TGIFF - So. Much. Purple.

Hey there! I'm Jenn @ A Quarter Inch from the Edge and I'm happy to be hosting this week's edition of TGIFF. If you're new to my blog, have a little tour around and check out some of my past posts.

I kind of felt like I should have photographed this one in the rain, but that was beyond my photographic skills!

This Kona strip quilt was made purely from my stash. Normally, I work in a pop of colour here and there, but this little lovely is destined for a new baby of a co-worker. I know her room is primarily purple, but I have no idea on accent colours!

As I said, these purples were from my stash, so most of them were already labeled. I do like to keep a running log of Konas used so I can keep my Kona Love list semi up to date! If you've never made an endless strip quilt or a jelly roll race as some people call them, you really should! They're a great stash buster and are super easy! Here's a quick tutorial by Wisecraft. Full disclosure: I didn't use this tutorial, but I thought you might like some instructions!

 These quilts can get a little messy, but the end result is satisfying!

I like to sew my strips into groups of four rows and cut them to width. I then lay them out on the design wall to ensure a pleasing distribution of lights and darks. It's scappy, but planned!

As for quilting, I like to break up the linear-ness (is that even a word?!) of the piecing with some wavy organic quilting. It's also easy as all get out. And it looks better and better each time it gets washed. Baby quilts get washed.... a lot!

Binding? Scrappy. Lawn? Not green enough yet for nice pictures.

Spring is coming in Eastern Canada, but not fast enough for my liking. Thank goodness for these happy crocuses that we (Double Trouble and I) planted last fall.

I even hit the stash for my backing. Kona Snow with a pop of purple. I'm also planning on adding the wee little girlie's name to the back, but I didn't want it in the pics! Here's hoping that the new mama (and her kiddo) like it.

The Deets  
Title: Purple Rain for Miss E
Size: 35 by 45 inches (my preferred baby quilt dimensions!)

Fabric Used: Kona from my stash
Konas Used: Bright Periwinkle, Dahlia, Hibiscus, Lavender, Mulberry, Orchid, Pansy, Petunia, Regal, Tulip, Violet
Quilting: Wavy organic
Backing: Kona Snow

Binding: Scrappy purple Konas!

Now it's your turn. Link up those fabulous finishes here and don't forget to tour the other blogs and spread the comment love! Please include a link and/or button for Thank Goodness It's Finished Friday! so your visitors know what this TGIFF thing is all about!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Friday Finish - Bali Strip Pop!

Not just a Friday Finish, but also my goal for this month's edition of A Lovely Year of Finishes! I was #74 in the Goal Setting Party.... though my goal got a revision mid-month. This quilt was pieced last year and has been hanging about forever, so it's great to have it finished and ready to move on to a new home!

 

There are lots of bits and pieces in this quilt. I see a pillow case I made for camping, a baby quilt for a co-worker's little one, J-Boy's Christmas quilt from 2009, parts of Miss K's Kaleidoscope... and so many more. It's what I always love about working with scraps... seeing all those previous projects in a little slideshow in my head.

Sometimes it amazes me that I can make a quilt of fabric that I'm really not that excited about anymore (balis) and still really like the finished product! I now have a very small pile of balis left in my stash and have sent all my scraps to new homes. I'm moving on...

The quilting is horizontal wavy lines... perfect for softening up the very linear strips. It'll get even better once it's washed a few times. The thread is variegated teal which blends with many of the fabrics, but really pops on the purple or dark blue sections.

The binding is scrappy... just like the rest of it! I love using up bits and pieces this way. It's also a great way to make the binding blend with the top.

 Yay for finishing things and yay for the sun coming out just in time for a few pictures!

The Deets

Title:  Bali Strip Pop

Size: 53 by 77 inches

Fabrics Used: 2½ inch strips of bali/batik scraps
Quilting: Wavy lines in variegated teal and solid teal (Gutterman) 
Binding: Scrappy balis. Hand stitched with Gutterman 625
Backing: Bali/batik print in black, puple, & blue

Favourite Part(s): Cleaning out the bali scrap bin, reminiscing about past projects, and having something lovely to donate to the adolescent mental health unit of our local women's and children's hospital

I'm linking up today with the Finishes Party for ALYOF, as well as TGIFF @ My Quilt Infatuation AND Finish Up Friday @ Crazy Mom Quilts. Phew! That's a lot of link-ups!

J

Oh dear...

A while back, I set my goal for August in ALYOF. And now the wheels have fallen off the wagon. I actually got started. You see, my goal is to make a lovely Beatrix top à la Made by Rae.

http://www.made-by-rae.com/beatrix/

At the most recent Sew Day with the Squares, I summoned up the courage to take Step 1 in the Beatrix-along. I got Q-B to measure me. And today I sat down to figure out what those measurements meant related to size selection. What they mean is that this pattern won't fit me. Ugh. I don't have the skills to upsize the pattern and I can't bring myself to make something for a goal that won't fit me after all my hard work. Insert sad face here.

So I'm calling an audible. With half the month already gone, my goal can't be too onerous. But I'm setting a new one regardless. I hope the lovely ladies of ALYOF will forgive me this one. I don't want to break my finishes streak, but this is a special case.

New goal: get this binding onto this quilt that's been looking at me for months!

It's finally quilted and only needs a binding before it can be donated to our local women & children's hospital. Now I'm off to cut some 2½ inch strips!

J

P..S. I haven't given up on Beatrix. It just means I have some more motivation to meet my weight loss goals. When my measurements line up with that size chart, I'll get sewing. You can take that promise to the bank!

WIP Wednesday - A Picture's Worth a Thousand Words

 

Yup. The design wall about sums up what's going on in the studio this week. A little quilting ADD anyone?

In the top left, there's my Underwater quilt. Thanks to this tutorial helpfully offered by Lorna @ Sew Fresh Quilts, I've decided to do a pieced matching binding. Sadly, I haven't managed to find the brain space to get to work on it. Maybe next week...

Then there's a little Kona strip quilt...  it started out as this lovely pile of Konas. There's Breakers, Pool, Teal Blue, Caribbean, Azure, Ultra Marine, Bahama Blue, Aqua, Capri and Robin Egg. Let's just say there's not much teal/blue left in the scrap bin! 

The lower right is a little pillow I've been playing with... just needs trimming and to have the backing sewn on. If I'm lucky, I'll get out of the house tomorrow to visit my LQS and buy a pillow form!

And last, but certainly not least, the final blocks of Skill Builder 2014. So much paper piecing... so many itty bitty pieces. The iron has 48 separate bits. The sewing machine - 46! And the quilt block has 52. Go ahead... do the mental math. I'll wait.

Yup. 146 pieces in 3 blocks!!! But they're finally finished, layered, and ready to quilt!

All that fiddly paper piecing made me crave some improv. I also happen to owe a lucky reader (Kitty from Night Quilter) a giveaway prize. Off I went to my stash to find a print... then a root through my Kona scrap to match those lovely little dots.

More Konas... I know you're shocked. There's Cardinal, Kumquat, Wasabi, Peacock, Oasis and Violet.

Aren't you glad I didn't make you read 5000 words? ☺

I'm linking up with Let's Bee Social @ Sew Fresh Quilts and WIP Wednesday @ Freshly Pieced. Pop on over and see what the gang's working on this week!

J

Friday Finish - Give it away now!

If you've been reading my WiP Wednesday posts, you know that I've been sewing up a storm. I'm super excited to be getting a number of projects finished - some have been hanging around for far too long!

That's definitely the case with this lovely...

It's my Cool Stash Strip quilt! I've blogged about it already here in my Confessions of a Stripper post. I'm proud to say that the entire quilt top came from my stash - much of it from my cool scrap bin!

For the quilting, I wanted to soften the hard lines of the pieced strips. I opted to quilt from side edge to side edge, wiggling the lines. This involves a lot of pushing and pulling, since I was fighting the inclinations of my built in walking foot. It occurs to me at this very moment that perhaps it would have been better to disengage it for this task. Oh well... there's always next time!

You can see it better on the back. Because I used my regular foot instead of FMQ, there are spots where the quilting is not as fluid as it could be. That said, I like the way it turned out. I'm also pretty proud of the steal of a deal that this backing was - in the 4.99$ flat fold section of my LQS AND 30% off! ☺

Even my binding is made of scraps! When I bind a quilt and there's a chunk of binding left, I save it. When it's time for something scrappy (or I'm searching for one last scrap of a particular fabric), there's a treasure trove waiting!

Though I really do like it, this quilt was always meant to be given away. It meets a few of my New Year's Resolutions for 2014. I resolved to make at least two large quits from my stash... I only purchased backing and batting for this one. It's also headed to the IWK - designated for their Adolescent Mental Health and Addictions Program, Choices. This stack made it's way to the IWK this week.

The total? Three baby quilts and three large quilts (one donated by a kind quilter from Mariner's Quilt Guild). The ladies in the Volunteer office are always super appreciative of these quilts. The little ones often head to the NICU to offer comfort and warmth to sick babies and their families. The bigger ones are in demand  all over the hospital. Whenever a child is transferred from the IWK to another hospital, they send a quilt with them, but I ask for mine to go to the teens of Choices. If you've got finished quilts or tops hanging out in your stash and you just don't know what to do with them, why not look into donating them? We're so lucky as quilters to have these comforting items in our lives  - sharing the comfort and warmth of a quilt is something we can offer our communities. I'll hop down off my soapbox now! ☺

One of the quilts I opted to donate was a little tough to part with - my first Thousand Pyramids quilt.

It was made AGES before blogging.  It's been in my life for a while now, but has never really been used properly. It was meant to be a quilt for my bed, but by some freak of quilt mathematics (and likely a beginner's inaccurate quarter inch seam allowance), it was never wide enough. The bed it resided on in my studio is soon to be replaced with a queen sized murphy bed. It really needed a new home. I hope it will find someone to love it at the IWK!

So that's my Friday Finish! If you were waiting on my Michael Miller MQG Challenge, you'll have to hang on for just a little longer. It deserves a better photo shoot than my backyard ☺I'm linking up today with TGIFF at Quokka Quilts.

Hope you had a great week and an even better week-end. I'm looking forward to a MMQG Sew In tomorrow!

J

WIP Wednesday - Chuggin' along on the productivity train!

Oh, how I love having time (and the energy!) to sew again! With vacation days last week and a Sew Day with the Squares on Saturday, there's been a lot of work done since my last WIP Wednesday update!

Since I finished up the top of my Michael Miller MQG Challenge last week, it was time to get quilting. With all those stitch n'flip triangles, things were more than a little improv-y. The quilting is more than a little unusual too (at least for me!) but I opted not to make it too wonky. One can have too much of a good thing!

All quilted and ready to be bound. For those of you who wanted to see a little more on last week's post, you won't have to wait too long for a Friday to see the finished product! ☺

Next up, a new project! Another Hex n' More project from JayBird Quilts. I picked this up last week on Q-A and I's FART to Avonport Discount Fabrics. If you're intrigued by this pattern, there's a Hexagon QAL on the Jaybird website. It's not exactly like these pillows, but gives you a good idea of the technique!

Off I went to my Christmas stash again to pull these lovelies... I used the tree print (Winter from the Anne Kelle's Jingle line) to select the other colours. Don't you just love Anne Kelle prints? Christmas prints are also a great way to demo new patterns, especially pilows. If they don't turn out perfectly, you only have to look at them for a month or so!

I love how Julie of JayBird Quilts breaks down complex shapes into triangles and simple row construction. When you look at the photo on the package, you figure there will be a pile of partial seams to deal with. Nope... not a one. I've said it before and I'll likely say it again, you can make these patterns without the Hex n'More ruler (templates are provided with each pattern), but the ruler makes it so easy!

I think I'm getting the hang of pressing these seams open. I hardly burnt my fingers with the steam at all! Please don't be too horrified by my use of steam... I just can't do without it!

I loved how the first one looked, so I whipped up a second right away! I haven't squared them up yet... I need to do some re-con on pillow forms first!

And that's not all! I quilted my Cool Stash Strips. The top's been done since March, so it really was time to do it up! I wanted to soften the hard lines of the strips, but didn't want to take on a large FMQ project with J-Boy's Good Old Hockey Game also ready to quilt. We'll call these organic lines, okay?

I raided my strip stash for binding. I save all those leftover end-y bits. They're great when you're making a scrappy quilt. All pressed and virtually ready to go!

And I finished quilting it yesterday! Stay tuned for a Friday Finish on this one too!

Errands and aching shoulders kept me from the machine yesterday, but I'm sure I'll be back at it in no time! I'm linking up with WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced as well as The Needle and Thread Network.

J

WIP - Confessions of a stripper...

Okay, so maybe that post title was a little more racy than I meant it to be, but honestly, I can't stop stripping. It started with my Kona stash, but now I'm branching out into other fabric. After spending much of the last couple weeks under a quilt feeling like crap, I was renewed in my 2014 resolution to make more quilts to donate to IWK Choices.  My quilt made me feel better and I want to pass that on to others. I also had a serious issue with my cool tone scrap bin - as in the lid would no longer come anywhere close to fitting. I should really have taken a before shot of that! So off I went, cutting 2½ inch strips.

 

By my calculations, I needed approximately 3200 inches of strip to make a 65 by 97 standard twin size. After the great scrap bust, I was still short by almost 2000 inches. And I thought there was a lot in there! On the up side, here's the current state of the bin. Lid on and plenty of room for future scraps!

So I turned to my significant pile of blue and green fabrics in my yardage stash. As an aside, do you think the term meterage will ever come into common usage in Canada? It's not like you can even buy a yard of fabric around these parts. But I digress. Since I wasn't worried about everything being all matchy-matchy (this is a scrap quilt afterall), it freed me to cut into some fabric that's been kicking around the stash for a while. Roughly 48 WOF strips later, I had enough to get sewing!

 Word of warning - Twin sized or larger strip quilts are not easy to sew in a small space.

Nor do they take only an hour, no matter what you read on the internet. I burned through quite a number of episodes of Downton Abbey on this project! One handy tip for you - when pressing seams, attach a binder clip to the end of your uber long strip. That way, when you have a tangled mess of strip on the floor and need to get sewing again, you can find the end easily!

And after much matching of ends and sewing together, ta dah! Watery spring sunshine had to do for this photoshoot.... come on, summer!

 

My calculations weren't perfect - it finishes up at 65 by 90, but it seems to be plenty big! Next up, a piecing backing to further cut into that over-sized stash. I love using stuff up! 

After a hiatus for a couple weeks, I'm linking up with WiP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced AND the (Canadian!) Needle and Thread Network!

 

Now back to my regularly scheduled sewing! Blog you later!

J

WiP - Would Deer-ly love to finish this one...

True confessions time (again). I am in a deep post Olympic slump. The high of Canada's Double Double (that's gold in Men's and Women's Curling and Hockey) has faded. Everything seems a little less... sigh... well, Olympic. I've been consoling myself with quilting, but it's tough sledding.

My indecision caused a hold-up on the quilting of  Young B's Oh Deer.  I went for straight(ish) quilting on the diagonal. I like that one has to look a little for the deer and I opted to maintain that feeling.

And yes, that is Season 3 of Sherlock playing away in the background. At that juncture, Sherlock was "clue-ing for looks." Ever since Adrienne and I's movie viewing quilting days together, I can't break the habit. It's like pre-washing or chain-piecing. Just something I've always done! On to the binding!

 

In this pic, you can see that I varied the distance between my diagonal lines. I used my presser foot width for the narrow sections and that handy spacing gizmo for the larger ones (they're 1½ inches if you're taking notes). Now on to I'm hand-stitching the binding using my trusty Wonderclips.

Remember my recent Kona strip quilt obsession? It's baaaaackkk!

That's Camelia, Punch, and Pomegranate on the left. And Pearl Pink, Baby Pink, Peony, and Melon on the right - mark your colour cards! I had some leftovers from a Sew Sisters Kona of the Month collection as well as Miss C's baby quilt. And I might have purchased a little to round things out.It's almost enough to make me like pink, but never as much as Miss N from the Do-Bees! ☺

The contrasting "pops" I usually do are Kona White this time. They blend a little, but I think it's still good. In a break with tradition, I've decided to back this one with a print that's been hanging around in my stash for a dog's age. Time to use it or lose it!

I'm linking up with Freshly Pieced for WiP Wednesday  and the Canadian Needle and Thread Network. What else will I get up to today? For one, a haircut and new colour. After that, who knows what might happen!

J

Psst.... you still have time to pop over to this post and get your name in for my 2nd giveaway of all time! Only a few hours left!

Finish! - Kona Strip Trio

Okay... true confessions time. Before you start to question whether I sleep or go to work, I didn't finish these this week. I think I made them over the Christmas break. I just realized this week that I blogged about their creation, but never shared the completed projects!

These lovelies were born out of a problem - the inability to put the lid on my Kona scrap bin! When I saw Q-D using this method to make a quilt for her brother for Christmas, I knew I had to give it a try. First up, blues. There are a variety of green colour pops but Wasabi appears there more than once. It's also used in as the binding - a new Kona addiction! 

Then on to the orange. I used a variety of teal/blues for the pops in this one. It's bound in Peacock. I do love teal and orange together!

Then on to the purple scraps. There were no shortage of these after last summer's Miss K's Dare!  I went with turquoise pops again and bound it in Peacock (again!)

I didn't want to use up large cuts from my Kona stash for backing, but I felt like a print just wouldn't do. So these got the pieced back treatment. I think I like the backs as much as the fronts!
And, yes, those are snowflakes. When most people see snow falling outside their window, their first thought likely isn't "Hmm.... I wonder what quilt pics in falling snow would look like?" That's probably why their neighbours don't look at them and shake their heads in confusion. Oh well.

Would you be surprised to know that there's already a pile of pink strips cut and on my studio desk? ☺

I'm linking up with Quokka Quilts for Thank Goodness it's Finished Friday!

J