Tag Archives: quilt top

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At Spring Quilt Market I connected with the designers at Sweet Bee Designs. This resulted in Lizzie Clark reaching out to invite me to participate in the Blog Hop for the release of her new fabric line, Wonder Full. It’s a lovely floral line with rich jewel tones and pretty pinks. I'm happy to be sharing two quilt tops with you.

The first thing I noticed when I received the bundle was how much I enjoyed the seven monochromatic pinks together. When I pulled those aside, what remained was the rich jewel tones: the navy/magenta/olive set of fabrics I used for my first quilt top.

In each project I chose a variation of my Planned Improv: All About Angles technique. This is a little more structured than my previous pieces as I altered the technique a bit to be more friendly for using one-sided fabric.

Once I created the units, I used my design wall to audition layouts. I initially planned for a straight layout, but thought a vertical shift in every other column would be interesting.

Then I tried a couple with the blocks placed in alternating directions.

In the end, I really liked the vertical shift layout and also the nine-patch design. I stuck with the vertical shift layout for this first quilt top, which finished at approximately 41" x 46".

Then I used the pinks to whip up a second quilt top. I love that these two projects show the versatility of the initial units. They original units were identically pieced. They vary in placement and the pink sections were trimmed down. This project is 35" x 35".

Thank you for visiting! I’ll update the list of participants with links to their blog posts as they are available . You can also check back on Lizzie’s kickoff post.

6/25 Sarah Goer at Sarah Goer Quilts - you are here!
6/26 Becky Vandenberg at Be So Crafty
6/27 Becca Plymale @sunflowerseams
6/28 Stephanie Jacobson at Steph Jacobson
6/29 Allison Dutton at Allison Sews
6/30 Andy Knowlton at A Bright Corner
7/1 Lissa LaGreca at Lovingly Lissa
7/2 Jennifer Strauser at Dizzy Quilter
7/3 Sherry Shish at Powered By Quilting

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Another month, another finished quilt top.

I started the month with five finished quilt blocks from 18 months ago, originally intended for a mini quilt like my Cotton + Steel Mini Swap quilt. I decided I was less excited about a mini quilt and opted for creating fifteen more blocks to go with my original five. (This is where I mention that I realized this morning after finishing all fifteen blocks that I sewed them the wrong direction. In the end I decided the wild prints made my mistake not so noticeable. And done is better than perfect. Moving on.) With straight set blocks, this would bring my project to about 32" x 40". I cut all fifteen blocks, got organized on my trusty fast food tray, and set to chain piecing (and Netflix).

Like the first five blocks, my remaining fifteen blocks were made in sets of five. This photo shows five blocks in each row, created from five 10" squares. Each fabric is in each position once in the row. Since I was working in more blue and green with my additional blocks, I shuffled these all around for my final layout.

With a trip to QuiltCon, supervising some remodel work, and four other quilt finishes this month I had to settle for a finished top for my #8 UFO and One Monthly Goal project for February. Here's the finished quilt top.

I'm linking up to the February OMG Finish post.

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Last January I took Rob Appell's Color Strata class with my guild. Then the project remained in its project box until I added it to my UFO Challenge sheet in position #6 and it was chosen for January for the APQ UFO Challenge. My strata were all pieced in class, using a Kona roll-up of Christa Watson's Designer Palette.  This month I've taken it from six pieced panels to a finished (and basted) nearly twin sized quilt top. Quilting is underway, but I wanted to share my January progress. I'm thrilled with how far it's come. And I look forward to finishing it up and submitting it to my guild quilt show.

I cut my strata sections into 6 1/2" wide strips (I have a few leftover strips for some future project... it's like my UFO birthed another UFO). At this point I played with them on my design wall and ultimately decided to use two strips in each column, connecting the green ends.

The original strata (see top picture) is built with three different widths of pieces which leads to a variety of sizes in the finished panels. I used this in my design by building out from the longest section in the center.

I had originally purchased three yards of the blue fabric for the class. I wish I'd bought more, but I was wary of buying additional fabric from a different dye lot. In the end, the limited amount of blue added to my challenge. I drew out a sketch to scale and then calculated the yardage required for my design. I had to redesign slightly to get it under 3 yards. The redesign simply made the long skinny vertical pieces of blue narrower. The trickiest part of the project was cutting these 2 3/4" x 95" pieces of fabric!

As I worked on piecing my columns, I really liked this intermediate step where all the strata touched. It may inspire a new project to use my leftover bits.

The title, No Purple, came from my surprise at how many different colors are in this quilt, yet none of my favorite color. That sure doesn't happen very often. Here's the finished quilt top.

The backing is pieced and quilting is underway. I shopped my stash and found these two fabrics to use for the backing.

Thank you for visiting! I'm looking forward to seeing which UFO off my list I'll be working on in February.

I'm linking up to the January OMG Finish post.

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