The green and gold!

      Another done quilt, this time the pieces and fabric from Quiltdiva Julie. This was part of a boxed set of goodies/quilt pieces from Julie to put together. My husband's high school colors were green and gold, so he really liked to see this one finished. It is a comfort quilt waiting for a referral to recipient who needs the comfort contained within.

Choosing Borders

Quilted and trimmed

With binding provided by Julie

Quilted details

Back, love that Blueberry Park fabric!

Back Detail

Tops sewn, borders on- bring on the backings!

      Two more tops were finished. I shopped at Joann's for the border fabric for the flannel batik squares quilt. I could not find batik flannel anywhere, so I bought a mottled lighter blue and a dark blue solid for the borders. After washing it, I cut and sewed the borders on and it is a big size about 70 x 76 now. I have to just accept it as it is instead of what it could be with the right fabric. It is soft and cuddly. When I was at Joann's, I was able to buy 5 yards of regular light blue mottled fabric that I seamed the long way for the backing (washed first) so the whole quilt is now in the line for the longarm.

    The Orange HSTs quilt with the gray slashes from Quiltdiva Julie was also sewn together, web style, and as I looked it on the wall, I thought it needed a thin border to hold the edges together when the binding was sewn on. I also thought a border would help to visually end the diagonal lines before exiting the quilt. I did not have enough of the gray used for the diagonal slashes, so a different gray was added which I think works. It is 71 x 84 so it needs a big backing. I dug out a dark blue 6 yard piece I bought at Zinck's in Berlin last May for it, but need to seam it yet. Wish I had bought more backing fabric there then.

Orange HSTs final arrangement

      I played around with the HSTs for a while, and finally decided to put the greenish, lightish squares in the center and the darker oranges around it. Sort of. I like the unpredictable quality of it. This layout is instead of the long skinny symmetrical one I showed in an earlier post. The fabrics are wonderful. I have it clipped together to web it soon.

     Also, here is the sewn green/gold HSTs top with border choice.

Green/Gold HSTs

      The second gifted HST quilt is a green/golds one. I tried arranging the groupings of 4 in different directions, but I kept coming back to all of them in the same position. Somehow, that appeals to me. The varied tones of greens and golds seem to pull together this way. The quilt was a little small, so I added a 2" finished green border and now am picking a wider yellow one (4" Finished). I don't know why, but it reminds me of picnic tables in the park when I was a kid. They were always dark green.

Hoping for loads of comfort

      Ninety five percent of my quilts are comfort quilts. They are made to be given, by referral, to those in need of comforting due to illness, treatment, bereavement, or serious setback. Most of them tend to go to those undergoing cancer treatment because that is the most common referral. I received a message from a friend whose cousin had just found out she had stage 4 lung cancer and has a short time to live. Fortunately, I had a done quilt that only needed washing and bag preparation. I was able to get it to my friend so she could give it the next day. I prefer that the referring person be the deliverer, but that doesn't always happen. I prefer the focus on the message of the quilt.
     This quilt was made from a batik layer cake and 10" white squares. A batik to a white square, sewn all around, then cut twice on the diagonal. I love to use the Perfect Slotted ruler, because I only have to cut twice to trim to size. I used Glide celery on top.

This is a pretty large comfort quilt

The whole quilt package

Some special HSTs

       In looking over past posts and lack of, I realized that although I posted the bars and leaves quilt I sewed and quilted that was given me by Quiltdiva Julie, I never posted the extent of the gifted top kits. There were 4 quilt kits contained plus backings, bindings. Two were the strips/bars and two were precut triangles for HST quilts. I have been chipping away at the two HSTs ones. The orange HST arrangement is tall and skinny, but I like the diamond center. If I use wide side borders, it may work. I have a gray print on the wall to consider.

I changed the green strip between the triangles to a gray

Trying some layouts with HSTS

First attempt on wall. The top row is flopped over because my wall is not tall enough.

Full layout, gray side border idea

     I am going to rearrange all the HSTs again in a different layout to try another idea.

Leafy times

      In the fall retreat, I webbed the Batik HSTs into this Diamond quilt. I was able to quilt it this week and I used lots of leaves inspired by the batik prints and nature feel to the colors. I used Glide Celery top and bottom to quilt. I used my chalks to draw it all out. I am grateful that I found refils on Etsy for the chalk holders.
     I will show detail shots after I get the binding on. The backing is a wonderful green Moda fabric that someone gave me.

Tubes and tops

      This is not a fashion statement, rest easy. I am trying to make another Blue Bargello to replace the one given away. I am using the Island batik packs, you need two.

     Then, I laid them all out in gradating style as required by the pattern and sewed the strip sets. I have two identical strip sets. They have been sewn into 2 large tubes, waiting to be cut in the varying width strips.

     At the retreat, I was able to get this HST top tubed, webbed, and later at home, corrected:

A Sparkling Happy Gift

     I have been gifted parts for a top for another wonderful comfort quilt from Quiltdiva Julie complete with backing and binding. This one is called Flaneur, you can read about it here. It is chock full of happy HSTs with Tula Pink's Fairy Dust as the background fabric.
    Julie's original layout was sent to me and when I put it on my wall, it made my eyes ping pong and I could not appreciate the colors, fabrics and designs. Some patterns just do that to me.

    I thought about how I could focus attention on the quilt, not add more blocks or subtract any and certainly not mess with the blocks themselves. I thought a darker value could balance out the bright, but not too much. If it was all sashed, it would be too diluted. I tried one section of the quilt with 1" strips of this fabric as I don't appreciate solids as much as some print interest.

    I went ahead and added the strips to the rest. However, I did not sew long strips in the rows or columns. Since the fabric was only 1", I was afraid it would wibble and wobble between the blocks. Some people recommend to cut it bigger, then trim it down. I did not want to trust myself to trim long sewn strips. So, what I did was sew a strip to the side of each block that needed it and sew the blocks together webbing style with the strips already attached. The blue fabric was forgiving as you can't see the seams between the blocks. And I got it all straight. It doesn't change the size much or interfere with the design but brings a focus to it.

    The last thing I am going to do before seaming the backing is add 2.5" strips (finish 2") borders using the Fairy Dust fabric that Julie included. I think this will give those HSTs some more air to sparkle.

    Julie also sent leftover HSTs which I am going to use to make the block for the front of the tote bag for the comfort quilt. Most times I use orphan blocks, but this block will match the quilt.

Blue/greens Batik HSTS

     Oh boy, is this is an oldie WIP. I pulled it out of the bag to web and remembered that recently I found leftover HSTs from this layout and it wasn't enough to make another decent sized quilt. I dug those out and added them to the webbed, sewn top. I was able to add a top row, two bottom rows and two side columns. This made it a large sized comfort quilt (72" x 84"). I used to make comfort quilts under 70"  long. Yes, it takes less fabric and time, but really, a comfort quilt to really wrap up in, I found needs to be over 72" long. I made the decision to make my comfort quilts a generous size due to the purpose of a comfort quilt.
    I still remember when I was in the hospital for my heart attack having no blankets in winter and someone gave me a comfort quilt just under 60" long. I vowed if I survived, I would make generous sized quilts regardless of backing requirements.
    The HSTs were made sewing a batik to a white on all four edges and cutting diagonally twice. I trimmed every HST using the perfect slotted ruler so only 2 sides had to be trimmed.

Original layout design

The improved size using the whole layer cake of HSTs

HSTs- next for webbing

      When my daugher and her husband spent last week grading AP Chemistry exams, I helped to babysit the 3 yr. old and 6 month old so my daughter could grade online in PA and my son in law grade in Salt Lake City. I took my machine and a couple of projects with me. I was able to web and sew a Scrappy Trips that was a leader ender for too long (photo to come) and trim 168 HSTs made from a layer cake (4 per 10" square) with the Clearly Perfect Slotted Trimmer. And iron them all with Best Press. Not exactly an exciting process.
       After I got home, I arranged them on my design wall (too short) with a design I sketched out from a table runner I saw online. While the colors alone were not exciting to me, when they appeared mixed in a design, I really liked them. After all, they are batiks- never met one I did not like. It is 12 blocks across by 13 down and used every single one of them, wonderful. They are clipped by column and ready to web. I know it is not symmetrical on the top and bottom, but it was either leave out the top row of blocks, or try to make new ones for the bottom to match. I don't have any more of the cream background fabric and I thought it will just be fine as it is.

 

Cooking on a few burners

      Lots going on in the making department. One of the many quilt tops QuiltDiva Julie has sent me went out the door this week to a family member dealing with breast cancer. I was able to quilt the plaid HST quilt, put the quilt package together (tote bag, quilt, card, music CD, pocket quilts and book- 50 days of Hope), and deliver it out of town.

All fluffed and washed

Quilted

Bag

     I was also able to complete 2 more Stained Glass mosaic butterflies and grout them. They went out yesterday to 2 recipients.

Ungrouted

Grouted

     In a bag, I had a number of nicely pressed HSTs that I thought just needed laying out. When I started to put them in a pattern on the wall, I realized they were leftovers from another quilt (forgot to label it on bag) and there were not enough to pull the pattern off. I did not want to just put white along the sides to fill it out. So, back into the bag it went.

Zig zags and snowy days

     The blue green zig zags is done, bound, etc. I could not resist photographing outside in the snow. When Alycia, with her wonderful Colorado ranch landscape, shows her quilts outdoors, I always drool. I live in a tight little suburban lot which is not exactly photogenic for quilts, but due to the almost 20" of snow that fell on MLK day, I gave it a try.  I also know how to crop out.

Back detail

Back

     How's that, Alycia?