Hello, Kitty Quilt!

Bye-bye, UFO:

The blocks for this top were made for me (yikes, two years ago!) by my quilty friends in the Nittany Quilt Bee.  Meanwhile, the embroidery squares were made by myself and my four sisters.  This quilt will be going to niece, who loves kitties and pink, just turned 4, and also just moved into her big girl bed. 

The back is a oh-so-soft pink and white stripe vintage sheet, so I kept the quilting lines wide to avoid stiffening up the quilt.  It drapes beautifully, which matches just right with sweet colors and lovingly made embroideries.  I incorporated a little hand-written label into the binding: 

And I sent it off for her birthday.

It was well received:

Big Upside Down Squirrels

 If you understand that title, I love you.  If you don't, you need to discover Eddie Izzard.

A few months back, I went on a mini retreat to Gold Country with some of my Bay Area Modern buddies... it was awesome. There was a lot of fabric shopping and a lot of getting to know four great ladies. Annnd we decided to start a bee. Well, a round robin, really, but we kept calling it a bee. We named it after our host's dog, Boo. Round Boo Bee. Yes, we are that mature.

Mature or not, we managed to get this thing off the ground.   Mallory started her quilt with Elizabeth Hartman's Metropolis block:

I was really inspired by the black and white divide in the background, and I decided to play off of that in my round.  Mallory mentioned that the elephant stripe was her favorite part (and it's mine too!), so I continued to feature the little guys: 

Mallory, if it makes you too dizzy... I could keep it, I suppose...

Orphan Block quilts

A few months ago, my local MQG had a sew day just for charity, complete with challenges, prizes, clippies... and tons of fun.  Our charity group collects scraps and orphaned blocks from guild members, so one of the challenges that day was to take on some orphaned blocks and make them into quilt tops.  I loved that idea so much that I ended up taking home two projects to finish up.

The first was a little stack of blocks that just needed a few friends, so I whipped up a couple of additional blocks and then sashed it all together.  I quilted this one with close, wandering diagonal lines.  So easy to do and it gives a bit of organic texture to the top.  I don't even mark at all, just eyeball my basting pins in straight lines and then use them as a guide to keep me from getting too off-kilter as I move across the quilt. 

The other project that I took on was a set of three coordinating star blocks.  I put one in the center and cut the other two each into quarters (one on the bias and one on the straight).  I love the overall design that resulted, although it's a little sad that most of the triangles lost their perfect points when I chopped the blocks up and added more seams. 

 

 I quilted the whole thing in close-spaced echos.  I adore this quilting style, though it is so time consuming if your project is large since you have to constantly turn the quilt.   In fact, this little guy is probably one of my all-time favorite quilts.  The color combination is just lovely and the way it crinkled up in the wash is so perfect. 

For the back, I cut strips of the two green solids used on the front, then cut the ends at 60° and sewed 'em up Jelly-Roll-Race style. 

Pretty, pretty.

Both quilts will be donated through Bay Area MQG to the Stanford NICU program Blankets for Babies.

Henrietta is finished

Poor Henrietta lived for about 6 weeks next to my sewing table, looking like this:

Which seems finished, until you remember those little things that animals sometimes have... ears. I cut them out and then when I was doing final assembly and decoration, I forgot them on my little side table. Which meant that I ended up putting her eyes where her ears were supposed to go. Woops. I say again - poor Henrietta.

I finally fixed her up last weekend. There, now she can see AND hear... 

 

 She has button joints

And the cutest little tail

And her face is a bit crooked.  Just like mine.

I won this pattern in the Sew, Mama, Sew giveaway event.  The only change that I made was to trim the ears into a rounded shape that is more authentically hippo.  (They are still a bit big, though... I might have made an error cutting them out).

Overall the pattern was really easy and went together quickly.  The only thing I will change next time is to add registration marks to the pattern (like used in garment sewing) so that I can match the sides better.  That way Henrietta's little siblings will not have her crooked face.

You can get the pattern for yourself on etsy. 

The R-burst block

This post is a part of the R-Burst Quiltalong.  This post covers the specific instructions for cutting and piecing the R-burst block.

Now that we've covered the techniques in general, let's get started on our R-burst quilt.  We are going to divide up the block like this:

Taking out the center "plus" of piecing lets us build the block from 4 mini-blocks and 4 identical strips (plus one square for the middle).  I love it when I can make my life easier.

Our first step is to make 2-square sets.  For one blue-edge mini-block & accompanying strip, you need to make:

 For one red-edge block, you need to make:

If you would prefer to work on all the blocks simultaneously, you need to make (upper number is for a 3x4 layout, and lower number is for 4x5):

Assemble your 2-square pieces into little 4-patches, and while you are at it, sew the strip, too :

Blue Edged Block

or

Red Edged Block

And then the little 4-patches into mini blocks:

You need 4 mini blocks plus 4 strips and a center square to make a block. 

To assemble, sew the center square onto one of your strips, then sew remaining strips each to a side of 3 of your mini blocks.  Sew each strip to the same edge of each mini block - otherwise your block may not go together.  You can lay the block out first and check your orientation just to be sure you have things right.  Sew the extra-long strip in place as shown above, then assemble the two sides and sew your center seam.  If you are using a trim-as-you-go approach, now is the time to trim up your block edges.

Voilà! 

If you plan to add the optional embroidery to your blocks, I'll be posting in a few days with instructions for that.  You can still get started on sewing up mini-blocks, but don't make more than about half of them until you have your embroideries done. 

Block assembly by "chunking"

This post is a part of the R-Burst Quiltalong.  After I get some technique explanations out of the way today, I'll be back tomorrow with the specific instructions for cutting and piecing the R-burst block.

Chunking
Let me start by saying, you don't need to necessarily assemble your R-burst blocks in the way that I'm about to share.  The block is just a grid of 2" squares, and you can use whatever method makes you comfortable.  You could sew squares to squares and assemble the block in strips, or you could even use fusible interfacing or wash-away interfacing to sew up the whole block in one go. 

I do think chunking has some advantages.  You don't have to buy supplies like wash-away interfacing (yikes, that stuff is a tad pricey, isn't it??), and you don't have the extra stiffness of fusible in your quilt.  For me, I can get better accuracy this way than with row-style piecing.

So how does it work?  The idea behind chunking is to assemble in quadrants or chunks rather than in rows. As an example, let's look at a 16-patch block.  We could assemble in rows, and then sew the rows together into a block:

Row construction method:  

12 seams between squares

3 seams between rows (matching 3 seams each)

Alternatively, we could assemble in chunks, then sew the chunks together into a block:

Chunking construction method:  

8 seams between squares

6 seams between sets of 2 blocks (matching 1 seam each)

1 seam between rows (matching 3 seams) 

The number of seams and the total length of stitching is the same for both methods, but chunking makes accuracy easier because you mostly match fewer seams at a time.  The more pieces there are in your block, the larger the advantage.  With our big 81-patch (yikes) block, you really see the difference. 

Trim-as-you-go Scrap Piecing
When I'm working with scraps, I like to use a trim-as-you-go technique rather than cutting everything right at the start.  It might seem like this would take a little more time since you trim repeatedly, but you only trim each edge one time.  When you get further in the block, you are trimming multiple edges in one pass, which you can't do if you cut the pieces to size individually.  Also, overall this technique gives better accuracy.

To trim-as-you-go, start by trimming one edge each of two scraps, along the grain.  If you already have a grain-straight edge that is even, score!  No need to trim.  Sew the straightened edges together.

 As you assemble, trim only the edge that is going to be put to work for the next seam.  Use the previous seam as a guide for your ruler and cut the next edge perpendicular to the seam:

Working this way takes the pressure off when you sew because the edges of your block are always perfectly even (since you just trimmed them all in one cut!)  You don't have to try to match the edges when you start and stop; you just match your seams.  On the other hand, when you piece from perfect little squares, all of your seam allowance errors and original cutting errors add up as you go along.   If you have to trim your block during assembly, your cut squares are no longer exactly the right size.  On the other hand, when you trim as you go along, you hit the reset button each time you sew pieces together.

Once you have more than one seam, you need to make your cuts at the right position instead of just the correct angle.  Trim 2.25" from the seam parallel to where you will sew, or 1/4" more than the finished size for each square.

Make sense? 

Using Yardage
If you are assembling from strips (jelly roll or yardage) it makes more sense just to cut things to the right size from the get-go.  You also get the benefit of being able to strip piece your blocks.   If you don't want your blocks to all look identical, strip piece in sections and then mix the sections up so that each block looks different.  When you assemble, put your blocks in different orientations as well.  Once you finish, it's hard to tell that fabric A is always next to fabric B, especially if you have a lot of different fabrics in the quilt.  The quilt below is 100% strip pieced and all the blocks have identical fabric placement, they were just rotated during assembly:

You don't notice unless you are looking for it, right?  

My quilt is a mix of scraps and yardage, so I'll be combining trim-as-you-go (for scraps) and strip piecing (for the yardage) in my blocks.  It's totally fine to do that and it all works out in the end.

I'll be back tomorrow with the specific cutting & piecing instructions for these blocks.  In the meantime, any questions?

Let the Quiltalong Begin!

Our first order of business... how about a blog button?  Everybody knows that if you don't have a blog button, you aren't running a REAL quiltalong, so here we are: 

Ah, so nice.  Now that we have established our legitimacy, on to the fabric:

The quilt is made up of 2" finished squares (2.5" cut size), so the 3x4 block layout above comes out to a 60" x 80" finished size (after quilting & washing).  That's a bit on the small size for a twin quilt, with about a 10" drop on each side of the bed and a 6" drop at the bottom.  My natural tendency is to make bed quilts oversized, but this one will be going to my very young niece.  She takes up about a tenth of her twin size bed.  Her mom requested a smaller size because apparently it is hard for the little folks to manage a quilt that matches them by weight and has a lot of overhang - it keeps trying to slide off the bed.  If you want your quilt a little bigger, two good options are:

1. Bump up to a 4x5 layout, for a finished size of 80" x 100" (generous quilt for up to a full size bed)
2. Increase your finished square size to 2.5" (cut size is 3").  This works if you are cutting from scraps & yardage, but you won't be able to work with jelly rolls.  The finished size for this is about 72" x 98" (also good for a twin, XL twin, or full size). 

For the 3x4 layout, you need just shy of 200 squares of each color.  For the 4x5 layout, you need 335 squares of each color.  That means that you will need:

On top of that, you will need a yard of white for sashing.  

Note that you only need the total yardage in ONE of the cells above, depending on whether you are using scraps, jelly rolls, or yardage, and on the finished quilt size.  If you are using a lot of different fabrics, bump up your yardage a little and purchase in multiples of your cut square size, i.e. 2.5" or 3". 

Does that make sense?  I don't mind answering fabric yardage questions related to your personal quilt plan, so ask away!

This quiltalong will be somewhat extremely leisurely, and I will be just checking in most weeks because the blocks are all the same pattern.  Here is an outline of what we will be covering from here on out:

1. Block construction by "chunking"
2. Block cutting & assembly instructions
3. Optional embroidery squares
4. Sashing and top assembly by "chunking"
5. Show off the finished products