Dream Big & Compose Your Concerto

I'm finally sharing my last quilt finished in 2015!  I've got a few more smaller projects to blog about, but I can finally set up my year in review photos after this post goes live and I can't wait to see some of the things I accomplished last year all in one place!

Dream Big & Compose Your Concerto was a very last minute quilt.  My husband's aunt was in Paducah and picked up a couple of charm packs that she thought would make a great quilt for one of her Christmas gifts.  I received the charms on Thanksgiving along with a request for a twin sized quilt for a little boy who likes music and "his letters."  Since it was so last minute, I decided to go with a simple split 4-patch (a pattern I wanted to try just to say I did once) and dug in my stash for as much of the border fabric as I could find.  I did end up running out and purchasing the remainder of the typewriter fabric that the shop had so I could use it for backing.  When I borrowed the music panto from my friend, Debbie, I had no idea that I would be making this quilt, but it worked out great!  Can you see the flip flopping treble and bass clefs?  So perfect!

Dream Big & Compose Your Concerto

Pattern:  Split 4-Patch

Size: 64 1/2 x 77 1/2" 

Featured Fabric Line: Concerto (Benartex)
Panto:  Music 

Quilting Thread:  Glide (Candy Apple)

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Great Granny Squared

It's been quite dreary here in Illinois, with all the rainy weather and flooding all around the St. Louis Metro area.  You can see how green and high the pond is looking from all the water.  It's at the overflow stage (but the overflow valve is doing it's job and emptying the excess back into the creek) so we've had no flooding issues here at home.

And since it's so dreary, I thought it might be a good time to show off some Downton Abbey prints (I always think of the English weather as a bit dreary - I know the Dutch weather often was)!  This is the Great Granny Quilt. a pattern by Lori Holt...

...and of course the cute not-so-little label that goes on the back.  In fact, the pattern for this label makes it the size of a FQ (18x22)!  It's pieces with leftovers from the quilt front and then there's lots of cute hand embroidery to label everything and make it absolutely adorable (you're gonna wanna enlarge it to see...so sweet)!

The Great Granny Quilt is all finished off with an English rose inspired pantograph and scrappy binding strips!  Love, love!!!

Great Granny Squared

Pattern:  Great Granny Quilt

Designer:  Lori Holt

Size: 72x85 1/2"

Featured Fabric Line: Downton Abbey (Andover)
Panto:  Rose Vine (Simple Quilting Stitches)
Quilting Thread:  Glide (Cool Grey)

Disclosure: I received supplies to make this project from Jackman's Fabrics in Fairview Heights, IL.  The quilt will be hung as a shop sample in their store to promote sale of both the pattern and fabric lines.  In exchange, the quilt will be returned to me and becomes my property at the end of the promotion.  They did not require me to write a positive review of any of the products.  The opinions I have expressed are my own.  I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 <http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html> : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

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Trimming the Tree

This was a fun one...Trimming the Tree!

In general, I'm not a modern quilter...far from it!  But...the gals at Jackman's wanted to create a quilt that would show off the prints in the Downton Abbey Christmas fabric line and asked me if I had any ideas.  I began flipping through some of the Christmasy pattern books that were on display and thought that this Amanda Murphy pattern would look great with the fabrics!

This quilted worked up pretty quickly and I did make a few changes to the original pattern:

• I did not piece 2 of the ornaments at all (instead, showing off the design of the fabrics)
• I only pieced the stripes of 2 ornaments (making the picture of Downton Abbey as the focus)
• I opted not to applique the words across the bottom border (again to show off the fabric)

Trimming the Tree

Pattern:  Trimming the Tree (from "Modern Holiday")

Designer:  Amanda Murphy 

Size: 52x74" (approx.)

Featured Fabric Line: Downton Abbey Christmas (Andover)
Panto:  Jessie's Swirls Simplified (Jessica Schick)
Quilting Thread:  Glide (Military Gold)

Disclosure: I received supplies to make this project from Jackman's Fabrics in Fairview Heights, IL.  The quilt will be hung as a shop sample in their store to promote sale of both the pattern and fabric lines.  In exchange, the quilt will be returned to me and becomes my property at the end of the promotion.  They did not require me to write a positive review of any of the products.  The opinions I have expressed are my own.  I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 <http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html> : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

For fun stuff happening today in the blog-o-sphere, check out the link-ups on my sidebar!

Rustic Stars

Finally finished!

Last year, at Thanksgiving, my husband's aunt, Nancy, let me know that she has plans to redecorate her bedroom.  She wanted to do it in Americana and she would really love to have a new "bedspread."  She mentioned how nice the one I made for her sister (my mother-in-law) was (hint, hint, hint.....).  Last month, my mother-in-law let me know that Nancy had taken down all of her 90's stick on wall borders and began painting that bedroom (again...hint, hint...).  Well, I guess they were letting me know that I had procrastinated long enough.  It was time to start working on Nancy's quilt.

I always planned to give it to her for Christmas this year.  This was a pattern that my old sewing circle picked to work on together in January and I really wanted to do it.  I thought about beginning to work on it every month since then...I just never did!  I decided to gather up all of the fabrics and take it to my in-laws house over Thanksgiving this year.  I figured that if I just got it cut out, I'd start sewing as soon as I got home...and it worked!  It was done a week later...just in time for Christmas!

This was a fun pattern and the only changes I made to it were:

• adding an extra row of stars (I needed about 12" more in length to fit Nancy's bed)
• using fusible stabilizer under the star points (I wasn't sure how Nancy would feel about alot of fraying, so the Wonder Under will keep it from being to frayed).  BTW, this Hunter's Star pattern is super easy as all of the start points are top stitched instead of pieced!

Rustic Stars
94x72"
Pattern Designer:  Lynne Hagmeier (American Patchwork & Quilting - Oct. 2014)

Quilting:  Freehand Meander (avoiding the bulk of those star points)

Quilting Thread:  Federal (Glide)

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Sunflower Song Duo

Busy days lately, but I thought it's about time I begin sharing some of the projects I've been finishing up over the last few months!  Today, these are a couple of small wall hangings I made for display at Jackman's Fabrics...

This is Sunflower Trio and the details are all below.  The ladies at the store really challenged me with this one as applique is not really in my repertoire, but I followed the directions (step-by-step exactly) for the raw edge applique and it seemed to work...well!  I really worried that I couldn't make a display worthy quilt, but I've pleased to say "I did it!"

Pattern:  Sunflower Trio

Designer:  Lynne Hagmeier (Kansas Troubles Quilters)

Size: 34x38"
Featured Fabric Line: Sunflower Song (Kansas Troubles)
Quilt Panto:  Flirtatious LG by Irene Steele

Quilting Thread:  Star Multi-Color

This one is Rising Sun, another applique project I was hesitant to take on for store display.  {Doesn't our pond look so pretty this time of year???}  Again, I followed the pattern directions and was able to accomplish a pretty decent hand turned applique.  My only regret is that my "V-points" aren't great, but I'll research a bit more about tackling them and hopefully do better next time.  Yes, I'm even willing to try again!  I found it really interesting to learn two different applique techniques on these two separate projects...another technique tried!  

Pattern:  Rising Sun

Designer:  Barabara Cherniwchan (Coach House Designs)

Size: 16x52"

Featured Fabric Line: Sunflower Song (Kansas Troubles)
Quilting:  freehand echo
Quilting Thread:  Aurifil Mako NE 50/2

Disclosure: I received supplies to make this project from Jackman's Fabrics in Fairview Heights, IL.  The quilt will be hung as a shop sample in their store to promote sale of both the pattern and fabric lines,  In exchange, the quilt will be returned to me at the end of the promotion.  They did not require me to write a positive review of any of the products.  The opinions I have expressed are my own.  I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 <http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html> : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

For fun stuff happening today in the blog-o-sphere, check out the link-ups on my sidebar!