Notorious

I finally took the plunge and started quilting this little piece. This was inspired by a cross stitch design created by Prudence Kitch. If you are a cross-stitcher you should check out their snarky little darlings. Get your own copy of Prudence Kitch - Notorious on Etsy. If you want to see some of my progress shots check out this post. 

The background is quilted with this flower motif. 

The dress is quilted with a variegated thread to make these swirls. 

I added some detail to the lily.

The swirls make their way up the bodice.

Nothing fancy for the gavel.

I'll trim and bind and prepare a hanging sleeve. I'm really pleased with how this turned out. 

Remember, the patriarchy isn't going to smash itself. 

Tools and supplies (affiliate links):
Creative Grids 6.5" x 24.5" Rectangle
Fiskars Rotary Cutter
Fiskars Self Healing Rotary Cutting Mat
BLACK+DECKER Classic Steam Iron
Grabbit Magnetic Pin Cushion
Fiskars 8-inch scissors
Juki TL-2010Q
Creative Grids 6.5" Square Ruler
Quilt design software: Electric Quilt

Prudence Dissents

Blogger still hasn't gotten their crap together with this new tool. Geez. When the feedback form doesn't work you know they've got their best people working on the upgrade. 

Back to quilting. This past weekend I got back to work on this fun little quilt. You can read more about this project in my first post about Prudence. Admittedly, I got better at putting the units together as I went along. 

I got to this point and realized I needed to take another look at the lily. I sat down with Electric Quilt but just couldn't sort it out. I grabbed my printout and my erasable pen and got scribbling. 

I made some incorrect cuts while I worked on this block. Nothing tragic at these sizes. 

I think it came out pretty good considering I only used half-square triangle units. I used a couple half-rectangle units in the quilt but I'm not terribly good at them. I may need to do some research so I can get better at them.  

I think it worked out great!

I added the borders and put it back up on the design wall. I have grand ideas for the quilting but I'm not ready to talk that step yet. 

Get your own copy of Prudence Kitch - Notorious on Etsy. 

Remember, the patriarchy isn't going to smash itself. 

Tools and supplies (affiliate links):
Creative Grids 6.5" x 24.5" Rectangle
Fiskars Rotary Cutter
Fiskars Self Healing Rotary Cutting Mat
BLACK+DECKER Classic Steam Iron
Grabbit Magnetic Pin Cushion
Fiskars 8-inch scissors
Juki TL-2010Q
Creative Grids 6.5" Square Ruler
Quilt design software: Electric Quilt

Prudence Dissents

For those of you who may get your knickers in a knot over something you perceive as political, you can skip this one. If you believe women's rights are human rights, you can stick around to see what this is about. 

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg served 27 years on the Supreme Court of the United States. She changed the world both as a litigator before the Supreme Court and as a Justice on the Court. She argued six gender discrimination cases before the Supreme Court between 1973 and 1976, winning five. My life as a mother, wife, and service-member was made possible because of the work she did to move gender equality forward. Her passing touched me in a way the passing of people of fame or power rarely does. I felt as though a life-long advocate for me had left the halls of power and I would not like the outcome of filling her seat on that high Court. 

PrudenceKitch is a cross stitch creator that says what she means. I love her snarky and powerful designs. I'm not much of a cross stitcher (I can cross stitch, but it isn't really my thing) but I am a quilter. I purchased her tribute design Prudence Kitch - Notorious and got to work making it into a mini quilt. 

Step one was to pull some fabrics. This is what I started with. Not likely all of this will make it into the quilt. I had some problems with some of colors not reading with enough contrast but this was a good first fabric pull. I used Electric Quilt to create my block design using Prudence Kitch's cross stitch pattern as a reference. Sam Hunter has a free tutorial on how to turn a cross stitch pattern into a pattern for quilting. Check it out along with the other great stuff Sam has on her site. 

This was the first block. I made some errors in pulling it together and had one partial seam. I'll be planning the next blocks more carefully. 

It still worked out fine. How big are these tiny blocks? you might ask. Those are 1" finished squares. I thought about using smaller units but I just couldn't do it. The finished quilt will be around 37" by 42". A largish wall-hanging. 

For her iconic lace collar I found this great print in my collection of fabric. I decided the only way to get what I wanted out the fat-quarter was to fussy-cut that collar. 

Here is the next block. This quilt will take a while to work through all the units. I really do love how it is turning out after just one finished block. I'll try to update again soon. As always, follow my Instagram (@beccascrazyprojects) for more regular updates about what I'm making. 

Get your own copy of Prudence Kitch - Notorious on Etsy. 

Remember, the patriarchy isn't going to smash itself. 

Tools and supplies (affiliate links):
Creative Grids 6.5" x 24.5" Rectangle
Fiskars Rotary Cutter
Fiskars Self Healing Rotary Cutting Mat
BLACK+DECKER Classic Steam Iron
Grabbit Magnetic Pin Cushion
Fiskars 8-inch scissors
Juki TL-2010Q
Creative Grids 6.5" Square Ruler
Quilt design software: Electric Quilt

What's in a Name Tag?

To help people get to know each other, the Baltimore Modern Quilt Guild coordinated a name tag swap.

I decided that I want to do some tiny paper piecing to make sure I got it right. I designed a stack of tiny flying geese. I used Electric Quilt 8 to design the paper piecing papers. There is an option to print as many as will fit on a page, so I went with it. There was a printing problem (the user) so I ended up with two pages of these.

I grabbed my bin of scraps and make a couple units. They came out rather nice, I think. 

I added some sashing so I would be sure not to trim off any of those carefully made points. I paired the piecing with an embroidered panel. 

I free motion quilted this on the Juki. It was my first time using the Juki to free motion quilt. It was a great experience! I left loads of room for pins, too. I have two pins attached to my current name tag and I wouldn't want to keep anyone from having room for their flash.

I added the binding and made it into a lanyard. I really hope Marcia likes it!

Tools and supplies (affiliate links):
Creative Grids 6.5" x 24.5" Rectangle
Fiskars Rotary Cutter
Fiskars Self Healing Rotary Cutting Mat
BLACK+DECKER Classic Steam Iron
Grabbit Magnetic Pin Cushion
Fiskars 8-inch scissors
Juki TL-2010Q
Creative Grids 6.5" Square Ruler
Quilt design software: Electric Quilt

divergence

This quilt was a result of one of the Baltimore Modern Quilt Guild bee I participated in last year.

I was the queen bee for the month of April, so I guess it is fitting I finished it in April of this year.

I used the same backing for another quilt and liked it. I thought it would be perfect for this quilt. I quilted swirls as an all-over quilting design. The thread is a very light gray, the same light gray I piece with most of the time.

I think the quilting really adds a dimension to the quilt.

Scrappy binding, again. I really like how this one turned out. Look! I even remembered to label the backing before I loaded it onto the frame.

Free foundation paper-piecing pattern I designed for the bee can be found in this blog post. More about my process and how this one came together is in this post from January.

Make Modern

I made these blocks for a group project.

You can find instructions to make your own Cross-cut Blocks in this post from A Quilter's Table.

My blocks measure at 12.5" by 12.5" (finish at 12") but the idea is the same.

Bee Blocks: May

This month the Baltimore Modern Quilt Guild Queen Bee is Monica. She has set me the task of making two Alpine blocks. White, red, yellow, and teal. All fabrics I definitely had on hand. Someday I will run out of fabric. Someday.

You can find a tutorial for this block by Alyce on The Bee Hive. The stitch and flip method makes up blocks quickly and with accuracy.

I've made myself notes on how to make the block using my favorite tools for flying geese units (Easy Angle ruler, the Companion Angle ruler, and my recently purchased 6.5" square ruler from Creative Grids for the square and rectangular cuts). Sadly, this method does not work very well for a square-in-a-square block, but I'm totally okay with that.

Two finished blocks ready for the next meeting of the Baltimore Modern Quilt Guild.

Do you have favorite cutting rulers that make traditional piecing easier? Do you have a square-in-a-square technique that is quick and accurate? I would love to learn about it.

Bee Blocks: April

April was my month to be queen bee for one of the Baltimore Modern Quilt Guild's bees.

This bee is based on stash fabric, so members should be able to pull fabrics from their collection to create two 12.5" by 12.5" blocks (unfinished), or similar square inches of blocks. The blocks should not be overly complicated. (Do not download the image below, it is only an image and not a foundation. The foundation is linked in the text below the image.)

I wanted a gaggle of flying geese. I also wanted to make it really simple for everyone to make the blocks. I set myself the task of using EQ7 to make foundations for simple paper piecing, if that was something they wanted to try. They can also use their favorite method to create flying geese of the appropriate size. You can download my foundation to make your own flying geese. Make sure you print "actual size" and measure to make sure the outer line measures 6.5" by 9.5" before printing all your foundations.

I printed out my foundations and pulled some fabric from my collection. I'm not going to provide a step-by-step foundation paper piecing tutorial as there are so many out there. This one from Fons & Porter has nice video tutorial. I asked for five of these units from each of the bee members. This works out to one goose unit less than two 12.5" squares would be if sewn into squares.

I made two blocks using this method.

I also cut several flying geese units using my favorite rulers for this kind of work: The Easy Angle and the Companion Angle. Bonnie Hunter has some great videos about her ruler that does the same thing these two rulers do.

I didn't sew my geese units into blocks yet. I'm going to wait until I have the units from the other members of the bee so I can scatter mine around to give it all a little more uniformity.

A super-sized thank you to Jane at Projects by Jane. Without her tutorial I would have been lost and unable to upload and share this foundation for paper piecing the geese. Jane has loads of great stuff and patterns on her site so you should go check those out, too.

Bee Blocks: March

Thuis month I made bee blocks for the queen bee using a pattern from Blossom Heart Quilts. The block is called Alpine.

I pulled the requested colors from my stacks and stacks of fabric and cut two blocks for the bee. I didn't use the exact cutting directions because I'm not a fan of stitch and flip construction for flying geese blocks. I used my Easy Angle and Easy Companion Angle rules to cut those geese and their corners.

A slight miscalculation in cutting and they ended up a little more scrappy than I had planned, but I don't mind. Another project checked off for the week.

Stringing Along: Quilting

Last week I posted about this string quilt. I finished the assembly and added a border. Why did I add a border? I think a border, while not always necessary for the design, is important for stabilizing the center of the quilt. All of these string blocks and the on-point setting made it pretty obvious to me that I would need to stabilize the quilt before loading onto the frame.

My favorite place to pick up wide backing fabric is Spring Water Designs. Every time I to they have something that just works with my quilt top. This backing was no exception. I embroidered the label directly onto the backing fabric before loading onto the quilting frame.

Not surprisingly, I found that this quilt was a little oversized but still fit onto my frame. I did buy batting for this project because I didn't want to have to piece batting. I generally buy batting by the roll so my limit (without piecing batting) is 90". This quilt is almost exactly 90" wide so that wasn't going to work.

I went nuts with the quilting. I quilted feathers, I echoed the feathers. I quilted swirls and echoed those. This quilt is full of several different quilting motifs and I love the overall effect.

I love playing with different designs. This is the back of the quilt so you can really see the quilting detail. I really need to make a quilt with some negative space and do some free-form quilting. quilting it over busy piecing doesn't give it a chance to shine.

Here it is all quilted. I still need to add the binding and get some good photographs of this one.

For those three people who follow my blog, I apologize for being late with the third post the week. I always mean to blog regularly but this week got sort of busy with after work social events, almost no craft time, and even less opportunity to sit down in front of my computer and write a post. I'll try to do better next week.

Do you make scrappy quilts? What about string quilts that use up those skinny leftovers?

Bee Blocks: February

The queen bee for the first round of the Baltimore Modern Quilt Guild set me a simple task. Make the equivalent of two 12" bu 12" blocks in whatever makes you happy. I dug through my 2.5" charms and found enough to make a single 6" by 12" piece.

I also pulled out my Quick Curve ruler and directions to make this darling churn dash block (instructions for this block found in the Curve It Up pattern). It is always fun to make something a new way.

Then I made two flying geese units that measure at 6" by 12". That means that I have at least one 6" by 12" block too many. I suppose she will have to suffer through my block-making craze.

Now I just need to plan what blocks I want for my month.

Stringing Along

I have been making string blocks for a long time. Long enough that it is time to make something. If you want to learn more about string blocks, and how I made these blocks using my vintage treadle sewing machine, check out this post from over a year ago. I joined the blocks using a more modern machine but that had more to do with the time I had and the fact that I had house guests than anything else.

I piece my string blocks on a thin paper foundation like Bonnie Hunter suggests in her free tutorial. I used Electric Quilt 7 to make sure I had enough blocks and got piecing.

This quilt will be about a queen size at about 89" by 97" or so. That depends on the final border but that is the plan. It is bright and scrappy and absolutely awesome.

If you want to see the story behind my vintage sewing machine (nearly 100 years old and still sews a pretty stitch) my adventure began in this post from 2014. Old sewing machines are amazing creations that will outlive me just like mine lived longer than my gran.