Project Quilting 15.6: Irish Chain

It's hard to believe, but this is the last week of the 15th season of Project Quilting. Thanks so much to Kim and Trish for another fun season of challenges. The final challenge for the year is to make something inspired by the traditional Irish Chain quilt design.

The first quilt I ever made was an Irish Chain quilt that my sister Karen and I did together as a wedding gift for our brother and his wife in 1995. I've also made other Irish Chain quilts through the years and always enjoy returning to this classic pattern.

Double Irish Chain quilt top, 1995

I've continued the theme from my earlier Project Quilting pieces this year by making an Irish Chain placemat. I thought about using greens to go along with the theme, but ended up pulling out some favorite blue and yellow fabrics instead.

The diagonal quilting lines show up much better on the back.

I thought it would be fun to get a look at all the placemats I've made for the different Project Quilting challenges this year. It's fun to see the wide variety of fabrics and styles.

Left column top to bottom--15.1: Bird's Nest, 15.2: Sky Color, 15.3: Inside Out (x 2)

Right column top to bottom--15.4: Hourglass, 15.5 Wearables (x 2), 15.6 Irish Chain 

All of these placemats will be donated to Meals on Wheels by our quilt guild. I will continue making placemats throughout the year, even without the continuing Project Quilting challenges.

Linking up with:

Project Quilting 15.6 at Persimon Dreams

Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation

Finished or Not Friday at Alycia Quilts

Can I Get a Whoop Whoop at Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Happy quilting everyone!

Julie in GA

Project Quilting 15.5: Wearables

The fifth challenge for Season 15 of Project Quilting was announced on Sunday, and the theme this week is "Wearables":

 

PQ 15.5 WEARABLES

For this week’s challenge, we’re working with “wearables” – I want you to either start or end fashionably. Here’s what I mean.

 

One option is to turn clothes into something else. Are you ready to recycle your wedding dress into something new? Is it time to make a special project from t-shirts or old ties? I hear denim makes great rugs!

 

Or, you could quilt-ify something you wear. Try some visible mending and embellish existing pieces, or make a tote or hat or apron.

 

Another option is to use the theme in a quilt. Make a wall hanging about your passion for shoes, or try that Ugly Sweater quilt block pattern.

 

And finally – there’s a special opportunity for you this week! You can make a piece of clothing. Any piece of clothing you sew will qualify this week: pajama pants, an Easter dress, a jacket, a skirt – you can do it all. And for this, I’m making a one-time-only exception to the usual PQ rules about 3-layers or embellished or pieced, etc. This week only, if you whip up a sewn piece of clothing (from a pattern is fine!) you can enter it in PQ! 

(I’m doing this to allow us scaredy-cats a growth opportunity to try apparel sewing.)

 

Now, don’t get carried away breaking the rules – you still have to BEGIN and END your project between 3/3/24 and 3/10/24 (no WIP projects, please), and it still has to be FINISHED. Done means buttoned, bound, hemmed, zipped, snapped or tied with a bow – your project must be finished to qualify.

RULE ONE: your project must be wearable, or have been made from previously worn items, or have another connection to clothes, shoes and fashion accessories.

Making clothing is not a big deal for me. I've been sewing for more than 50 years, but didn't start quilting until 1995. Before that, it was all clothing--mostly for myself at first, later as a career, making theatre costumes, which I did for 40+ years. I still make garments occasionally, but most of the time I prefer to stick to quilting. 

For this challenge, I decided to pull out my box of old shirts and shirt fabric scraps. Bonnie Hunter seems to be the queen of using old shirt fabrics, and I've managed to amass a small collection of fabrics. I chose a few to use in two placemats.

Both placemats finished at 13.5" x 18". The dark fabrics in the chains of rectangles on each were also used for the backs. Both of those fabrics were from shirts that used to belong to my husband, but all the rest of the fabrics were from thrift store/garage sale shirts. The quilting is all stitch-in-the-ditch.

These two placemats will join the growing pile that will be donated to Meals on Wheels by our quilt guild. I'm hoping to end up with an even dozen to donate at an upcoming meeting. 

Linking up with:

Project Quilting 15.5 at Persimon Dreams

Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation

Finished or Not Friday at Alycia Quilts

Can I Get a Whoop Whoop at Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Happy quilting everyone!

Julie in GA

Project Quilting 15.4: Hourglass

The fourth challenge for Season 15 of Project Quilting was announced on Sunday, and the theme this week is "Hourglass":

 

PQ 15.4 HOURGLASS

It’s one of the most common yet foundational of geometric shapes: the hourglass. Just two triangles stacked tip-to-tip. Put them inside a square and it’s a block even beginners can sew. 

 

But it’s also a symbol embued with meaning – representing the passage of time, a reminder of our inevitable mortality. A grim reminder of things lost and … wait, it got real grim all a sudden. 

 

Maybe I should switch subjects.

 

SEX! Yay! That’s better: let’s instead consider the hourglass as an idealization of the womanly form and the lusty virtues of youth. 

Er. Or maybe I should just stop and let you decide where you take this one?

Rule One: you must use an hourglass SHAPE in your project, but you do not have to use the exact hourglass BLOCK.

My version of the hourglass challenge used the traditional block design, but turned it into a rectangle so that it could become a placemat. I began with the triangles along the outer edges, then built them up with strips in a variety of red fabrics, our color of the month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. 

Hourglass placemat, 12.75" x 16.75"

This placemat will join the pile that is accumulating to be donated to Meals on Wheels. Since I used leftover strips and scraps, I'm also entering this for the Table Scraps Challenge at The Joyful Quilter. I've even got some hearts in there to fit the monthly theme.

The backing fabric was folded around to the front to become the binding.

Linking up with:

Project Quilting 15.4 at Persimon Dreams

Midweek Makers at Quilt Fabrication

Wednesday Wait Loss at Inquiring Quilter

Finished or Not Friday at Alycia Quilts

Can I Get a Whoop Whoop at Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Table Scraps Challenge at The Joyful Quilter

Rainbow Scrap Challenge at So Scrappy

Happy quilting everyone!

Julie in GA

Project Quilting 15.3: Inside Out

The third challenge for Season 15 of Project Quilting was announced on Sunday, and the theme this week is "Inside Out:"

"For this week’s project, I want to see what’s normally hidden! Make a project with exposed seams or a raw-edge finish. Take on a bag pattern or other project that is constructed inside out and then literally “birthed” as part of the process. Or use this as a theme and demonstrate your unique inside-out perspective."

I was a little stumped at first on how to interpret the theme. Then I saw a mention on Facebook about reverse applique, and it reminded me of an Alison Glass sew along, The Cozy Workshop, that I had read about recently. The idea is to use cotton jersey knit as the top layer, which is reverse appliqued over a whole-cloth or pieced layer of quilting cotton. The concept reminds me of those pictures we used to make as kids with scribblings of bright crayons as the base layer that were then covered with black crayon. When the black layer was scraped away, the bright colors were revealed underneath. (Does anyone else remember doing this? I described it to my husband, and he had no idea what I was talking about.)

I pulled out a colorful brushed woven fabric for the inside layer that would be revealed by the reverse applique. 

For the top layer, l chose a deep purple mottled print. A quilting stencil was used for the center design.

The next photo shows all the layers stacked together. Under the multicolor is black flannel that was used instead of batting. At the bottom is the backing fabric, with the right side down.

Portions of the stencil were repeated to extend the design into a rectangle for a placemat.  I stitched on the drawn lines through all four layers of fabric. Then it was time to start trimming away the top layer to reveal the inside.

My goal when trimming the top layer was to end up with smooth curves and approximately 1/8" of fabric next to the stitching. There is a blue circle to the left around a place in the top fabric that had been slit with a scissors before the layers were stitched together. I cut openings in several places that were going to be trimmed away, making it much easier to get my scissors under that top layer without catching the inner fabric.

This is placemat #1 after the trimming was complete and the binding was finished, but before washing.

After washing, the cut edges were definitely more frayed, but not too bad, and the whole thing is more crinkled.

After washing and drying

This is the fabric on the back of the placemat.

After that was done, I decided to do another using cotton knit as the top fabric, just to see how well it worked. As I mentioned at the beginning, I was inspired by an Alison Glass sew along, The Cozy Workshop. However, my technique may be quite different because I haven't done the workshop, just read about it.

Other than using a knit fabric for the top layer, everything else was done in the same way as the first placemat. The layers shown in the next photo include a blue plaid flannel that was my batting substitute (I ran out of the black.)

Finished placemat before washing and drying

Finished placemat after washing and drying

Placemat #2 back

The placemat with the knit fabric on top definitely frayed less along the cut edges. It wasn't any easier to cut away the knit fabric, but that might be because my stencil design had deeper curves and narrower channels. It was a fun experiment in reverse applique, and the placemats will be another addition to the stack going to Meals on Wheels.

Linking up with:

Project Quilting 15.2 at Persimon Dreams

Finished or Not Friday at Alycia Quilts

Can I Get a Whoop Whoop at Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Happy quilting everyone!

Julie in GA

Jabberwocky Top Finished!

January has been a busy month including lots of quilting time. I've started way too many new quilts, but I'm very happy to have made progress on one of my projects from last year too. This is my finished Jabberwocky quilt top!

Jabberwocky, block pattern by Judy Martin

65" wide x 76.75" long

The Jabberwocky block pattern is by Judy Martin in The Block Book. That was the name she used for her block, and I didn't see any reason to change it for my quilt. The book is out of print, but you can still buy it online.

The star blocks for this quilt were made all throughout 2023 as part of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. The last blocks were made in October, then it was time to figure out my setting. After many auditions, I chose to offset the columns of blocks, and I used a grey spotty fabric as the sashing and borders. Here are a few of my favorite blocks.

Finishing this quilt top was my One Monthly Goal for January. Success at my first OMG of the year sure feels good!

Linking up with:

Midweek Makers at Quilt Fabrication

Wednesday Wait Loss at Inquiring Quilter

Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation

Finished or Not Friday at Alycia Quilts

Can I Get a Whoop Whoop at Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Peacock Party at Wendy's Quilts and More

Rainbow Scrap Challenge at So Scrappy

Oh Scrap! at Quilting is more fun than Housework

One Monthly Goal at Stories from the Sewing Room

Happy quilting everyone!

Julie in GA

Project Quilting 15.2: Sky Color

The second challenge for Season 15 of Project Quilting was announced on Sunday, and the theme was "Sky Color." Here's the challenge:

Take inspiration from the colors of the sky, but exclude or use less than 10% of the usual blue.

It took me a few days to figure out how I wanted to interpret the theme. Most of my ideas were for scrappy projects, and I didn't have the time or energy to pull out a whole pile of fabrics in order to cut them all. The plan finally came together after I discovered a Zip-loc bag of scraps from an earlier project.

These pieces were all leftovers from my Blooming Onion quilt, made in early 2021. The colors were perfect for the project I had in mind. 

Blooming Onion, 60.5" x 80.5"

The pieces I used measured about 2" x 4.75" each. I arranged them in a gradation of the colors of a  sunrise. They were all pieced together into a placemat measuring 12" x 16".

For the back, I used an old favorite Hoffman Fabrics gradation print. I had previously used the same fabric in my Project Quilting Mystery quilt earlier this month. 

Linking up with:

Project Quilting 15.2 at Persimon Dreams

Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation

Finished or Not Friday at Alycia Quilts

Can I Get a Whoop Whoop at Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Happy quilting everyone!

Julie in GA

First Finished Quilt of 2024

One of my biggest quilting goals for 2024 is to finish more quilts. Finishing has been my least favorite part of quilting ever since I started, but the number of unquilted tops hanging around in my sewing room closets has gotten ridiculous! I'm afraid to count how many there are, so it's time to get some of them finished.

The first quilt to be finished for 2024 is the Charm 9-Patch quilt. This quilt started as a set of 9-patch blocks made from charm squares by one or more members of our quilt guild. The guild president had made up several kits of these type of blocks and handed them out at a meeting last April with the challenge to bring back a finished quilt the next month. It took me several months longer, but it's finally done!

Charm 9-Patch quilt, 37.5" x 49.5" after washing

This was my favorite block in the quilt top. The sizes of the blocks tended to vary, and they all got trimmed down to the same measurement before they were joined together.

When I first received the blocks, I considered adding sashing in between to give the blocks a little separation, but I realized that joining them without sashing would produce a top that would fit on a backing made from a single width of fabric. I chose a well-aged Hawaiian print for the back and binding.

Here's a closer look at the backing fabric, and you can also see the meander quilting done in light blue.

This quilt will be donated back to the quilt guild for one of our community service partners. It feels great to have a finish, and I hope it's the first of many quilts to be completed this year.

Linking up with:

Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation

Finished or Not Friday at Alycia Quilts

Can I Get a Whoop Whoop at Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Brag About Your Beauties at From Bolt to Beauty

Thank Goodness It's Finished Friday (TGIFF) at Devoted Quilter

Happy quilting everyone!

Julie in GA

Project Quilting 15.1: Bird House

The 15th season of Project Quilting has begun, and our theme for the first challenge is "Bird House." Here's the challenge:

This week, I’d like you to be inspired by the myriad places a bird calls “home.” As always, this can be interpreted many ways: birdhouses, nests, birdcages, and trees could all apply – and you may take this theme anywhere else your imagination roams! If you can explain the connection (however tenuous) we’re on board!

I started by looking through my fabrics. I thought I had a piece with bird houses on it that might provide some inspiration, but no luck. If I ever had such a fabric, it is gone or well hidden now. I did find this cute bird print though. That could become my color palette.

Next I looked at a couple of block books. There were plenty of bird-themed blocks like Birds in the Air, but only one that fit the challenge--Bird's Nest. Here's a version of the block from EQ7 in colors similar to the bird print.

I pulled some fabrics from my stash and was excited to discover that I had enough of a chicken wire print for the background. I pieced a 12.5" block, then added borders on two sides to make it rectangular. Like last year, my Project Quilting pieces are going to be placemats, which will later be donated to Meals on Wheels.

Bird's Nest placemat, 12.5" x 17.5"

The bird print was used on the back. The quilting is all stitch-in-the-ditch.

Linking up with:

Project Quilting 15.1 at Persimon Dreams

Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation

Finished or Not Friday at Alycia Quilts

Can I Get a Whoop Whoop at Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Happy quilting everyone!

Julie in GA