Wednesday, February 7, 2018

Blog Hop: Put a Little Love in Your Quilt

Welcome to my blog!

Last Christmas I found a fun blog hop where folks shared a Christmas project and a cookie recipe.  Yum!  We ended up making 8 different kinds of cookies for the holidays and I enjoyed the projects everyone shared.  

Carol announced the Put a Little Love in Your Quilt Blog Hop and I signed up to share.  Her requirements were just that we include a heart somewhere in the project...  This is absolutely the fastest I have ever finished a quilt!  I started January 8 and finished February 6. Click on the images to see the details!

My adult ed class teacher challenged us to make a double 4-patch quilt using different fabric for most of the design.  (If we had done this it would have been 30 different fabrics.  She has a huge stash of neat, new fabric so it's easy for her.)  Anyway, I decided to use any heart fabrics I had in my (older, mostly inherited) stash and to make the pattern with that.

Here is my quilt, semi-artfully displayed on a chair in our backyard.....!  

There are some memories sewn into this quilt.  


The white fabric with the large black polka dots (starts at the center and goes up to the right) were from a selection of fabrics I got when our (now almost 30 year old) son was an infant.  Like all new mothers, I had read how exposing the kiddos to high contrast helped developed their abilities.  Our baby ended up with a white paper plate with a black felt pen happy face in the side of his crib (as I got real since I really didn't have any idea how to sew a quilt and it was more fun to hold him anyway!)


The fabric with hearts and words (larger pieces start at the second row and goes down ending with the white heart, this fabric was also used in the smaller 4-patches) is a piece of fabric I got from my Aunt June - probably more than 15 years ago.  It was a design printed on the fabric to cut and make a sort of collar deal.  

In the bottom row is my first paper pieced attempt at a heart.  I was going to make my mom a jacket, but I could only share the sewn together pieces with her.  She felt the seams and appreciated the effort.  She was impressed even though she couldn't see very well.  That red in that heart was in the first set of fabric I ever bought to make a quilt.


Here is how I went about making the quilt:

First I went thru my fabric to pick the colors and patterns...


At first I was going to only use reds and pinks....


I started cutting to get a better idea of how things would look.  I was thinking of adding more colors.  Green and lilac were considered, but black and white became more appealing...

I started with the larger pieces and arranged them on the design wall. I decided to not use all the flower prints and instead went for more graphic fabrics.

I folded and pinned together the narrower stripes to audition how things could look...

Then I made the smaller 4-patches and added them to the design wall...

The piecing of the double 4-patch was challenging.  There were going to be many seams to match so I measured and trimmed if needed each time I got to a square!

The measuring helped.  I think all but one of the intersections is pretty perfect.  I was consistent with how I placed the fabrics when piecing and pressing the 4-patches, but when I put them next to the other blocks they got twisted so the ironing on the back is not consistent....



Ready now for the back.  I have not used fleece before so this seemed a good time to try it out!  My friend found 50" * 60" throws at CVS (3 for $10) and gave me one to use for my backing. 

I took a photo of the front, printed it and doodled to decide how to quilt the project...  (It turned out later that everyone in class did stitch in the ditch in a grid around the larger squares and called it done. But that quilting was right for their beautiful modern fabric and colored projects.)  I added a half row of blocks to the top to not waste the fleece, and added an additional line of quilting going from top to the right intersecting between the two smaller loops when I found that the batting required closer quilting... 

I thought this was going to be really difficult to quilt, but I just spray basted it to some polyester batting and used the walking foot (learning about using the walking foot this year with Leah Day).  The fleece turned out to be easy to quilt. I started and ended the quilting in the batting before I got to the top so didn't have many thread tie offs at all!  I really like the way the design makes the quilt a little puffy!  Click any of the photos to see the quilting!

The binding is my weak spot in the project.  I had hoped to finally be grown up and to hand stitch to the back.  But I decided I really wanted to finish the project in time for the blog hop...  So I cut 2.5 inch fabric on the bias, and joined the pieces together.  Sewed on the back side of the quilt with a .25 inch seam and to the front with a 3/8 inch seam.  This added an extra line of stitching that goes around the back near the edge of the binding.  Looks fine.  

I used these tips from Laura Ann Coila @SewVeryEasy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8qzeOczXEo to help me apply the binding:
  • Minute 0:56 see how she preps the start of the joining part of the binding 
  • Start sewing it on on the bottom middle to distract the eye
  • Minute 4 Mark end of corner, learn foot measurement to help, 
  • Minute 5:23 stop then pinch the fabric at the end of the corner and bring up to the side just stitched.
  • Minute 6:10 use padded nail file or folded fabric to help placement of presser foot
  • Minute 8:08 how to end with her folded method of ending the binding
It ended up, I sort of did my cutting the way she describes here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXvLAHWbyXo except I did more work and cut my fabric into fat quarters first as I didn't notice the video until typing this! I tried making continuous bias strips but lost a portion of the fabric as the way I marked the lines was difficult to see and my cutting went wonky. In my next tries, I did not depend on the angles in the cut fabric to make the seams.  Instead I used a ruler to verify that the intersection was at 90 degrees, put a pin in, drew a line and added more pins. I chain pieced. With this extra effort all the binding fabric strips were usable and straight.

Our son helped me by taking the photos of the finished quilt, and tested the size by sitting with it on a chair.  Little Buffy and he approve, but we decided the quilt will be saved to give as a gift later on. You can really see the quilting in this photo...

I really enjoyed quilting this project and it has been so nice to see everyone else's interpretation of how to Put a Little Love in Your Quilt!

Thank you for coming by and visiting my blog.  Thank you to Carol for organizing the Put a Little Love in Your Quilt Blog Hop.

Please click on the names of the blogs below to visit the other lovely heart projects shared for the event and leave a happy comment!


February 7
QuiltQuest <-- You are here!
And if you missed the first two days.  

February 5

February 6


💕


32 comments:

  1. Well done to get that done so quickly. A beautiful quilt that will be loved.

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  2. Great job on your quilt, thanks for sharing.

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  3. A truly beautiful quilt! Thanks for showing the process of making it.

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  4. Wonderful quilt! You'll treasure it for years to come! It's beautiful and look at everything you tried and learned on this quilt! Well done!

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  5. Such a pretty and cozy looking quilt :)

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  6. Yes....turned out fantastic! Warm and cozy quilt for years to come

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  7. Very ambitious project! Love the story!

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  8. Thanks for sharing your fun heart quilt.

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  9. I like your quilt and your thought process in doing it. The quilting design is one I am going to try to remember for use in one of my quilts. Thanks for sharing!

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  10. This is a fantastic and informative post. Thank you for all the links and the information on the video, I will have to check out. Beautiful quilt and perfect quilting.

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  11. Love quilts that contain wonderful memories. Yours is lovely. Thanks for sharing it and your process with us.

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  12. Beautiful quilt and fleece will make it so warm!

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  13. A quilt that contains all those memories is a real treasure...love it! Your quilting is perfect for this quilt and it's good your son and Little Buffy approve. Cute photo! Thank you for sharing the quilt and all the great links to help us with our quilting projects. I'm so glad you played along in the hop...thank you! :O)

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  14. It's great how you incorporated so many different hearts and memories of love into this quilt! Even the photo at the end with your son holding the pooch is full of love. I'd say you put a LOT, not just a little, love in your quilt :)

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  15. Your quilt is beautiful. Design walls really come in handy for making decisions about color placement. I love the combination of colors in your quilt and the quilting is perfect!

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  16. The best quilts around are the ones with memories stitched in them. Don't you just love using fleece for backing too. They make for a light snuggly quilt that's easy to quilt.

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  17. Great quilt. I like your quilting, and how great to use up stash. Buffy's a cutie....they are the final OK if it is good one or not.

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  18. Your quilt is just beautiful and I love the quilting. Thank you for sharing.

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  19. Really cool quilt. All the different fabrics are so cool. Have a fun day! angielovesgary2 atgmail dotcom

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  20. Thank you for sharing the details of how you finished the quilt. I need to push myself into quilting my own stuff. S

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  21. Wonderful quilt and thanks for sharing the story behind the fabrics. I enjoyed reading it.

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  22. What a fabulous quilt...love it.

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  23. You did a wonderful job with this quilt.

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  24. That's the way to do it - take a challenge by the horns and make it your own. It's a great quilt and your quilting is lovely. I think spray basting is the secret to making fleece work for a backing. Happy Heart Day.

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  25. It is beautiful and I enjoyed reading about your process.

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  26. WOW! Your Quilt of Many Memories is Amazing. Thank you sew very much for Hopping and sharing your story...xo

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  27. So much work!! This is lovely, and being not very red will have lots more use too, I would think. x

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  28. what a pretty quilt! I love the pops of the big-print fabric and the polka dots. Nice juxtaposition of them, too.

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  29. You made a beautiful quilt. I love anything with red and yet it's the one color I have the least of in my stash. I'm not sure what that's about but I agree, using unusual colors is always a great idea. AN adult ed class for quilting!!! What a great idea.

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  30. What a beautiful quilt! I love your color choices. Happy Valentines' Day!

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  31. Great job with your quilt. Love the fabric you choose.

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Feedback is welcome!