Tag Archives: quilt along

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If you're new here, maybe you haven't seen my WIP list. No need to click. Spoiler: it's long. ;-) The way this happens might be obvious. I have a lot of things in progress that I love, but something new and shiny comes along (in my head or on the internet) and I think "I want to make that." Can you relate?

That's exactly what happened with the Waterfall Quilt Along. I admired the original quilts as Amy made them. So when she offered the quilt along, I decided to go for it. Do I need a new project? No. Do I have time for a new project? Probably not. Will I stay on schedule for the quilt along? Unlikely. But all I had to do what pull fabric for this project to reassure me that I should go ahead and dive in. All these beauties were in my fabric collection suitcase. (Yeah, most of my fabric is living in a suitcase right now.) Clearly this was meant to be.

Side note: I like to use the black and white mode on my camera phone to easily view the value of each fabric. It helped me get them in gradient order which is especially tricky when the pile has a variety of colors.

We're in week four of the quilt along which means I should be sharing my first three finished blocks in three days. Well, yesterday I cut all my fabric (for a 45" x 54" baby size quilt). Next up is strip piecing (that was week 3). That should go pretty quickly and I hope to have time to sew today. Stay tuned. ;-)

Have you participated in a quilt along? What are your favorite parts? What did you struggle with?

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Last June to October I took part in the Star Light Star Dark quilt along with Jess from Quilty Habit. I even started quilting it promptly... but then some other projects got in the way. I finally got back to the quilt this month and I've finished quilting it and sent it off to it's new home. You can see the nod to Jess in my orange peel quilting in the center  of my large light purple star. Orange peels are her signature. :-)

To recap, I chose to make the smaller, four block, two color quilt which finishes at 51" x 46". Purple was obviously going to be one of my colors. I opted for yellow and orange to be my second color, pulling lights and darks of each of these. In the end, I chose to set my blocks with like colors on the diagonal from each other instead of having the purple half all together.

This was such a fun project. The quilt top went together very quickly and I love the giant size blocks. I opted to use a different free motion quilting motif (some more dense, some less dense) in each section. It's such a great way to test out or practice different motifs without committing to a larger area. Clearly, I like this strategy.

My husband gave me Shape by Shape Free-Motion Quilting with Angela Walters for Hanukkah and I made excellent use of this new resource in finishing this quilt. How did I not own this book yet!? And more importantly, when am I getting Volume 2?

I quilted each quadrant in a different color of 50wt Aurifil thread, Yellow (#2135), Light Lilac (#2510), Dark Violet (#2582), and Burnt Orange (#1133). Here are a few shots after it was washed and crinkly.

I backed the quilt with fabrics from my stash. In a "make it work" moment, I pieced two different prints that coordinated with the quilt top. The orange star print also appears in the top surrounding the large yellow star.

I always label my quilts. And I attach the label before I quilt them so they get really well attached. Unfortunately, this means that sometimes the label is made the month I think I'm going to finish the quilt and then... I don't. Do not let the label fool you. This quilt was finished January 15, 2017. The label lies. ;-)

My binding plan started out by choosing my purple remnant binding and I quickly decided I wanted to make it scrappy. I know I did calculations (way back in September) and made additional purple, yellow and orange binding. The completed binding was then set aside for months. This week, I got it attached to the first side before realizing I had way more binding than I needed. WAY more! The quilt required about 200" of binding. When I was done I had 340" of extra binding. I'm unsure what went terribly wrong with my calculations, but let's just say you'll be seeing this binding again. Or I will get tired of looking at it in the remnant binding box and give it away. ;-)

Overall, I love the bold color and especially the texture of the quilt. My favorite part may be the area around those little purple stars. I'll be using that FMQ again soon!

I had some little helpers for my photo shoot. I don't usually have quilt holders, especially the wiggly variety, but we had fun. They really enjoyed running around the courtyard while I took all of the shots of the quilt on the ground.

Thank you for visiting! I'm linking up to Needle and Thread Thursday, Finish It Up Friday and TGIFF.

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