Choose Your Illusion Finish

I love when I can celebrate a finish. And the cool thing about this one is that I started AND finished this quilt well after the beginning of January! Hurray! To recap, I used Cheryl's pattern Use Your Illusion from Meadow Mist Designs, but I made it in rainbow colors instead of black and white, and I made 3/4 of it, skipping the first two columns. So I changed the name of the quilt a bit. With the dark, windy winter weather this week, I had to take pictures indoors, which isn't ideal (my flash isn't really strong enough to get sharp pictures), so if the weather clears up before I have to ship this off, I'm going to try some outdoor pictures and post them later. 

Here are some pictures before washing: 

If you look closely at the the wide white strip in the bottom right corner, you can see my initials and the date. 

I was planning to shuffle the blocks, but when I looked closely at Cheryl's pattern, I knew that I wanted to keep the alternating rows of white squares and colored squares marching across the quilt where the blocks come together. So I kept the layout intact, and I really like how it all came out. 

I had thought of using a rainbow variegated thread for the quilting, but I would have had to order it, and I had the white thread on hand, so white thread it was. I was on a mission to finish!

I also decided to use a scrappy binding with width-of-fabric strips. As I said in my last post, I left out the purple fabric from the binding (and the wide strip down the back) because there wasn't any purple in my main backing fabric, and the purple looked out of place with it. Using long strips instead of shorter pieces was more in the interest of time than a design decision, but I like it. The only thing I might have done differently was switching the red and orange strip so that the red part of the binding wasn't against the red patch on the back, but I think that's being too picky, don't you? 

Now, it's always a little scary to wash a quilt with bright colors and white, and when I washed the quilt, there was just a tiny amount of color transfer, mostly along the edges of some patches where seam allowances are on top of each other. (I did trim them so they wouldn't peek through on the white fabric.) It wasn't enough for me to freak out and doesn't show that much in most light, but I would hate to have that continue when it's washed in the future. I might just wash the quilt again with more color catchers and laundry detergent. Or I might try soaking it overnight in hot water with Dawn Ultra dishwashing liquid as described by Vicki Welsh on Field Trips in Fiber. I'll see if I can get my courage up. We'll see. Any suggestions?

Here's what the staining looks like. (Hard to detect, but it's there.) 

Here you can see it mostly in the upper left between the orange and red.

And here, there's a bit of turquoise between the green and turquoise strips.

I thoroughly enjoyed making this quilt. And I could not have done it without the wonderful online quilting community. Most of the fabric as well as the pattern were from giveaways. The colorful fabrics are from a Shabby Fabrics coupon through Lee at Freshly Pieced. I'll list them at the end of this post. The white fabric is from a coupon to Fat Quarter Shop through Soma at Whims and Fancies. And the pattern is from Cheryl at Meadow Mist Designs (link is above), also through Soma's giveaway. A big thank you to everyone. You have made it possible for me to make a quilt that I'll be donating to Margaret's Hope Chest for the Postpartum Depression Mother-Baby Treatment Program. 

So, here are the stats:
Quilt Size:  56 1/2 inches by 42 1/2 inches before washing
                   55 1/2 by 42 after quilting
                   52 by 39 1/4 after first washing (cold water) and drying in the dryer (medium)

Sewn on Singer Featherweight
Quilted in meandering design on Singer 115 treadle with Superior King Tut thread in White Linen

Batting: Warm and Natural

Fabrics: Simply Colorful Yellow by V and Co for Moda 
              Color Theory Lime by V and Co for Moda
              Soul Blossom Lace Flower Blue by Cherry Guidry for Contempo Studio
              Veranda by Michael Miller Fabrics (the purple fabric)
              Spectrum Chamomile Leopard by Camelot Design Studio for Camelot Fabrics
              Simply Colorful Red by V and Co for Moda
              Moda Bella Solids White
              Colors and Count by Jill McDonald for Windham Fabric (backing)

With careful fabric use, I had plenty of fabric using 1/2 yard cuts of the colorful fabrics. If you make this quilt, your usage might be different from mine. The white fabric was 108" wide, and I'm not sure how much I used, but I started with 1 1/2 yards and had a piece about 56 by 32 inches left. 

If you'd like to see my other posts about this quilt (only two, I think), click on the Choose Your Illusion Quilt label at the bottom of this post. 

I'm linking up this week with Crazy Mom Quilts for Finish It up Friday, Confessions of a Fabric Addict for Can I Get a Whoop Whoop, Devoted Quilter for TGIFF, and Lizzie Lenard Vintage Sewing  for Free Motion Mavericks--Yes ALL of them, because a finish doesn't come along that often, and I need to celebrate!!

Have a great weekend, and keep on quilting (and entering those wonderful giveaways that make quilts like this possible)!

Got Your Back

Wow, I'm zooming right along on this quilt! I finished the front, and yesterday I pieced the back AND quilted the whole thing. The. Whole.Thing. (A major accomplishment for me. Can you tell?) It's amazing how quickly I can finish something by just meandering. This quilt is almost exactly 1/6 the size of the Big Quilt. So why am I not near finished with that one after quilting for more than half a year?? Just think, I could have meandered that one, and it would be a (good) distant memory. 

Here's the back (along with some strips for the binding):

The backing was just a smidge too narrow, so I added in some leftovers from the front. I left out the purple fabric, because there isn't purple in the backing, and it looked odd. I've decided to leave out the purple on the binding for the same reason. In a weird way, that will probably make it stand out on the front, but that's okay. 

Now I have to trim and get to that binding. I'm trying to decide between long strips of each color or shorter ones. Stay tuned. Maybe a finish this week? We'll see. I'm going to hand sew the binding to the back, so it will depend on how long that takes. 

I've also got my next project at the ready, but the planning is all in my mind, so no pictures yet. 

I'm linking up today with Freshly Pieced and Sew Fresh Quilts for their Wednesday parties. Buttons are on the side. Now, back to work fun. 

Minor Milestones

Another fun week! I did the best thing you can do when the temperatures are playing in the single digits in January. I sewed and quilted like crazy. 

I'm alternating right now between two projects, and it's working out well. I usually spend a little time in the morning and evening piecing blocks for my Choose Your Illusion quilt. It's a pattern by Cheryl at Meadow Mist Designs. Her title is Use Your Illusion, but I mistakenly thought it was Choose, and that's stuck as the name for my quilt. I love working on this one. The seams nest so nicely. I always say that I love every aspect of making a quilt, but if I'm honest, I'm not that excited about sewing rows together, so for this quilt, I'm sewing the rows together as I go. That way I won't have a daunting task when I'm finished with the blocks. I'll just be done! It also keeps me from mixing blocks up as I'm working. I'm sewing in my living room, so I'm using my design couch instead of my design wall, and that's not ideal for keeping things straight. So, sewing blocks and rows together as I go is a win all the way around. I reached the halfway milestone yesterday, and since taking this picture, I've made the next row of blocks already.

In the afternoon, when the sun on the snow makes perfect lighting in my quilting room, I've been quilting on the Big Quilt. (If you want to see lots and lots of other posts about this quilt, just click on the label Big Quilt at the bottom of this post.) Another milestone!! I have officially quilted 2/3 of the top (and really more, because some of the already-quilted patches reach into that final third). I am picking up speed, and now that I'm waiting to bury threads until evening when I'm watching TV, it's going much faster. And all this quilting has made me so comfortable with my treadle--working with it daily reduces user error and seems to make the machine run smoother and smoother. This project was what I needed to master working with a treadle. 

Here's my favorite patch this week:

No more sketching--I just get in the zone and let it happen, irregular or not. And that's OK.

I usually sign my initials and the year in the bottom right corner of the quilt. That's where I was quilting this week, so I went ahead and signed it. Now it HAS to be done in 2016. I'm committed!

Even though this was a fun week there was one sad spot. The little quilt shop near my home closed last Friday. The owner decided to retire from retail. She had been thinking of retiring for a couple of years, and I think she's still planning to do longarm quilting, but I'll miss her store. It was close enough to ride my bike to and was always the first one I went to when I needed something or started a new project. I went on Thursday and bought enough batting for four small quilts and a piece of fabric that I might use on the back of Choose Your Illusion. 

So, that's it for the past week. Winter is definitely good for my productivity. And for a bonus, let me share with you my winter quilting "uniform." When my daughter was in middle school (or maybe early high school), she came across a fair isle sweater when we were shopping. The sweater was a men's medium. (She was tiny). This was in the era when biggest was best. The sales clerk said it was a classic design and a great buy because even though it cost a small fortune for a young teenager, it "would never go out of style." Now I knew that my daughter's love affair with the sweater would last only a season (or less), but I loved the sweater (more) and told her that she could get it if I could have it when she got tired of it. (I really hoped she'd tire of it quickly). Well, here I am at least 20 years later, and you know we've reached the deep freeze when I pull it out for a few weeks in January or February. 

Yup, it's still huge, even considering it's a men's medium. The shoulders fall about 5 inches down my arms and I have to fold the cuffs back, but it's roomy and cottony and warm, and I still love it. It's my favorite thing to wear in the house when I'm quilting at this time of year.

I'm linking up this week with Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday and with Sew Fresh Quilts for Let's Bee Social. Buttons are on the right.

I hope you're having a fun quilting week and that you're wearing your most comfortable quilting clothes.

New project!

What a fun week it has been! We spent a day taking care of our littlest grandkiddie E last Friday, and then on Saturday, we took the train to Chicago to party all weekend for grandson C's first birthday. It was a blast! We took the train back on Monday evening through frigid temperatures and snow--it was like riding the Polar Express, but we didn't have the hot chocolate. Now it's finally really winter here--cold and snowy (there was even a snow day for lots of schools yesterday) and the perfect time to quilt. 

Even though we were busy this past week, I did get a good start on my new project: The Use Your Illusion quilt from Cheryl at Meadow Mist Designs. Funny, in my mind I've been calling it Choose Your Illusion, and I just noticed that wasn't right. Oh, well. I am choosing my illusion--I'm doing this quilt in color. (And I just noticed on her blog, that someone else has beaten me to that idea.) I really like the black and white of the original quilt, but the organization I'm making this for would like colorful quilts. 

I had to include my "Muppet" feet--they match the quilt!

I'm doing 6 different modern prints with planned random color placement. My rule for myself is to kind of evenly distribute the colors but sometimes continue a stripe around a corner. All of the fabric (as well as Cheryl's pattern) is from giveaways. I'll include the specific info about the fabric in a later post. To get the size I want, I'm making 3/4 of the pattern (skipping the first two columns of blocks). I hesitated to do that because it changes the overall design, but I think it will look good anyway. Oh, and here's a question for you. I'm going to do meander quilting. What do you think about using Superior King Tut in Cleopatra? It has all of the colors except the yellow. Otherwise, I'll do a white. 

This quilt will be my January project when I'm not doing FMQ on the Big Quilt. I'm kind of working on a deadline, because I promised to send it (and a not-yet-started quilt) in March. So I guess my quilts are making a list for goals for me, even though I usually avoid that practice. 

I'm linking up this week with Freemotion by the River for Linky Tuesday, Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday, Sew Fresh Quilts for Let's Bee Social and My Quilt Infatuation for Needle and Thread Thursday. Buttons for all are on the right side of this page. 

Okay, back to work. Have a good week, and if you live anywhere near me, stay warm!