Red, White, and Blue Twister Quilt Finish

 I'm still trying to stay focused on finishing my Gathered Harvest appliqué quilt, but I managed to sneak in some binding on a long standing UFO.

According to a previous blog post, I started the quilt in early June, 2012!

 

 

 

I loved collecting all the red, white, and blue fabrics for the quilt, but didn't love the resulting quilt top and put it away to marinate. 

 

I rediscovered the quilt top about 2 years ago, and inspiration struck.  I added the white (white on white scattered stars) and blue (Moda Grunge) borders and was happy with the result.

 

After some starry quilting by Diane Knott (Butterfly Threads Quilting), all that was needed was binding, a hanging sleeve, and a label.

 

 I'm still working out the label idea, but the binding and sleeve are done.

 

The quilt design reminds me of fireworks, so I think the name will be Illuminations - inspired by John Adams' thoughts on how American Independence should be celebrated.  In a letter to his wife Abigail, he wrote:

I am apt to believe it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as a great anniversary Festival.  It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn acts of Devotion to God Almighty.  It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.

Twisted Discovery and Giveaway!

I was digging through the closet last week - trying to make room for new stash enhancement acquisitions - and this quilt top reappeared! 

I made the top in 2012 using a stash of red, white, and blue fabrics, and the Twister Tool.  I was excited to use the RWB fabrics, but disappointed in how the quilt turned out.  It just didn't have the zing I remembered from the quilt shop example.  I put the top away, figuring I'd get back to it some day.

I guess I laid my hands on the quilt top on just the right "some day", as I was inspired to add two borders and call it a finished flimsy.  Both border fabrics were already in my stash, so it was quick work to wrap things up.  The inner border is a white on white featuring scattered stars, and the outer border is a medium blue Moda Grunge.

Once the top is quilted, it can function as a wall-hanging or a lap quilt, as it measures about 66 inches square.

Now that I've had the experience of making a Twister quilt, I don't really want to make another one.  It's not a difficult design to assemble, and the tool works as advertised, but one quilt is enough for me!

With that thought in mind, I'm offering my Twister Tool free to anyone who is interested. 

This version of the tool works with 10 inch squares of fabric (aka Layer Cakes), but of course, you can also cut the 10 inch squares from fat quarters or yardage.  

To provide some inspiration, I'll also include ten 10 inch squares of red, white, and blue fabric with the tool. 

Let me know in the comments (include your email address!!) that you are interested in the Twister Tool package, and I'll draw a name and announce the winner next Monday (October 19th).  United States residents only - sorry!  Postage and the postal system are just too crazy these days!

June Mini: A Puzzle Experiment

I've always wanted to try my hand at piecing a Rocky Mountain Puzzle block.  

Still thinking about Christmas gifts, I thought maybe I could make my Denver-residing son something (a pillow?) using the RMP block.

Since the July 4th holiday was fast approaching, I decided to dig into the red, white, and blue fabric stash for inspiration.  Using the tutorial linked above, I tried the eight inch size puzzle blocks.

It turns out, the "puzzle" is using partial seams to create the border around the center block.  It wasn't difficult to do, but design-wise, it didn't really make sense to me.  Unless one uses different fabrics for that border, the fancy piecing doesn't show up.  For future reference, I'd just construct the block using regular border-style piecing.

I made two additional blocks, then added sashing and cornerstones so the blocks wouldn't run together.  I used invisible thread to quilt around the squares and triangles in the blocks, and a decorative machine stitch in blue thread to quilt the sashing.  

The finished mini measures about 18 inches square - a good size to fit an 18 inch pillow form.  😀

The backing fabric was also from my red, white, and blue fabric stash.

Since this was an experiment, it will stay with me and I'll do another version for Dear Son.  I have a fun stack of indigo-style blues and browns that might make some great Rocky Mountain Puzzle blocks.

I did a little July 4th decorating on the bureau in my front entry hall!

Linking up with Wendy's (Constant Quilter) Monthly Mini Link-up.

Red, White & Blue Scraps Revisited

Back in June, I blogged about some red, white and blue scraps that were struggling to become Scrap Jar Star blocks.  My plan at the time was to find some additional fabrics that "read" as solids, in an attempt to calm down the busy-ness of the red, white and blue prints.

After hours of play and experimentation, I ripped apart all the SJS blocks and changed direction.

 

This medallion of 16 patches and pinwheels was the result.  

 

I still had a huge batch of red, white & blue HSTs, so I was inspired to do yet another zig-zag border.

 

Before adding the zig-zag border, I wanted to enlarge the quilt a bit and make the math for the zig-zags work out evenly.  I auditioned this red fabric with white stars, but it reminded me too much of Minnie Mouse's polka dots. 

 

This isn't a great representation, but the fabric is red with small dotted stars - it works much better as the inner border.  

 I still have to stitch all the HSTs together for the zig-zag border.  Although today is a holiday in the U.S., I won't get to enjoy it by stitching.  It's time to return my grand-dog to my son, so I'll be driving half the length of Louisiana to meet him.  

David & Jozy

It's been great having Jozy Labrador (named after a U.S. soccer player) visit with us this summer, but it will be nice to be back to our usual menagerie of just two dogs and one cat!

 

 

 

Scrappy Red, White & Blue

Since I had an unexpected all-day sew-a-thon on Saturday due to rainy weather, one project that got some attention was a scrappy red, white & blue Scrap Jar Star quilt.  I started cutting up scraps and piecing the 16-patch centers last July, but the project got stalled after I pieced a huge batch of HSTs to form the Sawtooth Star portion of the block.

For past SJS blocks, I made totally scrappy stars, pairing fabrics for the star points, but using different fabrics for each set of points.  To my dismay, that really didn't work with all the RWB prints.  The resulting stars were just way too busy and jarring to look at.

Since I already had a huge pile of HSTs made, I decided to make the star points match on each block in an effort to tone down the craziness.  I also decided to use consistent fabrics for the corner squares in each block.

 

I'm happier with the result, but it's still on the busy side.  The 16-patch centers don't look like they belong.  I'm not crazy about the center fabric for the secondary 9-patch where the block corners meet, either.  That will probably be easy to fix.  I'm not sure about the SJS blocks themselves.  I'm going to leave them pinned to the design wall for now and see if they grow on me.  Since I only have 4 blocks pieced so far, I figure it would be easy to swap out the 16-patch centers with a simpler block (pinwheel?) and go from there.

Any thoughts or ideas cheerfully accepted!

Dear Husband's Log Cabin Quilt

In the summer of 2014, I started working on a Log Cabin quilt for my Dear Husband.  

It was his first request for a quilt, and he chose the colors and general layout scheme.  He has always had a thing for log cabins (the structures), and this may be as close as he ever gets to having a log cabin of his own!

 

By the end of November 2015, I was stitching down the binding.  The quilt was finally finished in time for Dear Husband's early December birthday, but I didn't get an opportunity for photographs until last weekend.

 

Once again, my LAQ Cindy Braiwick did an amazing job on the quilting.  There are several different designs throughout the quilt, but these pinecones are one of my favorites.  And how lucky was I to find a backing fabric with log cabins?

 

This block has a wreath of oak leaves surrounding a dog's face.  Hard to see, despite my best attempts at photographing.  Dear Husband is a dog lover, so Cindy was sure to include Man's Best Friend in her quilting designs.

 

Dog bone in the quilting!

 

The full quilt, hanging from the balcony at our camp (the white diagonal strip on the bottom left corner is just the stairway railing).  Dear Husband has been enjoying the quilt for weeks, and judging by the amount of dog hair it has already accumulated, so have our dogs!