Jen's Quilts

  Earlier this year (or was it last year?) Grandma gave me a stack of pink hexagons that had been made by her sister.  Grandma had put some of the hexagons into a quilt, but there had been heaps, and these were left over. I wasn't 100% sure what I was going to do with them, but knew I wanted to highlight the 'tumbling block' aspect.  And being a very pink quilt, decided to pair it with grey.  I found a light grey for the background, and an Australiana style floral in pink and grey for a wide border. After deciding on the layout (which used all but one block), I started sewing the hexagons together in rows, with a heap of Y seams.  Once the whole centre part of the top was together, it sat there for a long while until I decided what to quilt - I was going to quilt the centre and add the borders later.  To bring out the tumbling block, I settled on 3 different designs for the blocks, and each block would have a different design on its 3 faces, with the densit...

  Grandma and I both like many of the quilt patterns shown by Donna Jordan of Jordan Fabrics , and at the end of last year we decided we would each make the Lone Star quilt.  We both started in January, with grandma finishing a couple of months ago, while I finally finished the binding last night. The quilt is made from a jelly roll, by strip piecing and sub cutting into diamonds.  Sounded straightforward enough, but it turned out that figuring out the right amount of offset to get those 45 degree diamond shapes to line up when sewing them together was trickier than it looks.  I definitely ended up redoing some seams, and a couple more than once, trying to get the seams to line up.  Once the diamonds were together, the setting triangles were added for the background.  I really like the black background on this quilt, but sewing two pieces of black fabric together was required much more lighting than usual.   I decided to go off-pattern, and did a ...

My plan for this year was to finish quilts, given I had a few tops sitting around or nearly complete, and a number of other blocks 'donated' to me by grandma.  The only quilt I was going to start was a lone star quilt, which grandma and I were going to both do, making a version each. But fairly early in the year, the Fat Quarter Shop released a free Jelly Roll Sizzle pattern which I thought would be great for a half jelly roll I had lying around, and then Pat Sloan showed her version with an extra border.  So that was it - I was making a baby quilt with my half jelly roll.  The jelly roll I had was nothing fancy, mostly blues and whites, but with a pop of green, and when I spotted a lime green Devonstone solid I knew that would be great for the accent pinwheels. I adjusted the extra border pattern to fit the baby quilt size, and I added another border to make the quilt a bit larger - I think it ended up approximately 50" square. For quilting, I decided to use a bright g...

  No quilts for ages, and then two completed within weeks of each other.  I had a charm pack I had no idea what to do with, until I found the Magic Charm Quilt Pattern by Hello Melly Designs.  A little bit of background and accent from the usual shop and I had everything I needed to put the top together last year. At one point I found that the light blue background would also be great for the one block wonder I made last year, so I cut out everything I needed for this quilt so the remaining fabric could be used in the other one, in the inner border and maybe the back.  With blocks on point, the quilt was quite fun to put together, though I remember having the blocks all laid out on the floor presented a problem - I'd wake up the next morning and the foster cat had rearranged them into his preferred setting.  Eventually though, the quilt top had the borders on, and it was put in the cupboard with the other unfinished projects. I really wanted to do some edge to...

It's been forever since I finished a quilt.  I've started heaps though.  I did actually finish one last November.  But I forgot to take any photos, and I gave it to it's recipient. A while back grandma gave me 12 blue fat quarters.  I finally found a pattern on the Jordan Fabric website that I thought would be perfect for it.  It was a Moda Fabrics pattern called Scrappy Squares , and I later realised the blue fat quarters were actually Bella Solids, so it was meant to be. I don't remember how long it took to get the sixteen patch squares together, but I do remember I had to be absolutely on my game with the scant quarter inch, which I had to test a few times to get right.   It then took forever to find something for the background Xs.  I didn't want to use another solid, and eventually found a grey denim look fabric at a little shop that is open to the public just a few times a year. The backing is a rather unfancy blue, but I added in as much of...