Home is Where the Heart is

A quilt for the wall in my house.  It's a mini charm pack done by Kaffe Fassett for Rowan, and I just sewed up 16 patches with it and assembled.  Nothing glamorous or fancy...I just loved all the pattern together.

But...A word to the wise about Rowan pre-cuts:

They are cut HORRIBLY.  They were marketed as 2.5" squares, but few were actually 2.5" and none had straight or evenly cut sides.  For the cost of the pack (it was about 250 squares for around $25) the quality was really, really disappointing.  I expected much better from Rowan.

 But hey, the fabrics are gorgeous. I still love it!  Now to figure out how I want to quilt it :)

Aliens for Sarin

Here's an older one.  This is a quilt I made for my friend Bethany and her baby boy Sarin.  What I love about Bethany is how non traditional she is, and so she let me have free reign on his baby quilt. Naturally, I had some alien fabric that I was itching for a reason to use, so I used it here.

I just drew up the appliques based off the aliens on the fabric.

I needed something fairly quick because I didn't manage to start it until the week before Christmas because of course, so this is what I came up with.  Very simple, but pretty cute.

I didn't have the time or cash to have it quilted professionally, so I just did a simple all over with stars and loops.

And by all reports, he loved it.

Post Revisited: Top 5 Favorite Fabric Designers

Back in 2011, I did a post about who my Top 5 Favorite Designers were.  Since then, I've definitely gone in another direction with my style and what I find interesting in quilts. I thought it might be interesting to see how my taste has changed four years later, and to find out how yours has changed too!

1. Tula Pink (Free Spirit)
This should come as no surprise whatsoever - some things never change.  I'm a Tula girl.  She has yet to put out a line I don't like.  I think the worst I have ever thought about her lines is ambivalence (Bumble). My favorite piece du jour?  This floral from her new line Elizabeth:

I now own 2 yards of this.  That green though.  

2. Masha D'yans (Clothworks)
Another mainstay from my 2011 post.  I love her artwork; it's whimsical without being campy and has a beautiful painterly quality.  Her work goes to show that watercolors don't have to be quiet and delicate...they can be bold and expressive too.

Right now, I am playing with the panel from her line, Friends in While Places...What sold me on this?  THE LEMUR.

3. Michael Searle (Timeless Treasures)
What earned Michael a guaranteed spot in my Top Five?
This:

I love it so much I have already posted about it here. 

And this:

Yes, two pieces is enough to make it to my Top Five.  I own several yards of both. There are other designers who do dinosaur themed fabric, but not a single one has an eye to realism like he does.   I look forward to see what prehistoric awesomeness he thinks up next.

4. De Leon Design Group (Alexander Henry)
De Leon does one of my very favorite recurring lines - Folklorico. There have been many, many pieces to Folklorico over the years and new ones keep coming out.  As a matter of fact...I just got some more pieces of it (Sunday Stash for May 3, 2015)

We all know the sugar skulls they did, they've been everywhere.  But there's more than that.  La Catrina and Frida Kahlo, anyone?

Lucha! Lucha! Lucha!:

Well done, De Leon.


5. Kaffe Fassett Collective (Rowan) 
Okay, the great shin kick incident aside...Kaffe, Brandon Mably, Martha Negly and the other come and go designers in the Kaffe Fassett Collective do some really wonderful work. You know my love of strange color and pattern combinations, and they get it right for me.

Like this:

Kaffe Fassett, Shoal Fish

And this:

Brandon Mably, Lazy Daisy

They do have more subdued colors and designs...but where's the fun in that? ;-)

Honorable Mention:  Liberty of London
$42 per yard?!  Holy Sh.....
I have a soft spot for Art Deco style.  Look at this beauty:

So who are your some of your new favorites, and who have fallen from your Top Five?

What a "Good Quilter" Does 101

What I am about to say sounds really, really ridiculous.

I never squared up my blocks in quilts.  That is, not until fairly recently.

Yes, I have been told countless times that I needed to square up.  And yes, I never did, partially out of laziness (it takes forever when you have 100 HSTs!), and partially out of flippance - I could just fudge it to fit, right?  I typically did just that, and then sat there and (stupidly) wondered why some blocks plain didn't fit right.

It wasn't until I was *gasp* following the instructions on a pattern where I knew I would have to take care in the piecing or it plain wouldn't work. I broke down, and squared up.

Ho-ly crap.  Having a visual really made it hit home how much of a difference squaring up makes (I took a picture with the intent to post it, but somewhere along the lines I apparently deleted it).  But to give you an idea, I trimmed about an eighth of an inch off each side of the block, times many blocks. It struck me that the importance of squaring up isn't only about making each block fit together neatly, but it just image how all those little eighths add up over the course of the entire quilt.  They add up, and fast!  No wonder my quilts always seemed to come out to a different measurement than the one quoted in the pattern.

This seems like a pretty "Captain Obvious" thing to point out, and for seasoned quilters, it is a "no duh" thing...but not for all quilters.

So lesson learned....while squaring up is a pain in the butt, time consuming and I will still want some cheese with my whine, I definitely take more care to square up my blocks, even if ti isn't especially called for.  It's all about accuracy to make a truly quality quilt, and while I still have some wobbles and fudges, by starting to more consistenly square up, I have noticed a my quilts are coming out more flat, more square and more on target with the given measurements.

I'm not telling you how to love your quilty life, but if you aren't squaring up your blocks, you might want to give it a try, even if it's just once and you never do it again.  That's fine!  But I think you'll find you're just as pleasantly surprised as I was.

Perpetua Patterns: Mount Hood

I finally got around to doing one of Perpetua Patterns' patterns!  I have to say, I'm biased...I think Perpetua Patterns is a great pattern company, because not only are they local, but I know the dynamic duo behind it and they're really great people.

We've carried their patterns for a couple years now, and it's taken me this long to get to it, but I chose to do the Mt. Hood pattern

The cool thing about Perpetua Patterns is that these patterns are based off real photographs that Brian and Heather take and digitize themselves into applique patterns.  So, this quilt of Mt. Hood really is from one of their original photographs.

But as always...I never quite follow the pattern.  I decided to make the mountain at night,

I added in some wispy clouds with Angelina fibers....those are pretty fun to work with!

Stash Sunday: Sometimes I Forget I Order Stuff

After I got my new job, I decided to reward myself in the way any quilter would...with fabric.

There was a delay in it getting here, so naturally I totally forgot I had ordered it.  So boy was I surprised when it was sitting there at home! Four pieces, lucky me!

Weee!!!

Dinosaurs by Michael Searle (Timeless Treasures).  The selvege has dino feet on it. 

Folklorico by De Leon Design Group (Alexander Henry) I didn't see the mustaches when I bought it, but hey.

Moonshine by Tula Pink (Free Spirit).  I am loving the red!

More Folklorico by De Leon Design Group (Alexander Henry)

Did you get any sweet pieces this week?