No More Monkeys Quilt (front)

Click here to see August 4, 2013 post, Monkeying A Round, for the source info on the central block.

Last year about this time I had finished the Mariner's Compass paper pieced center block, but had not a clue what would come next. As I considered various things to try, I decided I wanted to paper piece the design below based on a hexagon, so I cut monkeys to fit in the center and tried my luck. As it turned out, however, I never quite found how to order my piecing and had to finish the final seam of each round as best I could. I think there is a method that would work, but I have not quite mastered it. To hide my less than perfect final seams, I used a decorative stitch over each seam and ended up with the four corner blocks seen in the completed quilt above.

So, I had a center block, and four corner blocks, but nothing more. This seemed like a good time to try out a five minute block I had seen on YouTube. First, though, I wanted to know if I could fussy cut some monkeys to fit into the triangle of the 5 minute block. First run on some scraps proved it was possible, and so it was onward! 

Practice Five Minute Block with monkey on the flap

These were not actually quilt as you go,
picture of block was isolated from finished quilt and photo-edited
to look like a stack of blocks. It's hard to remember to snap pictures in the heat of
stitching!

Stacks, now, of five minute monkey blocks awaited a plan for where and how they would be oriented into the still evolving project.

My last quilting class before summer break had instructor Sandy teaching us how to do mitered corners for border pieces. Some of the samples she had brought to class used striped fabric, which really looked pretty nifty with the mitered approach. I had some remnant bin fabric in my stash already being considered for this quilt, and because it looked like bamboo, it also had a stripe effect. The plan was coming together!

As I finished the mitered inner border and added the outlying blocks, I heard an interview of a woman who was working with very young children and emphasizing how they love to learn shapes. She said she therefore used simple shapes in her baby quilts for the baby to continue to enjoy the quilt into the toddler stage.
Bingo! There was the plan both for jazzing up the plain bamboo plane, and for the free motion quilting that would be used thereon.

I machine stitched over the edges of the applique, then echo-stitched out from the edges with brown top thread and white bobbin, for the shapes to carry over to the back of the quilt in what I hoped would be an appropriate color. Quilted free motion triangles, squares, circles and rectangles in the four different shape sections of the border

So (sew?), after a year of monkeying around, a quilt finally did emerge. See below the top of my "No More Monkeys" quilt.

My next post will show the back of this quilt.

Flipping for the Holidays

Even though I have a definite fondness for small projects, I never much wanted to make table runners. To my mind they seemed like quilted doilies. Then I saw this Jenny Doan runner with squares added to the friendship braid. I had some bright colors in my stash and tried to fashion one after the one in her tutorial. 

    Once the top was pieced, I also decided to try out some machine embroidery in the center. Since I did not stabilize the piece, it puckered terribly. So, the whole thing sat by un-hemmed, un-bound, and thoroughly un-appreciated for months on end.

    This week, though, I was in the friendship braid mode, and decided to try doing a backing of the same piecing pattern with Christmas prints. Using heat-resistant batting, I thought the runner could serve my utilitarian purposes by being both decorative and protective. No doily does that! Kind of a running hot pad, as it were, for holiday meals. 
     Once the Christmas-themed backing was pieced, I sandwiched by laying the top and bottom piecing together, right sides facing, carefully aligning the various points of the squares by poking a pin through both. Next I pinned a same-sized piece of batting to the backing, and joined the edges of all, leaving a six inch opening for turning. Corners trimmed, pieces turned, I ironed the edges and stitched a quarter inch inside all around, catching and closing the six inch opening. I think this is called the "pillowcase" method of a binding-less finish.  

    Last of all I quilted in various places on the top piece with a metallic gold thread as my bobbin thread because some say metallic thread spins off the bobbin with fewer glitches.  Sure enough, the only glitchy stitches I encountered came from my top thread. 
     This project really does not have to take long, nor does it have to have puckered embroidery. Those of you who don't skip the stabilizer step in machine embroidery could likely come up with some nifty centered designs, or opt to fussy cut as I did for the Christmas side. 
     Now if I can just keep up with where I store this once the holidays really are upon us, I may not have to flip out, after all!
    Meanwhile, just for fun:

Can't you just see this as a "mosaic" block?

And this would be the quilt.

     

Two Much Fun! / I've Got a Secret!

The"Peek-a-Boo" pattern for this quilt appeared in Quiltmaker Classics Volume 1 - Summer 2013 on page 71. The quilt featured in the magazine used primary colors and had twelve blocks. My down-sized version ended up measuring 42 x 32 inches.
   Three machines worked their magic to put this together in six days' time. Piecing and quilting were done on my Brother Innov'Is NX800 sewing machine. The edges for the prairie points were done using my Brother serger (circa 1998), and the label was done using my Brother PE500 embroidery machine. Yes. My "Brothers" played well together and came up with this in record time!
   Every time I do a quilt I learn new things. With this one I learned to cut all my pieces (except border and backing) before piecing. Some things were not so much new knowledge as newly applied knowledge; I chain-pieced wherever practical.
     To make the monogram and stylized "2" applique, I printed out a sheet with a large font, then copied the resulting lettering onto the paper side of a right-sized heat bonding sheet (Wonder Under), and bonded to the fabric before doing a tight zigzag stitch around the edges.
      Last minute flubs resulted in some fortuitous saves. In my first design version the stylized "2" was to be the only corner design. The quilt was being made as a present for my first grandson's 2nd birthday. I decided to free motion a heart in another corner, but it was so pitifully wobbly, I opted to applique a heart shape over it. That would have resulted in a rather unbalanced overall look, so I added a star and a musical note to the remaining corners. (Yea!) Even bigger "YEA!",  he liked it!

Chain-piecing, finished quilt with magazine inspiration, completed back with embroidered label.

Oh! And in case you wondered why it is called a "Peek-a-Boo" quilt...:

Each prairie-pointed block opens up to reveal an otherwise secret underlying patch!

Elephant Walk

This was done start to finish (except binding) at a quilting retreat where three of us were making our version of this quilt. Another friend was the instructor for the others of us. I was so busy with mine I never got pictures!!! Also, this was my most mistake-ridden quilting day EVER! 

Among the things I cautioned the others not to do:

• Do NOT iron your Omni grid ruler. 
• Do NOT turn your fabric the wrong way when cutting strips...such that you end up with eight inch instead of 41 inch strips.
• Do NOT even attempt to center any motif on a mistake-ridden streak.
• Do NOT neglect to check orientation of ears, etc. when heat-fixing to applique.

Here are some "Do"s:

• DO quilt with friends who can help you laugh at your mistakes.
• DO quilt with friends who can help you find end-arounds to make even the mistakes work in your favor. 
• DO remember that finishing imperfectly beats not finishing at all!

No Longer in a Bind?

Here's one way to dispense with some of the leftover strips from 2.5  inch bindings.

Mine is a smidge under 3 inches, but that is likely due to my 1/4 inch not being scant enough.

Of course, this can be done with squares larger than 2.5". This is just a fun little something to do with leftover binding strips.

You Stitch Fifteen Blocks and What Do You Get?

Sorry. That "Sixteen Tons" tune was just rambling around my brain seeking an outlet. 

Well, I've completed the fifteenth block and gotten them all sashed. Next step will be to add a border. The pictured "flying carpet" version above is not actually bordered, except in a rehearsal of laying the pieced blocks atop the proposed border fabric.  

Our class is about to take a break for the summer, so I won't likely get this sandwiched and quilted until some time this fall.

Lamp and Trust

One is "Lamp" and one is "Trust" Can you tell which is which? I think the "Lamp" looks more like a lantern, and I'm not sure why "Trust" is this design...but red on the corners is by design, and blue is true, they say.

Blocks 11 and 12.

There are three more blocks in the sampler to do, then on to the sashing, which I dread. All the precision of the squared up nine inch blocks will likely be a distant memory at the end of that exercise. This one will need to be completed, though, because it's been forever since I actually QUILTED any of my piecing projects. 

Leah suggested the "Lamp" would be pretty as a full quilt using those fabrics. I agree.