute Patchwork and Quilted gifts
Fabric: Color wheel quilt bundle from Purlsoho + stash
Quilted: Straight line quilting by me : )
Size: 56"/143cm square
Completed: November, 2012

In the guest room - want to come stay?  : )

Bloggers Quilt Festival Mendocino Doll Quilt!

It's time again for the spring Blogger's Quilt Festival!  I'm entering 2 quilts this spring - you can see my color wheel quilt here! 

Layout

This is my Mendocino Doll Quilt.  I made this last year, and I wanted to keep it - it's sooooo cute!  I love the mermaids and seaweed and fish!  I love the contrast of the dark pinks against the gold.  I'm entering this one in the two-color quilt category.

I laid out the quilt in quadrants using a glue stick to stick the fabrics in place.  I won't call them scraps, because as this was the first time I cut into my rare stash of Heather Ross Mendocino, I only had FQs and no scraps!  : )

I used straight line quilting in a grid pattern (not marked).  I just tried to catch in all the edges of the raw-edged fabrics.

Quilting mermaid detail

Fish and more quilted lines

Quilt stats:

Design:  Pretty in Patchwork Doll Quilts  Ticker tape doll quilt

Fabric:  Heather Ross Mendocino, a few extra gold scraps, and Kona Snow background and binding

Quilting: Straight line (not marked) in a grid

Size: 20"x28"/52x72 cm

Completed: June 2012 

All quilted : )

Check out all the great quilts in the Quilt Festival at Amy's Creative Side!!

Tula Pink Salt Water Colorblocks Quilt!

My first queen-size quilt!!!  I saw the salt water line from Tula Pink and I knew I just had to make this great Colorblocks quilt that she posted free on her blog!  I love the blocks of color, and because it's SO modern, I knew that my husband would allow it on our bed!  So here is my first queen-size quilt!!  

It's also my first REAL endeavor into free-motion-quilting!  I decided to use wavy lines (like waves!) on the grid pattern, and then I added a sea weed pattern I made up on the edges.  On the corners, it needed something different, so I experimented with some "sea bubbles" which are really not as hard as I thought!

I recently took my first FMQ class from Lisa at Sew Modern in Los Angeles where I live.  She taught me how to do a bunch of different patterns and told me and my classmates just to jump in and not be scared!!  I did just that, and while there are MANY imperfections, you can't really notice them!

We went to the beach for a 50K bike ride Sunday and took the quilt along for a little photo shoot.  It was kind of a gray day at the beach, so the photos could be clearer. I have to give my husband credit as he took some of these!

The lifeguard station was a good backdrop!

Doing any kind of pattern from one end of a queen-size quilt to the other is a daunting task!  All the starting and stopping to move your hands is not easy.  I got better at it as I had a lot of practice!

A seagull wanted to see what was up!

Here's the entire quilt top - I used the Free Spirit solids to match that Tula recommended in the pattern.  I used all the Salt Water coral fabric scraps for the binding.

The hubby trying to hold it up in the wind!  Funny!

On the back I did a mirror image using only the solids from the front.  I love how it turned out and I really think it's a reversible quilt!!

The sweetest pink hat for the sweetest little girl.....

Hi!  I'm on my way to England for work today, but just had to share a sweet pink hat I made for a friend's daughter for Christmas!  This is the Super Soft Merino Hat from the purlbee blog.  I love Purl Soho's new bulky merino and the pink was the perfect color for this little one!  You can find the pattern here.

This family will get many more gifts from me as they must have learned by now that I'm a total sucker for seeing my gifts being used and worn!  

Enjoy your weekend!!  Lily.

And Sew On Block of the Month - January!

Hi!  Hope your January is going great!  I wanted to share a new skill I'm learning - foundation paper piecing!  Over at Quiet Play, Kristy is doing a BOM where we get to download a free block each month from Craftsy to make a wall hanging by the end of the year.  The blocks are all based on a sewing theme and we work up to a much more difficult block. Very fun!

Here's my January block below!  It will be fun to get a different design to work from each month!

You actually sew on the lines of a printed page, carefully adding each section one at a time.  I embroidered the ruler for fun.  I used a bit of Flea Market Fancy too, and the fabric that looks black is actually Robert Kaufman quilters linen (it has a pattern).  I like the way it turned out - it was really easy!

I can't wait for February!