Showing posts with label Jelly roll. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jelly roll. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

My First Lone Star

My quilting goal this past year has been to challenge myself (my goal next year is to actually quilt and finish all these wonderful tops I've been making!). I'm a sucker for easy and quick patterns with modern, fun fabrics. But after awhile, I was getting bored.

Here is the finished quilt top for my very first lone star quilt.


Before you become too impressed with my mad skills, this was pieced using what I describe as the "cheater method." I used a jelly roll and followed a pattern out of the Jelly Roll Quilts book:
This means I didn't have to do any of that pesky y-seam piecing shananagins. I simply sewed some strips together, then cut at an angle, sewed strips together again, and wall-lah! 8 diamond chunks to sew together for each star. I would show a picture from the book that shows this technique but that is probably illegal, so I won't. Just know it sure as heck was quicker and easier than the traditional method.

First step, selecting strips to go together for each of the four stars. Sounds easier than it was. I had plenty of brain fart moments trying to figure out which color went where to end up in the finished star how I wanted it.

Here are my four sets of strips:


First star done:

All four done, sans sashing and border:

And another shot of the final top:

The fabric used was a jelly roll of Hometown by Sweetwater for Moda. No clue how I will quilt this baby.

Saturday, September 15, 2012

Getting Back On Track

 

I purchased this quilt kit quite awhile ago and finally got the top together. It is Cluck Cluck Sew's Off Track quilt pattern and the kit was put together by Material Girls (in South Jordan, Utah). This is a jelly roll friendly quilt pattern.


Just loved the fabrics they picked out for this!


It came together very quickly and easily once I figured out what to do (my mother can vouch that I was never great at following instructions).



I can't wait to get this one on the quilt machine. I'm thinking of just an all-over meandering pattern of some sort. Of course, I need to find a backing fabric first. Probably should have picked out my favorite fabric from the kit (which is the white and turquoise striped fabric) and gotten it at the time, but that is life. 

Friday, August 10, 2012

Sometimes It Just Doesn't Quite Work Out How It Should In Your Head

I worked on these granny squares at CJ's Quilt Retreat in the spring. The squares themselves went together just fine, and then I'm not entirely sure what happened once I started getting the sashing on.


Okay, that's a bold-faced lie. I know exactly what happened...I got lazy. I was so anxious to get this top done and move on to my next project, I tried to cut corners (not literally of course!).

I don't HAVE to measure super carefully AND pin the sashing, right? It will be fine!

WRONG!

That is some MAJOR waving I've got going on. Seriously, this borders on ruffling! I'm not sure I could get that much waving if I tried! Sheesh! And it didn't look THAT bad until I put it up on the design wall and then I didn't even want to take a picture I wanted to take it down so bad...embarrassed =(

Once I unpack - WE ARE MOVING THIS WEEKEND! - this quilt is definitely going to require some quality unpicking time. Sounds like a great way to spend a few minutes in front of the TV post move.

Then I will return to good quilting habits and measure carefully and pin and THEN sew.

Lesson Learned

Monday, May 7, 2012

Lexi Pop Finished

This quilt is made using Fandango by Kate Spain for Moda. I used a Jelly Roll and a few extra strips from some fat quarters I had. The pattern is inspired by Sugar Baby Quilt from Moda Bake Shop. I basically used the block instructions but made more and then just used one size sashing. I thought the log cabin-ish block would complement the geometric type patterns found in the Fandango line.

(Notice my cute little helper!)

This quilt is for my niece Lexi who just turned 18 and will be graduating high school this month. I think this will be a super fun quilt for a young woman heading out into the world on her own.

I love how the quilting turned out. I did an all-over freehand flower pattern on my HandiQuilter 16. Finally getting used to the machine and really loving it! Can't wait to get more quilts up on it.

And the binding turned out super cute too - love striped bindings!
I hope she likes it!