Ghosties, Ghoulies, and a New Friend

I've recently moved from Massachusetts back to my hometown of Pittsburgh and as a result, most of my possessions are in storage until we find a permanent ( or at least more permanent) place to live. I'd like to show you some of my older quilts that I've made, but I only have two with me here. The first quilt is from a pattern I found in an old issue of McCall's quilting called Ghoulies and Ghosties. I've mentioned before that I'm crazy about Halloween, so it's no surprise that this is one of the two quilts I have with me.

Ghoulies and Ghosties

It's a combination of pieced and appliqued blocks. All of the applique was done by hand and I sewed a large percentage of the pieced blocks by hand on the train to and from work.

Pieced and appliqued block

I machined quilted it in a large cross hatch pattern which isn't that exciting, but what I learned while quilting it was earth shattering! I discovered the walking foot!!! I had never used one before and couldn't understand why my quilts seemed to get distorted no matter how well I pinned. If you've never used one before, a quilting foot is a sewing machine attachment that you use instead of a regular presser foot. It has feed dogs just like the ones in your sewing machine and as you move  the quilt under the needle, the walking foot's feed dogs make sure that all three layers of the quilt move at the same time. With out one, your backing can shift or you can even have little folds in your quilt top from the pressure of the presser foot not moving equally with the feed dogs. My quilting lines would waver and I would have little folds and tucks.

On the brown checked fabric, you can see how the quilting is distorting it. My quilting to the left of the ghost is also pretty wavy from me trying to shift the layers to avoid bunching.

The middle line across the ghost is just full of tucks and folds. Of course, this had to be the center block

So, this quilt was just looking so sloppy. However, I had read about walking feet and decided to try one. For $15 at JoAnn's, I found a generic foot that fits a bunch of different machines and it worked like a dream! I'm totally hooked on this new accessory. The rest of the quilting was a breeze. It took a little time to get used to and I found it a bit tricky to stay in a straight line at first, but after a bit of practice, me and my new walking foot were the best of friends. I would recommend it to anyone if you find that even with careful pinning and straight seams, your blocks are pulling or getting distorted or you find that your quilt top bunches up at seams. I have a baby quilt in storage that I can show you later that is a perfect example of this. It was an Around the World pattern but when I was through quilting it, the rows were almost wavy. It was the first quilt I made, but still! It's a bummer to have that happen.

The other quilt I want to show you is actually a picnic blanket I made for the summer. I'll have pictures soon! Now, go have fun with a walking foot!

New Calculations and Procrastination

After many unsuccessful attempts, I finally have a block for my Irish quilt that works! For the design of the quilt, each block has two dark green sides and two light green sides. When arranged properly, the light sides of four blocks form a cross and the dark sides of four blocks form a cross.

The light sides matching up

The dark sides matching up

The blocks aren't squared up or even very well pressed yet because I was just so excited to finally see a finished cross. I had fun arranging them different ways to try to get an idea for the finished layout. I think the entire quilt will be 36 by 36 blocks. The only thing I'm not loving at the moment is the pinwheel effect the alternating corner triangles are creating.

I just don't want it to distract from the over all effect of the alternating crosses. Hopefully it will be subtle enough to not be to noticeable. So, tomorrow, I plan to make headway on the rest of the blocks and have the top pieced by Friday.

I have a bunch of other projects going at the moment as well. I need to put borders on this wall hanging before I can quilt it.

I know, I know. You all are so jealous of how on top of things I am. I clearly finish projects in time for the holiday they are intended. Or not. Sigh. Oh well. I'm just telling myself I'm really early for next Halloween. I love this pattern. It's from Buttermilk Basin and was really fun to sew. Don't you just love this bat and his button eyes?

 I love Halloween so I don't really mind working on Halloween projects all year round. Do you find yourself making projects that you finish so late that you end up early for next year?

Slow Progress

Have you ever had a quilt that you just can’t make any headway on? I’ve stopped and started on this Irish inspired quilt for over a year and have yet to make a single block. Well, correctly at least. I’ve made lots of screw up blocks. I got the idea for the pattern from an old quilting book I found at a library book sale. It’s called A Year in Patchwork and has a quilt to make for each month, loosely based on the “theme” of each month. 

I love celebrating the changing seasons, so it’s a fun book to browse through. I loved the idea of the March pattern and bought a stack of beautiful green fabric.

The quilt uses a mix of dark and light fabric to create a cross like design in the quilt. Some of the fabrics are shot with metallics which give the composed blocks movement and texture.This was also the first time I had used batiks. I love working with them now. The colors are so rich and saturated and I love the extra weight or heft that the batik printing processes lends to the fabric.

My batiks

My metallic fabrics

 So, with my beautiful fabrics, a seasonal inspiration for the blocks, and a thought to hand quilt the finished piece with a Celtic design, I jumped right into construction. However, the directions are wrong and the center block is about 2 inches to small to correctly fit the pieced border around each block. No big deal if I had made a test block. However, that would have been way to clever of me. When did I realize the mistake? After I had already cut about, ohhhh, 400 triangles or so. Brillant.

My pile of already cut triangles. Too late to fix it now!

So, after a quick consult with my favorite quilt shop owner, I enlarged the center block to 8.5 inches and started over again. At this point, I had already made about 4 different blocks because I originally thought the problem with the sizing was my lame attempts at mitering the corners of each block. So, with a few new fabrics in the mix and my resized block, I’m ready to try it again. Wish me luck!

Progress at last!

Joining the Fray

After almost a year now of finding daily inspiration from the many quilt bloggers I follow, I've decided to start my own. Hopefully, it will be a place for me to share my work, get feedback from fellow quilters, and even for others to find inspiration. Since I haven't blogged before, I haven't been photographing any of my quilts, so I hope to do that soon and post some of my older quilts online. Plus, I have all new projects that I can't wait to start in the new year!! I will definitely be participating in Block-a-Palooza, using Moda's new Sunkissed line which I just received in the mail yesterday! I've signed up for two block of the months at my LQS, and of course, I have piles of fabric I got for Christmas that I'm just itching to cut into. I will now have to get into the habit of taking and posting pictures as I go along. I can't wait to join the online quilting world with my own contributions! So, welcome to my new blog!