Quilting and Quilt Label

Hand quilting continues on the Cheddar and Crackers quilt. I am still hoping on finishing the quilting this month.

I machine quilted the Dog Gone Cute quilt using organic lines.  I am going to show you how I made the quilt label. This quilt label is sewn into the binding of the quilt.  There are several benefits of doing it this way. First, you only have to hand sew two sides of it, since the other two sides are under the binding.  Second, it provides a nice professional finish. Third, it makes it harder to steal the quilt since someone cannot simply take out the label without having to re-do the binding.

I first pieced together the bonus triangles that came from making the front of the quilt. You know, those bits that you are supposed to throw away.  Since this is a label, I tried to keep all the white places together so they would form a continuous space to write the information for the label.

I wanted to include the raw edges in the seam allowance of the quilt.  That left two sides that would need to be hand sewn.  Since this is pieced, I wanted to make sure that these hand sewn sides were neatly turned under.  To do that, I sewed these two sides rights sides together to plain square.

Turn it right side out and poke out the corner. Note that the other two sides are still raw edges.

Align the raw edges to the edge of the quilted and trimmed quilt and pin in place.

Then baste it in place using a smaller seam allowance than you will use for the binding.  You will notice that I also folded squares in half and basted the triangles in place to serve as quilt hangers.  I just have to bind as usual to cover these raw edges.

When I sew the binding down, I plan the path for sewing that includes the label. Which means that I start the quilting near the label if I plan to do the label last. I usually start with the label first and then work my way around the quilt.  When I start near the label, I don't have to tie off the thread to end in one place and just to have to move to do the label.

Circle Progress

I was planning on showing you pictures of my circles put together after I joined the rows of the 21 circles.  Even though I can't join the rows because of the size of the circle I just finished making, I am showing what they look like so far.

It is hard to photograph them all together since the rows are so long.

Each row is made up of three weeks.  Here are all the first weeks of each row.

Second weeks.

Third weeks.  I am now working on the third week of row three.

Linked to:
AHIQ - share your improv #5 
Oh Scrap! 
February Quilty 365 Linkup

Super Size Circle

I had been meaning to make a larger circle during these 21 days, so when I came to the 20 and 21st day, it was now and never. I decided to make double the length and width of the background. Instead of a 3 1/2 square, this is a 7 inch square, finished.

I cut some blunt tip triangles and sewed them together, and luckily they fit perfectly into a circle! My ruler does not have a lot of diagonal lines for triangles so I just eyeballed the triangles.  I was expecting to have to do some fudging to make things fit. Not only did it make a nice circle, it was just the right size for the background!

 I then appliqued the circle on the top of the result, and appliqued the whole circle on the background.  I thought it looked better with a green background than the blue background, but if I had realized how much it looked like a buoy, I might have used a blue background. A buoy is one of the shapes I drew early on in my idea book.

Since this was a larger circle that would attract attention,  and since I wanted to practice different techniques, I even turned under the edges of both circles.  I used a trick I just learned about using foil paper and cardboard to turn the edges using this Youtube video from Sarah Fielke. It's obviously not perfect, but I am happy with it.

Last time I had to decide whether blocks with more than one circle would count as more than one day, and I decided no. I would use the background, not the number of circles, to decide how many days it represented.  Now I have to decide whether blocks this big count as more than one day, and I have decided yes. Since this block takes up the room of four small blocks, this one represents four days.

The big size does mean that I can not sew this block to the previous circles until that row is the correct size, so it will have to wait  four weeks.

Sunday Circles Continued

Here are the circles I made yesterday.  Today is Day 71 but after this batch, I have 53 blocks. I haven't made today's circle(s) yet. They don't take too long to make, so I am not worried about being able to catch up.

I debated using flowers in the wintertime, but that's when I need them the most! I didn't realize until it was too late that the background fabric is wrong side up. Oh well, Gwen Marston said we could use the other side for variety!

I find that my most creative ones come from scraps so here's another one with the trimmings of the shirt circles I showed you yesterday. Let the quilt police debate whether ovals count as circles.

More flowers. Even though there are three circles in this block, it counts as one block.

And to keep it from looking too springy, here is one that is more fall-like. It's been a while since I've done a pieced circle.

I have two more circles to make before this row can be joined to the one above it.

Sunday Circles

The cross hatching of all the background on Cheese and Crackers is finished.  There are 12 feature squares that I am quilting circles on, and six of those are done.  I only do one a day, but since there are more than six days left in the month, I should be able to get the quilting done by then, and maybe even the binding.  We'll see how my wrist holds up.

The daily work on Cheese and Crackers has kept me from doing daily work on Quilty 365 Circles. I have been making a few circles, but have fallen behind.  Today, I will be making more to catch up, so this project can finish in a year.  After all, the closer to the day the circle was due, the more similar the fabric / weather, mood situation. It's no pressure;  I'll make circles until I don't want to make any more.

Let me show you the circles I have made.

The bird is for our first real snowfall of the winter. I thought the blue reflected the coldness.

The polka dotted fabrics are leftovers from the Dog Gone Cute quilt.

During a walk, I saw two oranges in the snow by a trash can. I liked the contrast between the white and the orange and decided to recreate that.

The pink is just a tiny scrap I found on the sewing room floor and decided it was just the right size to use for a circle.

I was given a bunch of blue shirts and am trying to think of a quilt I can make with them.  In the meantime, I made the four circles from one of them.

And while I was at it, I made a leftover of two of the four circles into another block.

The snowman is leftover fabric from the Winter Scene quilt. We didn't get any snow during the storm but I have friends who did.

I do have some more circles prepped and will show them after they have been sewn down. To see more circles, just click on Quilty Project 365 in the labels below this post or in the sidebar. Or click the Quilty 365 button to see how other quilters are interpreting this circle a day project.

Quilt Reveal: Winter Scene

I have a surprise quilt reveal for you today.

This quilt was made for the Seasons Quilt challenge at Persimon Dreams.  The challenge is to make a quilt, from start to finish, in one week.  Yes, you heard that right.  It takes me an average of two years to make a quilt from start to finish.I have a spreadsheet that says so, although it is not accurate since it does not include quilts that have not been finished yet, so the average is actually much higher.  I - someone who takes an average of more than two years to finish a quilt - made this one in three days.  This quilt will really help with my average, so thanks for this challenge!

In order to make a quilt this quickly, besides dedicating a lot of time to do it, is to go with the first idea that popped into my head. I drew a picture, found some fabric (mostly non-quilting), used up a lot of my recently-purchased fusible, and quilted them down. I folded under the front and folded over the back to finish it. I made the drawing on a back of an envelope and then remembered I now have a notebook for such things

I then put away the drawings and just used my memory and fabric to recreate the scene. I chose non-quilting fabric in an effort to use them up. I put the tree up before the windows, and messed up the perspective of the house. Oh well, that's what folk art quilting is all about!

I like the sparkly velvety tree fabric. It looks like snow sparkles.

I quilted down the applique.  The needle became gummy and the thread kept breaking, but I kept on going.  The quilting added a lot to the folk artsy nature of this quilt. I hand embroidered the faces on the people, the dog and the snowman.

The size of the batting scrap determined the size. After carefully trimming the batting, I trimmed and folded the  background fabric to the back to keep it from unraveling. I then trimmed and folded the backing up and machine sewed it down as a binding.

The fusible did not stick to the wool very well, hence the pointy toe.

I guess it is fitting that the winter weather keeps these pictures so dark.  I used white boards to back light it, opened the window blinds, used a flash camera, and auto-lightened the image with an image editing program. 

It's about 13 inches square.

Please vote for my quilt in the challenge.

Linked to:
Linky Tuesday at Freemotion by the River
Let's Bee Social #109 
Scrap Quilt Challenge

Mosaic

This mosaic is for a contest by Stitched in Color. These beautiful fabrics would  make a great fairy tale quilt.