Zipper Quilt: my first completed charity quilt!

 I have been a complete slacker and haven't kept up with my blogging.  So, here's a record of my first-ever charity quilt, all in one place.

Some great fabrics I scored on sale from Connecting Threads (January 23):

Apparently there was some crooked printing on one edge of the fabric (hence the sale price), though I mostly couldn't see it.  Just in case a more discerning eye than mine could actually see this defect, I decided to use a pattern with some small pieces, which would completely hide any crooked motifs.  Some pieces cut and ready to use January 24:

 Some assembled blocks January 29:

February 13: More blocks with the pattern, Zipper Quilt, from "The Modern Quilt Workshop" by Bill Kerr and Weeks Ringle.  I'm really enjoying the book, by the way! 

 April 3: putting together the puzzle pieces!  Up till this point, I'd just been choosing neighboring colors by random, but once I had most of them together I needed to plan the rest.

 Here's the assembled quilt top April 10:

 I decided it was just a little narrow and was busy enough it could benefit from a border.  I added a 2" white border, and a solid brown that is 2" at the top and bottom and 4" on the sides. 

 Here's a corner of the quilt sandwich (the white on the outside is batting).  I decided to use a wonderfully soft brown flannel for the back. 

 June 7: finally done with the quilting!  I went with a straight-line design. 

 Here's a close-up of the quilting, which you can see even better on the solid brown quilt back:

  

And a completed quilt!  June 9:

 

I finished just in time for the charity event.  The Wisconsin Dual Sport Riders have very generously been doing a Ride for Research every summer to support cancer research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  Our lab has benefited in so many ways; not only has their funding really helped us out, but all the WIDSR folks are amazing people, and their friendship has been invaluable.  Plus, the boss lets us out of the lab to go to the ride and say thank you! 

June 11: This was our (very small) part of their incredible event.

This photo is just awesome and self-explanatory.  I'll never be this cool. 

 

 

I was totally bowled over when they decided to auction off the quilt; I donated it as a raffle prize!  It was completely amazing to donate a quilt and have it raise $250 for cancer research.  A million thanks to Barb, the hospice nurse who was so generous with her bidding. 

All in all, an incredible experience.  It felt so good to enjoy my love of playing with fabric, then donate the resulting quilt to the folks who use their passion for "building community goodwill through motorcycling" to support the research I care so much about. 

Thanks, guys!
~Phosphorelated

SeamedUP!

Yay! SeamedUP is here! Ever since I started quilting, I've been waiting for a Ravelry for quilters! Then I started hearing about some quilting podcasters who, instead of waiting for this magic website to appear, decided to make it happen! And I'm really glad they did.

I just got my account approved, and I'm very excited. They're not quite ready to be fully open to everyone yet, they're in the second round of beta testing, and I'm so, so happy to be allowed to play. They're currently letting "aunts and uncles" (folks who donated money to help get SeamedUP off the ground) set up accounts, and they should be ready for prime time soon!

So, if you have been wanting Ravelry for quilters (or sewing generally), and haven't supported SeamedUP, go visit them and see what you can do!

I confess, I'm currently at my least-favorite stage with this website; on Ravelry, entering my stash is my least favorite thing to do, but I love being able to do a virtual dig through it all, so I know it's worthwhile. I'm really excited to have everything up and running, get all my projects entered, start making friends...fantastic!

So, thanks so much to the folks who are making it all happen.
~Phosphorelated

P.S. I'm Phosphorelated on SeamedUP, as well as on Ravelry, so feel free to friend me either place!

two weekends, two quilt tops!

Last weekend I finished the Color Blocks quilt top; this weekend I finished assembling the stripey quilt top! Now it's time to get some quilting done. I'm trying to decide how to quilt both tops. For the stripey quilt, I'd like to emphasize the "woven" nature of it by quilting the warm and cool blocks differently, and I think I'd like to use a more organic quilting pattern to contrast with the linear nature of the blocks themselves. I have no idea what kind of quilting pattern to use, though. Or what color thread; a silver grey, or something bright? Different colors on the warm and cool squares? So many decisions that could give this quilt such different personalities.

Any ideas?
~Phosphorelated

stripey rainbow quilt

I've squared up my stripey blocks to 13.25" and I've assembled all the blocks I've got left from the first two sets of 2.5" precut strips. I think I like it, but I've only got 15 blocks, and I think I want 30 (for a 5x6 layout). I'm in the mood for large, colorful quilts to curl up under during these dark, dreary winter days.
~Phosphorelated

quilt top complete!

My Color Blocks quilt top is done! It sat around for a bit after I got the sashing between all the blocks done because I wanted it to be bigger. So I added an 11" border on each side, in the same grey (Kona cotton in coal, I believe), and it's now 60" square. I couldn't have planned it better; I bought the Kona cotton on sale at JoAnn's, and got a very odd amount (2 5/8 yard or something uneven like that) because I bought whatever was left on the bolt. There are only a few scraps of the grey left; a couple 2.5"x5" and a few even smaller than that. Talk about meant to be!
~Phosphorelated

stripey quilt

I've been playing with those bold-colored 2.5" strips some more. I keep thinking about my earlier ideas about a woven-looking quilt made of stripes going in opposite directions. It's very simple, but I think I like it.Cheerful, no?
~Phosphorelated

color blocks

What I'm working on...

Cheers,
~Phosphorelated

color blocks

During Connecting Threads' black Friday sale, I bought a bunch of half-priced precut fabric bundles, including a set each of warm and cool colored fat quarters. I didn't have any plans, I just wanted to play with some solids and see what happened. I also bought some charm squares (5" precut squares), and one day I looked at the charm squares on my pressing mat and thought they might look nice just like that, 5" squares with 1.5" sashing in between. Then in the middle of the night I wondered what would happen if I took all the warm colors and made a quilt out of them, and one out of cool colors. But I couldn't decide if I wanted to use white, grey or black between the squares. Then I wondered what would happen if I made one of each -- the same warm squares repeated three times, once with a white background, once with grey, and once with black. Colors look so different against those three colors, and I thought it would be neat to watch how they changed depending on the background.
But when I laid out the warm colors to do this, they looked a bit lonely, so I added the cool colors:
And they looked happy. By then I just wanted to sew, and three sets seemed pretty ambitious, so I went with grey, a color I haven't used much. Always good to try something new, right?

All pinned and ready to play!



What's inspiring you today?
~Phosphorelated

a baby quilt finished -- before the baby!

My first effort at making a baby quilt stalled badly while I was sewing on the binding. I somehow got the binding a little too short when I sewed in on the front by machine; at first I thought it would be fine and plowed on with the hand stitching. Then I just completely lost all motivation. The quilt went into time-out. I realized just wasn't happy with the too-short binding, which led to an icky puckered section:So I ripped a bunch of stitches, realized the binding had been almost an inch too short,

and proceeded to fix it. Because the baby is due soonish, I decided to finish the binding by machine. I think it looks fine.
So I got it packaged up for its new little recipient-to-be:
And shortly afterward, got this picture of the quilt on the crib!
Now all it needs is a baby.
~Phosphorelated

P.S. I'm immensely proud that my first baby quilt is done before the baby arrived. I'm terrible with deadlines! Doesn't it feel great to get something right for once? Happiness all 'round.

some Friday play

Yesterday a good friend of the lab came by and brought us holiday cheer. We'd all been a bit down, with the snow, and trying to finish a manuscript I was hoping would be done this summer, and one thing and another. But our friend cheered us up so much I finally came home and played with this:

Connecting Threads had a black Friday sale selling strip sets for half price, so I bought a couple in bright solids. It was such a great deal that I've been hoarding them ever since, and today I finally busted them out and started to play.
I cut 14" strips and started to piece them together.
I made blocks in warm and cool colors

and played with how those might fit into a woven stripe effect I was thinking about a while back.
I've also been wanting to try making a version of "Sonja's Windows" (a pattern in a quilting magazine somewhere, I don't know which one) ever since I saw some here.

I squared my blocks up to 13.5", and, right sides together, pinned a cool block with the stripes going vertically to a warm block with stripes going horizontally.
Sew around all four edges:
Cut apart on both diagonals:
and the result is four stripey half square triangle blocks!
I'm not really sure yet if this is what I want to do with these strips, and whether I'd put sashing between the blocks or not, but it surely is fun to just sew some happy colors together and see what happens!
I had a great Friday night. How about you?
~Phosphorelated

a new project

I've been inspired to try making a spiderweb quilt. I've been saving these fabrics for a while, as I have an idea who this quilt might go to, but for a long time couldn't decide on a pattern. I'm liking the white stars.
~Phosphorelated

Two string quilt tops

I've finished piecing two string quilt tops, a small lap sized one:
and a matching doll quilt. I had to make two because the brown I used for the strings doesn't quite match.
They're still not my favorite, but I'll work on finishing them and perhaps they'll find a good home someday.

It feels good to make progress!
~Phosphorelated