Memory Quilts - Getting on with it

Doing my very best to stay focussed on the Memory Quilts here, even though so many other lovelies are calling my name from the various books, boxes and shelves of my sewing room.  La la la la - I'm not listening!  But oh how I wish I could.  Just for a small project or two.  I'm in the mood to do something I can start and finish in a weekend.  Must not give in, must remain focussed!

So, the result of such amazing self-denial is that the red pixel heart memory quilt top is now all pieced

and so is the aqua one.  I'm happy that both seem to have worked well and that the heart made from my Brother-in-law's shirt fabrics is well enough defined in each case.  These tops measure 60.5" which is a little smaller than Judith's original pattern (I used a slightly smaller square as my pixel base size).

I've hung the tops up for now as I ponder potential sources of backings - to piece or not to piece?  Will depend greatly on available suitable fabrics and available time and as you well know, pieced backing are not my favourite thing to do.  We'll see ....

With the pixels underway, I did break up the monotony of sewing so many squares together (there's a lot of them in two quilts!) by starting on the wonky stars that will be the feature of the memory quilt for our nephew.  I do love making wonky stars.  Nice tutorial here if you've never tried them before.

Once the aqua heart top was completed, I whipped up the remaining wonky stars (9 in total) and then spent an evening on my knees laying out the third memory quilt.  I do like these randomly placed stars and coloured pixels (stardust perhaps?) among the more muted shirt fabric background.

Layout finalised, I gathered everything up in labelled sections to make the piecing easier (I hope) and to avoid muddling up squares.  After spending so long trying to make sure no two same fabrics were touching, I do not want to get these shuffled up now!

So, looks like my weekend sewing is sorted.  What will you be up to?

Memory Quilts - Making a Start

Remember the 700+ squares that I needed to cut for my plans for three memory quilts?  Yep, this is them.  That was a bit of a cutting marathon, but once I was in the groove I just kept cutting and counting (and choosing new iplayer programmes to catch up on).

So as you can see above and below I used the pile of aqua charms and the pile of red charms as background fabrics for each of the girls' quilts.  The hearts are compiled from their dad's shirt squares and I think they are contrasting enough to work well.

These quilts are made to Judith's Pixellated Heart Quilt pattern which I used very successfully before.  I'm hoping to piece these over the next few weeks and see a little more progress before too long.  Meanwhile a small pile of shirt fabrics and bright print squares awaits layout when I feel my back is up to crawling around the living room floor again!

Pixellated Heart Baby Quilt

Presenting my scaled down version of Katy's Pixellated Heart Quilt from Issue 1 of Quilt Now magazine - ta da!

Those fold lines have come out a bit too clearly in the pic - ugh!

I loved this quilt when I flipped through the magazine's first issue and decided that it would make a perfect baby girl quilt option for my cousin whose second baby is due at Christmas.  (For my boy option see this post.)  As the original is more or less double bed sized, I opted to re-size this one using 2.5" cut squares for my pixels.  So, this quilt finishes at 42.5" square.

I had intended to quilt it with straight line grids either side of the seam lines but after stitching all of the horizontal lines I called it quits because it was getting a little bit stiff.  I guess that was just a bit much quilting for pixels of this size.

Anyway, there it is - pretty, pink and suitably baby girlish!

Also adding that this is another FAL finish - yay!

Pixellated Heart Finish

My pixellated heart quilt is complete, all neatly trimmed, bound and labelled.

It will be a gift for a friend as you can see by the label - a little heart porthole label!  (Fuzzy ipad pic.)

This is such a happy finish and I think that truly it must be one of my all time favourites.  Thanks for the fun class J!

Making you even more jealous

Some of you left wistful, envious comments on my last post about how lucky I am to be able to go to Judith's classes.  Well, you are right of course.  Judith's classes are always great fun and she is a brilliant teacher with a real gift for explaining techniques and encouraging us through her great projects.  I love being able to be there and know how lucky I am to have a modern class available to me when I can go. I'm also mightily privileged to know this amazing woman as a dear friend and sharing friendship and our stitching love together is a total winner of a combination! (She's also magnificently patient when I get myself in a muddle and just need to work my way through it with steam slowly escaping from my ears - happens every series of classes about week 3 or 4, just ask her!)

Anyway, at the risk of making you even more jealous, I have been going along on Thursday nights to Judith's pixellated heart project class.  Steam from ears happened at week 1 this time as I seriously underestimated how much time it would take me to lay out all those charms into rows and the lights in the building were going out while my layout still had holes in the middle! (Sorry Judith!)

Thankfully, weekly progress has been good since then and this weekend I took to basting and quilting my pixellated heart because I know that I cannot make class this week.  Vertical wavy line quilting made this a pleasure for me to work through and I am happy with the results.  I could be tempted to add two nice borders to this quilt and it would be big enough for my double bed, but I'd better resist as I plan to give it away to a friend.  I will try not to do so through gritted teeth 'cos I am falling a little bit in love with how it looks.

The pixellated heart works really well with contrasting volumes of fabrics and J recommended using low volume prints for the background.  My selection are a bit lower than low volume ("mute", perhaps?) being a medley of neutral print odds and ends I have had gathering for a long time.  Traditional cream on creams, vanilla oval elements, taupe swirling vines, pale beige damask prints and cafe au lait coloured spots keep this background very subdued but I really love the gentle variation in tone created by mixing them as charms, and it was a great way to use up some fabrics that I don't have enough left of to be a full background in any other quilt.  

I need to warn you now to keep an eye out for Judith's round up post when this class finishes in a couple of weeks.  There are all sorts of fabric combos going into pixellated heart quilts - vintage style, reverse fabric layouts, teal/turquoise hearts and a stunner in blacks - seriously watch out for them!

So, if I've made you really jealous today - nah nah nah nah nah!  Oops did that slip out?