FITF: Film in the Fridge | modern quilts, clothing, fabric, and photos

Patchwork squares… I have a new favorite!

Posted on April 10, 2009

I think I must say that I love each quilt I make, but this one has to top the list, at least for now. I love it. love it. I can’t even tell you why, though I think it mostly has to do with the fact that it uses so many of my absolute favorite fabrics.

I also really like this pattern, which came about when I wanted to make a quilt and didn’t have enough pre-cut charm squares. The original quilt I made using this pattern is still one of my favorites as well, but even as I was making that one, I was picturing it this way – made with patchwork borders and lots of white.

My favorite part? Quite possibly the binding. I don’t typically spend too much time on the binding, but this time I did a little extra for this one. I opted for a solid dark gray fabric, but then added in a few sections of patchwork scraps, placed so they’d end up in the white sections. It was worth the extra effort – I just love the little bits of extra color along the binding, especially as seen from the back.

Speaking of, I opted for a simple back on this one – just one large section of one of my favorite flea market fancy prints. (I didn’t want to use up too much of it though, so I went with the white borders). As I mentioned earlier, there’s a picture of this fabric used as a backing on the cover of the Material Obsession book and I just loved it.

Next up – the bright string quilt from a couple weeks ago. That one just might top this one… we’ll see!

quilting with Heather Ross’s Far Far Away

Posted on April 9, 2009

Has anyone tried quilting with this fabric yet? I couldn’t find anything online, so I decided to just cut into those lovely fabrics and give it a try! I’ve read that it makes for a nice quilt, but I guess we’ll see…

I love to mix fabric lines and one concern was how this lightweight double gauze fabric would work with other fabrics. I considered a quilt with just these fabrics, but I couldn’t go through with it – mainly because I don’t have a large enough variety of the prints to make it work.

ffa2

So these are my first two blocks – a couple improv blocks… log cabin-ish, squares within squares. And so far, I’m loving them!

ffa1

Here’s what I can say about it so far (keep in mind that I’ve never sewn with this type of fabric) –

There are a few things that make it more difficult to sew with than regular quilting cotton, mainly that it frays and unravels easily (especially if you make an error and have to rip out stitches!), and also that it’s a bit stretchy* (or at least, stretchier than anything I’ve sewn thus far…). I found that as long as I kept that in mind when sewing and ironing, I didn’t have a problem.

Oh, it’s also hard to cut into… but only because it’s so pretty!

I think I’m going to really like this quilt, and I can see now why someone would want an entire quilt out of this type of fabric – it’s so soft!

Questions? I’ll do my best to answer in the comments…

*Edited to add: it stretches as you’d expect a more open weave fabric to stretch. It doesn’t seem to get distorted, and I didn’t have a problem sewing it – I was just noting that it has a much different feel than the quilting cottons I’m used to.

Posted in Household Sewing - bags, napkins, pillows, Posts about Quilts, Quilt Blocks | Tagged Far Far Away, handmade, Heather Ross, quilt, Quilt Blocks, quilting | 24 Comments

scattered mini blocks quilt – done!

Posted on April 8, 2009

I just pulled this one out of the dryer, and boy do I love it! It’s colorful, crinkly, and includes so many of my favorite fabrics – what’s not to love?! I suppose I can call this the first finished project for Jacquie’s Spring to Finish challenge. I started this one back in February and since then it’s been spread out on our guest room bed. I looked at it every time I came up the stairs, but never felt motivated enough to make a back for it.

I finally took the plunge last weekend, and actually came up with something I really like. I picked two of my favorite blocks from the front and used those same fabrics to create two sets of strips along the back (and as I mentioned, this is what reminded me how much I like a strip quilt and led to those two baby quilts from yesterday!)

(Many thanks to my brother, Ryan, for coming over as soon as I called him to hold the quilt up for me… I failed to notice he was holding it up upside down, but that’s ok!)

I tried to keep the same tie-in for the binding, selecting a different block from the front and using those fabrics for a pieced binding. (of course I realized after cutting strips of two of those fabrics that I didn’t have any of the third left, so I had to substitute another fabric that had similar colors – oops!)