Spring Dreams

This post will be mostly pictures of my latest quilt.   This is the almost finished spring quilt I talked about in my last post.  I say almost, because I still have to finish the binding.  A relatively easy, if time-consuming job.  Great to do while watching television, I think.

I wanted to make sure I got a couple close up images so you can see the quilting.  I'm still not perfect with the long-arm, but I really like how this came out.

I tried to put in leaves and little curls to carry on the spring-feel of the quilt.

I didn't measure it before posting, but it should measure around 60" wide by 72" long.  

Wishing you Spring Dreams.

Racing towards spring

My friend over at Yarn All Over gave me a couple jelly rolls.  Likely in the hope that I would make them into something wonderful.  I'll have to see how that works out.

During the week, I had a little time to sew a bunch of them together into the beginnings of a Jelly Roll Race quilt.  I did a bunch of math (quilt math is... special) in the hopes that I could make the quilt larger than you'd get with a single jelly roll without being the monster two would make.  I sewed up 55.5 lengths of 2.5" wide strips.  This is the part that takes the longest, in my opinion.  Here it is, pressed and ready to go into the machine for the first pass.

Since I used so many pieces, it seemed I was sewing forever with that first pass.  Onto the second pass, where my strip is 4.5" wide and will soon become 8.5" wide. 

I like these quilts for a couple reasons. 

• easy to sew,
• something that doesn't require more cutting (a rail fence is great with jelly rolls, but doesn't have the same amount of randomness to it)
• all the pressing comes at the end, so your top is almost finished when you first put your iron to it
• I end up with a bunch of little half-square triangles (not that I'm entirely sure what to do with them)
• relatively quick
• and with amazing results.

I wanted this quilt to be longer than the standard 32 strips (64 inches) so I cut a chunk off when I got to four strips wide.  This will allow me to add this piece back in making the overall length 72 inches.  Much better if the quilt is about 60" wide.  This should come out as a generous lap quilt.  My favorite size, next to the crib size.  (Also, about the limit of what the long-arm can handle without having to break it down, buy new rails and set it back up, not to mention the part where it won't fit in my house at that size.)

At 16 strips wide, I paused and added the piece I cut off at four strips wide.  Now, one more swipe and all that's left is the pressing and trimming... oh, and the side borders.

Pressed and bordered.  See how easy that was?  This one needs a great name.  Something that celebrates spring.  The days are getting longer and I look forward to the warmer weather and all the wonder that spring brings.

I hope to get this one quilted on the long-arm by next Wednesday.  We'll see how well that goes. 

Longarm work

A friend of mine asked me to quilt these on the long arm.  I'm not one to argue with working with the long arm. 

I laid out three of the quilts, rather haphazardly, across my long arm rails.   I only had binding for these three, so the fourth will remain a mystery.

My favorite is the little one, so I had to share a close-up.

Here they are, all tied up and ready to go back so she can finish the binding.

She gave me five quilts, but the backing for the fifth one hasn't arrived yet.  That one will have to wait.