Colorful Path to Market Quilt

Last summer I heard about hand dyed fabrics from Fiber on a Whim.  I wanted to see (and touch!) some of their fabric so ordered their Kona Pack 5.5, a stack of 35  5.5 inch squares, all dyed in different colors.  Such fun!  I knew I wanted to make a Modern quilt with them but didn't have a plan when I ordered them.  They have great original Crayon Box Pattern for their Kona Pack available on their website but I wanted to try something else.

I found the inspiration for the pattern I designed for this quilt after seeing Ashley Newcomb's Modern Hexagon Quilt on The Modern Quilt Guild blog.  I really liked what she did with the cascading hexagons and the outlying blocks.  

I made this quilt is for one of my dog trainers.  She has some African print art work and the African print fabric echoes her art. I was so excited to find it!

Front of quilt

Back of Quilt

SEWING THE QUILT

Sewing the color blocks

                  Color strips all done!

In process on the design wall

COLORFUL PATH TO MARKET  PATTERN                                                                          

Finished size after washing: 54.5 x 65”  (approx. 58.5 x 69 unwashed)

Fabric requirements:
-- 34  5.5” squares.  Use all color blocks or add some patterned blocks if desired
(Note: Charm packs have 5” squares so this pattern won’t work for them).
--3 yards solid light grey for background.
--3 yards for backing
--1/2 yard for binding

I recommend using design wall to keep your strips and steps organized.  If you don’t have one, you can mark the backs of each strip with the Row number and Right or Left to keep them in order.

Cut from grey fabric:
Step 1:
14   5.5” strips WOF (width of fabric).  You will recut these in Step 2 and you will need to use your scraps so save them.
22   2 x 5.5” strips

Step 2:
The quilt is strip pieced. There are 14 horizontal strips in the quilt.  Cut the grey WOF strips from step one as noted below:

Strip 1 AND 14:  58.5” grey strip (use 1 WOF strip and scraps from other steps to get the full length)
Strip 2:  From grey WOF strip, cut one 5.5” piece to use on left side of the color blocks and one 35.5 piece to use on the right side of the color blocks. 
Strip 3:  From grey WOF strip, cut one 8.5” piece to use on left side and one 32.5” piece for right side
Strip 4:  From grey WOF strip cut 11.5” piece for left side and 29.5” piece for right side
Strip 5:  From grey WOF strip cut 14.5” piece for left side and 26.5” piece for right side
Strip 6:  From grey WOF strip cut 17.5” piece for left side and 23.5” piece for right side
Strip 7:  From grey WOF strip cut 20.5” piece for left side and 20.5” piece for right side
Strip 8:  From grey WOF strip cut 23.5” piece for left side and 17.5” piece for right side
Strip 9:  From grey WOF strip cut 26.5” piece for left side and 14.5” piece for right side
Strip 10:  From grey WOF strip cut 29.5” piece for left side and 11.5” piece for right side
Strip 11: From grey WOF strip cut 32.5” piece for left side and 8.5” piece for right side
Strip 12:  From grey WOF strip cut 35.5” piece for left side and 5.5” piece for right side
Strip 13:  Use grey WOF strip, one color block and scraps to make a 58.5” wide strip
Strip 14: Same as strip 1

ASSEMBLE STRIPS
--Sew the color block sections first:
         Color block, 2 x 5.5” strip, color block, 2 x 5.5” strip, color block

--Then attach the grey strips as cut in Step 2. 

--Sew the horizontal strips together in order.  To help keep the rows from warping, sew the even numbered rows starting from the Right side and the odd numbered rows from the Left side.

--Back and quilt as desired.


Copyright 2014 Judy Tucker, SleepingDogQuilts@blogspot.com.  You may use this pattern for your personal use only. 

Colorful Path to Market PDF

Finish them February: Part 1

I think it's great that Lee, who blogs at Freshly Pieced Modern Quilts, hosts WIP (Work in Progress) Wednesday and Amandajean, who blogs at Crazy Mom Quilts, runs Finish it up Friday.  Both are Linky parties that encourage folks to keep working on their quilts and then link up to share their photos.

So...
At the beginning of the month, I declared that this month is going to be my Finish them February!
I had a stack of quilt projects that I had bumped last fall so I could work on the Bonnie Hunter Celtic Solstice Mystery Quilt and to have time to finish some presents for the holidays.  Some of the quilts were partially pieced and others needed to be sandwiched and quilted.  The stack of UFO projects on top of the dog's crate was looking more and more like the leaning tower of Pisa!  Not good!

It has been very cold and snowy since the beginning of February which has really helped my progress!  The month is half over and the news is good.  All the piecing is done and only one more quilt needs to be sandwiched.  Here is my stack of quilts waiting to be quilted.

My First February Finish was my Bonnie Hunter 2013 Celtic Solstice Mystery Quilt.  My quilt has a slightly different color combination than the one suggested in the pattern.  Bonnie's color way was orange, green, blue and neutral shirting fabric.  I switched out the orange (not my favorite color) for hot pink.  I've named my quilt My Irish Rose.  It is very rosy!

Flat Stanley was here visiting me from my nephew's second grade class while I was working on the quilt.  We had a big snow storm so he helped me with the quilting!

There is a shamrock free motion quilted in each of the 4 square blocks.

Somewhere in the quilt there is a single 4 leaf clover.  I have no idea where it is!  I love the idea that there is  hidden treasure in the quilting!

Here is the finished quilt.  It didn't take long before Taffy found it on the bed!  This is a great project and I'm thrilled how it turned out!

I'll keep you posted as I continue make progress on Finish them February!  Post a comment if you get some of your own February Finishing done!

Applique quilts from the early days

I got some great lessons in quilting while I was a college student in the upper Midwest.  The grandmother of one of my college roommates taught us both how to do hand quilting with the quilt on a large quilting frame.  That was so much fun. She taught us how to hide our knots and how to keep our stitches small and even. 

I didn't have a sewing machine of my own until I started to work after college, so mostly I did hand appliqué with turned edges.  I spent a lot of time doing appliqué at the laundromat!  Come to think of it, I stopped doing hand appliqué once I got a washing machine in my apartment! 

I drew my own patterns for the appliqués on both of the quilts below. 

Here's my godchild's well loved Winnie the Pooh theme baby quilt. It was a mix of cotton calico and cotton-poly broadcloth. The broadcloth has survived but the cotton calico has worn thin and shredded. 

I am thrilled it was used so much that it has gotten worn out!

This quilt was a wedding present a friend. The appliqués are all things that were important and special to the bride.  The bold prints are hand prints from Marblehead Handprints which was in a small fabric company in Marblehead Massachusetts in the 1970s.  I remember many happy hours of sewing in the laundromat working on this quilt, as well as the fascination of the other customers!

So that's it for my introduction. 

These days I mostly am making pieced or paper pieced quilts, but occasionally I will do a fusible appliqué. For the past 2-3 years I've been making about 2 quilts a month. 

I have lots of projects in the works and ideas for a lot more!  I enjoy making both traditional and Modern quilts.  I do use patterns but I love creating my own designs too.  It's color that I find really exciting.  Solids, '30s prints, modern prints, they all make me happy!  

So welcome! I hope you enjoy following along on my quilting and sewing adventures.  

How I began quilting

So why do I quilt?

College and quilting are totally linked together.  On a tour of colleges through Pennsylvania my Mom and I drove by a house in the country with had a little sign "Quilts for Sale" on the front lawn.  Very uncharacteristically, we stopped and knocked on the front door.  2 Mennonite sisters had a trunk full of quilts.  They were all the same appliqued flower pattern done in a variety of colors.  I fell in love with a red and green quilt.  Mom hemmed and hawed but finally said yes, we could buy it.  It cost $55.  As the years went by, Mom often said she wished she purchased more than one!
This quilt is still a beauty!

It stayed at home when I headed off to college in Minnesota.   

My classmates at college were from small towns and farms in Minnesota and North and South Dakota. They all had homemade quilts on their beds.  I was from the East Coast...no quilt. That required remediation and so began my quilting education!