Curio Quilt

Every Christmas, our sewing gang has a favorite things gift exchange. There are only four of us, so we buy a favorite for everyone. Last year, Kat gave everyone charm packs of the Curio collection by Rifle Paper Co. I LOVE Rifle Paper, so I was really excited to get it and sew with it! Curio probably isn't my favorite Rifle collection, but those books are dreamy. I feel like Curio kinda had a bit of a retro vibe with the sunflower print; who wasn't obsessed with sunflowers in the nineties? They were everywhere! 

I don't use precuts often at all, but I really wanted to use this charm pack and show off the great prints. So I settled on recreating a quilt I had seen at Garden of Quilts at Thanksgiving Point. It offset half square triangles so they were sprinkled all over the quilt, and it I felt like it was a really fun, modern way to show off prints. 

I opted to use Essex linen for the background and the backing and the binding. I wanted the texture to really add to it, since it was such a background-heavy quilt. I went for a yarn-dyed seafoam green, and I think it's perfect. 

Using an entire collection can be hard because they usually include low volume and/or prints with white backgrounds, which make it difficult to pick a background color that will adequately show the quilt design. This green I thought worked great. I pulled it from some of the prints, but it's different enough from all the backgrounds of the prints that you can see the design well. 

It went together pretty quickly and I really like it! I swapped out some charms that weren't my favorite and added in some extra book fabric, because, hello, books. :)

And I took pictures of it using tips from Matante Quilts, who recently hosted a mini webinar about quilt photography while she prepares for her next workshop on photography. I can't believe how much better they are!

Tiles Take Two

Right now, I don't actually have a leaders and enders project prepared, because I can't seem to pick one. I'm using my slow project (which has roughly 4 million curves) as leaders and enders, but I hope to get a new one picked soon. I got my last one bound, and it's making me feel even more pressure to get a new project picked already! :)

This quilt is my most recent leaders and enders, and I used the Sunset Tiles pattern by Jeni Baker in Scraps, Inc. Vol 1. I've made the pattern before but I messed up while assembling and some of the rows are sewn together incorrectly, which messed up the pattern and made it pretty out of square. I love that quilt, though, and I wanted to have another go to try and get it assembled correctly. It's set on point, and it was the first time I've done a quilt on point, so it's understandable I messed up, but still disappointing. 

Plus, the pattern is a great one for leaders and enders. It's simple to sew, the pieces are a great size to use up scraps, and color placement within blocks is a non-issue, making it pretty perfect for a leaders and enders.

I made this version a bit larger, and like my others, I backed it with denim to make it more durable for picnicking. I don't love the colors quite as much as the first one I made, but a friend on IG said it's cheerful, which I think is a great way to describe it. 

Fringe Dress

I want to like sewing clothes more than I do. I'm so tall it's hard to find things that fit properly, and it's nice to be able to make something you want instead of trying to find it. But, quilting really has my heart. Still, I sew clothes somewhat regularly, and this is my most recent make. 

I bought the Fringe dress pattern (finally hopping on that train, it's such a popular pattern!) during a sale at Chalk and Notch. I was specifically looking for a pattern to use for a cut of linen I was given by Harmony Fabric in Provo for winning a giveaway! I won 3 yards, and it's such a lovely light blue linen. Since I'm tall, I had to be careful about pattern selection, since I need to add so much length generally, I couldn't risk running out of fabric. The fringe dress was well within the fabric requirements, I think it specifies only 2-1/2 yards or so, so I felt like I'd have plenty. Plus, there are so many fringe dress pictures on the internet in all sorts of different fabric selections, and I felt confident it would look great in my linen. I snagged a paper copy during a sale they had, and eventually got around to sewing it. 

Honestly, I think this is among the quickest I've ever sewn up a planned project, haha. I got the fabric in April, and I sewed up the dress a few weeks ago, in August. I tend to stock up on fabric and/or patterns when they're on sale and then sew them when I'm feeling inspired or need it for a specific reason.

Maybe my reason just came up quicker than usual; I made it for family pictures, which we just did a few days ago. 

Part of the reason I dawdle is I dislike making muslins. I know it's so important and definitely not wasted time, but it feels like it. And, half the reason I like to make clothes is so they fit me, but what that means is often I don't fit in a straight size, so then I have to decide which size to start with, etc etc. And then tracing the pattern...I don't love prep work. 

Still, I persevered, and added the length I thought I'd need to check, and was pleasantly surprised it fit pretty well straight out of the envelope. So, I set about making it in the linen. 

Overall, I'm pretty pleased with it. I opted to straighten the hem out, and I made the v-neck with buttons and added the sleeve tabs. I love that I didn't have to adjust the neckline at all for good coverage (I'm not into showing off cleavage, sorry! I get cold, what can I say?), and I love the ties detail. I opted to add mine to the back darts because it seems like such an interesting detail. However, now that I've made it, I think I probably should have made it a size larger. I was really thrown off because the muslin (and the dress) genuinely look like the right size. It doesn't feel too snug when I wear it, except for perhaps across my arm, but that's easily explained by the drop sleeve construction. HOWEVER--because the buttons only extend to the waist, which is flatteringly situated just a bit above your true waist, the opening isn't *quite* big enough to comfortably put on and take off. I kinda feel like a gymnast every time I wear it, and I'm always worried I'm going to pull something (I am 40, after all...) or rip it. It might be my fault--I left in the basting stitches from gathering the skirt. But, I don't logically think it would do that. If I could take them out easily now and check, I would, but I serged the seam so it's nice and finished. I don't think those stitches are coming out, haha. Once I really struggled, I realized that most dresses take the opening down past the waist, so I feel like it's a slight design flaw and I'm surprised no one else has complained. 

The other disappointing thing about this dress is actually the fabric. When I got it, it was so soft, I was so excited to wear it. And it IS very soft. But, it is a deadstock linen and I'm learning that you just need to be careful with deadstocks. This one had some really thin spots where the weave was uneven and just thin. So I carefully cut around it as best I could. But it just seems like kinda shoddy fabric, which I find really disappointing. I'm really glad I won it in a giveaway and didn't purchase it, because I would have been upset at the quality. I don't know how long it will last with the quality of the fabric, but I really like the dress even still and will probably make another. It wasn't a difficult sew at all, and again I love the neckline and the ties detail. 

Birds of a Feather (a Glare quilt)

I've finally finished my quilt from Sewtopia! Latifah Saafir taught her Glare quilt pattern, and I was excited about it. Latifah's patterns are graphic and modern, and I already had several patterns and templates. When I decided on fabric for the project, I wanted to make sure I used a focal print that the large centers would really show off. I opted for Tula Pink's Daydreamers flamingos. And from there, it just kinda snowballed. I ended up using exclusively Daydreamers fabric for the quilt, and even used Tula Pink solids for the alternating blades and background. I don't think I've EVER made a quilt from exclusively one line. I always mix in other fabrics even if it is primarily from one fabric line. But I don't often use Tula Pink fabric. When my friends saw my quilt, they said how unlike me it was. I disagree, I think, but I can see where they are coming from. Even thought the Daydreamer line doesn't have the garish clashing colors that some of Tula's lines have, it is ALL BRIGHT, and my quilts tend to be at least a little tempered. 

I really love how it turned out, though, and my kids fight over it right now, even though I backed it with a Tula wide back instead of the usual minky. I love how the rounded corners give it a little extra something, and that it wasn't that hard to bind. 

This quit pattern was a fun one to sew and went together relatively quickly. The blocks are large. It does take some finessing, some getting used to the technique, and I did do some unpicking. It's interesting that on curves, the way you iron (whether toward the curve or away from the curve) can impact the puckering, and not every circle was the same. 

I would definitely make this pattern again. I loved how it turned out and would love to try out some different fabric choices. I used the background fabric as some blade fabric as well on a couple of the blocks and hoped it would blend into the background to make it appear more spiky, and I'd love to try that with all the blocks, to give it a feel like the suns we all used to draw in elementary school. I think that would be cool.

Winning Ribbons

I posted my Garden Gem quilt already, and I mentioned I planned to enter it at the Springville Art Museum for their annual quilt show. I like seeing my quilts hang in museums, it's fun! And I was really happy with how it turned out. I try to not worry about winning things, because it's not why I make quilts and honestly, I'm not technical enough to really worry about it. Still...I kinda thought, *maybe* it might win a ribbon, my points (the very few there were) lined up really well and Marion did a fantastic job quilting it. I didn't dare hope, but honestly, I really hoped. I just tried to say I didn't care. 

But luckily, I DID win a ribbon, which makes my second this year if you count my Sewtopia ribbon, which I do. :) Interestingly, both quilts use designs by Jenny Haynes of Papper Saxsten, so clearly, she's designed award winning quilts. As a ribbon winner, I was invited to the opening reception award ceremony and of course I went, I was anxious to find out what ribbon I won! I didn't dare take my girls because I didn't know how long it would be and I didn't want them to be disruptive or bored... but I probably should have taken them. Instead, just my husband and I went. Of course, they began announcing the winners from the bottom up, starting with those that had been awarded honorable mentions, and then awards of excellence, and then judges choices, and I kept waiting for my name to be called and it kept not being called. Finally, there were only a few ribbons left and they finally announced my name as the director's choice! She was announcing the awards so she shared a little bit about my quilt and how much she loved it and was so glad she got her first choice, which doesn't always happen. I was absolutely thrilled! 

We brought our girls down a few weeks later to see it at the museum with the ribbon and they weren't all that excited...but I did see another quilter who had won a ribbon in the same gallery and we talked for a bit. She told me there was some drama on the ribbon wining for the Dear Jane quilts and I realized going for ribbons is not for me. I'm so glad I won, and I'm not going to lie, I'm excited to see how much money I won for winning a ribbon, but I don't think ribbon seeking is for me. I mean, I machine bound my quilt. :D

Beach Puddles

The other quilt I got bound recently was this version of Candlelight by April Rosenthal. I made her kit version with the same fabrics from the cover quilt, and I love it. It's fun to put together with the traditional blocks. In the pattern, she emphasizes that value gradation is a key part of the quilt and making the design really pop. I thought it would be fun to play with color gradation instead and went with yellow to blue. I really like the colors and I think it worked out well but it didn't have the same impact as the value gradation. It's interesting how the changes made it pop differently. I treated yellow as the light and navy as the dark, which makes sense, but the warm yellow pops more than the cool blue so it's interested to see color theory in action. And the middle colors kind muddle together...I should have used the yellow for the stars so they popped more than the rolling stones blocks.

I omitted the border on it because I couldn't decide on what fabric to use, and it was a pretty narrow border anyway. So it's a tad smaller than the original, but I don't think it's too small by any means. Although, I do tend to prefer large quilts ;-). 

Here's my original Candlelight quilt, which I realized as I wrote this that I had never blogged about. 

Beach Puddles, quilted by Abby Latimer, completed July 2024

Original Candlelight, quilted by Abby Latimer, completed November 2020

Federa Quilt

Summer has flown by for me. Our kids go back to school in just a week and a half or so, and I can hardly believe it! I've got to pack a bunch of fun things in that we've meant to do all summer, and it just hasn't happened yet. A hike, maybe (if I can talk them into it...), a day at the roller rink, shopping for family picture clothes...plus we need to review everyone's uniforms and make sure they have what they need. We have had a great summer, even if I feel like I need to make up for lost time. We took a roadtrip up to the Pacific Northwest and visited the San Juan Islands and Olympic Peninsula with a short stop at Cannon Beach before coming home. It was a lovely way to start summer. But, we haven't done our typical summer sewing service this year (we also missed last year) and that makes me kinda sad. Maybe next year we can get back into it. I have had my girls help cook for the last few weeks which was on my list...I want them to help me just once a week so they can start to learn how. My older girls end up doing most of the work while I assist, and my younger ones help until they get bored waiting for various steps and never come back...but it's okay. Progress, right? 

And speaking of progress, I've made progress in my sewing room, too. I bound two quilts, including my Federa Quilt, which I mostly pieced at Sewtopia in April. It's the Wasatch pattern by Compass and Wildflowers. I used colors inspired by our trip to the Dolomites in October, so yellow and orange foliage and turquoise for the lake. We got to visit Federa Lake while we were there and it was absolutely stunning. 

The piecing was really simple and a perfect Sewtopia project since I could just grab strips and go; since it was made of solids and all the blocks were the same, there was no need to lay things out or worry about spacing out colors and fabrics evenly. 

Unfortunately, it's not square. I appreciated that she has you cut blocks in halves or quarters to add to the edges to make the edges straight so you don't have to trim it after quilting and lose so much of the blocks, but I wonder if that was partially to blame for it's lack of squareness. It doesn't really matter, not really, it's a throw quilt and even if it was a bed quilt, I'm really not much of a show quilter. (Although I do have something to share about that later; stay tuned!)

I love this quilt and that it reminds me of Italy. Our trip to the dolomites was really great, I'd love to go back! It was just beautiful. Although, I think we'll wait until after the olympics go through; there was plenty of construction as they prepare to host.