short stories

A finish! I have been following Penny's quilt-along. It has been a lot of fun.

All the fun Heather Ross prints in the center of the blocks gave name to this quilt - "Short Stories".

Here the quilt is on display for the photographer. You can see the curtain clips holding the top edge. I used them to wall baste this quilt, and am quite happy with my new technique:

the quilt was hung on the wall, secured by the clips, top facing the wall

I used some painters tape to stretch it out and fasten the sides and bottom to the wall

the backing was aligned (center length and width) to the top and pinned to the top edge with quilters safety pins

then I just kept smoothing out the back and pinning ...

In addition to the 'quilt as you go', I quilted in the ditch between the blocks, and added some additional L shaped in the ditch quilting in each block a well. The batting is Warm and White 100% cotton.

My blocks ended up 13.25" from a start at 14.5". I think calculating an additional 1.5" to your finished block gives you a bit of room for squaring up your blocks.

The finished quilt measures 66" * 80". It is backed and bound with some of my favorite fabrics from Denyse Schmidts' "Katie Jump Rope" line.

Thank you Penny for hosting this fun quilt-along! Next time I may try making these blocks in a courthouse style. They are a lot of fun to make...

; )

wip

... hang in there ...

the quilt top is coming together...

and I need a break...

going on a vacation, maybe...

... oh, no! It's raining so bad, I would have to be a mermaid...

quilting along

Having fun - sewing log cabins in a new to me way: quilt as you go - following Penny's aka Sewtakeahike's Quilt-along.

One of the fascinating things about the quilt-along is mixing a lot of different fabric / scraps / leftover strings by dividing them in two groups: light and dark. Penny's blocks are great, and tempted me to look through my stash for my light / mostly white fabrics. I soon discovered there wasn't a whole lot of them.... Lots of mediums, few darks, few lights. So I had to make a note to myself to try to balance that in the future!

I was lucky to have some Warm & White 100% cotton batting in my stash, and started playing. Some of my favorite Heather Ross prints and her Munki Munki (deconstructed pajamas parts) soon found their way into the blocks. I used quite colorful fabrics as the darks, and decided to add more white than the original idea. After making some blocks I tried to find more variations of the light / dark compositions.

As you might see, the blocks are not trimmed yet. So far I have made 20 blocks, and are aiming for another ten. I am having fun, using up my few light fabrics, and a lot of thread....

A little warning: this is so much fun it's highly addictive ... Take a look!

Have fun

; )