Quilt Reveal: Tile Quilt

I was thinking about what to gift my sister for her birthday when I remembered that I had gifted her the tile quilt top last year, but hadn't finished it!  Oops, time for some emergency quilting!

I had been thinking about quilting in the ditch to make the squares look more like tiles, but thought that slightly beside the ditch would be better to look like the grout. I had originally thought to stitch on both sides of the seams, but these squares are fairly small, and there are a lot of them. I'm not really sure that they would be necessary since the seam itself is one side of the grout and the quilting could be the other side. I used a slightly darker thread so the grout lines would show.

Another option, which I obviously discarded is to quilt motifs on the quilt, to take full advantage of the fact that it is a quilt and not tiles.  I really couldn't think of a motif or set of motifs to add.

I had a dream that I quilted all sorts of motifs on the quilt, like graffiti. I pictured some graffiti on an American flag that I must have seen in the 80s or thereabouts  I had already started quilting and there is  no way I could think of enough motifs to add to do that, but this dream did really help me relax in quilting this. "She's just lucky I'm not graffiting all over the quilt."

 The quilting is about an eighth of an inch away from the seam, which is not a normal width in quilting.  Every time my mind wandered to thinking about something else, like "is the path clear?", "do I need to remove more safety pins?", "is the quilt flat on the table and not dragging?", I would subconsciously switch to either quilting in the ditch or a quarter of an inch away, and I would have to veer back to the right space, sometimes over-correcting and needing yet another adjustment.  I think I did this often enough to make it look like the variation was normal and expected.  This picture above this paragraph has the truest colors, and you can see the tile-like design in the cream fabric.

The party was at my house so I was busy cleaning and working, and the party was in the evening, so I  didn't get a good picture of the whole thing, but this gives you a general idea.

Islamic Tile Quilt made by Shasta Matova

Apparently I didn't get a good picture of the quilt top either, but here is a picture I showed last time of the whole quilt top.

This quilt was a joy to quilt.  Part of it was my relaxed mood I mentioned above.  But part of it was also the batting. I used a new batting from Joanns that I got on sale this year or last. I usually use Warm and Natural. I think this one was called Soft and Bright or something like that. It is super soft and seems to have less scrim than Warm and Natural. Without actually looking at the labels, I would imagine that this batting would be really good for people who like a lot of quilting in their quilts and yet still want a soft look.  Another part of it was the new Sew Steady table I got shortly after starting quilting on this quilt. I'll review that after I've played with it some more.

While I was binding this quilt, I watched YouTube videos on junk journals, bullet journals and scrapbooks.  I thought about new quilt ideas.  But I've had so much fun quilting this quilt and the last one, that it might be time to quilt something else!

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2015 Recap of my Year

Today is the last day of the year.  2015 was a good year for me.  Today, I am going to give you a recap of the year by reminding you of some of my posts I made this year.

My word of the year was Clarity, and I tried to be more clear in everything I did.  In my communication, I tried to make sure that people had enough background information to understand what I was saying, and tried to choose my words more carefully instead of taking the lazy way out. While there was effort and improvement, I will continue to work on this.

In my home, I tried to clear out my spaces to be more open, welcoming, and easier to maintain. I was extremely successful in this.  I got rid of some big furniture pieces and either bought something smaller or went without a replacement.  I reduced the number of flower beds in the yard. There has been substantial progress in the  family room, the kitchen, and the yard.  Other rooms also have made progress, but not to the extent that I want. I will continue to work on them in 2016. And it wasn't all cleaning-type work either.  I framed and put up artwork that had been in the closet for years, put up tiles for a back-splash in the kitchen, replaced a defunct dishwasher, had some electrical work done, and purchased and painted a picnic table so I could enjoy the outside as well as the inside of the house. Yesterday, the contractor finished installing a new front porch on my house.

In quilting, I had a lot of fun.  Although the number of quilt finishes I had in 2015 is low, there are many works in progress that provided me a lot of joy this year.  I kept my focus on the projects I was working on and I hope to finish them in 2016. Most of the quilts I made this year are made up of different blocks, so if you have been following along, you have been able to see my progress block by block throughout the year.

In February, I showed the finished the Christmas Tree quilt, which I showed you again recently.

In February, I joined the Elephant Parade Quiltalong, hosted by Lorna Mahon of Sew Fresh Quilts. I added more animals and people throughout the year, and in September, I finished making all of the blocks. These blocks were a lot of fun to make, and now it is just a matter of trimming some blocks, choosing a layout, adding the sashing, and putting them into a quilt.

I also joined A Life of Plenty Quiltalong, hosted by Jeni from the Willow in February. I think I made my last block for it in March.  There are still many more blocks that have been prepped. Even though I was enjoying making both quilts,  I realized that Elephant Parade and A Life of Plenty were competing against each other with my time and space.  Since they both required me to dig through my stash, and different parts of my stash, it might be better for me to do one at a time.  I do really like this quilt and hope to get back to it soon.

In August, I showed the finished Irish Chain Quilt.

From September through November, I worked on the Islamic Tile Quilt. It is now a top and needs to be quilted.

I started the Quilty 365 Project in November, where I make a circle a day. This project is a year-long project, and I have been making a circle a day most days. I've slowed somewhat on this, but hopefully I will get back in a routine for making these circles. These circles have gotten out of order as I was showing them off, but I will be putting them together soon.

 


 In November, I started the rail fence quilt from Sujata Shah's book, Cultural Fusion. All the blocks are now made, and I just need to put them together into a quilt.

This is the first time I have finished making blocks, and yet not taken it to the next level of making a quilt top, and yet I am at that stage for two and a half quilts.  I think it is just the excitement of making the next quilt that distracted me from finishing the quilts I started.  I enjoyed making the blocks, and I enjoy seeing completed quilts, so I am hopeful that all of these quilts will be shown as finishes for 2016.

In December, I made this little quilt out of the leftovers from the rail fence quilt. I even finished it so I could be sure to have another finish for the year.

As a bonus, I want to show you something I haven't shown before. My family came over and we had a craft day, making these cute little strawberries. It is a great way to round out the year with family, and crafting.

I wish all my readers a happy and healthy New Year.  I hope it is the best year ever for you and your family.

Islamic Tile Quilt Top Finished

Islamic Tile Quilt made by Shasta Matova

As I promised you yesterday, I pressed the Islamic Tile quilt so I could show it to you today.  Pressing is not my strong suit, and I obviously need to press it again, but this quilt is made up of a whole bunch of 2 and a half inch squares.  Even those long lines were made with separate squares so they would look more like tiles, and I managed to keep the design looking like the inspiration tiles I saw at the Islamic Center in Toronto.  Now I have to think about how I want to quilt this. It's a fairly big quilt by my standards - bigger than a lap, smaller than a twin bed.

Next up, I wanted to show you a purchase I made from Spoonflower.  Since the fabric is printed on order, it is expensive, but when I think about it as gifts instead of fabric, and you buy them when they are on sale, it somehow manages to fit into the price range. I bought four fat quarters which will be hemmed to become kitchen towels and if I can bear to part with them, I will give them to my family.  The print quality of all of them was very good, so any issues you see has to do with my taking images in the wintertime when it is always dark, and trying to fix the light quickly with photo editing.

The elephant will likely stay with me since I have a collection of elephants around the house.

I was showing my mother these, and she has asked for this one specifically to be hers.  She likes that the design goes over the calendar. I think if I was designing a calendar like this, I would have thought that people would prefer to have the calendar easy to see, but I was wrong.  How often are you really going to look at a date on a towel anyway?  She did ask me why I only got four, and now I see that maybe getting more to share with others would have been a better idea. 

I'll have to think long and hard about which of my relatives will get these two.  They are going to have to be super nice to me between now and gift giving day!

I haven't made my Quilty Project 365 Circle today, but I wanted to share with you a Pinterest board I created for me to save circle ideas. I do hope that people have realized that Pinterest is a great resource and not a place that steals ideas. When I copy an image and put it in my hard drive, I can't remember where I got the image, but when I pin it, I can click on the link to get back to where I found it, to see other details, to remember where I got it, and maybe even ask for permission to use it. Also, on HubPages, I find that a lot of my readers come directly from Pinterest instead of through a search engine.

I have to go make my circle of the day now.

Progress on my Tile Quilt

I've been working on my tile quilt for a few minutes (15 minutes to 2 hours) a day, and have been making progress in getting all the rows in place. It is a fun puzzle to put together.  Just a few more seams and I will have a top.

I know the Yellow Brick Road quilt on the wall is attracting the attention, but notice that there is nothing but tile quilt on the table. I had to clean my dining table for a family so I put away all the other WIPs and am working on the tile quilt only.

Since the Elephant Parade is still a WIP, I put this African quilt on the other quilt wall instead.  Zeus says Hi.

This isn't my tree, but I just love the shape and color of it.  I deliberately put my umbrella in the picture because I am late in taking this picture and the leaves on the top of the tree had fallen off. Plus it makes it a story.

Meanwhile back at my house, there is an annual lottery. As you can see in this picture, there are a lot of mature trees in the neighborhood.   Each year, the winds decide which house is going to get gifted with all the leaves.  I kid you not, it winds up being a different house each year.  Well, this year, it is my turn. I like raking leaves, but this year, I have to keep reminding myself that I like raking leaves.  

I've Been Making Tiles

The theme of the moment is Tiles, and I have been making lots of them.  I bought a bunch of ceramic tiles to use as a kitchen backsplash, and instead of putting them up as is, I got the bright idea to randomly paint stencil designs on them. I figured random would help if I ran out of a particular color of paint or had trouble with a particular stencil.  I've decided to limit the color palette to blues and greens. There are 25 octagon tiles for each sheet (about a square foot), and 33 sheets.  Please don't do the math. Let's just say it is a lot of stenciling, but it is easy to paint using a stencil. Right now, they are spread out all over the house to dry.

I've also been making the Islamic tile quilt I mentioned in my last post.  It is going well, but I am only working a few minutes a day on it. I caught up with all of the episodes of Orange is the new Black, so I should now have more time to work on cleaning and quilting.

In other news, I have been getting lots of free stuff in the mail.  I signed up to review products in exchange for a review. I knew it was easy to get books, but I didn't know how to get products.  But now, I know that there are lots of legit sites that do link you up with the people who want their products reviewed.  So far, I have received a selfie stick, Aloe Vera gel, a fancy shower head, and  a strap to prevent snoring.  It is interesting and fun to be able to try out new things you wouldn't think of trying.  And so far, they are high quality products that are worth getting.

Tile Quilt

Often, as I go about my day, I say to myself "I can make that."  This happens a lot when I am at a store, a show, a festival, or a museum.  Usually, I continue on and never actually do that.  There isn't enough time to make everything I know I can make.

One of those moments happened when we were at the Islamic Museum in Canada a couple of months ago.  And this time, I am actually following through.  There was a tile wall - simple squares, and I decided to replicate it.

I started making this quilt with fabric I had at home, but I just wasn't feeling it, and I hadn't thought through the size I wanted and wound up with not enough fabric to make it.  This meant a few trips to the store to find the right fabric.  This background fabric was one that I rejected originally, because it has a design that looks manmade. I wanted a more mottled look that would look natural.  But it is hard to find the right shade of beige with a mottled look, at least at that store and on my budget.  I rejected this fabric a couple of times I went there, but the last time I went, I decided it would work after all.  So what if it looked man-made?  The quilt will be made out of fabric, so it already has that man-made look.

I like the design on the fabric now. I think it does add to the variability and doesn't look too man-made.  But by the time I finally decided to get the fabric, someone else had gotten to it first, and it was cut into three pieces.  I was okay with that; after all, I am going to cut it into even more, but after I washed it, I realized that someone had cut off the selvages too.   I guess that is okay too, since I would have done that too.  I think it was returned because it is not a regular cotton fabric. It is more like brushed cotton.  It is a little more stretchy than regular fabric, like flannel, but thinner.  I think it will be just fine in this quilt, and the soft fabric is nice to touch.

The design has a lot of squares next to each other that are the same color.  I decided for this quilt to cut everything into squares and sew together instead of leaving them in long rows.  I wanted to have that variability of tile.  Mmm, this looks like my tile bathroom.  I didn't need to go all the way to Canada for this design!

Don't worry. The tile design at the museum had other colors in it too. Or should I say colours?  Mostly red with a few green pieces in it.  This red is so much better than my original red. I am keeping my original green since I don't need a lot of pieces of it.  I am happy with all the fabric selection now, and this quilt is coming along quite nicely now.

It is just a matter of finding time to sew. The weather is very nice, and I want to get as much work done outside as possible.  We managed to demolish two of the flower beds completely, and just need to demolish a few more.  The yard looks so much bigger now, and I am very happy with my decision to reduce the number of flower beds I have. The driveway is looking much better now too.

There are still lots of unfinished projects to do, but progress is being made on them.