Blogger's Quilt Festival: Glam Clam Quilt

Here's my large quilt entry for Amy's Blogger's Quilt Festival.

I went through a quilting dry spell for a few years and I was finally brought back into the fold after:
1. Attending the AQS Quilt Show in Grand Rapids in August 2013
2. Visiting Pink Castle Fabrics for the first time - a local fabric shop filled with fabrics that I love
and 3. Discovering this amazing Glam Clam pattern.

This quilt came together because of the inspiration I saw in Grand Rapids, the awesome opportunity to actually match fabrics together in person and overcoming my fear of curved piecing. Latifah has a great video tutorial on piecing curves without pins here. Her patten is genius and was a great way to reintroduce myself to the world of quilting and fabric selection. I'm so glad I was able to find such great inspiration to get me excited by this hobby again!

The quilt was quilted with 2" clams by Kathy Koch of Threadbear Quilting. She is wonderful to work with and always has great ideas for enhancing the quilts I make with her quilting skills.

Because this is a queen-sized bed quilt intended to keep us warm during the coldest of Michigan winters, I made this quilt into a duvet. Liz at Lady Harvatine first gave me the inspiration with the quilt duvet she made for her sister. Before binding the quilt, I pieced another solid quilt back with a finished edge on the short side and 6 button holes. I attached the binding around the quilt top, batting, original backing, and duvet backing, leaving an open side on the bottom. Once the backing was attached, I sewed the buttons to the original three layers of the quilt. In the winter, we add our down comforter, and when summer comes, we can remove the comforter and have a lighter weight quilt for our bed.

To see a gallery of the other quilts I've made, click on this link, or click on the Quilts page at the top of my blog.

Modern Cross Stitch Pattern Round Up

Over the past year, glimpses of cute cross stitch designs on Instagram have slowly been luring me into trying a new hobby. 

For some reason, cross stitch never really appealed to me. I think I was intimidated by the tiny grids and exact patterns, not to mention the thought of starting another craft stash. Now that adorable designs are more plentiful, it was harder and harder for me to resist.

I finally caved a few months ago and I'm completely smitten. I'm drawn to the thrill of slowly seeing a pattern emerge and being able to mindfully finish a design stitch by stitch (kind of like colorwork knitting). Being able to buy a pattern and supplies to finish a project for under $20-30 isn't too bad either!

I've been scouring the web for patterns and here are some of my favorite designers and shops:

Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery   
The company that started it all for me. I'm anxiously awaiting their new Cherry Blossom design. I'm not a Halloween fan, but their adorable Frankenstein in the Mysterious Halloween Town Club is calling my name. 

    

* Sugar is Sweet Sampler * Fruit of the Month Sampler * Woodland Sampler *

Satsuma Street

I just started her Pretty Little Tokyo design. Her color sense is impeccable and designs are adorable. I'd love to stitch up every single one of her designs.

*  Voyage  *  Pretty Little Amsterdam  *  Forest  * 

Gera designs from Superbuzzy - Flickr group  

Adorably cute Japanese fairy tale and gnome designs

*  The Tortoise and the Hare  *  They Pull the Giant Turnip  *  Thumbelina  *

Tiny Modernist  

I heart their kitchen gadgets and cuckoo clock designs.

 *  Vintage Hot Air Balloon  *  Pink Typewriter  *  Kitchen Gadgets  *

Wee Little Stitches 

Cute character collections from your favorite television shows. The IT Crowd design was my first ever cross stitch project

*  Sound of Music  *  Modern Alphabet  *  The IT Crowd  *

And Wabi Sabi X-Stitch

Lots of cute, smaller designs.

*  Home Sweet Home *  Design No.5  *  Teal Stand Mixer  *

I combined the Bibimbap, Kimchi and Korean Thank You designs to make a thank you card cover.

Subversive Cross Stitch 

I'm not sure if I'd ever be able to stitch up one of these Bad Grammar Series designs due to OCD, but I am such a fan!

*  Your Awesome *   Your Welcome    *  Welcome to Are Home  * 

Kitschy Digitals 

Cute and vintage-style patterns from a variety of designers

*  Make a Wish  *  Sleepy Owl  *  Drinks All Around  *

Cross Stitcher Magazine 

I check these out digitally from my library's Zinio magazine collection (check to see if your local library subscribes!). I've had the best time poring through the last 10 issues of designs. Lots of great contemporary designs in all sizes. Each issue has a basic getting started guide with great pictures.

Stitchrovia  

I discovered this British designer through Cross Stitcher magazine and she's my new favorite. Her typography, pretty colors and fresh designs are so adorable. I want to make one of each of her designs.

 *  Home Sweet Home  *  Kitchen Vegetables  *  Bright Alphabet  *

I've started a Cross Stitch board on Pinterest for more inspiration. I'd love to find more great designs. Please comment if you have any favorites (or have a pinterest board you'd love to share)!

And, last but not least, I put together two zipper pouches to hold cross stitch projects. I have been trying for years and years to make a pouch with a crisp right angle next to each zipper. This tutorial from Jedi Craft Girl finally clicked for me when she pointed out that you should clip the zipper next to the seam before flipping right side out. I now have 2 new pouches with beautiful corners!

Grumpy Cat Pillow

When Sarah and her husband bought a new house this winter, I knew I had to make her a Grumpy Cat pillow for her new and improved sewing room. It was a brutal winter and Grumpy Cat is the perfect spokescat for the Polar Vortex.




This paper-pieced Grumpy Cat pattern is from Sew What Sherlock (who also made the adorable llama pattern. My version here). My only change was to use peach for the nose and mouth rather than black.



I quilted the cream parts with cream thread and the teal parts with teal thread and left the eyes and ears alone (which you should also do with real cats!).




I backed it with this Lotta Jansdotter Mormor print. I love this print so much that I had to hoard another yard after using up this fat quarter!



To finish off the pillow, I installed my first invisible zipper, thanks to a wonderful tutorial by Sew Katie Did.

I'm so glad I gave paper piecing a try last fall. It's such an easy way to follow a pattern precisely and make all seams and edges line up. I'm on the lookout for more adorable patterns (like this Totoro pattern) to turn into pillows.

Penny Patch Quilt

Six months and 12 bobbins of quilting thread later, the Penny Patch Quilt is finally finished! I made this twin-sized (66" x 90") quilt closely following the instructions on Stitched in Color's Penny Patch Quilt Along.

 

I spent an afternoon selecting, cutting and pairing fabric for each block back in October and then finally started piecing the top in January. I really like the mix of fabrics I chose for this, especially because I'm on a purple kick right now.



After the quilt was basted, it hung on my sewing room door for 2 months while I practiced doodling dogwood quilting during meetings and on phone calls.





Once the pattern finally clicked for me, it took a few weeks to pull out the big guns and attempt using my sewing machine. A week ago,  I finally took the plunge and quilted the first two lines on the quilt. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be and I definitely shouldn't have procrastinated so long on this!



My dogwoods aren't anywhere near perfect and not one looks alike or is uniform in size, but I'm pleased with the overall look and I'm glad I reached outside of my comfort zone. My shoulders are still sore after all of the maneuvering, so it will be a while before I attempt a large scale free motion quilting job again.




I modified the pattern in the tutorial a bit by adding alternating rows of four-patch blocks. The tutorial pattern used a checkerboard pattern of single square and penny patch blocks, but I added the four-patch blocks to try and avoid some of the stair-stepping patterns that you see above. If I were to make this quilt again or offer suggestions to other quilters interested in this pattern, I would use a selection of medium tone fabrics rather than a mix of low-volume and high-volume fabrics. I think it would lend to a more vintage look and avoid the stair step pops of high intensity colors. It's not as noticeable up close, but the "steps" do pop at a distance.




It's backed with Botanics cross hatch 108" wide fabric from Pink Castle Fabrics (a dream for someone who puts off the backing selection and construction until the last minute!)

As soon as I pulled it out of the dryer and took pictures, I tossed the quilt on a chair. When I turned around, I found Nuku Nuku had already claimed her spot. I'm glad she loves this one as much as I do!

Ruth's Graduation Quilt

My middle sister, Ruth, graduated from college last December. I, not so sneakily, asked her for her 3 favorite colors and she sent me a swatch with gray, light blue and royal blue. I pulled together a ton of fabrics in her palette and created a simple patchwork quilt based on this one I saw on Pinterest.




Ruth and her husband have 2 super sweet cats and a big dog, so I made sure to include some catnap fabric and some dog fabric in the mix.



The feline and canine cousins both gave this quilt the Craft family seal of approval!



The backing is a solid royal blue, with meandering stippling in white thread. The whole quilt is about 64" x 80". My sister is super tall and this covers her up quite nicely.

Rosalie Quilt

I've become slightly obsessed with hexagon designs lately. What I really want to make is a giant English paper pieced, Grandma's Flower Garden quilt, but because I don't want to devote that much time to hand sewing, I've settled on larger scale hexagon patterns. This particular quilt used the Rosalie pattern card from Valori Wells. I made the larger version, 78" x 86".



I usually start my quilts by putting together a palette of fabrics I like. Then, I search for a pattern to use. Once I'm about halfway through a quilt, a potential recipient comes to mind. While I was sewing the top for this one, it kept reminding me of my youngest sister, Rachel. She usually gravitates toward these colors and has even tried to steal a few fabrics from my stash that ended up in this quilt.



The large hexagons produced a lot of "waste" fabric, so I used the extra scrap strips to create a pieced back. My sister, Rachel, always house sits for us when we go away, so this was part of her gift for taking such good care of Koko, Nuku Nuku and our house.

Quilts for Friends

Our dear friends, Scott and Melissa, adopted a little baby boy last year and it took me until his first birthday to make him his own quilt. Scott and Melissa love nature and animals and camping, so I pulled together lots of fabrics with a woodland feel or palette into this quilt. I added a bit of the fabric from our guest room, where they stay often, to the quilt as a little personal touch (the brown leaves on the top of the stack below).



I used the Disco Quilt pattern from Jaybird Quilts and about 40 different fat eighths to make a scrappy patchwork quilt in the youth size. I'm pretty sure this was my first time pressing all seams open on a quilt. It definitely made for a flatter finished product without the extra bulk. My fingers didn't appreciate so many close calls with the iron, though!



I must have taken the three below pictures in the middle of a blackout. The colors in the top photos more closely reflect the true look of the quilt.



My one change to the pattern was to lop off the triangle points on the top and bottom of the quilt. I'm a fan of plain and simple edges. I quilted it with a meandering loop pattern.




The backing is a gold Juliana Horner pattern from Joann and the binding is from the Botanics line.



Melissa and Scott also have one of my blogging hiatus quilts, which was made in January 2013. I think this was mostly made up of Denyse Schmidt green prints and white Kona cotton, but my memory escapes me on this. I'll let the pictures do the talking...