Bee Quilt - Trip Todd

I wasn't in the mood for any sewing during the first weeks of lock down of the Coronavirus Pandemic earlier this year. . 

One day I just took the bee blocks from last year out and put them on the design wall. I liked it so much that I started to arrange them and fill in the gaps. 

I specifically picked these blocks for a toddler quilt. I used blues in different shades, greys and oranges. The main focus was on solids with just a few prints to add interest.  This is the selection:

The blocks are pieced using a method by Debbie of A Quilter's Table called 'wedge slabs' and you can find it here. 

Since a very long time I used my old sewing machine to quilt wavy lines from the selection of stitches. I wanted something that is very stable and can resist the play of not one toddler, not two, no, three toddlers! Born all at ones - yes, triplets! All boys! I called the quilt 'Trip Todd' - short cut for Triplet Toddler. 

I'm so happy to give them this quilt knowing it gets used and loved makes me very happy! 

For the back I used one of my favourite cross hatch fabrics in blue and the binding is a bright orange to give the quilt a nice frame. I applied this binding by machine for extra durability - three boys, you know. 

Thank you to my lovely bee mates from the 'Quilty Circle of Bees' who made those lovely bee blocks: 

Christiane, Friederike, Magda, Melanie. 

QuiP #8 - Splinter

Remember this quilt?

Porcupine Playground Front + Back

The back of my 'Porcupine Playground' quilt just never ceased to amaze me. I knew that someday I would have to revisit this design and make an actual front out of the back I initially designed. So the upcoming QuiltCon submission was a good opportunity to do so.

My plan was to achieve high visual impact with contrasting colours. So I opted for black and white solids, mixed with the ever so amazing cross hatched fabrics by Carolyn Friedlander and the same orange solid I used in 'Porcupine Playground'.

For the back of 'Porcupine Playground' I used left over half-triangles for the off-centered vertical strip. I now improvised the piecing for that dividing strip. I used this tutorial by Debbie of 'A Quilter's Table' to make 'improv spikes'. First back ones.

Then white ones.  My aim was to use a lot of negative space beside that vertical strip of spikes and have indistinct edges, so basically you don't see where the black fabric ends and where the white fabric starts.

I repeated the idea of having little orange areas in the quilt as focal points to add a little interest.

Whereas the back of my 'Porcupine Playground' quilt was to use up scraps and left over fabrics there was a lot of editing and careful arrangement of colour and fabric placement this time round.

I quilted straight lines with white Aurifil 40wt thread first and wanted to quilt with black thread as well, but that didn't go according to plan. I don't know of you have ever tried to sew with black thread on white fabric, but it just doesn't look good.

I spent an entire weekend trying to figure this out. I thought it's my thread tension (which was a bit off) but it seems as though a lot of people had similar difficulties. Apparently the loop from the bobbin thread is so visible on the white fabric that it just looks odd.

So I used dark grey thread instead, and I was so happy that I did. Black thread on black fabric is invisible. Not so the dark grey, it created a such nice texture. Exactly what I wanted.

I used a lot of orange solids for the back. The different coloured thread looks so good on it!
And I applied the binding again by hand. Three evenings. That seems to be the standard time frame for my size of quilts. This one is rather big though with 60 x 84" (1.52 x 2.33m).

I just finished it in time for the QuiltCon submissions. Fingers crossed that it gets accepted!
Stay tuned for the full reveal of  'Splinter'.

How to - roll up your binding while sewing

I thought I share another little tip today.

There are different methods of how to roll up your binding and this is how I do it:

I use a wooden spool, which I bought in a lovely fabric store in Dublin. For this baby quilt the binding wasn't too long, it does get quite full when it's a lap size quilt though, but it still works!

While sewing the binding to the quilt I place the spool on my lap. The binding rolls up nicely and lays already flat on the quilt. It works really well for me. Try it out!

What do you do with your binding?

Linking this to the 'Tips and Tutorials Tuesday' at Late Night Quilter.