Valley Placemats

I love making placemats...seriously.  It's all the fun of making a larger quilt.  I get to play around with patterns, blocks, and quilting without the time commitment of something larger.

Here is the latest set of placemats I've completed.

I used a single charm pack of Valley by Sherri & Chelsi.

I've had half-square triangles on my mind, lately, and the color spread in this fabric line was just perfect for chevron.

I decided that these needed some straight-lined quilting, instead of my usual free-motion, and I'm pleased with how it made the design stand-out.

I used a lovely navy from my stash for binding.

For the backing, I found this gray fabric in my stash that had been a gift from a seasoned sewer. <3

I just love seeing the quilting from the back!

Thank you all so much for stopping by!  Have a wonderful day.

~Summer



I'm linking up today with TGIFF, Finish it up Friday,

Depauw T-shirt Quilt - Work in Progress

Hello!  I've been working on this great t-shirt quilt over the last couple of weeks, and it came to my mind that I don't show my process nearly enough.  So...I'm going to do a little of that today.  I haven't remembered to take pictures of every step, but you should be able to see a bit of how I plan these kinds of quilts.

The first thing I do is cut apart all of the shirts and count the designs available.  Then I measure each design, with a half inch extra on each side, AND the width of the shirt from seam to seam (or sleeve to sleeve).  I write it all down in my planner with a brief description of the shirt.  These measurements give me the range of size I can cut and use for each design.

When I'm done, I put a little letter beside each entry to help with the next step, which is...graphing it out!  I start with a rectangle that represents the ideal size I'm shooting for.  Then, I play a mathtastic game of Tetris, until I find the perfect fit for each piece.  This step is probably the longest step on quilts like this one where each square is a different size.

Notice how I put the identification letter and shirt color in each spot, so that I don't accidentally put the yellows together or the red next to the pink.

Since this quilt worked out to fit well in columns, I cut and sewed one column at a time, so that I wouldn't mix them up could be organized.

Here is a picture of the first 3 columns finished.

Once the columns were done, I cut 10 2.5" strips of gray sashing, sewed them into one super long strip, then cut them down to 5 strips of 74.5" each.  Carefully pinning the sashing to the t-shirt really helps me keep it in line and the stretchy shirts from getting out of line.

This morning, I cut the small inner border that will be the next to go on, then I'll finish the top with a wider print border.  It will finish out at as a full sized quilt when it's all said and done.  I haven't decided on the quilting design quite yet...something free-motion, I'm sure.  ^_^

Anywho, thanks for stopping by and letting me share with you.  Have a great day!

~Summer



I'm linking up today with Monday Making, MCM, and Moving It Forward!

Jewel Toned Baby Quilt

Today, I'm sharing this darling, little baby quilt that was custom order. Oh man, I love this fabric by V & Co.  This line was a pleasure to work with.

This was a quick quilt.  I simply used a single charm pack and laid them out on point, using white Kona for the setting triangles.

Hannah's quilt left me wanting to put paisley on everything, so I used a large paisley to cover this one. Really, it fit well with the leaves.

I used Kona White for the backing and Charcoal for the binding.

This was such a fun and quick project.  Thanks for stopping by!

Have a great day!

~Summer



I'm linking up today with Finish It Up Friday:

Pumpkin Pot Holders

Oh, the leaves are just starting to turn, here in Southern Indiana, and we've had slightly cooler weather, so all the fall "feels" are going on.  We've been doing special autumn worksheets during school time, and I have some fallish school crafts in the works...and I can't believe it didn't even cross my mind until yesterday...that I could make pumpkin pot holders!

So, I grabbed my graph paper and pulled out all my orange scraps...and these happened.  <3

While I had the small patchwork pumpkin in mind at first, I made the striped pot holder first.

One pieced, I did a stitch-in-the-ditch around the pumpkin and stem to make it puffy, the stippled around the outside.

The patchwork was so fun.  They are 1" finished squares.  Anyone else have a special something for little squares?  I LOVE little squares. <3

I quilted it the same as the other, because I loved the effect so much.

They both finished at approximately 8" square and can be found here:

Striped Pumpkin Pot Holder
Patchwork Pumpkin Pot Holder

Now...I need stock up on a few more for my upcoming craft bazaars!  I have some maple leaf patterns on the back burner too, AND a new tutorial. :)

Thanks so much for stopping by today!

Have a great day!

~Summer



I'm linking up today with Let's Bee Social, Midweek Makers, and Finish It Up Friday!

Custom Quilting on Hannah's Quilt

I'm so excited to share this project today!  My beautiful, talented, friend, Hannah, pieced this top, including a couple of evenings in my home...her first quilt!  It was my pleasure to quilt it before she submitted it to the Kentucky State Fair.

Because of the bright tone-on-tones and the black/rainbow background, we considered several thread colors...variegated, black, white, and using black on the background, then matching the top thread to each color.  We finally decided on a silvery gray over the entire quilt.  I'm so glad we did.  It allowed the quilting to stand out on the black, yet it receded on the bright, diamond blocks.

I chose to do the Shadow Waves quilting design on the diamonds found here on Leah Day's site, then I used a simple free-motion paisley all over the background.  This is the first quilt, in a several years, that I used different quilting for different blocks.  It was a lot of fun, planning my way around the quilt.

The texture was so nice, between the close lines of the wavy quilting beside the slight puffy paisley. <3  Do you ever just sit and run your hand across the top of your quilts?

One of my favorite things is to flip my quilts over and look at the back, because the quilting is easier to see.  Hannah chose to use a pretty aqua backing fabric with a strip of the fun rainbow polka dot fabric she used for binding later.

Until next time...thanks for stopping by!

~Summer




I'm linking up today with Monday Making!