Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Hey there strangers!

Alright - here is my finish! These were the first blocks I ever attempted and the first top I put together (the baby quilt a couple posts back got finished first due to it needing to be gifted) I used several blue tonal FQ bundles from Joann's and a couple bundles of their fat eighths in black and whites. Sizewise, it's in between a twin and a full, so it's big and I did quilt it on my machine. It was enough to never make me want to quilt on a regular sized machine again .... but I quilted the pieced blocks and the sashing in the ditch and I quilted concentric squares in the open squares and triangles.




Here is the back. In what is becoming true Abby tradition, I pieced the back on purpose. I used scraps from the front and basic black yardage. I'm not sure what batting is - Mountain Mist or something similar I got for 50% off. It didn't really crinkle that much after washing, but I think it's because the quilting is 2"-2.5" apart. The binding is also leftover blue from the front. There must have been a quilting angel with me because I finished with exactly enough - there wasn't even anything to trim once I got to the end, I just tucked it in. It was kind of a miracle. It still took like 6 or 7 movies to get all of the binding tacked on the back - am I doing something wrong? It probably shouldn't take that long ....



Now, it lives here in my living room. Yes, blue is my favorite color and it's slowly taking over my apartment as I get money to start replacing the random pieces of furniture that I have. I think it'll be happy there.





And now, for something completely different! I finished all 20 blocks for my halloween jelly roll quilt. I used the pattern Jellystone Park from Legacy Patterns. The pattern has been very easy to follow and has gone together quickly up to this point. I do have to rant though. I don't have a lot of money to spend on quilting or my other hobbies for that matter. It took a lot to get me to spend the $8 for this pattern. So, a few days ago when I was perusing various quilty blogs, I saw a beautiful top and though - wow that looks like the Jellystone Park pattern, cool! Then I read their blog - it was a free pattern from Bonnie Hunt over at Quiltville. I looked up the pattern, which she is calling Twist and Turn (or something very similar) and all of the instructions and all of the measurements are EXACTLY the same. I don't know whose came first, but there are some very clear copyright issues and I'm pretty pissed about it.

:


Anyways, here is my tentative layout: (kindly ignore the cat toys strewn about the floor)




So, here is my other dillemma. The blocks finish at just a bit over 11" square. The pattern calls for them to be trimmed to 10.5" square. Is this really necessary? That's going to add up to an awful lot of fabric waste. It took a lot of convincing to go ahead and buy the fancy name brand fabric and I don't want to waste it. Should I try to trim them (which I don't have a 10.5" ruler, so it'll take a lot of work to trim them properly) On the other hand, I don't want to ruin this quilt, because I really like how it's turning out and it was really expensive fabric - at least for me. Any input - I really could use some help here .... if I leave the blocks as is, what's the worst that could happen other than completely ruining my top?



And of course, I had lots of help from Zoƫ ... and by help, I mean she kept plopping down in the middle of whatever I was trying to cut and since the cuts make everything have bias edges, I couldn't just pull it out from under her because it would stretch and distort the sections. But she sure does like to assist her momma!


Well, I think that gets you all caught up. I have fabric and pattern set out for the bag swap, so I'll start on that and the pattern arrived for my dad's Christmas quilt out of the Hamptons jelly roll, so I need to get moving on that as well. I'm taking Friday and Monday off of work for a long weekend and heading to visit my parents. My mom and I are going to a Cricut swarm, even though neither of us have a Cricut yet, haha! She's going to work on making some cards, I'm going to work on my Disney scrapbook, so I'm sure we'll have plenty to do and I'm sure we'll be able to play with some of the Cricuts that will be there already (there's 60 women getting together for this) I'm sure I'll have some pictures of the festivities to share with you next week!

-Abby



3 comments:

  1. Awesome quilts! I just love pieced backs.

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  2. I was so startled to see your LJ BOM quilt! My colors are very similiar and I thought I was looking at mine. *lol*

    Anyway, I guess I would only trim your blocks if they are varying in size. I would probably go ahead and trim them down to 11" to make sure they are all the same size if there seems to be a lot of variation. Trimming them down to 10.5" seems kind of strange. It would def. effect how the corners meet up, so I guess you have to decide how important that is to you.

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  3. If you corners meet up nicely and all of the blocks are the same size I don't know why you would have to trim them, after all this is "your quilt". Sew four of them together and see if you like the way it looks.

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