Just Finish It Challenge - A Finished Quilt

I've turned another UFO into a finished quilt.  This one also counts as a "Fig Tree Harvest," that is, a project using my vast collection of fabric from Fig Tree & Company for Moda Fabrics.  My plan is to store this quilt until I need a baby quilt as a gift for someone.  

Teresa Silva of Quilting Is My Bliss did the longarm quilting.  

All of the fabric, including the border, binding, and backing, came from my Fig Tree stash.  This is the stash that never seems to diminish in size; I still have tons!

The pattern is called Coastal and is by Sherri of A Quilting Life.  I made this pattern before, sticking to the pattern directions.  That quilt is called Jingle All The Way.  It is one of my favorites.  

Making the pattern a second time, I decided to "customize" it with a little variation.  Instead of sawtooth stars, I made modified Ohio stars.  

To modify the Ohio star, you start with the components of a traditional Ohio star block.  

Then you trim the hourglass block components.  I trimmed a 1/4 inch off of each hourglass as shown, 

so that when sewn together, the blocks would be 4 inches square.  I did pause and reconsider after making the first block, concerned it looked like I accidently nipped off the points with careless sewing.  But I thought it would be fine when I had all the blocks done.  

The quilt does look good from a distance, but up close, it looks more like mistakes happened.  

This modified Ohio star technique works much better in a larger block.  It is how I made this Christmas quilt, the quilt that elicits the most enquiries on my blog.  I even have a tutorial for how to make the block; see the sidebar to the right on my blog for the full step-by-step process with photos.  

If I make this pattern again, I will go back to the sawtooth star blocks.  But I don't regret what I did.  I've made a lot of quilts; I don't love them all equally, plus it is important to try new things and take the occasional design risk to grow as a quilter.  

What I've Been Up To

Wow, I last posted on Sept. 8.  All good here but quilting was taking a back seat to other activities for a time.  

First, #finallyavacation!  Mr. Main Street and I were scheduled to go on a Mediterranean cruise to various Greek ports in April 2020 but of course, it was cancelled when travel shut down at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic.  The cruise was rescheduled several times until finally, in late September, we were able to go.  We flew to Athens where we stayed a few days prior to joining our cruise ship.  It felt as safe as possible as all on the ship were vaccinated, we had a test just prior to embarking, then a couple of tests along the way.  We never experienced any problems and had a very good time.  My favorite parts of the trip were Athens, the port of Katakolon where we toured the site of the ancient Olympic Games, and hiking just above Amalfi, Italy.  

The Parthenon on the Acropolis in Athens

Our ship, Azamara Quest, seen from Santorini

Site of the ancient Olympic Games

View of Amalfi, Italy, (and our ship), taken while hiking.

We enjoyed this cruise so much that we are already signed up for another one next fall!

Once back home, I got back to work on Flowers for Emma, a quilt project with hexie flowers I had been working on for a couple of years as my portable project.  (Pattern by Sherri McConnell of A Quilting Life.)  My flowers were finished a while back but I had more applique work to do then sewing the blocks together with the sashing.  

I enlarged the quilt to 48 blocks, which is generous throw size (quilt holder husband is stretching to hold it up).  I marked the edges for a scalloped border, just need to get it quilted.

The hexie flowers are appliqued to four-patch blocks made up of low volume, mostly white fabrics.  Fabrics for the hexies are all from various Fig Tree Quilts lines for Moda, mostly from a fat quarter bundle of Chantilly that I won as a door prize at my LQS, Pennington Quilt Works.

I'm continuing to focus on unfinished and near-UFO projects cluttering up my sewing space.  I have another near finish so I will be back here soon.

12 Days of Christmas Quilts - Day 11

This is Sparkle, four large Lemoyne stars easily pieced from a jelly roll, from the pattern by Fig Tree Quilts called Jelly Stars.  The fabric is Blitzen by Basic Grey for Moda.  I made this quilt in 2013; more information in this post.

Fig Tree Chantilly - What To Make?

A couple of weeks ago, my local quilt shop, Pennington Quilt Works, had a grand re-opening celebration to show off their expanded store (they are in a shopping center and annexed the empty storefront next door).  They showed off their new space and class samples and I was the lucky winner of one of the door prizes - a fat quarter stack of Chantilly by Fig Tree, a pattern on a postcard, and a Moda zipper pouch (will be handy to hold binding clips).  Thank you, PQW!

I like the Chantilly fabric line - it is the typical Fig Tree florals but the colors are paler shades than usual.  I am  considering using it to make Hexie Garden by Atkinson Designs but I need to identify a solid color to use in place of the dark triangles around the flower centers.  I've seen this pattern made up in bright colors with black which was really stunning but I think black would be too harsh with the pale shades in the Chantilly line.

My alternative is to go with either the Odile Stars pattern by Planted Seed Designs or the new Fig Tree pattern called Twinkle.  The pattern for Twinkle calls for 1/3 yard cuts but each makes two blocks so I think I could get a block of out each fat quarter. 

Decisions, decisions...

A Pieceful Finish

I have a finish to show off!  I started this quilt in 2016 (you can read about the blocks in this post), sent it off to my longarm quilter, then it sat in my sewing room waiting to be bound.  Well, voila, here is Pieceful:

Pieceful is 78" square, a little larger than Mr. Main Street's wingspan, and my secondary quilt holder, Miss Main Street, moved away to Brooklyn to live the life of a recent college grad and pursue her dream of becoming a comedian.  So I have to make do. 

Pieceful is part of my Fig Tree Harvest series, an effort to finally make quilts from all my hoarded stash of Fig Tree Quilts fabrics.  You can see my collection to date under the Fig Tree Harvest tab at the top of the page or here.  The weird thing is that I've made all these quilts but the basket holding my Fig Tree stash does not seem to get any emptier!  There are still a few more in there. 

Karen Thompson did the quilting using a panto.  I like the quilting design very much.  The dense, wavy lines soften the hard edges of all the small squares and blur the colors together. 

Here's a closer-up of the quilting.

I even used fabric from stash for the backing and binding.  The backing is a large-scale floral tone-on-tone.  It's not Fig Tree and has been in my stash for years, I'm glad I finally found a good application for it.  And the binding is leftover fabric I bought for the centers and outer rings for Globe Trotting, an earlier Fig Tree Harvest quilt.

I have no idea what will be next in the Fig Tree Harvest series.  I have quite a bit of fabric left but it is a mish-mash of colors and designs, lots of small pieces, so will likely have to be something very scrappy.  But that will have to wait; I have other quilting fun planned for the near term.  Stay tuned!

It's A Wrap

I finished piecing my scrappy Fig Tree quilt top.  It is pressed and folded, ready to be shipped off to the quilter, as soon as I piece the back.  I found some fabric in my stash, an off-white tone-on-tone with a large floral design, that is perfect.  And the piece I have is just the right size, so that is perfect too.  

The photo is not great, it was raining and I had to take the photo indoors with the lights on, which gives the quilt a yellow cast.  

The design is a variation on Irish Chain, and a sort of mash-up of two quilts I saw on line.  First, the colors are from this quilt from the Hollyhill Quilt Shoppe.  And the piecing instructions are from a tutorial by Red Pepper Quilts.   The end result is exactly how I expected it to look, which does not always happen, so I am happy.  And of course, I'll like it even better after it is quilted.  

Finished Blocks

I finished piecing all the blocks for my scrappy Fig Tree quilt.  That's 49 blocks, each composed of 49 squares.  I used the Irish Chain tutorial from Red Pepper Quilts.

I've been on a mission to finish all the blocks before the beginning of the Thanksgiving holiday.  I have quilts to bind over the holiday but will get back to the scrappy project in December.  I also want to pull together a hand sewing project to take with me on vacation in January.  But that means deciding on which hand sewing project to pursue.  So many options, so difficult to decide!

Pieceful Update

Thank you for your kind notes about Reggie.  We miss him but are adjusting.  Working on my current quilting project has been a great comfort.  Quilts in general are comforting of course, and having this hobby to occupy me has been a help.

So I made more progress on my super scrappy Fig Tree project, code named Pieceful.  When I last posted about this project, I had finished a few blocks like this, Block 1.

For the design to come together, Block 1 gets combined with Block 2 (below).  I'm nearly done with all the Block 2s.  I need 25 of each block.  (Actually, I need 49 blocks in total, 25 of one and 24 of the other.  But I'm not sure which block I want to go in the corners so I'm making 25 of each one so I can test out both layouts and go with the one I prefer.)

Block 2 has allowed me to use all the cream colored prints, the backgrounds and "neutrals" that I did not use in my other Fig Tree Harvest quilts.  In my prior projects, I used just one background or neutral, usually a solid white or tone-on-tone.  But Pieceful is super-scrappy, with even the background block being pieced from lots of different fabrics.  

I laid out a few blocks to see how they look and I like the way they come together for the Irish Chain effect.  I think this might be a quintuple Irish Chain.  

By the way, in case you are wondering, I cut each piece 2 inches square (1.5 inches finished) so each block is 11 inches square (10.5 inches finished).  The finished quilt will be about 72 inches square.

First Block

I have one finished block for my scrappy Fig Tree Harvest quilt...so far.

This quilt design is made up of two different blocks.  The overall design becomes visible when the two blocks alternate.  I have lots of blocks in a state of partial completeness and wanted to finish one to see how it would look.

The pressing directions in Red Pepper Quilts' tutorial make assembly much easier because all my seam junctions nest and that makes sewing the pieces for the block together easy.  As I assemble the blocks, I'm trying hard not to obsess over what color is next to what color or whether two similar prints wind up next to each other.  This is my tendency but I keep telling myself to let the scraps fall as they may!

Pieceful

Summer 2016 has been the summer of not-quilting-very-much for me.  I started a new job mid-summer.  The job is great but it has taken a few weeks to get used to commuting to the office (I used to work from home two or three days a week) and learning the ropes of the new position.  Here we are at the end of the summer and it's time to take Miss Main Street back to college for her senior year.

I have made some progress on my current piecing project, using Fig Tree Quilts fabric leftovers and scraps.  I cut lots of strips from the remainders of fat quarters and fat eighths....

...and sewed them into strip sets.  After further cutting, they look like this.  

I cut the pieces that were too small for strips into squares.  I'm even using the leftover 2" squares from Globe Trotting, a quilt I made in 2013.

This latest project was inspired by two quilts I saw in blogs, Red Pepper Quilts Irish Chain Scrap Buster, and Seven Letters Quilt as made up by Holly Hill Quilt Shoppe.  My version will be a mashup of the two, with a bit of my own twist.  I'm following Red Pepper Quilts' directions except I downsized my squares to 2".  I really appreciate the pressing instructions in her tutorial because it will help a lot as I put the blocks together.  I have my fingers crossed that as it comes together, it matches my vision!

More Thoughts On Starch

For my next project, I'm reaching into the magic basket of Fig Tree Quilts fabric.  Yes, another Fig Tree Harvest quilt!

I've made six major quilts, a baby quilt, and a wall hanging in this series to date.  As a result, though I'm not exactly down to scraps, it would be hard to put a quilt together out of five to eight coordinating fabrics.  But I got an idea for something that is scrappy, where I can use the leftovers from my other projects.  I have lots of partial fat quarters from which I am cutting 2" strips.  These will go into strip sets, which I will augment with 2" squares cut from the real scraps.

Being a convert to starch, I starched the fabric before cutting.  I started with aerosol cans of Niagara but the two cans I had on hand did not go very far.  I had quite a bit of Best Press on hand so I used that but when I ran out, I still had fabric left to starch.  So next I tried concentrated starch (comes in a big bottle), mixed in a 1:4 ratio with water in a trigger spray bottle (I used the empty Best Press bottle).  Here are my thoughts on these different starches.

Niagara Non-Aerosol Trigger Spray - This is my favorite but it is not readily available to me. None of the stores around me carry it and it is ridiculously pricey on Amazon.com.  It is easy to spray and get the right amount of saturation in your fabric so it dries stiff without being too stiff.

Niagara Original Aerosol Spray Starch - The price is right, less than $2 a can at stores around me, but one can does not cover much fabric (around 2 yards) so I've been going through a lot of it and feel guilty about the environmental impact of all those aerosol cans.  But it gives the right amount of stiffness and the finish is great.

Best Press - This is billed as a starch alternative and while it gives fabric a crisp finish, it does not get it as stiff as I'd like.  And a bottle does not go far so it is too pricey to use for this purpose.  On the positive side, it comes in some great scents that add that your ironing pleasure.  I'm saving it to use more as a finishing spray.

Starch Concentrate - One bottle goes far when mixed with water in a 1:4 for 1:3 ratio, making it both economical and perfect for getting the exact degree of starchiness you want.  I'm going to stick with it for now, unless I find Niagara in a trigger spray bottle again.

More on my new project next week.

Feed Sacks by Fig Tree

You know what a Fig Tree fan I am.  I read the blog for advance warning of new fabric collections and patterns and general "fresh vintage" ideas.  Early in the summer, Joanne gave a sneak peek of her new bag pattern and asked for name suggestions.  Because the bag was made from her new fabric collection called Farmhouse, I thought Feed Sack was perfect.  So did Joanna and the Fig Tree staff.

She thanked me by sending me a copy of the pattern and a few mini charm packs.  I haven't used the mini charms before and I'm sure I'll find a way to incorporate them into a project soon.  I also like the bag (the pattern includes three sizes).  Adding denim is a great idea and I am thinking of recycling some old jeans into the base and handles.  I've saved many old pairs of jeans, thinking I'd come up with a crafty use for them and I think I found one at last.  I only took a quick look at the pattern instructions but it looks easy and one jelly roll makes three bags.  Could be good for Christmas gifts...never too early to plan ahead.

Finished Baby Quilt

I finished the first of a couple of baby quilts I mentioned making this year.  This one also counts as a Fig Tree Harvest!  I used some of the light aqua green floral prints in my stash, along with some "low volume" in  a disappearing four patch design.  Here it is, quilted and bound.

I followed Missouri Star Quilt Co.'s video on YouTube for the construction.  It is super easy and gives a nice result that looks like much more work than just sewing charm squares together.  Give it a try if you need a small quilt fast.  

I quilted this myself, using the walking foot on my machine. first I quilted in the ditch along the seams of the narrowest pieces.  I should say "mostly in the ditch" as my stitching wanders a bit now and then.  Then I stitched about 3/8" away from the seams between the blocks.  

The quilting grid pattern is especially evident on the back of the quilt.  I had just enough of this fabric left from backing an earlier quilt.  And I used some pink and white tiny gingham (also Fig Tree) for the binding.  

Here's the quilt after washing.  It shrunk about an inch in each direction to 30" by 36" but that's okay because the little "wobblies" in my quilting are less noticeable now that the quilt is crinkly.  

I hope great-niece Abby likes it!