Thunder Bay Charm Quilt

A charm quilt is made up all of one tessellating patch where each patch is a unique fabric. I belonged to the Thunder Bay Quilt Guild when some of the members of the group did a charm exchange. Eighteen of us exchanged 10 squares of fabric in an assigned color range every other month for one year. Using these squares and adding a few from my stash, I ended up with 1089 unique 5 inch squares of fabric used in my charm quilt.

I used a tessellating whirly-gig type shape and arranged them in a Trip-Around-the-World configuration.

Here I am at the 2009 Michigan Quilt Network where the quilt won a 2nd place ribbon in the “Large Machine Quilted” category.

With the whirly-gig shape I used, there were little squares of leftover fabric, so I made this smaller charm quilt of squares using the same 1089 fabrics!

Purple Pineapple Completed

I finished the machine quilting and binding for the Purple Pineapple quilt about a week ago.

After quilting and binding, the quilt measured 99 inches by 99 inches.

First, I did a little practice piece of the quilting designs I intended to use. I determined how to quilt across the entire row of pineapple blocks without any additional stops and starts. By quilting just the top half of the “star” design quilting from left to right, and then the bottom half of the “star” quilting right to left, I was able to achieve this, making the whole process much faster and more enjoyable.

Here is a view of the quilt loaded on my relatively new Gammill Vison 26-10 on a nice sunny day.

Close up of star design in the pineapple block……….

……..and in the corner block.

Close up of the border……….

…….and the border going around a corner.

Close up of inside border quilting. I used Superior brand gold metallic thread on the inside borders. I used Fil-Tec Glide thread on all the other quilting.

Some views of the quilting from the back side of the quilt.

Some views of the quilting from the back side of the quilt.

I had some fun with the binding on this quilt, too. Since I was having such good luck with the metallic thread quilting the inner borders, I decided to embellish the binding with machine embroidery using the metallic thread as well.

There are no seams along the entire length of the binding on each side. The seams are actually mitered at the corners.

2011 A Year in Quilts

To view as a slideshow click here.

Books I Read in 2011

The Appeal by John Grisham
Thrones, Dominations by Dorothy Sayers and Jill Paton Walsh
A Presumptoin of Death by Jill Paton Walsh
The Attenbury Emeralds byJill Paton Walsh
The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown
The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson by Jerome Charyn
The Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick
A River, A Lake, and Another River by Steve Amick
Pearl Buck’s China by Hilary Spurling
The Paris Wife- by Paula McClain
Menonite in a Little Black Dress by Rhoda Janzen
The Jefferson Key by Steve Berry
Among the Mad by Winspear, Jacqueline
Follow the River by James Alexander Thom
Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maude Montgomery
The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Unbroken by Laura Hallenbeck
Letters of a Woman Homesteader by Linore Pruitt Stewart
The House on Riverton by Kate Morton
Sizzling Sixteen by Janet Evanovitch
Smokin’ Seventeen by Janet Evanovitch
The Pirate King by Laurie R. King
Tender at the Bone by Ruth Reichle
Still Life by Louise Penny
A Fatal Grace by Louise Penny
The Cruelest Month by Louise Penny
A Rule Against Murder by Louise Penny
The Man Who Loved China by Simon Winchester
“V” is for Vengeance by Sue McGrath
Death Comes to Pemberley by P D James
Bury Your Dead by Louise Penny
The Brutal Telling by Louise Penny

Happy New Year!

Christmas Tree 2011

Purple Pineapple Progress Report

I pieced all 100 pineapple blocks and assembled the center of the quilt, 10 block by 10 blocks.

I added the first inner gold border.

I strip pieced the second inner border.

I trimmed the second inner border, then handled it with care since the edges were bias by now.

Then I sewed the second inner border and the third inner border onto the center of the quilt top.

Finally, I added the swirly floral outer border.

Next step is machine quilting. I will keep you posted.

A Little Bit of Christmas Here

Some berries picked in a local marshy area and displayed in my great grandmother’s milk churn…

Creche…

Christmas quilt…

Wreath on front door.

Purple Pineapple Update

I have been making good progress on the Purple Pineapple quilt. I have all 100 interior blocks pieced. The final two rows on all four sides include some almost-solid purple corner blocks so that the internal border of purple diamonds appears.

I have purchased fabric for the next borders that will be gold diamonds on a purple background.

This photo includes the final outside border print fabric I bought, also. You have to trust me that the colors match much better than these pictures indicate. I tried to adjust the color balance, but it is still not exactly right. Maybe the camera got confused by all the purple, plum, lavender and violet fabrics!

Here is the backing fabric I chose. Imagine sleeping under the planets and stars of outer space!

I am seeing the light at the end of the tunnel with this project. I have been imagining quilting patterns as well. Cannot wait to load it onto the new Gammill Vision 26-10 and try out some new Glide thread I bought for this project.

Purple Pineapple Blocks

After seeing Gyleen Fitzgerald on The Quilt Show recently, I bought her book and tool. She advocates making her pineapple blocks to turn “Trash to Treasure.” So, one Sunday morning I went through my gigantic garbage bag of scraps and pulled out all the yellows, golds, purples, violets, etc. then cut them into 1.5 inch strips. I added about six fat quarters in those colors as well. I even used three different purple prints for the 2.5 inch (cut) centers to add variety. I have been sewing these up into blocks ever since. It is amazing fun and now I have 32 blocks sewn already. Although, Gyleen’s patterns in her book are very simple layouts with just a couple of plain borders, I am considering this design I made up in EQ7.

I will need 100 blocks, with some of the blocks having either 2 or 1 purple “corners” to achieve the EQ7 pattern with the sort of internal border of purple diamonds. I am looking forward to doing some actual shopping for the external border fabric in some nice, new purple and gold print. I will keep you posted on my progress.

Wonky Baskets Encore

It’s Bloggers Quilt Festival:Fall 2011 time. Below is my Wonky Basket quilt I started last summer in a Gwen Marston workshop and completed within just a few days. It was so much fun to do because nothing much is pre-planned and no pattern is needed using Gwen’s “Liberated Quilting” methods. Hope you enjoy.

Check out all the other quilts participating and information about the Bloggers Quilt Festival by clicking the button below!