Bear Tracks Quilt for Mr. F!

Here is my fourth quilt finished in 2020!

Details:

Pattern: Bear Tracks Quilt by Angela Walters

Fabric: Boundless Solids by Craftsy FQ Bundle

Finished Size: 66 x 81 inches

Finished on May 23, 2020

Made for: Preschool Teacher Mr. F

I wanted to make a quilt for my older son's preschool teacher, Mr. F. My older son, N, was in a special preschool program through our school district for kids who need a little extra help with language and social skills. N was in Mr. F's class for almost two full school years - he joined his class in October of 2018 and "graduated" in May this year, although he hasn't been in the classroom since March due to the shelter in place order. N has grown and learned so much in these two years, and I know Mr. F has played a big part in that. Last year, I volunteered for the class's holiday party, and that very short classroom experience made me really appreciate how hard teachers work, and I was determined to make Mr. F a quilt to thank him for being an awesome teacher!

I really like this Bear Tracks Quilt pattern - it's simple and modern, and suitable for a guy. I don't know anything about Mr. F's style or home, but I think a quilt like this is pretty flexible. I used a FQ bundle of the Craftsy Boundless Solids - I love the color combination in this bundle. I almost wish I had bought more of this fabric because I have so many ideas for the scraps of this quilt! I was able to use some of these scraps for the MQG's mini quilt swap this year.

"Dark" blocks - you can see the two where I used a lighter color instead of the white.

It was easy to split the fat quarters into light and dark groups. I made the "dark" blocks first. I followed the pattern pretty much exactly, except in two of the dark blocks, I used a very light fabric instead of the white background fabric, just to be saucy, although in the finished quilt you can barely tell the difference and I'm not sure I improved anything with my change. But at least I didn't make it worse, right?

I love these colors!

When I was working on the "light" blocks, it was around Easter and these colors fit in with the holiday so perfectly. I've become totally obsessed with these colors and I want to make a quilt for myself with them. This combo just really says "spring" to me! This was about a month into the shelter in place and I was beginning to realize it was going to last a lot longer than just a few weeks, and I was feeling really down about the situation. To make myself feel better, I was thinking a lot about spring and Easter and renewal, and these fabrics helped put me in a better mood. I don't mean to be trite about a serious situation, but I'm sure my fellow fabric lovers will understand.

"Light" blocks in progress.

I really wanted to finish this quilt in April but it was a tough few weeks and I didn't do much sewing; when May rolled around, I knew I better get it in gear to finish this quilt in time before the school year ended! Even though N wasn't in the classroom, he was doing a little bit of distance learning and we were still in touch with Mr. F. I knew there would be an opportunity to pick up stuff that had been left in the classroom so I thought that would be a good time to give Mr. F his gift. I had a deadline and I didn't want to miss it!

My son wrote his name on the label.

One thing I really wanted to do was have my son N write his name on the label, since he learned to do that from Mr. F! I thought it might take a couple of tries, but N did it perfectly the first time. I wrote in the other details after he wrote his name. It made me a little nervous to make such a personalized label because I didn't know if this quilt was Mr. F's style, or if he even liked quilts, and was open to the possibility of him giving it away. I would never want to create a sense of obligation for the recipients of my quilts. But I also wanted to reflect how special the two years that N spent in his class were. I also found out that N's first year in his class was Mr. F's first year of teaching, and I thought it might be pretty cool for him to have the handwriting of one of the first kids he taught to write.

I quilted it with the trusty serpentine stitch - I really don't think you can go wrong with this method of quilting.

Texture!

When we had the chance to go to the school at the end of the year to pick up stuff, N was able to say goodbye to his teacher and I gave Mr. F the quilt in a gift bag. He didn't open it right then, but he texted me later to say that he's glad he didn't open it in front of us because he cried when he did, and that he loves quilts and he's excited to have one of his own. So I feel really good about the personalized gift for Mr. F! It's just so nice to know that my work was appreciated. And I hope we communicated how much we appreciated him as a teacher!

I found a leaf print with a lot of the colors from the front of the quilt. This is generally how I make the backs of quilts.

Constellation Pillow!

 

Details:

Pattern: Pisces Constellation Pillow by Fancy Tiger Crafts

Fabric: Kona Solids in Coal and Sunny Yellow

Finished Size: 20 x 20 inches

Finished Mid February 2020

Made for: Sister J's Boyfriend

Back in 2018, I made a Constellation Pillow for my sister, J. Actually, I have to start this story by going back to 2016 when we saw the original Constellation quilt at QuiltCon in Pasadena, which we both loved. I bought the book with the constellation patterns practically as soon as it was published; I still want to make myself a quilt with the constellations of my family. But in 2018, my sister was planning a cross country move and she was visiting us for her birthday, so I thought it would be the perfect time to make her the constellation pillow for her future new place. She loved it and her boyfriend mentioned that he would like one as well, so I've had it in my head ever since to make him one! Fast forward to this year, they had recently had their first baby and he was celebrating a milestone birthday in February; it seemed like a good time for another constellation pillow.

I followed the pattern for the quilt top exactly. The only thing I do differently than the pattern instructs is that I quilt the pillow top before making it into a pillow - I just like a quilted pillow better than a non quilted one. I quilt it in straight lines about an inch apart, stitching in the ditch for some of the lines, as needed. The pattern recommends embroidering the lines connecting the stars, but I just switched to a gold thread and quilt a straight line between the squares.

My sister and her boyfriend were happy to now have a matching set of pillows for their house! This was quilted project number three for this year, but I'm (hopefully) not going to count mini quilts like this in my goal for finishing 12 quilts before the end of the year.

QuiltCon 2020 Mini Quilt Swap!

Details:
MQG QuiltCon 2020 Mini Quilt Swap
Pattern: Original Design by Me
Finished Size: 22 x 22 inches
Finished in Early February 2020

I participated in the mini quilt swap with the Modern Quilt Guild earlier this year, via mail since I didn't go to QuiltCon this year. This is my second quilt finish of this year and I don't know if I should count mini quilts as part of my goal for finishing 12 quilts this year. I'm going to not count it right now but I'll reserve the right to change my mind in case I don't make it to 12 quilts by the end of the year!

Some of the things my partner told me that inspired my design for this quilt are that she likes Caribbean colors and the ocean. I can be kind of literal sometimes - I immediately though of waves. I wanted to do something original (last year for the mini quilt swap, I used a pattern, which I don't think is a bad thing, but I still wanted to do an original design) so I sketched out a few options and then started cutting fabric! My partner mentioned she likes Alison Glass (which I do too!) so I used fabrics from the Sunprints 2019 collection and also a Lizzy House constellations print, which served as the base for my choice of colors from the Caribbean spectrum. All the solids are scraps from another quilt I was working on; it was so perfect that they were in the colors my partner likes and coordinated with the prints I chose. I also used some Craftsy ombre charm squares I had, and a few different low volume fat quarters. The triangles are cut small so it's hard to see the ombre fabrics, but I do think they add a sense of movement to the quilt.

I straight line quilted it with both a variegated thread and white thread, with the quilting lines pretty close together. 

I'm pleased with how this turned out. I'm thinking I would like to make another quilt with these colors, so I kept all my scraps from this quilt together to use in the future. I always get so nervous making a quilt for someone else, because what if they don't like it? But my partner did seem to like it, and even asked me what fabrics I used because she wanted to make a bed quilt using similar colors, so I think that's a pretty good sign that it was well received. 

100 Days Quilt!

My first quilt finish of 2020!

We're standing on chairs to take this picture!

Details:

Pattern: Kinship Fusion Sampler by Angie Wilson and Bec Proschogo

Fabric: Square One Farmer's Market FQ Bundle by Craftsy

Finished Size: 72 x 92 inches (post wash: 68 x 87.5 inches)

Finished January 24, 2020

Of course, most of the work was done in 2019 when I participated in Gnome Angel's 100 Days 100 Blocks. I've followed that sewalong for a few years but never joined in until she announced a new pattern, the Kinship Fusion Sampler, and I just could not resist! (I really have a weakness for sewalongs and block of the month programs.) And the best part is, I really did it! I posted one block a day for 100 days. And then I finished the quilt! I'm super proud of myself, in case you can't tell!

The fat quarter bundle separated into color groups. I didn't use the two gray prints but I did choose a gray solid for the background color.

I had bought a fat quarter bundle of the Square One Farmer's Market fabric from Craftsy with no plans or projects in mind, I just really loved the colors and prints in the line, and I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to use it. I envisioned doing an ombre quilt but I didn't want to stress over the perfect fabric placement, so I did a some quick math and figured out how many blocks I would make out of each color (there were 18 total fat quarters: 5 purple/pinks, 5 red/oranges, 5 yellow/greens, and 3 blues, so I figured my ratio of 100 blocks would be 28 blocks each for the purple/pink, red/orange, and yellow/green groups, and 16 blocks for the blue group.) I made a checklist so I could keep track of how many blocks of each color group I made, but then after totally overthinking that part, I just made blocks within each color group and didn't stress about it. I did mix in some fabric from the other color groups sometimes to help with the ombre, but didn't over plan it. It got harder as I made more blocks because I was running out of fabric so I incorporated some solid scraps that I had, and I ended up making more red and purple blocks and less blue blocks, just based on the fabric I had available.

The back is made from lengths of some of my favorite fabrics from this line.

The pattern comes with two different layout options which are both great, but I wanted to keep the blocks individualized so I thought I came up with a different layout option, but once I drew it out on graph paper to make sure I had a good balance of colors, I realized that I had just used the layout on the cover of the quilt pattern! So much for being original!

I like to piece the quilt label into the back of the quilt.

Sewing 100 different blocks is a big project! The 100 Days 100 Blocks sew along runs from July 1st through October 8th. During the 100 days, I went to a quilt workshop and had to stay in a hotel. Since I was all alone and had my sewing machine with me, I worked on some of these blocks in the evening in my hotel room. It was so peaceful. I have two young boys and don't generally travel much, even before this whole shelter in place thing started. I still very fondly think about two quiet nights in a hotel, all to myself, sewing and watching reruns of Friends! There's a joke among quilters that goes something like, "On Saturday nights, I like to party! And by party I mean stay home and sew." And that joke is so accurate for me!

When I'm trying to find the perfect layout, I'll send pictures to my sisters to get their input. I have to push aside all the toys to make room for my design floor.

Once I had all the blocks finished in early October, I needed a little break, and there were a few baby quilts to make, so I put this aside until November. I really wanted to finish in 2019 since it was the 2019 100 day project, but finding sewing time in November and December last year was tough, and I was also being a little bit of a perfectionist about this quilt. Once I had the blocks made, I got nervous I would mess it up somehow when I put the top together, or quilted it. When I get stressed about a quilt, I tend to not work on it. Putting the top together wasn't inherently difficult, it was just hard because I wanted it to be perfect. It was tough to decide how to quilt it - I wanted an overall quilting pattern because this quilt is all about the patchwork for me (most of my quilts are about the patchwork, and the quilting is just something I have to do to get a finished quilt.) I have quilted several quilts with lines of serpentine stitch which I love to do because it is both easy and looks great, and for someone who doesn't love the quilting part of quilting, that's a great combo. But I was worried that wouldn't be special enough for this quilt that I had put so much time and energy into! In the end, I did decide to do the serpentine stitch because finished is better than perfect, and I didn't want to let this sit any longer. In the end, I'm glad I did. I have a finished quilt and it is practically perfect. The flow of colors in the ombre effect works for me, and the quilting doesn't district from the patchwork and gives it a great texture.

Texture!

The sashing and binding are both a grey solid from Craftsy. I quilted this and finished the binding in January. I had to wait until another adult visited our house before I was able to take a picture, because the quilt is so big it took two people to hold it up! I'm pretty sure this is the biggest quilt I've ever made! I used Warm and Natural batting and I love the weight of it.

I actually made the heart block (block 100) first, just to make sure I had enough fabric for it because it was my favorite and I knew it would be in the center of my quilt.

I am just so happy with how this turned out! It's so colorful and I love the blocks and just looking at it makes me happy. Who could ask for anything more?