Palatina Pillow

A month ago I shared my Palatina Mini Quilt during the Blogger's Quilt Festival. As I was making it my wonderful friend Tracey was gushing over it, and I knew right away I just needed to make her one. She has a thing for chubby stars. I picked out a pretty color palette, sorted out my low volume background, and got to work. (There is a lovely tutorial for this pillow that can be found here on There's a Thread.)

The crosses were hand appliqued in place, and I hand quilted inside the chubby stars, but left the edges un quilted. I machine quilted just inside the edge of the crosses to give them some more reinforcement (though doing so I realized I could have just machine stitched them on in the first place. Oh well.).

I used matching thread for all of the machine stitching which made for a really pretty background!

The pillow cover fits a 24" pillow form, which is a lovely size for a kiddie floor cushion. Miss B made sure to test it out. =)

I have plans of making one for myself very soon. Though I don't think it will involve any hand work this time around.

Palatina Mini Quilt {Blogger Quilt Festival}

I am so excited the Blogger Quilt Festival is here again! It is my favorite!!

Last week I finished up this Palatina mini for my partner in the Schnitzel & Boo Mini Swap. You can find a tutorial for this project at There's a Thread. I changed things up just a bit. I did hand applique rather than machine, and trimmed the edges closer to the the pluses, leaving a 1/2" border around the edge.

This project was so much fun! I selected all black and white/cream prints for the background and a rainbow spectrum for the pluses.
I used the starch basting method for the pluses, and then hand appliqued them in place. Prepping the pieces took some time, but it is worth it. The pieces held their shape perfectly, and appliqueing them into place was so simple.

 

I decided to continue with hand work, and hand quilted the mini quilt. I wanted it to have A LOT of texture, and I think I succeeded. =) I did a running stitch following the design of most of the background fabrics. I think this is called seed stitching (google was only half helpful).

I left the pluses unquilted and love how they pop.

The mini quilt finished at 17" square. I used Hobbs 80/20 Batting. It's already at it's new home, and I am currently working on a second which will be turned into a pillow for another friend.

Ombre Linky Love

Last August I had the opportunity to test our one of traceyjay quilts' beautiful patterns, Linky Love. The quilt top came together quickly, but being my crazy self, I decided to hand quilt it. And then took a LONG break from hand quilting it. And now it is finally done. =)

The links were made using V&Co Simply Colors Ombre Jelly Roll strips, which gave them so much movement. I chose to quilt the links using the same color as the fabric, about 1/4" in from the seam. And then I quilted the background in a cross hatch in the large octagons and Xs in the small squares, using white thread.

I love how the colored stitches look on the white backing, though you can definitely see I'm not an experienced hand quilter.

And when you get a little more light behind the quilt the links show through the backing like stained glass! Love it!


Quilt Stats:
Pattern: Linky Love by traceyjay quilts
Fabric: V&Co Ombre Jelly roll + Kona White
Finished Size: Approx 54" square
Made from August 2012-July 2013

WIP Wed...er Tuesday: By Hand

First off, sorry the gritty, poorly lit Instagram pics.
I've had my Linky Love quilt (designed by the amazing TracyJay, who let me test her pattern out so I could use my V & Co Ombre jelly roll strips. Pattern available here.), sitting around for awhile. I was trying to come up with a way to quilt it that could do it justice. I knew it would involve a whole lot of colored thread, but beyond that I was stuck. Inspiration struck over the weekend, and yesterday I tucked in to a whole new world of quilt finishing.

All prepped for basting - no not spray this time.

I have tried hand quilting a couple of times. Actually one of the first crazy ideas I had as a brand new quilter was doing a whole cloth baby quilt, just quilting cute little shapes onto pretty fabric. After probably 2 shapes I gave up. That quilt is hiding in our storage area.

Pins in place (and of course I realized after I put them all in how easy they were to close if I just laid them on their side...see, I'm new at this!)

I took a hand quilting class when we were living in Monterey. I think that is one of the only classes I've ever taken. I was at least 20 years younger than everyone else in the class. =) We worked on those small pre-printed panels, and the teacher taught us about taping the backing to a table, and then adding the batting and quilt top, then how to stitch baste. Ugh stitch basting. That is something I will never love! And then we got to work stitching and I found I could do it...ok.

First section stitched. Random stitch lengths, plus a few that didn't make it all the way through. Not bad, but definite room for improvement. 

I finished up one orange ring last night, and this morning I am almost done with a green. It helps to not be watching TV while stitching, but Once Upon a Time is so addicting! (We started it about a week and a half ago, got Hulu plus yesterday so we could watch the current episodes on our TV, thanks to our Roku (Netflix + Hulu + Roku = we don't have cable, and are perfectly pleased.)

Pretty pretty. I love the puckering of hand quilting. 

I don't know how long this will take, thankfully it doesn't need to be anywhere til May. If anybody had any great ideas for the center of the rings, I am open to suggestions.
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Adding more pictures! I made a lot of progress quilting today, I have almost all of the center rings done. I don't have a shot that shows it all, but I wanted to show how great the colors are.

Quilt top - pre-quilting. I think it's upside down. Look how vibrant those colors are!

WIP stats:

1 new finish this week, 4 in October
2012 Finishes: 28

WIPs: 24