Teal Update (Alright......Purple, Too)

I may have bitten off more than I can chew with this Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  Well, that's only because (as with all things quilty) I have to do it my own way.  The challenge is to make one or more blocks of the color chosen for each month then put all of them together into one big rainbow quilt.  The goal I have set for myself is to make an entire charity quilt each month using that month's color.  That's a big challenge, but I'm excited about it.

Last month's teal blocks are now in a top and it's basted! 

I tortured myself with this quilt, trying to make it more interesting.  I had the whole first row put together with half-inch sashing strips .....

..... then decided it would be too much work, plus it really didn't make that much difference, and I ripped them all out.

It's times like this that I'm happy I have my trusty tool made by my friend Jack the Seam Ripper.  I want to buy a bunch of them just because they're so pretty!

I used a print from my stash for the backing.  I had bought three yards of it from The Fat Quarter Shop a while back, and forgot I had it.  It's from the Dim Dots collection by Michael Miller.  

(That stash really does come in handy sometimes!  Please tell Hubby that!)

As you know the January color was purple and I made string blocks.  I have made some progress there as well.  Hmmm, I didn't realize until I started typing that I also tortured myself trying to make this one more interesting.   I wanted to make a piano key border (really just want to use up every bit of purple I can!) ..... 

..... but it was just not working.   Someone suggested it was the orange border that wasn't working.  Not so.  I love the way it looks.  Plus it brings out the orange in the white print.

I decided on a final border using one of the purple fabrics and called it done.

This one is basted, too!

The March color will be announced tomorrow, so I need to get busy quilting or I will end up with a ton of UFO's at the end of the year.   You know what?  That is so not gonna happen!

I am linking up with So Scrappy's Linky Party.  Check it out.  There will be a bunch of teal projects there.

SaveSave

Triforce Quilt

I have been wanting to write about this quilt since I started it, but I didn't want a certain someone to see it.  That's been happening a lot this past year.  Not only secret quilts, but now that I think of it, purple quilts, too.   Thank goodness for friends throwing purple scraps my way once in a while, otherwise I would never be able to make quilts for all the people whose favorite color is purple.  I've been wanting to make this quilt for a long time.  I actually bought the pattern in December, 2013 from Eric the Quilter's etsy shop.  So getting around to it took over three and a half years, but once I started I finished in less than 3 months.  

 The original plan was to make a wall-hanging, and I had the piecing for that pretty much finished in a couple of weeks.

Then, though, I decided to make it at least a throw size, and maybe even a twin.  That meant ripping out all those setting triangles on the bottom edge.  What fun!

I sewed and sewed, and before I knew it the top was quite a bit longer.  I still wasn't happy though because it looked too long and skinny to me.  To add to the width I would have to rip out all those setting triangles along the sides.  NO. WAY!   

How about adding some borders?  I still had plenty of purple left.

I've never worked with a quilt that had all bias edges so I stay-stitched it first to keep it from stretching   My favorite marking tool for darks really came in handy!  Love my Fons & Porter Mechanical Pencil with White Lead!

Marking and trimming made it a lot easier to add the borders.

From this point on it should have been super easy.  Hmmm, not so much.  I wanted so much for all the squares in the borders to look balanced that I made it fit and ended up with ripply borders.

I figured if I quilted a little heavier in the borders, the fullness might "quilt out" though.  Right?  No.  Wrong again.  I wanted this done!  I even took it with me on vacation and set up my own personal sewing area so I could work on it when I got tired of the pool and the beach.

I quilted two sides and wasn't happy, so I ripped it all that quilting out.  Then, I actually took the borders off.  I've never done that before on a quilt that was mostly quilted.  

I put my "Jack the Seam Ripper" to good use!  If you need a new ripper or a really special one for a gift, check his out.  They are great!

So, I removed at least two inches from each side, reattached it, got it quilted, and finally got to my favorite part - binding!

By the way, isn't that another great backing fabric?  It's from the "Mostly Manor" collection by Victoria Findlay Wolfe.  I bought it from my fave Fat Quarter Shop.

My friend, Penny, made another really beautiful label for me using a downloaded pattern of the Triforce I had purchased online.   I love that I can find just about anything I want online!  (Not sure Hubby feels the same way about my online shopping.....)

So, it's quilted, and bound .....

..... and delivered.  I feel pretty confident that this will be a much-loved quilt.  I sure put love into it!


SaveSave