A Dozen Bouquets Quilt

Here's the remake/update of the Flower Bouquets quilt I made in March 2020 that I promised to give you this week. I renamed it A Dozen Bouquets in November 2020 after the update.

The Story: A friend wanted this quilt for his mother, but needed it to be a California King size rather than a twin. Hmmm, an opportunity to learn a couple new things. OK. Let's do this!

I would have to unpick the binding and add 12" borders to all sides, plus add batting in the middle. After speed watching some YouTube videos and mulling it over for days, it came together in my mind.

One difficulty lay if matching fabric.  Anyone who has bought fabric for a project, then changed what they wanted to do with the fabric they bought has probably encountered having to match colors that are no longer available. I had a little fabric left from making the quilt plus the stuff I trimmed off from the back after quilting it the last time, the binding strips I could used (no longer enough to do the new binding), plus about a yard of coordinating fabric that I never used. I found 1/2 yard of dark green that went with it and then added white to fill in the rest.  I spent about 15 hours piecing and sewing those borders together and onto the quilt and adding more batting. Then it was ready to quilt.

Since this quilt was an opportunity to learn new things, I decided to try my hand at turning a quilt and matching a pantograph on the mitered corners. I then filled in the rest with echoes, lines and swirls. Threw on some white binding, a quilt label and it was done.

Note to self: It's is much easier to make a quilt in the correct order than change it after it's done. I'm glad to have tried and learned something new, but quite frankly, I don't think I want to make a habit of doing this kind of thing again. 

Small stack of quilt - 3 weeks

After only about 3 weeks of having my longarm, I was feeling good about my stack of quilts for charity.

Green/Pink/Purple/Gold Flower Bouquets Quilt

More fabric from my sister-in-law's "Ugly Fabric" bin. I really like the way it turned out with the striped purple fabric. The purple fabric had stripes in varying shades going from a pastel to very dark in large stripes. Not exactly an ombre, but I tried to give it that look in the purple sashing. Considering what I had to work with (using only the stuff she gave me with next to nothing left over), I think it turned out pretty well.

For the quilting, I did an all over pantograph design called "Bora Bora" from Urban Elementz. The batting is Warm and White.

The backing I set aside for it, was not quite as big as it needed to be. Hmmm, what can you do? Well, I found a lavender fabric and added some strips. Very little fabric left over (which makes life interesting when 9 months after finishing, I needed to enlarge the quilt. I'll try to post that one next week.)

Mustard/Green/Pink, Flying Geese Pinwheel

Many long years ago, I was visiting my sister-in-law, Denise, and she took me to her fabric stash and told me I could have some. She had some really nice fabric, but I didn't want to take her good stuff, things that she would use. Then my eye caught sight of a bin labeled "Ugly Fabric."  "Ugly Fabric?" I asked. Well, not necessarily "ugly," just fabric she was sick of looking at. Always interested in a challenge of that sort, I pulled coordinating fabric from her "ugly" bin to make 2 quilts. Here is the first.

Quilting, I tried my hand at an all over swirl except in the mustard triangle which have an accent triangle in them, meeting at the center point.  I also tried a hook feather in the border. Still need a lot more practice in both the swirls and the borders, but I learned a lot, and that's the point.

Gray and White Charity Quilt

The 4th quilt that I quilted on my longarm. This is the first pantograph I attempted (Zest by Urban Elementz). For those that don't know, a pantograph is an edge to edge pattern that you trace, for me, with a laser light, from the back of the machine. As you move the machine from the side farthest from the needle, the machine quilts the same pattern you are tracing on the quilt. All edge to edge patterns, whether a pantograph or freehand, do not concern themselves with the piecing, but cover the entire quilt, from edge to edge, with the same pattern. 

It took a bit to feel comfortable with it, but by the end, I was feeling much better (and wishing I could go back and fix the little wobbles at the beginning). 

Fabric for the top was donated by Jamie, and the back was donated by Trenna.

Quilt #2 for Charity - practice with rulers

 Charity Quilt #2. This was my first attempt at ruler work, and of course I chose to do curves which are tricky. Fabric was donated by Wanda for the front and Trenna for the back.

Red and White Charity Quilt

My third quilt which will also go to charity. Fabric was donated by Jamie for the top and Trenna for the back. More ruler work with curves, but added straight lines and learning to hit markings.

This turned out so well that APQS (my longarm is an APQS Millennium), asked to repost my Instagram pictures to their Instagram page. Woo Hoo!

First Practice Quilt on my Longarm

At the end of January 2020, I finally became the owner of my own longarm quilting machine.  After the set up, I began practicing. I will begin posting pictures of the quilts that I have quilted over the last 9 months.

Many friends pass me their unwanted fabric.  With it, I have been making quilt tops for the last 8 plus years as I saved my pennies, to be able to practice my quilting once I got a longarm. These, I plan to give to a women's shelter once they are quilted. This first one  I played with free motion - a different thing in each square.

Baby Quilt for Sarah

 A friend from church was having a baby shower. I debated what to bring and two days before the party, I decided I'd just throw together a baby quilt. The quilting was done on my domestic machine - probably about 6 months before I got my longarm, but for some reason she didn't want to wait until then to have the baby, so... there it is. She probably liked the back the most. Good thing it's reversible. 

Front

Back

Cathy's Falling Charms Quilt

I was honored when Cathy asked me to quilt her Falling Charms Quilt top. 

The quilt design is called Modern Twist from Urban Elementz. 

This was finished 1 October 2020.