Moda Building Blocks #2

Here's my next two blocks for the Moda Building Blocks Sampler.  The top one is 24" x 24" (i think) and the bottom one is 6" x 6".

With the top block I am slightly unhappy with the color/value placement.  I wanted the two halves of the geese to be a very similar value, and I thought they were.  That green tricked me though, and ended up being a fair bit darker than the aqua.  Or maybe it's more a problem that the aqua blends into the background color... Anyways, this block is a real stunner if you can get your values right.  I'm not bothered by it enough to make a new block though!  Partly because these huge blocks eat up a large amount of fabric.

And the little block suffers from imperfect piecing.  If you feel insecure about your seam matching skills, well here you go!  I didn't think it was so bad but this close up photo really highlights it.  Won't be fixing this either though! 

Are you sensing a theme here?  Ya, I'm not really a perfectionist.  I have an internal list of things I won't allow, but slightly mismatched seams is not usually on that list:)

The Shoe Maker's Children...

Mexico Quilt in Small

I'm so relieved, I found the photos of the quilt my mom made when she pattern tested this quilt.  Seeing these photos actually revives my interest in finishing up this pattern.  I'm thinking there's maybe something good here after all!

Don't you love those monkeys?!  I just love the happy colors and prints in this quilt.

As you can see, this is a small quilt of the same design.  It's probably around 40" x 48", but it's still the same full design as the lap size and twin size quilts.  That's because the pattern uses different block dimensions for each size, rather than just making less blocks.

So there's hope for this pattern yet:)  Just a few more nice long naps from baby here will definitely help!!

Quarter Log Cabin Quilt

Remember this bundle that I put together with fabric chosen from Fabric Spark?  Well, the quilt is finally completed!  Sewing has been a little slow here the last few weeks.  In the first month after the baby, I actually spent some time at my sewing machine and thought smugly to myself that it would continue as usual!

I think it may have sadly been a babymoon thing, because right now I'm over run by real life!  Oh well, that's not a bad thing, just a phase of life, and I know my cuddly little baby will grow up very fast!  (and I still have a backlog of finished and not so finished projects to show you...)
 

Now on to this quilt.  It. is. bright.  I love it's quirky craziness.  That purple just clashes so amazingly with the red:)  When you see that teal floral print up close, it all makes sense because the print includes this magenta and red so well.

From each fat quarter, I started by cutting a variety of strip widths, anywhere from 1.5" to 3.5".  I also cut a few 4" squares from some of the prints.

I then constructed quarter log cabin blocks, using a variety of square sizes to begin, anywhere from 3" to 4".  You add strips to 2 sides of the square, rather than all 4 sides as you would for a regular log cabin.  I kept adding strips till the blocks were 9" square.

It took me awhile to decide on the backing and binding fabric.  I'm really happy with what I chose because I feel like it is cohesive with the front of the quilt, but calms it down at the same time!

Backing fabric is Cotton and Steel On the Grid in Mint.
Binding is Cotton and Steel Dottie Bluebird

For those of you who like these eclectic colors and patterns together, but maybe not all the bright colors together, I've just had the thought that using this bundle to make a Pow Wow quilt would be amazing.  And this fabric I've used for the backing would make a great background for this quilt.

You can find this bundle here at FabricSpark.  Note:  The bundle has been slightly edited, due to one fabric being out of stock and also my changes once I started making the quilt:)  The bundle right now is exactly like what I used in my quilt except that the navy arrows have been replaced by another navy print (which works equally well) and the one cream and red floral print is not included.

Another note:  If you do buy this bundle and make something with it, I'd love to see it!!

Up Parasol Herringbone Quilt

A quick and simple baby quilt made from half of an Up Parasol jelly roll, purchased at Mad About Patchwork.  This jelly roll was an impulse purchase, and wouldn't you know I end up loving this fabric line!

I don't know why I'm surprised, as I've always loved Heather Bailey's fabrics in the past.  The bright summery feel is so fun to sew with.

I had this leftover piece of lime green minky kicking around, so I used it as the backing.  I'm allergic to quilting with minky because it's a bit tricky at times, so I did minimal quilting.  This works out well in the end as it's a very soft and squishy quilt now!

p.s.  I only used half the jelly roll for this little quilt (it's about 36" square) so I have enough to make another just like it, or I could have made it twice as big.

A Quilt Pattern Bites the Dust

 Update:  This quilt pattern is now available here in my shop!

This quilt has been sitting completely finished for at least a year.  Here is it's story.  Once upon a time when the whole 'tribal' trend was in its early stages, I had a flash idea of a quilt design.

As an aside, I call it a 'flash idea' when I suddenly have a mental picture of the finished quilt design.  When this happens, I could (but only sometimes actually do) sit down and draw the whole thing out immediately before it fades.  This 'flash idea' type is different than the other type of idea I tend to have more often, which is more of a fuzzy concept, like 'how about if I made a striped gray and white quilt with 2.5" squares?'.

So back to this quilt.  I had the flash idea, and I actually drew it out.  It looked identical to the quilt above, only I had envisioned pink along the side instead of periwinkle.

The idea originated because I had been looking at the Delectable Mountain quilt block in an old book and had thought it would make a great quilt design that would shamelessly fit in with the Aztec trend;)  I immediately thought it might be THE quilt design that I'd manage to make into a PDF pattern to sell.

So I started trying out blocks and puzzling away.  My first problem was that the original block I was trying to make, in which you make a huge half square triangle and then cut it into four strips and rearrange it, ends up making a rectangular shape.  This is because you cut this half square triangle into four strips and then when you sew it back together you lose a few inches in seam allowance.

So why the big deal?  Well, this 'squashed' new rectangular block completely messed with my original look, which absolutely needed this shape to be taller.  So my only solution was to overcompensate and make the half square triangle into a half square rectangle.  This is automatically a lot trickier, especially to explain clearly and simply in a pattern.  I worked on this for ages and made so many blocks!

In the end I did get a completed rough draft of the pattern.  I even got my mom to pattern test it for me, and I made another version, the scrappy one below.  (I had a picture of the one my mom made, but I can't find it, grrrr.)
 

I wrote it up in three sizes.  Because the whole impact of the design would be lost by adding or subtracting blocks to make smaller and larger sizes, I increased and decreased the size of each block so that the different quilt sizes would all look the same.

Then I kind of got stuck because somehow I wasn't quite happy with my method of explaining.  I find this to be a really hard aspect of writing a tutorial or pattern.  I think maybe I expect a bit much of myself (at least when I really analyze others' patterns) but I try so hard to make everything perfectly clear and in the end it all feels like a muddled mess to me!  Not to mention that  I know zilch about graphic design...

So I put it on the shelf for awhile.... and now there's so many similar quilt patterns available, and I've second guessed it to pieces...and have officially sworn off of ever trying to write another pattern.

So this all sounds very Woe Is Me!  But truly it's not, although I do cringe when I think of all the time I spent on some of these patterns.  I realized that I simply don't have the skills in this area, and although selling pdf patterns seems like a great way to make some money, it's just not for me!  I'm really happy with this realization and for now I'll just keep making quilts and selling them for enough to make my hourly wage.  It's what I'm happiest doing anyway!