Galaxy Quilt from Blue Bird Sews

Great quilt feature today from Kelly of Blue Bird Sews.  The Galaxy Quilt is such a cool design made for a manly man!  Some good ideas and tips!  She shares some of the process here and here.  Kelly has a great list of tutorials, including some cool quilting ones I'd like to check out!  For some handmade goods check out her shop and for more inspiration see her flickr.  Thanks Kelly!


So this post has been in the works for quite some time now. Early last year my friend J and I started talking about a quilt for his bed. Only a few requirements: no flowers, dark man colors and it had to fit onto a queen sized bed. With those parameters I set out to make an epic man quilt; Nailed It!

The design part of Galaxy took a lot of thought. I knew it needed a bold geometric foundation...as this is a man quilt! The offset squares in dark/light values make a dynamic backdrop for 12" sampler blocks made from the 2011 Summer Sampler Series. I can't recommend this sampler series enough! Excellent directions and beautiful results. I could see myself making all these blocks over and over again. After making the six pointed string star block I felt like I could sew anything. 

The Minnesota block ended up being one of my favorites. I just love the way the colors and shapes play off each other.

Galaxy measures a whopping 90" x 88" and was quilted on a long arm by me. It was the 4th quilt I have quilted on the long arm and by far the most challenging. I sewed corner to corner on the dark/light background and then for the blocks did more detailed quilting to make an impact on each design. My best trick with the quilting details was to make a statement by not quilting some areas and heavily quilting others. This made for some cool effects.

The back of the quilt is completely pieced together with left over yardage. I had bought a lot of different colors and patterns and used up the ones with little flowers on the back. There was also a happy accident that made the back even more stunning. I had originally planned for a pieced scrappy boarder on the front but once it was on it just didn't work. So I decided to sew them up and use it on the back...as it turned out it was the exact width I needed. Amazing how things come together sometimes.

The way the quilt lies on a bed is magical. There is no way I could have known that the blocks would lie across the top pillows so perfectly, or that the center square would radiate so nicely from the bottom corner of the bed or that the blocks seem to burst out of the center gradually until becoming heavy on the outside. These are all wonderful coincidences that make me happy. 

Simple Pleasures quilt from Auntie's Quaint Quilts...

Today we have this lovely feature! Simple pleasures quilt from Christine of anties quaint quilts...(which reminds me of a funny story of Megan, on a trip to England to visit Grandma, she said "what a quaint house you have!" nicely, Grandma got super offended and said it was not a nice word, means "small" (which it doesn't) Makes me laugh thinking of Megan getting busted by Grandma!) Back to the lovely Christine and her blog. She loves to quilt and stitch, this quilt has both. Along her sidebar she has dozens and dozens of quilt finishes through the years! Impressive!  She also has loads of friends from tons of countries along her sidebar, cute idea. Go check her out and be inspired!

This afternoon it was fine and still and not too sunny so I grabbed a few finished items and works in progress and headed outside to take some photos. 

After what seems forever, Simple Pleasures is finally finished.

 I quilted a 1/4 inch each side of the block seams ...

and echo quilted the triangles in the border.

 In case you hadn't guessed it's a Hatched and Patched design by Anni Downs. Her stitcheries are so distinctive.

For this quilt I used a range of fabrics by Heather Mulder Peterson called Cottage Charm.

Several years ago by local Spotlight had this range on it's shelves and I bought up big!

Here's a closer look at the quilting in the border ... simple but effective.

 And to finish a shot of the backing. I'm not usually a fan of yellow but this buttery print jumped out shouting 'pick me' when I was auditioning fabric for the backing.

Fresh Lemon Quilts Kaleidoscopic Kites quilt...

Faith from Fresh Lemon Quilts made up this darling colorful quilt and we just loved it. The colors really pop! Plus, she offers it as a free pattern on her blog here. How awesome is that?  We love her colorful blog, she has some amazing projects and patterns. Go check her out! Thanks Faith!

I am very excited to have this latest quilt finished to share with you. I plannedthis one last month and instantly knew this would be a great choice as my second free quilt pattern to offer on my blog.

It really is a rainbow of color. Although my 4 year old is quite disturbed that I did not include purple. Honestly I just don’t have a lot of purple fabric. No fear, you can always replace the brown with purple if you’d like.

This is a great quilt for beginners. The cutting is easy. Each block only has 4 pieces so they go together rather quickly, especially if you are chain piecing. I used a variety of fabrics from my stash in order to have a scrappy look, but I think this pattern would look just as nice with solids, or all fabrics from one collection such as Denyse Schmidt’s Katie Jump Rope.

The backing is my new favorite style of giant randomly placed blocks of fabric. I dug into my out of print fabric stash that I have been hanging on to – it felt good to really use it in large chunks. Kind of like spring cleaning for the fabric soul. The binding is an old print from Anna Maria Horner’s Garden Party line. This was the only print I had from the line and have been wondering what to do with it for awhile now, so again, it was good to see it in action. I quilted this one free motion style. The final size is about 63″ x 72″. It will be listed in the shop shortly.

I am finalizing the graphics and details for the pattern for this one and will post it probably no later than tomorrow! I hope you will come back and make one yourself. As always, you can find links to my patterns on the right column of this page, or by clicking on the Quilt + Patchwork Patterns tab at the top.

Yellow and Grey Lady of the Lake Quilt...

We got this great submission from during quiet time, what an amazing blog I hadn't seen before. When she sent her submission in, I went to her blog and had to force myself to get off 45 minutes later...(I went back later) You will definitely want to check her out for some inspiration. I LOVE this quilt! I love the color combination. The piecing is amazing! She also sells some amazing handprinted fabric at her etsy shop. Be sure to check her out!

I just completed my yellow and grey Lady of the Lake quilt! It measures 72" x 96" and fits a twin sized bed. I was originally inspired by Rita, of Red Pepper Quilts. She created this beautifulLady of the Lake quilt which was my introduction to the traditional block. I decided that I wanted to make my quilt all yellow and grey and began collecting the fabrics late this summer. I really enjoy selecting fabrics and chose at least a couple dozen prints for this quilt along with Kona White, Kona Ash and Amy Butler's Slate for solids. I also wanted to incorporate my silkscreened quilting process panel in a way that added to the design of the quilt without being distracting but I also didn't want to hide it on the back (see lower right of the quilt).

I started work on the quilt at the beginning of this year and completed it last night, Feb. 5th. After quite a bit of deliberation, I decided to quilt diagonal lines using a soft grey thread. The backing is a solid Kona Ash and the binding is a mini white and grey Designer Houndstooth by Free Spirit.

I found taking pictures of a bed size quilt very difficult, especially with all the snow. I had two helpers wearing snow shoes attempting to help me. It was awfully hard to get the quilt up high enough so this was the best we could do!

My silkscreen panel is difficult to read in these photos but I call it my quilting process panel and it reads "DREAM, CUT, PIECE, BASTE, QUILT, BIND, CRINKLE, LOVE." It is very satisfying to work through that process and arrive at the LOVE stage. Of course, it's hard not to see little flaws but I will learn from those for the next time.

Castle Peeps Circle quilt from Splendorfalls...

This quilt comes to us from Mary Clair of the fabulous splendorfalls one of our block party winners. I really like how these circles really pop out against the black. Check our her website. Super cute projects like this pillow. And her sewing and quilt link is a fun look through... Just a bright cheery quilt for a Monday morning.

 It's finally done.  Phew.
This was one of those quilts that evolved into it's final form as opposed to executing a vision.  First it was going to be raw edge solid Castle Peeps circles.  Then it was appliqued solid Peeps circles.  Then it was back to raw edges again but I had already cut the solid circles, which now were too big since I wasn't going to applique them.  That's when I decided to quarter them and sew them back together.
I'm sure I'm not the only one this happens to?

  I bit the bullet and free motion quilted this one; all I can say is thank goodness it's hard to see black on black!  It was my first real free motion adventure outside some practice swatches.  I joked with my St. Louis Modern Quilt Guild friends that they weren't allowed to look at it up close.{wink}
It's more practical that perfect and I think that's okay.

I do think the overall quilt turned out pretty cute though!

Can anyone tell me why black fabric is such a fuzz magnet?  Seriously!  Didn't help with the raw edges either; I think I used an entire lint roller on this thing.

I used a cheerful green Kona for the binding and pieced in my practice appliqued circles for the back! 

My sister in law is the recipient of this quilt and I'm happy for her to have it.

Block Party WINNERS!!

Happy Valentine's Day!!

We are doing our best to contact everyone who is a winner from the Block Party Contest, but you may be surprised to find yourself listed here!  We had an amazing turn out and even more amazing blocks!!  We hope everyone has had fun making theirs and looking at all the submissions.  Really it was sooo hard to choose winners, but we had some help!  Thank you to our great judges for helping us narrow it down!

Without further ado, I give you your winners!

Traditional 

GRAND PRIZE WINNER

 The Fabric Shoppe

3 yard bundle of Organic Circa 50 Birch fabrics and pattern

$60 value

Kaelin from the plaid scottie

RUNNER UP

The Fab Store

$25 Gift Certificate

Kristen from So Happy

RUNNER UP

Fat Quarter Shop

$25 Gift Certificate

from Little Miss Shabby

MODERN

GRAND PRIZE WINNER

SkyeReve Fabrics

$50 Gift Certificate

from Splendorfalls

RUNNER UP

Fresh Squeezed Fabric

$25 Gift Certificate

from Froggyleggs

RUNNER UP

Elle Designs

Half Yard bundle of 9 Ivy Trellis by Riley Blake fabrics and pattern

Hollie from The Undercover Crafter

CREATIVE

GRAND PRIZE WINNER

Poppy Seed Fabrics

$50 Gift Certificate

Kerry from Verykerryberry

RUNNER UP

Treasure Bay Fabrics

$25 Gift Certificate

Lynne from Lily's Quilts

RUNNER UP

Fresh Poppy Design

3 PDF patterns of your choice

Johanna from Jona & Lili

If you haven't heard from us and you're a winner, please send us an email with your address to myquiltstory{at}gmail{dot}com

We've decided to make the Block Party a semiannual event, what do you think??

Thanks so much to all our great sponsors! Nobody would have joined without them. Make sure to go shopping at their shops!

A special thanks to  Twin Fibers, SewSara, Flamingo Toes, Diary of a Quilter and AmyLouWho.

And SewSara is having a great fabric giveaway for Valentine's day, so if you didn't win here maybe you will there!

Thank you all so much for joining! We can't wait to get sewing some of these projects we have been inspired by. 

Heather and Megan loner block party...vote please !

Well Heather and I are just giggling like crazy.  You'll see why in a minute.  First, since we're having a really fun Block Party for ya'll, we decided we wanted to do a mini block party between us :)  We've each created a traditional quilt block this week and you get to vote on the sidebar for your favorite block.  We'll have the poll open for a week until we have next week's block, modern.

This poll is no longer open.

Heather's Block 

Megan's Block

See why we're laughing?!?  We made the same block!!! Of all the blocks in the world..seriously.  We've been chatting all week but decided not to tell what we're doing as to not influence the other.  We didn't discuss fabrics, colors, anything!  Ah we're funny people.

Quick Story. If you don't care to get to know us better, skip this paragraph :)  A few months after I had my second baby it was my birthday, so I went and bought a new dress (uh, from Walmart, it's seriously all that I had to shop at for two years).  You'd be surprised how cute Walmart clothes can look to you when you have no other choices.  Anyway, at church I got a compliment here and there about how nice I looked.  And then they kept coming, and coming.  And then I got downright angry.  Seriously??  I looked so awful for four months that now you see me showered and in a $15 dress and you can't stop saying how good I look??  Well I told this story to Heather and her husband Dallan.  Heather had a disturbed look on her face and was nodding right along with me.  Dallan, however, couldn't stop laughing at how similar Heather and I are.  She tried her best to convince him that each additional compliment was rude, but he never got on board. :)

Back to the parties!  So not only did we want to have this little challenge for fun for ourselves, but we wanted to give you guys ideas and inspiration to join the Block Party!  However, us each making the same block didn't really make that statement we had planned.  Below we've compiled a mosaic of blocks from Flickr that fall in one way our another into the traditional category.

1. Deanna's Block, 2. December Block for Kimmie -- Sweet Dreams Quilting Bee, 3. Test block for March, 4. Stash Busting Bee: February, 5. Dresden Block for November MLB, 6. Card Trick, 7. Modern Bee Quilt Block June, 8. Quilt Along Block 2, 9. Quilt Block Swap - May - For Debbie, 10. Quilting Divas block for Sandy, 11. The Euro Bee September - for Tacha, 12. rainbow around the block blue, 13. Jelly Roll Quilt Along Block 5, 14. Sweet Dreams Quilting Bee Blocks, 15. Sweet Dreams Quilting Bee Blocks, 16. Nettie's Block

A couple of people wondered if they could still enter the block party if they don't have a blog, and the answer is YES!  Check out our original post where I've edited to add that information.

Don't forget to vote for your favorite block (or color) on the sidebar! :)  Vote for me!!
This poll is no longer open.

PS Do you know a good poll widget that allows pictures?  I'd love to know :)

Little Scraps of Happiness

Today we're featuring Jennifer from Little Scraps of Happiness.  Check out her blog to see her quilt finishes, neatly linked on the side for us.  Amazing.  It makes me want to stop this post right now and go quilt.  Today she is sharing a quilt that she made which was raffled for charity.  I am so amazed of those of you who do that, such a labor of love I can imagine.  Here's Jennifer:

It's the night of the "Hawkeye Ball" and all the items that were to be raffled off are displayed. I had a couple fellow Navy wives that were all over my quilt and wanted it bad. One in particular, was partly in charge of setting up all the raffle items ahead of time and had gone to the hotel and took the time to hang and display my quilt with the other raffle items.

My husband and I arrive at the Ball and buy some raffle tickets. They were only $1 a piece, which kinda made me sad. Especially to think that someone could buy $1-$5 worth of tickets and win my quilt, but oh well. So my hubby bought $40 worth of tickets and we move down the line to distribute our tickets. There were some great prizes: Tiffany bracelets, necklace, "Date Night", golf lessons, a Nook, I could go on and on. I dumped a bunch in the date night, my hubby in the golf lessons, some in a "kids pack", and he puts ONE ticket in the quilt bag. You see where this is going don't ya!? As he puts his one ticket in there, I see my friend's husband (the one who hung my quilt) putting a HUGE stack of tickets in there. 100 to be exact.

The raffle begins....Friend who hung quilt wins the 1st prize, a Tiffany bangle bracelet. Said friend wins second prize, a Nook. And so the raffle continues.... We win "Date night" which was $50 gift card at a nice restaurant, 2 movie tickets and a $15 Starbucks card. We're happy...

Raffle continues....quilt ticket is drawn....1st number called....no one claims it....going once, going twice....drawing another ticket.....who wins?.....My hubby! He walks up to get the quilt, gets it, turns around, walks right over to friend who hung the quilt's table and hands it to her. Comes back to our table and asks, "that's what you wanted me to do, right?" "YEP!"

After raffle is over, friend comes up to me and thanks me with tears in her eyes and then tells me that the 1st number called was hers but her husband wouldn't let her claim it since they had won the first two prizes. He wanted someone else to have a chance. So all along, I knew she was suppose to have that quilt!

Come to find out that she had purchased $350 worth of tickets...she deserved every prize she won!

And of course....the rest of the night and all weekend I heard, "sure wish I had that nice new quilt". So now I have to get busy and make hubby a quilt before he leaves on Monday for another month on the ship! (probably not going to happen!)

Thank you Jennifer!  That is such a sweet and funny story. I am so glad to hear your quilt ended up somewhere it was truly wanted.

Make sure to stop by the blog tomorrow. I have part 2 of my HST quilt tutorial.
Check out part 1 if you haven't yet.