Bloggers Quilt Festival - fall 2013

This festival snuck up on me!  My entry is going to be my red/white urban 9-patch quilt!

I used a fat-quarter bundle of ''Redwork Renaissance'' and a solid red and the background is white polka dots on white.

When Jenny announced her urban 9-patch quilt along, I knew I had to use that bundle to make this quilt!

I love this block and it helped me a lot to get comfortable with curved piecing!  So much that I am now working on a double wedding ring qult - and have plans for yet another DWR (with ''Seascapes'') after that, and also plans for a quilt with just the curved 9-patch section of this block (with my precious FMF!)  Lots of curvy piecing in my future!

Hello Betty double wedding ring quilt progress

Well, I have gotten a little more done on my double wedding ring quilt top.....


Several 'footballs' done:

many waiting for one last seam to become a football:

and lots of arcs finished paper piecing:

and even more arcs in the process of being pieced:

I was able to find out what the bella solids are - looked on United Notions website, found a number on the Hello Betty pdf and tracked them down as ''Betty Teal'' and ''Betty Orange'' - so, now that I know they are available, I will see how far I get with the 4 strips I had of each color (from 2 jelly rolls).  I am hoping this will make a full size quilt, but we'll see.  I think it will be close!  It's hard to estimate size of a quilt that doesn't have square blocks!  If I don't have enough of the solids, at least I know they are available now, which is a relief!  I am using bella Snow as my background color.


And, no, I haven't forgotten about my Sunnyside postage stamp quilt!  The top is 96'' square and I am postponing doing the final iron because I really don't like to iron a big quilt top!  What a pain!

the other side of the quilt

Over at SwimBikeQuilt, she is having a linky party for quilt backs.  So, I thought I'd share in one post some of the pieced quilt backs I have done:
This one is on my latest Moda Bake Shop project ''Sunnyside Stars''

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This one is the backing to my oldest son's camo kaleidoscope quilt.

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This one is the backing to my Dandelion Girl ''Hunters Star'' quilt.

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I have some other pieced backings, but am unable to locate anymore pics.  Or, the pics are quite uninteresting.  These 3 stand out to me as the most interesting pieced backs :)

Bloglovin'

I've finally got around to adding the widget so you can follow me on Bloglovin' if you are so inclined :D

I've been working away on my Sunnyside postage stamp quilt and I have 29 blocks completed so far and the rest are in varying stages of completion.  I should be done with the top by the weekend if all goes as planned!

I am going to wait to do the final pressing of the blocks until I decide on a layout.  That way, I can get all the seams to 'nest' nicely :)

I really can't wait to take my Pfaff in to get the dual-feed repaired - I can't believe the difference it makes in piecing to be without it!

pile o' patchwork

This is what I have been working on lately - a big old pile o' patchwork!

enough for SIXTY FOUR 36-patch 12'' blocks.  Yes, that is over 2300 little 2'' finished squares.  It's gonna be huge!  96x96 - I think the largest quilt I've made yet.  This will definitely have to be longarm quilted, and I think I already know how I'm going to do the quilting  - in chevrons with a variegated thread.

Prints in this quilt are Sunnyside (same as my latest Moda Bake Shop project) and Moda Bella Snow for the solid.

Pfaff dual-feed

I think I have wore out the dual-feed on my Pfaff :(  She might have to go in to the sewing machine doctor!

I like to use the dual-feed pretty much all the time when I sew.  It just sews so nice with it engaged!  But, lately it has been giving me problems.  It hangs up on seams really bad, and now I cannot use it at all for piecing quilts :(

This is where is hangs up.  Every time.

Presser foot UP, and you can see it has caught on the seam:

I think maybe the tip of it where the 'teeth' are has just worn down.  I sew a LOT!  Quilting is less than half my sewing.

It's due for a tune-up, so when I take vacation around Thanksgiving, I will take it in to be serviced and hopefully replace that dual-feed foot.  And, hopefully, it's an inexpensive part and easy to replace!

Sunnyside Stars - a Moda Bake Shop project

Yay!  Finally time to share my latest Moda Bake Shop project ''Sunnyside Stars''!

 This was my first experience on a longarm (I rented time on a computerized machine), and it was FUN.  I chose a semi-loose quilting design so it didn't shrink up so much.  I didn't notice they looked like sidesways S's until it was done, LOL.  Perfect for the name of the quilt :)

 Sunnyside has some gorgeous prints in it, so this pattern really shows them off!  I was hoping for a little more contrast so the stars stood out better - I think I might do some hand-stitching around the stars to make them POP.  I was picking the yellows/oranges mostly, but I probably should have chosen the blues for that pop!  They seem to stand out the most in this line.  Maybe I will do the hand-stitching in a coordinating blue.

 This is my helper ''Tikka''.  She is such a good girl <3

Since this quilt is on the large side, I knew I was going to have to piece the backing in more than two pieces.  I decided to do a large scale modified 9-patch.

I really like how the backing looks!  It's pieced, but doesn't look 'thrown together' pieced :)

As much as I love this quilt, I have so many quilts that need quilted, and SO many quilts in my head that I want to do,  that I need to move this one on so I can get to the next one :)  This one is for sale in my Etsy shop here.

finished quilt sneak peek

I will show more pictures later, promise!

This was my first experience on a longarm (I rented time on a computerized longarm), and it was really fun!  I definitely think the background in embroidery helped with getting the hang of the quilting.  This was a pre-programmed design, but I am hoping to jump right into FMQ as soon as possible :)  I plan to quilt my ugly trip-around-the-world quilt (I am calling it Trippy) next:

THEN, onto my urban 9 patch after that!  EEEEP!

Then, maybe my selvage spiderweb quilt top!  (This is the one hubby calls the circus quilt, LOL)