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. 🙂

Gardenvale Table Topper/Wall Hanging

IMG_20160218_1216468_rewindI was at the Quilt Expo in Madison late last summer when I fell in love with a line of fabric called Gardenvale. I promised myself I would try to make something different from my usual projects, and this table topper is the result.

As you can see, I did not quilt it in my usual way  (flowers, curves, etc.) but instead tried a more geometric design:

IMG_20160218_1217395_rewindI wish I had the space to keep everything I make, but I don’t, so this table topper/wall hanging is for sale here.

1930s Reproduction Fabric Table Runner

IMG_20160218_1213077_rewindA while back I posted about a quilt I made using just a portion of my large stash of 1930s reproduction fabrics. I made this table runner out of leftover blocks from that quilt:

IMG_20160218_1212469_rewindAfter working on several large projects in a row, I had a great deal of fun making this smaller project. Free-motion quilting something of this size is such a pleasure!

Here’s the back of the table runner:

IMG_20160218_1214136_rewindThis table runner is for sale, by the way 🙂

Star Wars Quilt

IMG_20151223_124554_hdrThere are a couple of Star Wars fans in our family, and they happen to be married to each other, so it wasn’t hard to come up with the idea of a Star Wars quilt as their Christmas gift.

The pattern was one I first saw in McCall’s Quilting magazine. The fabric was made by Camelot Fabrics which I bought from the Missouri Star Quilt Co. As you can see, most of the quilt was done in a meandering stitch:

IMG_20151223_124648_hdrHowever, I didn’t want to stitch over the faces of the characters, which featured in a couple of the fabrics:

IMG_20151223_124630_hdrSo I looped around the faces instead, creating the squares you see on the back:

IMG_20151223_124715_hdrAs with my previous quilt, I used Aurifil thread for all the piecing and quilting, and the backing is made of premium 108″ muslin from JoAnn Fabrics, probably the nicest cloth they sell there these days. The batting is also from JoAnn; it’s Pellon’s Nature’s Touch 100% cotton batting. I free-motion quilted it using my supermachine, the Brother PQ-1500S.

1930s Reproduction Fabric Quilt

IMG_20151223_123358_hdrI found this pattern online (and it was free!) and adjusted it so that I could use Jenny Doan’s method for making half-square triangles. What fun! It went together quickly and easily because the blocks were trimmed down to the same size before piecing.

This quilt is a double-sized quilt, probably the largest quilt I have handled or could ever handle on my supermachine. It required a lot of rolling and re-rolling to position it correctly. To keep things simple, I stitched rows of arcs along the squares and triangles:

IMG_20151223_123414_hdrNote that they are not perfect! Unlike the Amish, I don’t need to add a flaw to my quilt; I do it automatically and regularly. But I have learned that when it comes to quilts, finished is better than perfect.

I love the pattern the arcs make on the back:

IMG_20151223_123446_hdrNote the border, where I quilted in a loose meandering design with random loops. Very simple, but fast, which is good because speed was of the essence given my deadline.

I used Aurifil thread for all the piecing and quilting (I’ve really become addicted to that stuff!). The backing is made of premium 108″ muslin from JoAnn Fabrics, probably the nicest cloth they sell there these days. The batting is also from JoAnn; it’s Pellon’s Nature’s Touch 100% cotton batting. I’ve been using it a lot lately after reading good reviews of it in several places online.

I did have a panicked moment (ok, a panicked few hours) while making this quilt under deadline with another quilt waiting. When I switched presser feet so that I could put the binding on this quilt, the screw that holds the presser foot on broke in half, while I was screwing it on by hand! I couldn’t believe it. My husband went to our local Ace Hardware and found some similar screws, but none worked. I called several Wisconsin Brother dealers but none had the screw. I was freaking out.

DH came to the rescue. He found a dealer in Illinois that I called, and they said they thought it was likely they had the screw. So we rushed down there before they closed for the day, and sure enough, they had it. What a relief! I bought four so I’d have backups in the future. That was my husband’s idea, BTW. Guess he didn’t want to see me freak out again  🙂