WIP Wednesday - Back to Piecing

So now that I've all but finished the Madrona Road (come now, we all let quilts sit without binding, I've even got one on my couch right now, in use, that is only minimally quilted more than the basting) I'm back to piecing.

I know I've shown the early pictures of this project before. But now all the triangles are in square blocks, and I've cut the border. All that's left to cut are the white corner pieces. Baby quilts are fun for experimenting with new patterns. I can easily see making this pattern again in larger scale.

There was a lot of squaring up before doing the final layout. But I did chain piece the triangles into squares which was awesomely fast - all 36 squares made in under half an hour. 

Then there was laying out the 36 blocks with what will be the border fabric. Sea waves surrounded by octopi. And the corners will have the white squares since the octopus print is directional, and I have it all facing inward towards the center. 

Finished all the pebbles

There is no question that the pebbling on the Madrona Road quilt was by far the most dense quilting I've ever done. 11 strips, each 2 inches wide and 54 inches long. I can't imagine pebbling a whole top for anything this big - 54"x71". The minky back also looks interesting with the stripes of the quilting.

This means I'll take the free motion foot off my machine and switching back to piecing. It's a pain to go back and forth since it requires using a screw driver, and since I knew I'd finish this soon enough, I didn't want to go back and forth repeatedly. So now all that's left for this is binding and burying the threads.

Featured over on A Quilt Story

Today I'm featured on A Quilt Story with my asterisk quilt. She pulled pictures from my various posts along with the finished ones that I took outside against the snow.

Tutorial - Strip Piecing into Diamonds

I've gotten a lot of positive feedback between the blog and Instagram on the baby quilt that I'm making. Secret for the strips - I have an AccuQuilt Go Cutter so making many strips at a time is easy for me, and they're all completely straight. When it comes to quilting tutorials, I'm very much a visual learner, so this is many, many pictures.

Supplies: 1.5" strips (I used 6 sets for this), 1/4" foot, rotary cutter and cutting mat, quilter's ruler with 45 degree markings.


Start with three strips - these are each 1.5" wide.  For this your 1/4" foot is your best friend, you want equal seams for this so that everything will match up nicely after cutting.

Iron the seam under the dar side. I iron from the top - with this method, the seam won't show through the white. 

Then add the second strip to the other side of the white.

Same deal with the ironing here, have the seam hide under the darker fabric.

 Here you can see the 45 degree marking lined up along the side edge of the strip.

This is a more wide view of the same set up. The 45 degree marking is along the side of the strip. At this point. Slice off that end to start making the right triangles. 

Flip the ruler to the other end, to the other 45 degree marking to line of on the other side of the strips. The already cut edge and the edge of the ruler should form a 90 degree corner. Keep doing this down the length of the strip. I was getting 12-13 triangles per strip depending on how close to the edge I started.

And here we have 60 (of 72) triangles arranged into blocks then rows. These haven't been stitched up yet, but that's coming shortly. I just thought I would give the step by step instructions for anyone else who wanted to try this. It's very easy, but it's a visually striking pattern. I used almsot exactly half a yard of the blue swirls fabric which is the Alexander Henry Pirate Island Salty Sea. I'll be putting Ed Emberley's Happy Drawing Too Octopus in Deep Blue around it as a border with white corner stones.

Pebbles, pebbles, pebbles.

After the Boston MQG meeting on Saturday, I was inspired to get to quilting on the Madrona Road quilt. I had been thinking about pebbles in the white strips before the meeting, and the free motion practice time solidified that decision.

The thread is a very, very pale grey which gives the texture whithout drawing attention to the stitching itself. I haven't decided if I'm going to do any quilting over the tumblers, right now I'm thinking that I won't. The top is way more than secure with the quilting in the white areas. Each full 54" strip takes about 20-25 minutes to quilt. I do half at a time, starting in the center and working my way out. It's using less bobbin than I was expecting - I can do 2.5 strips with one. I wound 7 in preparation so that I wouldn't have to wind any while in the middle of the project.

Boston Modern Quilt Guild Meeting

Today I went up to Billerica (for those not from the Boston area, that's pronounced Bill-ricka, ignore the E hanging out in there) for the Boston MQG meeting. It was 30 women who all love quilting as much as I do. I brought my Madrona Road New Wave quilt with me for show and tell. After everyone had a chance to show what they'd either finished or were working on, we got instructions about free motion quilting. As I've discussed on here, I'm branching out and getting more adventurous with my quilting.

After the instruction time, there was open sewing. I specifically brought a practice sandwich with me for this. And I'm definitely more confident with my free motion work. All those hours spent doodling when I was younger have paid off. The best friend to the free motion quilter is doodling to learn the best flow of the shape.

Pardon this photo, it was taken on a whim, and I didn't even stand up from my chair to take it, but it gives you an idea as to what I was playing with. What this doesn't show is the section of pebbles that I also did.

Baby Quilt Beginnings

I'll be making two baby quilts in the next couple of weeks for twins who are due in mid-February. I've got both designed, and have started on the baby boy quilt. Thank you Pinterest for the inspiration picture that led to this quilt. It's strip pieced, then triangles cut from the strips - very quick work, especially since I have a Go Cutter and can get five perfect 1.5" strips at a time. That's about 1/4 of the top, maybe a little less, I haven't decided what the final size will be yet.

This is a picture of the plan for the girl's quilt. It's a lot of HSTs and full square. The shaded areas will be the pink circles, and the vertical stripes will be narrower than what appears, but it was easier on the graph paper to make them a full square wide. Inspiration for this came from another blogger and seeing her quilt via FreshlyPieced's WIP Wednesday Link-Up. 

This morning I made what might end up being my bee block for September, but I can also see myself making this whole top before I head to Rhode Island in March for Navy Training. It's simple, but with adding a different color star in each big block, I think it'll be nice looking top with visual interest. I'll be making a similar block for someone else this month, so I may update my request when it's my month. 

And lastly, I got more comic book boards today, and have finished making mini bolts of my stash - this does not include any of the fat quarters that I have which are on the bottom shelf and out of view. I have 154 mini bolts on my shelves right now. I definitely lack purples, but other than that, I'm pretty well stocked for colors. I could definitely have more solids, and that might happen once I move and have my fully dedicated quilting room.