A Take On Bear Paw

As my blog posts get more scarce, so is my quilt making. However in the past month a lot of quilts I made earlier have come into the limelight. Let me start with the first one.  A variant on the Bear Paw block.

This quilt was a long time in the making. About 3 years ago when I was undergoing physical therapy, while recovering from a knee injury I would find myself often staring at my shoes. The colors of the shoes really struck a chord with me and I decided to use them in my next quilt. Inspiration comes from the strangest of places!

There was a pattern I had been toying with in EQ7 for a while now which started as a Bear Paw block but ultimately evolved into this. 

These are the shoes that inspired the color scheme.

The Kona cotton colors that were used:

• Nautical
• Germanium
• Robin Egg    

The quilting is an all over Baptist Fan pattern beautifully executed by Pam Cole. Pam is such a pleasure to work with.

This was the first time I made a quilt with a dark background and I really like how it makes the blocks pop. I see a lot more dark quilts in my future. 

Leaving off with a few more pictures.

Seahawks Quilt

My nephew has very specific preferences when it comes to quilts. Years back he asked me for a quilt based on Marvel Comics characters. It was a challenge then because I hated the licensed fabric and after much thought settled on a version I could stomach. However he loved it and uses it to this day. Did I tell you he is my favorite nephew. :)

When I moved to Seattle I decided to make him a big boy quilt now that he is much older and my quilting skills are a bit more advanced. He immediately said he would like a Seahawks quilt. Deja vu all over again. I dislike the Seahawks licensed fabric. I bought some but it just lay around as I could not think of anything that I'd rather make. Finally I decided to ditch the idea and go a different route. In the meantime I gave him a raincheck. He did not know what a raincheck was but looked it up and reminded me ever so often that he is still waiting for his quilt!

Finally three years later I am ready to give it to him on his 11th birthday. I started with a small coloring book image of the Seahawks logo and enlarged it  by 400% at Kinkos. Then I used that to make the image. The Kona cottons that match the Seahawks colors are:

• Navy
• Cadet
• Chartruese
• White
• Ash

Took a lot of patience and accurate X-Acto knife skills. :)

I ironed the fabric on to Pellon fusible interfacing, which made it easier to handle and could be cut with a lot more accuracy.

Once I was done with the logo had to think of what to put it on. I happened to see a banner during one of the football games on TV and decided that was the way to go. Needed to quilt the background first and then stick the logo on it. The navy fabric is really hard to photograph indoors so please bear with the off-color pictures, in some cases.

For the backing I used up all the Seahawk's licensed fabric and the leftovers from the front. Abby was having a field day helping me!

For the quilting I got a bit ambitious and decided to quilt little footballs. Experimented with a few versions of the ball and finally settled on one. I made a little template so I could quickly draw it before quilting. This took a while especially since the quilt is 80" x 86" in size.

I only quilted the Navy blue sections with footballs for the rest I used a meandering square pattern. I even quilted his name and no. 12 in one section. Once again the blues are really hard to photograph from up close, not to mention the Navy really shows all the lint from the batting.

Finished it with Chartruese binding, a label and an encouraging message for the true football fan!

Thanks for reading along. It has been a while since I have finished a quilt, it feels good to get this one done!

Dresden Quilt

I was looking to make a baby quilt for our friends who just had a little girl. Inspired by this fabric I picked up from Dry Goods Design a while back I decided to make Dresden blocks in matching colors. 

Kona color chart comes in real handy on such occasions. I was able to find the colors that closely matched the colors in the fabric.

• Cactus
• Citrus
• Azalea
• Breakers
• Jade
• Petal

I skipped the burnt orange and found a print by Lotta Jansdotter that matched the color for binding.

I used Wrights EZ Quilting Dresden Ruler and the petals are 3.5" in size. The center circle is 3.5" in diameter. I recently purchased a Grace Company 360 TrueCut Circle Cutter which made cutting the circles a breeze.

I machine appliquéd the Dresden plates on to 12" x 12" blocks of Kona white and pieced the top together.

For the quilting I went with stitch #4 on my Bernina and the walking foot. I increased the stitch length to 2.5 to get a more gentle curve. I like the texture it created. I think it tones down the otherwise stark lines of the blocks.

The quilt finishes at  36" x 48" and has a real fresh look to it. It reminds me of a kid's drawing.

This is a great quilt for a beginner and if you have any questions please free to contact me.

I recently got some labels printed from MadMadGraphics. I love how they turned out. One label attached and quilt packaged.

Sunburst - Double Take

My sister-in-law asked me if I could make her some custom table mats. A quick quilting project is hard to resist. I have been seeing the Sunburst pattern by Yvonne of Qulting Jetgirl a lot since it was on the cover of QuiltCon 2016 magazine. My sis-in-law likes warm colors so I decided to make it in a different color way.

The mats needed to be 29" x 19" in size so I had to scale down the pattern. Once I determined that the smallest square would be 2" x 2" finished, the rest of the pieces were easy to size. I used four different shades of Kona cotton - Corn Yellow, Papaya, Tangerine and Red. For the background I used yarn dyed Essex in Sand. I would have liked a little more contrast between the Tangerine and Red but I was trying to stick to my stash.

Once I constructed the block, centering it to a 29" x 19" background was the hardest part. With a bit of persistence I managed.

I decided to quilt with simple straight lines echoing the piecing and went with a self colored binding.

For the backing I used a much hoarded print from Flea Market Fancy by Denyse Schmidt.

All in all hope she likes it as it will part of their decor for a while.