Three Finishes

 I haven't been posting much lately, but the quiltmaking continues!

This is a flannel couch quilt. A dear friend gave me some flannels, and I added a few of my own to the mix. I backed it with a piece of fleece I had on hand that happened to be exactly the right size!

Old-Style Winter Print Flannel (60" x 71")

Old-Style Winter Print Flannel (detail)

Old-Style Winter Print Flannel (backing and binding detail)

Next up is a Hallowe'en Trip Around the World. I know it is out-of-season, but next October, I'll be ready! 🎃 I call this one Spooky Trip Around the World.

Spooky Trip Around the World (90" x 90")

Spooky Trip Around the World (edge detail)

Spooky Trip Around the World (center detail)

This third quilt is a Bonnie Hunter design called Boxy Bow Ties. For some reasons, it sits in my brain as Botox Ties! Other than string quilts, this might be the scrappiest quilt I've ever made. There is a little of everything in here. I added a few extra cornerstones in the sashing that weren't part of the original design.

Boxy Bow Ties (94" x 94")

Boxy Bow Ties (detail)

Boxy Bow Ties (detail)

Boxy Bow Ties (backing and binding detail)

I'm still working on the Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt, Rhododendron Trail, and I'm doing her Hearts of Hope quiltalong as well. I've lots of projects in the works.

Happy Quilting! 😸

Floral Trip Around the World

 I just love this pattern!

Floral Trip Around the World 90" x 100"

Floral Trip Around the World (back and binding detail)

I made this quilt once before with a travel theme. This time I used florals and a range of solid colors. It was another quilt that requires careful planning and organization, but it was fun to make!

I used a cheater fabric for the back to continue the floral idea, then I added a striped binding to finish. It is brighter than it looks in the photo--I took the photo on a cloudy day.

Happy Quilting!

No Passport Required (Part 2)

In my previous post, I outlined the steps I took in preparing to make this Trip Around the World quilt.

No Passport Required 112" x 122"

After the prep, it was time to sew!

I don't have many pictures of the actual sewing--it was just stitching square to square...to square...to square...

I worked from two corners towards the center, making two identical rows and attaching them to the previously sewn sections. In this way, I was building up two parts of the quilt at once. In the end, I would join the two pieces to create the whole quilt. The rows were long and bulky, but doing it this way helped me keep things in the right places--correct placement is essential to this design.

These was no fancy quilting design. I quilted this on my domestic sewing machine, so it was a matter of squeezing the large quilt through the machine. I did a simple straight stitch along the diagonal lines for quilting. It is rather plain, but my emphasis all along was on the fabrics, so the simple design worked well.

I am happy with the results of this project. I'm including several pictures of the fabrics, so you can see the range of the international motifs.

No Passport Required 112" x 122"

No Passport Required (center detail)

No Passport Required (fabric detail)

No Passport Required (fabric and binding detail)

No Passport Required (fabric detail)

No Passport Required (Where's Waldo?)

No Passport Required (There he is!)

No Passport Required (binding detail)

No Passport Required (backing)

No Passport Required (backing detail)

No Passport Required (fabric detail)

No Passport Required (center fabric detail)

I had such fun collecting fabrics for this. For the USA round, I bought some license plate fabric with state names and alternated it with fussy cuts from a fabric panel of a US map.

So there you have it--a Trip Around the World with no travel injections, no flight delays, and No Passport Required. Just think--you can travel the world without even getting out of bed! 😎

No Passport Required (Part 1)

I recently completed a Trip Around the World quilt. It is about as big as the world (112" x 122") and nearly as heavy! :)

This project took a lot of organization and planning, so I'm breaking the post about it into two parts.

I've wanted to do a Trip Around the World for a long time. However, unlike most of the patterns I found, I wanted to do it on-point. (I know--I'm crazy!) I found a pattern, not so much for the instructions on assembly, but for counts of the squares I needed and for planning the size.

The pattern is from Everyday Quilts designer Sandra Boyle. Because she is an Australian designer who doesn't have a business website, I went through broderie on Etsy to find the pattern. Lizzie, the shop owner in Melbourne, Australia, carries many Everyday Quilts patterns, and her shipping charges are very reasonable. The pattern is entitled Square Dance.

Click the photo for information.

As I mentioned, I wanted the pattern, in part, for the cutting instructions. It outlines how many squares of each of the thirty-one different fabrics you need to cut. I realize that I probably could have figured this out on my own, but having the list made it so much easier!

The pattern indicated that the quilt would be 65" x 71". Because I wanted to feature the prints with international themes, I decided to cut my squares larger than the pattern indicated, so more of the individual prints would be visible. Lots of math later (remember this quilt is on-point, so it takes diagonal thinking), I found that if I cut the prints the size I wanted to, the quilt would finish at around 109" x 128" (my final measurement was pretty close to that). Okay--that's HUGE--but to get the effect I wanted, it had to be done.

I needed to decide the order of the fabrics for the layout, so I pulled out what I planned to use and started lining them up.

Fabrics 1-9

Fabrics 10-21

Fabrics 22-30 (plus the yellow print for the setting triangles)

I tried to take both color and value into account in the arrangement. I also had to think of how much of each fabric I had. The outside rows take much more fabric than the inner ones.

I then further organized it as shown here.

I glued swatches of fabric on a file folder labeled by number.

I cut the number of squares of each fabric as indicated on the pattern and placed them in plastic bags labeled with their numbers in an open bin for ease of access.

All of this before I sewed a stitch! Looking back on the process, I'm glad I took plenty of time to get everything ready--it made the assembly so much easier.

Part 2 can be found HERE.