Curve Success!

I got two baby quilts pieced together today and am really happy with the way they turned out!

With the Classic Curves ruler and excellent instructions on YouTube, this pattern pieced together SO nicely.  I like sewing curved blocks slightly bigger so they are exactly the right size when piecing the quilt together.  There was very little waste when trimming the blocks too, only about 1/8 inch all the way around. You can find more patterns using this ruler at:

https://colorgirlquilts.com

 

Curvalicious

I pieced some of the curves for this quilt yesterday and had fun doing it!  I'm learning to be much more careful with the PRESSING so I don't distort the block and I love that extra fabric is allowed for a little trimming after pressing to square them up.  I'm excited about this quilt!

Next enjoy a few more photos from the Houston quilt show last Fall!! 😊

 

Sarah Fielke Quilt

My friend Rena is working on this beautiful Sarah Fielke quilt.  She has one more border to go - it's really stunning!

Kilkee Cliff Walk - absolutely amazing 🥰☘️🇨🇮

Yes and yes 😂

Cute little business in all the right colors!

Happy 4th of July - have a fun and safe weekend!! 🇺🇸 ❤️

 

Top Done (almost)!

I got the quilt top put together but still need to put the borders on!

The picturesque Kylemore Abbey

I love the four different marbles from each of the four provinces of Ireland.

Aughnanure Castle

A windy and rainy day for a walk along the Cliffs of Moher - absolutely beautiful though....

 

A Break ...

A little break from boring vacation photos 😂

I started a new quilt!  I've been eyeing Jennifer Sampou's log cabin patterns with her ombre fabrics for awhile now and I finally broke down and bought the pattern and some fabric to make one!  After making the first two blocks (I had to unstitch and re-do half of one of them), things are going a little bit smoother now.  I love the fabric - this lavender deepens to a dark purple as you go along the 42 inch length.  It's like having multiple colors in one piece, which hopefully will make the quilt much more interesting (if I do it right!)

Eight of the 16 blocks need to be high contrast like this one.

I stitched Leaf #26 this morning!  That means we're already half way through 2025!  🤪  If it looks like my tree isn't half way done, it's because I added a few more than the 52 leaves.

Happy Quilting!!

 

Fat Quarter or Quarter Yard?

I pieced another quilt back for a twin size quilt I'm making for my granddaughter.  I loved the pink castle fabric (top) but the store didn't have enough so I bought the pink floral fabric (bottom) with plans to piece a back, but I still didn't have enough.  I really wanted to use all pink fabrics, but didn't want to go buy any.  I pulled out my pink tub of fabric and pretty much everything in there are fat quarters.  I needed 24 inches!  I've kind of decided for me, I'm better off buying quarter yards of fabric versus fat quarters.  With the projects I make it gives me a little more versatility.  I ended up using some of the green fabric, that does appear on the front of the quilt quite a bit, so it won't be terribly out of place, but I wouldn't have liked pink to blend better :) Ah well....

Piecing 101

Inspired by Sharon Wright's lecture/class when she visited CO West Quilt Guild in March, I pieced a back for my Mom's Amish quilt.  I had a lot of black fabric left over since I didn't do the appliqué borders, but not enough for the whole back, so I used pieces of the solid colors on the edge and pieced this back. I like how it turned out!

Normally I do not like to piece backs.  By the time I get the top all pieced, the last thing I want to do is piece a back, even if it's just sewing a seam down the middle to piece two large pieces together! I just don't want to do it, but of course I almost always have to at least sew two large pieces together.  It makes sense however to piece backs if you have a lot of fabric left over from the quilt top, because 1. You're putting it to good use and 2. You don't have to go out and buy more fabric (even though it is fun to buy fabric - it's not as much fun to buy backing fabric :)

This pieced back took a little planning.  I figured out how big it needed to be and cut the colored rectangles on the edges accordingly.  Then I made a huge mistake.  One of the first things we learn in quilting is to MEASURE your borders and MEASURE the center of your quilt and MATCH those measurements and sew careful, so you don't end up with WAVY borders.  Well, I was essentially just adding borders to the black middle and I just sewed them on the black fabric WITHOUT MEASURING and ended up with a LOT of wavy black fabric in the middle.  You can tell how bad it is in the photo above, but I knew if I left it, I would end up with puckers when I quilted it....

So, here I am unpicking both sides of the quilt back, MEASURING and resewing carefully.  I don't know why I am smiling in this picture because it was NOT fun.

Just as you cannot see all the waviness in the top photo, you can't really tell how much better it looks in this photo, but trust me - it does!  And when I quilt it, I will be so glad I took the time to "un-sew".  Where is my youngest son when I need him?  He is very handy with a seam ripper :)