Our Endless Summer Quilt

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It all started when Hancock’s of Paducah put some charm packs on sale for $5 each. How could I pass that up when the fabric line, Saturday Morning by Basic Grey for Moda, was so cute? They weren’t the type of fabrics I would usually buy, but one design in particular, the lines of people, caught my eye. So I bought five charm packs.

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I started designing a quilt requiring over 200 5″ squares, and soon realized I was going to need a solid fabric to balance the wide variety of prints. Luckily H of P had an off-white grunge print from the line on sale, so I bought a few yards. Then I saw the Moda Love pattern on Pinterest and decided it would be perfect for the center of my quilt.

The quilt would be quite large, maybe bigger than any quilt I’d ever made. I decided it would be perfect for our bed. Wouldn’t you know, H of P put batting on sale, including an extra-light batting that I had never tried before. I bought one, figuring I could make a summer quilt. I also bought a very busy triangle print from the Saturday Morning line for the binding, and a wild streaky blue print for the borders.

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It took me a while to decide how to quilt this quilt. I decided on one design for the center, modified a flower design from Lori Kennedy’s blog for the squares, and modified another flower for the border from the same blog (she’s so talented, and has some awesome tutorials on her blog). Here’s the back of the quilt where the squares are:

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I named this the “Endless Summer Quilt” because my husband and I fell in love one summer over 40 years ago and married three years later; in the summer, of course. I hope we use this summer quilt for many, many years to come.

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My Simply Eclectic Quilt

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I’ve never made a quilt exactly like the pattern before. I might use a pattern with scraps, or with precuts, or with yardage I bought specifically for that pattern. But when I discovered the pattern for Simply Eclectic, I had to have that quilt just as the designer intended it to look, which meant buying the exact fabrics she used (which she also designed).

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Fortunately, the lovely indigo prints were available at Hancock’s of Paducah; I found the solids at Missouri Quilt Co. I also found a gray print from the designer’s line at H of P that I used for backing.

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The only thing I did differently than the designer did was to quilt inside the solid-colored blocks, because after I finished quilting the top in straight lines, those beautiful solid squares looked like they needed something. So I echoed a few motifs from the indigo prints.

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Photos don’t do the indigo fabrics justice; they’re so lovely. This quilt now lives on the back of my recliner, where I can see and touch it every day.

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Sunny Days Quilt and Pillow

img_20160928_1600282_rewindI didn’t make the Sunny Days quilt for any specific purpose; I saw a jelly roll of this line by Benartex in my daily email from Missouri Quilt Co. and decided I had to have it. Flipping through my quilting books, I found a pattern for jelly rolls that seemed like a good fit.

img_20160928_1603074_rewindI backed the quilt with a lovely bright green fabric from my stash, which could probably be considered vintage since it’s at least 20 years old.

I ended up with two spare blocks, hence the pillow. Now that I have granddaughters, perhaps one of them will enjoy this quilt at some point 🙂

img_20160928_1600370_rewindThis quilt was pieced and free-motion quilted on my supermachine, which I am enjoying immensely, and highly recommend!

Gardenvale Triangles Table Topper

Last week I posted about the Gardenvale table topper/wall hanging I made. Fortunately, I bought enough of the Gardenvale fabrics that I was also able to make this table topper, which uses gray as the coordinating solid instead of off-white:

IMG_20160218_1218473_rewindI just love the prints in this line!

IMG_20160218_1219151_rewindThere’s no free-motion quilting on this one, just straight stitching. Here’s the back:

IMG_20160218_1220012_rewindThis table topper is for sale here. 🙂