SLEEPING DOG QUILTS
This is my “Making Music” Graphic Tee Wall Hanging Top. I found remnants of some 1930’s reproduction fabric in my stash with very similar color to the Tee shirts in my little quilt. I really like the fabric with these blocks.
These are some of the 12 inch blocks from Amy Friend’s “Graphic Tee Quilt Along.”
Now I need to pull off the the foundation pattern papers so that I can sandwich the top and quilt it.
Here are my four completed blocks for Amy Friend’s Graphic Tee Quilt Along. I’m calling my project “Making Music.” I’m going to use them in a wall hanging rather than making the whole quilt in the quilt along project.
My first block was the drumming dog. My second block was a xylophone playing wolf which got revised because that print wasn’t up to the quality of the other fussy cut motifs.
The drumming dog makes me laugh. My grandfather was a high school principal. When my father was a boy, they had a fox terrier. The dog was not allowed in the school, but their house was only a couple of blocks away, and the fox terrier would occasionally appear at assembly and sing along with the national anthem which amused everyone except my grandfather! (Though I know he had a great sense of humor, so off the record, he probably thought it was funny too).
Amy Friend is hosting the Graphic Tee Quilt Along. Her pattern includes T shirt blocks that are 12, 9 and 6 inches square, coming together to make a quilt. All the blocks are foundation pieced.
Foundation piecing is great, but not something I love to do. I’m so slow…it takes me most of day to make a single block. I’m only planning to make four 12 inch blocks which I will use to make a wall hanging. This pattern caught my eye because I love putting pockets on wearable T shirts
I’ve chosen to put real pockets on 2 block and the other two will have a design patch sewn into the block. Playing music is the theme of this wall hanging. ds
There is an error in my piecing on the two T blocks with the real pockets. My neckline is angular but in the pattern it actually is a smooth curve. Since I made the same error in two blocks, and I like the look, I’ve decided to leave it as is. So now it’s my “decision choice”, the quilter’s line to explain an “error”.
I’ve made two other blocks so far, but I'm thinking I might rework those. But I do really like this one!
Peace Dove, Hanging, 21 1/2 inches square
Peace Dove, Hanging, 21 1/2 inches square
Though my Tuesday Improv Block group I heard that until March 18, Tamara Kate Design was selling her Peace Dove Mini Quilt Pattern to raise funds for the Ukraine Humanitarian Crisis Appeal through the Canadian Red Cross. The Canadian Red Cross was matching any donations they received which was awesome. I thought this was an awesome, win-win way to support folks in Ukraine.
While the pattern is great, I have to say that foundation piecing is not my forte! If you’ve never done foundation piecing, the sections of the pattern are printed on a series of printer size pieces of paper which have outlines of each patch and the order with which they are to be sewed. The fabric is placed on the underside of the piece of paper, flipped away from the section to be covered and stitched down through the lines printed on the top side of the paper. The finished block will be the mirror image of the design printed on the paper. Essentially it means working backwards and upside down! But it does make a perfect block and some folks will only piece this way.
I can foundation piece. I’ve even designed some foundation pieced patterns. The Castel St. Angelo in Rome, far left block on the wall hanging on my February 24, 2014 post, and the castle in Homburg, Germany, top row, far left block in the {Big} City Girl Quilt are my foundation patterns. But I still find it challenging to do foundation piecing.
Peace Dove, is probably the hardest quilt I’ve even pieced. Despite the excellent pattern, I did a lot of “un-sewing” in order to make it perfect. If you make this pattern, here are some tips from my experience.
Use a light box to place the pieces of fabric on the under side of the paper pattern. While I often have used light in a window to do this, this pattern is complex and I found the light box was essential.
Using special paper for foundation piecing which is semi-transparent would be really helpful. I just used copy paper which worked, but it was hard to see through it at times, even with the light box.
The pattern calls for 1/2 yard of fabric for the background. And yes, that is just enough. I had 20 inches, but it came from deep in my stash so there was no hope of getting any more if I rand out. Half way through I was convinced I wasn’t going to have enough fabric, so I started adding other teal fabrics. It turned out I would have had enough fabric, but it would have been really tight. I’d recommend having 3/4 yard of background fabric which will give you plenty…even if you make some cutting errors.
When sewing the sections of pattern with the branch, line them up carefully. Place a straight pin through the seam lines on both papers to check if the 2 sections of the branch match perfectly. If all looks good, sew just an inch of the seam where the branch connects. Stop and check to see if the sections align perfectly when sewn. If not, just unpick that 1 inch of stitching and try again. Once you know the branch is matched, finish sewing the whole seam. It’s a lot easier to unpick and inch than 8-10 inches of tiny stitches!
Have fun and give yourself lots of time to sew this pattern together. It probably took me about 18-20 hours to complete. But then that may be because I don’t find foundation piecing intuitive!
Even though this was a complicated quilt, I’m delighted with the finished piece. This quilted hanging is going to my church to be a pulpit hanging which the pastor plans to use during “Ordinary Time”, the many weeks in the church liturgy that stretch from the end of Pentecost in the Spring to the beginning of Advent before Christmas.
But Peace shouldn’t be limited to a season. It is something we need everyday of the year.
Free Range Chicken Quilt 37 inches square
Free Range Chicken Quilt 37 inches square
Free range chicken quilt!! Five chickens, one rooster and one egg hiding in the grass!
As I explained in my last post, the foundation-pieced chickens and rooster started as patterns from the Electric Quilt 8 Block Library to which I added some details. I love the resulting birds! The free motion quilting was so much fun to do!
Here's how I quilted the wing on the chicken. I used the corner on the chicken's back as my Two initial anchor points for my scallop design. Then I stitched the pattern freehand without any marking. That's how I do all my free motion quilting unless I am quilting an animal shape. I have to pre-draw animals so they stitch out consistently. Use the arrows on the photos below to scroll through the steps I used to make the chicken's wing.
Here's the backing fabric on the quilt--another of Makower UK's fabulous prints! I can walk through a fabric store and am always drawn to fabrics printed by this company! This fabric has been in my stash for a while and not longer readily available.
"Lila's Kitchen Hens" The Henley Studios, Makower UK
This quilt makes me happy! It could be a table topper but I'll probably hanging it up.
8 inch finished rooster block
8 inch finished rooster block
I was flipping through Electric Quilt's EQ8 Block Library book with all the photos of the blocks in the EQ8 block library and found simple chicken and turkey foundation piece blocks. I wasn't planning on making a chicken quilt....but what fun!
The chicken and turkey in the Electric Quilt block library didn't have combs on their heads and I wanted the rooster to strut his stuff a bit more. So I put each block into the EQ8 EasyDraw Block function and added combs, changed the turkey's wattle a bit and gave him a wing so he could be more colorful. The two patterns from the EQ8 block library are left and center below. My revised rooster is on the right.
Here is the chicken with the added comb. It is still a fairly simple foundation pieced block.
8 inch finished Chicken block
I'm using a variety of fabrics for my chickens that have subtle designs but read as white or cream. The other blocks in the quilt are blues, greens and lavenders with some yellow accents in the border. It takes time to do these foundation pieced blocks, but I really like the results!
If you have EQ8 and are designing quilts and not necessarily starting from scratch all the time, I highly recommend purchasing a copy of the Electric Quilt 8 Library book. While all the blocks are available online in the program, I see things flipping through the book I might not have found (or knew I even wanted) looking at the blocks in the program.
