Patchwork Frames Quilt from The Sewing Chick

Great feature today from Tessa of The Sewing Chick!   I love this sweet quilt!  Excellent fussy cut quilt.  And it is from Tasha Noel's line Simple Life.  The sweet little floral in this collection is one of my favorite.  Ever.  Tessa is our fabulous friend who sent Heather this amazing collection of Heather Ross prints...I'm patiently waiting by my mail for my cut! :)  Stop by The Sewing Chick...great sewing blog with lots of impressive finishes and tutorials. Thanks again Tessa!!

This week, I quilted and bound the Patchwork Frames quilt. This pattern was created by Beth at Plum and June and is available for free here. It is a super way to highlight a cute novelty fabric as I have done here with Tasha Noel's The Simple Life. Beth's directions were easy to understand and her diagrams were clear. She also includes several layouts and the cutting directions for each. I wanted a baby/toddler size so just made nine frames (each measures 12" without the sashing). I mixed things up a little by varying the placement of the fussy cut center in each block.

I did an all over free motion quilting design of loops and hearts. You can see that they are kind of uneven and vary in size, but that's what I like best about free motion quilting. The irregularities are what gives it charm and that done by hand look that I love. Maybe that's just what I tell myself and I do try to get the design as even as I can, but I really do prefer it to not look like it was done by a computer.

For the back, I used this beautiful print from Heather Bailey's Nicey Jane collection. I am and will always be a huge HB fan - this collection reminds me of vintage sheets.

The binding is a red and white stripe from Timeless Treasures. I would have preferred to use the red gingham, but I didn't have enough left and sometimes you have to use what you've got! I machine stitched the binding, but this time I experimented with cutting the strips 2 1/4" instead of 2 1/2". I had some gaps so I think I will stick with the wider strip and a generous 1/4" seam allowance.

You can read more about the construction of the quilt top here and here.

I also thought it would be interesting to see Beth's pattern in all solids. Now, modern minimal is not my usual style, but I do love color so playing with all these solids was fun!

I utilized a bunch of Kona cotton charms that I got from a swap last year as well as a charm pack of Michael Miller Cotton Couture and leftover solid scraps. I spent waaaay too long deliberating over color choices but am pretty pleased with the gradient color effect. Don't you just love the way the same pattern can have a totally different look depending on your fabric choices and layout!! I know I do!

Lucky Stars QAL! Join us!!

 The day has finally arrived! Okay, so maybe you haven't been waiting, but Megan and I have worked hard on these quilts and our Lucky Stars Quilt-A-Long, we really hope you will join us!

We created our quilts from the beautiful Happy Go Lucky fabric line from Bonnie and Camille, for Moda fabrics. We thought it would be fun to use the same fabric line and pattern but show how different they can look in different colorways!  What do you think??

Heathers Lucky Stars quilt finish.  LOVE it! I worked hard the last week!

We've both fallen madly in the love with this pattern (and with each other's quilts).  There's already discussion of switching at some point.

Megan's Lucky Stars quilt finish. Love the navy background. Makes it all "pop!"

One of our sponsors, Christa Quilts has put together Lucky Stars Starter Kits for those of you wishing to quilt along. Each kit contains 1 Jelly Roll plus 1 Layer Cake of Happy Go Lucky by Bonnie and Camille. She's offering them at a special price of just $74.95 which includes free US shipping (discounted int'l shipping)! On top of that, use code STORY at checkout to save an extra 10% on your entire order so that you can purchase background fabric or other supplies.

Christa Quilts

The plan

every Wednesday

Week 1 June 5th:...................Introduction

Week 2 June 12th:.................Fabric Requirements

Week 3 June 19th:.................Cutting Requirements

Week 4 June 26th:.................Star Block

Week 5 July 3rd:...................Square Block

Week 6 July 10th:..................Patch Block

Week 7 July 17th:..................Piecing the Quilt Top
Week 8 July 24th...................How to Finish a Quilt

****2 week hiatus to complete any missing steps or full quilt assembly****

Week 8 August 7th................Lucky Stars Quilt Top link-up

Week 9 August 14th..............Winners Announced

Quilt Tops must be linked up by Tuesday August 13th 10 pm MST to be prize eligible

if you do not have a blog or ability to link up please email us a photo of your quilt top with the subject "Lucky Stars Quilt Top" and we will link it for you

The prizes

Those who finish their quilt tops by the end of the Quilt A Long will be entered in to win prizes from these amazing sponsors!!  Hip hip hooray!

Connecting Threads

Fat Quarter Shop

A Joyful Soul Fabrics

Mad About Patchwork

Southern Fabric

The Stitch Sanctuary

Poppy Seed Fabrics

five monkey fabrics

Get a jump start and head over to Christa Quilts for a starter kit!  Or start organizing your stash and thinking of what prints you'd like to use!

Instagram
Don't forget to follow us.  Heather's @quiltstory and Megan's @quiltstorymeg
Post your progress and use the hashtags #quiltstory and #luckystarsQAL

Feel free to share these images on all the social networks!  :)  This is our first QAL and we want it to be a success because we both want to do it again.
What do you think, are you in????

A Princess Quilt from OCD

Our feature today is from one of our favorite quilters in blogland, Kristie from ocd: obsessive crafting disorder.  She's awesome.  And we love her projects.  Today's is no exception, a princess quilt for her princess.  It's hard to go wrong with Heather Ross fabrics too!  Kristie has a great design for design, layout, colors, ya know.  For some eye candy check out her finishes and tutorials/patterns.

It's been 2 years since I bought my Far Far Away 2 fabrics.

And one year since I promised a birthday quilt for The Middle Child.

And 6 months since I started the quilt.

Anyways, it came one year plus a couple weeks after the birthday deadline, but all was forgiven when I presented her with her own very Mama-made special quilt :) My girl is now SEVEN, and full of fairy tales and fashion and make believe and creativity and helpfulness and caring and so many wonderful attributes. I lucked out getting this kid, I tell you, she is so much more than the sum of the best bits of her dad and me. Love her to pieces.
I finished the quilt while away at the cabin, and spread it out on the grass and had her sister lead her over with closed eyes for the unveiling. Big grins from ear to ear!

She spent time studying all the blocks and declared the owl running away with the underwear as a favorite, along with Rapunzel.
For the top, I used Kate's Fussy Cut Fairytales pattern, which I modified to make twin size. It is a great compliment to these fabrics, and I adore the distinctive floating border! On the back I used some leftover pieces and pieced them together with blocks of pink and green solid.

I quilted with an overall stipple. Man, it was a heavy quilt to move around given all that linen content in the Heather Ross prints! The quilt was hand bound in a Kona solid. Don't ask me to remember which one. It made a nice and cheery frame!

She loves it. I love it. I really do think it is my favorite quilt to date. And it looks fantastic on her bed. Just need to make a matching sham or two! And the sweetest part was, that night as she tucked her in snugly under her new quilt, she said, "The thing I like best about my quilt is that you made it for me, Mom!". A true princess.

Bloggers quilt festival...our new quilt...

For those of you visiting for the first time welcome!  Stay a while :)  We are sisters who share writing this blog, design quilt patterns and are fabric nuts!  Every week we feature three different quilters and their finished quilts, and we'd love to feature YOU!  We also share our own quilts and projects :)  You can check out the sidebar on your left for different types of quilt stories or to see our projects.  

This is the reason that I go to my Mom's house all the time to craft! Seriously this view looks photoshopped! She lives about 20 minutes away, and she is a super clean freak. Plus she loves to take care of us, feed us, sew for us. We couldn't ask for a better mother or a better location for her to build a gorgeous house!

Fabric: Peacock Lane for Michael Miller       Size: 60" x 72"

Last time Megan was out here we sewed and sewed. We created this quilt for our super cute niece who just turned 20! We thought it would be a fabulous quilt for college. She loves it!

We did super soft minky for the backing. Just so nice to snug up in, especially since our darling niece lives in a nice winter town. Our wonderful Aunt did the quilting.  The quilt was a total collaborative effort, Megan and I each did half the blocks and our mom pieced the top :)  We just looooved some of the prints of Peacock Lane, it is perfect to fussy cut.

The pattern will be available in our shop shortly.  Let us know by email or in the comments if you would like a notification when the pattern is available. We will contact you..

Our Mom doesn't like the quilt!  She thinks we went a little out of control with the colors, that we should have been so much more unified. I was a little surprised just how open she was about not liking it! She is a little old school about color combination. Bless her heart!

We hope you love it! Thanks for visiting us here at Quilt Story. Again check out how you can be featured, find out more about us, join our weekly linky party and stay a while :)

Megan's got another quilt on Fresh Poppy Design (our other blog) so check it out, here's a sneak peak:

Thanks to Amy for hosting such a fun event!

Fun Coffee quilt finish...

Angie from Stitching by Starlight submitted this fun Coffee quilt, don't you love all the fabric options out there? What great prints! Check out Angie's tutorials here, and look at her finished projects here. I really like the colors, I love the quilting, and I really want to go on vacation where Angie was taking these photos!


OK - I don't know whether it was the Sew Shine WIP Challenge or the fact that I was on vacation, but I've finished yet another quilt. Maybe it was the timing of the two. Who knows - but whatever it was, I'm on a roll and I'm loving the momentum I'm feeling.  Sorta like a dieter who has lost her first two pounds - it's inspiring me to keep moving!!

Yesterday, I finished the last stitches on my husband's coffee quilt - a quilt over a year in the making!!



He and I are avid coffee drinkers - though not coffee snobs - and when I saw this collection at a quilt show last spring (2010!) I wanted to make a quilt for him.  The panels have the cutest sayings...my favorite is "Without coffee 'Good Morning' is an oxymoron."  Oh, so true.



This is also the first quilt I designed on my own - sort of.  The outer ring is a block that was featured onMoose on the Porch Quilts as part of a sampler sew-along.  (Just FYI for inquiring minds - it's Block #2.)  I didn't do all the blocks, but of the few I did, this one was my favorite.  It was simple and quick!

The inner four blocks are my own.  I wanted to highlight the panels, so I measured and cut them, then worked with the remaining prints and panel scraps to make the blocks fit. It's basically a wonky nine-patch, with the middle "row" being much thicker.  If I remember right - and forgive me for not actually measuring - the panel cuts were 6-ish inch squares and the outer rows about 3.5".

I pieced the back, out of sheer necessity.

Because I didn't have a clue as to what I was going to do with the fabric when I bought it, I bought what I thought was enough.  All I knew is I wanted a lap quilt.  The lady at the fabric booth helped the best she could with estimates, but let's face it - she didn't have much to work with!!  By the time the quilt top was finished, I had a veritable mountain of turquoise, brown, and cream scraps, but not enough floral to cover the back.  And I had no binding...something that apparently slipped my mind back then.  (But hey - I had only finished two quilts at that point and both were under the watchful guidance of a teacher at my LQS.)

So, a few weekends ago, I sat down with my graph paper, pencil and eraser and got to work.  After about three hours, I finally had a combo that would both use my scraps and leave me enough for binding.



The next struggle was the quilting, which is no news to those who have read my previous grumblings about the actual quilting step.  I had decided long ago that I would straight-line quilt, but I wasn't sure how to do it with the seams between the two blocks (the outer and inner rings) not even.   I finally decided to start in the middle and quilt a square spiral in the center section and then parallel the seams in the outer ring blocks.  Except for running out of top thread a little over two-thirds of the way through, it went pretty smoothly.  I prepped and attached the binding, then packed it up for my beach trip.

As I was finishing it, I couldn't help but think about how much has changed in a year.  The quilt show (where I purchased the fabric) was in May 2010 and I had only "restarted" my quilting in January.  I had not found any of the blogs I follow and had never heard of "modern quilting".  I hadn't started this blog, either.

Shortly after starting this quilt, I began falling in love with quilts from people like Rita, Rachel, and Julie - who I still admire to the point of near stalking.  They had a crisp, clean look that often made me catch my breath (and still do!).  I began seeing that, yes, it is ok to use solids in a quilt and - gasp - I liked it!  I found straight-line stitching and gave it a try.  I started perusing websites more and more, and my list of  must-read blogs and must-try projects continued to grow.  I grew, too.  And it makes me wonder what my style will be like next year.

Looking back, I'm not sure I would have made the same quilt today as I started back then (even though "back then" was only a year ago).  Not that I don't like it.  I love it... it's cozy and warm and I love the chocolate/turquoise combo.  It's incredibly special to me because it's for my husband, my schmookie.  It's themed around a quiet cup of coffee, one of the simple pleasures we both adore.  I know it will get lots of use. 


But, for now, it's back to packing.  We leave this beautiful piece of heaven tomorrow.  I swear the weeks go by faster each year.  Fortunately, the weeks in between trips seem to go just as fast.  I leave here refreshed and rejuvenated - just the way it should be - and I'm already looking forward to next year.

Log Cabins from Meg!

Welcome to week 4 of the Modern Rockin' Robin QAL!  I hope you're having fun seeing the different rows in the flickr group and with the other participating bloggers.  Click here for more information.

This week LOG CABINS!  I was really excited actually because I have never made any log cabin blocks.  And anytime I am stumped when working on a quilt or pattern our mom says, "How about a log cabin?!?"  She loves them.  Here's to you momma!!

Week 1: Rectangles

Week 2: Stars

Week 3: Houses

Week 4: Log Cabin

Week 5: Hexagons

This weeks row design is by Anne Marie from Gen X Quilters.

This is the row I deterred most from the original pattern.  And it has nothing to do with Anne Marie's design...I love hers!  I just decided I wanted to do something a little funkier with my quilt, and it helped me with my warm vs cool rules :)

I used the same widths as in the tutorial, I just pieced it together in the traditional log cabin way...ultimately the piecing went Right, Bottom, Left, Top.  For my rules one side is warm fabrics, the other cool. You can tell, right? 

I also made the outer border wonky.

Besides getting to try something new on each row, my favorite part about this QAL is that I chose to use scraps!!  I have so many of my favorite fabrics in here, and some of them were down to itty bitty pieces...I thought I may not find a way to use them.

Again, if you'd like to join the Quilt Along you can find out a little more here, check out the flickr group.

If you want to check out the other bloggers participating and see their blocks see
AnneMarie from GenXQuilters
Jen from ReannaLily Designs
Melissa from Lilac Lane
Lisa Marie from That Crazy Quilty Girl

Click here for the full tutorial on today's Block by Gen X Quilters!