Dreaming of Candy Hearts

February, I think of candy hearts. For years, I have wanted to make a quilt with hearts for the month of February. 

This year, I made it happen.

I started at the beginning of the month by cutting out my hearts from 5 inch batik squares that I got from Missouri Quilt Co in mid January. At first, I wanted to use a printed pattern with vintage, Valentine motif that Missouri Quilt Co was selling, but I was too late on that deal. The remaining fabrics came from Joann Fabrics since there was an awesome sale on fabrics. I cut 10 inch squares for front and back fabrics. 

This quilt is another quilt-as-you-go quilt since I wanted to use up remnant batting and also make it easier quilting. Much easier to quilt a 10" block with curves through the machine than maneuver an entire quilt.

So, I got busy zigzagging batting pieces to together for the 10 squares to be quilted.

Next, came centering the hearts and machine stitching the hearts down onto the tops, white 10" squares.

Hearts were arranged, numbered (36), and placed with back squares that also had been arranged. 

Squares were then sandwiched (top, batting, back) and quilted with my Davis Feed walking foot machine. I love that machine! 

Threads were knotted and then sewn under, between top fabric and batting. 

Stashing strips were cut, top 2" (little red hearts) and bottom 1.5" (white). I assembled the blocks with the back stashing first. I tried something different for the assembling of the quilt-as-you-go blocks on this quilt. 

After a row was formed, I then stitched down the top stashings. 

I decided to bind the quilt with the flange binding technique of stitching in the ditch. 

Most of the binding is purple with a little corner of red. The flange portion is mainly pink with just a little bit of orange.

My mom loved the "red hots", cinnamon red hearts. She would buy them every Valentine's Day instead of the candy hearts with the little messages. This quilt has both, minus the messages--those are for one to dream about.

Kaleidoscope Quilt

 A kaleidoscope quilt has been on my bucket list for years. While watching Jordan Fabrics Youtube, I came across an easy method for assembling this type of quilt. Jordan calls it the Roundabout. I followed her pattern for what I call my kaleidoscope quilt.

I wanted my first project of the year to be this project. After weeks of record rains and clouds, I was wishing for Spring and warmer weather.  I wanted a quilt with bright, warm colors too!

I remember as a child looking through those cheap kaleidoscopes seeing a rainbow of colors. That was my goal for this quilt, warmth. I had to purchase a 45 degree ruler for cutting the triangles and some additional fabrics to complement the multi-color, flower background fabric.

I lost count of how many triangles I cut.

Assembling my blocks, I made sure of being careful with keeping perfect 1/4 inch seams. 

Took me some time arranging my pattern. Now one can see the circles formed from triangles. 

Next was cutting out and laying the backside of the quilt. Yup, this will be a quilt-as-you-go!

After sandwiching the layers, I quilted each block. Front fabric of blocks 9.5 inches, batting 8.5 inches, and back fabric 10 inches are the measurements. Blocks were then sewn together with the 1/4 inch seams going to the back. 

Two inch sashing strips folded down to one inch were used to cover the seams on the backside of the quilt. I originally had a very dark green in my fabrics that I decided not to use in the binding. Instead I went for the dark blue with the dots along with a pinkish fabric with pastel colors that isn't in the line-up of fabrics. I thoroughly enjoyed doing this quilt pattern and assembling as a quilt-as-you-go.

Signs of Spring are starting to show with some decorative fruit trees in bloom.

Last Post 2022

My final quilt of the year was for my husband. He asked for more quilts to have a backing of "soft warm material", meaning flannel. I decided to use flannel for front and back of the quilt that I made for him as a Christmas gift. 

Since I only had less than two weeks to make this quilt, I decided on a quilt-as-you-go quilt. I also tried a new method that I haven't used in my past quilt-as-you-go quilts.

Blocks were made with batting a quarter inch less all around the block so that when sewing the blocks together only the front fabrics and the back fabrics were sewn together with seam edges on the backside of quilt. My blocks were 10" with batting 9".

Top of quilt has no sashing. Blocks are sewn together. 

After sewing a couple of rows together, I felt the front of the quilt was boring and needed something else. While taking a break from the quilt, I noticed some of my outside plants with red petals were still in bloom in December. I decided to add a red flower to the quilt top. 

I played around with the placement of the flower petals before machine stitching them down.

I decided to change up my method of binding the quilt since all the material is flannel. I used a cotton fabric as a flange to act as a stabilizer for the binding. 

The yellow sashing hides the seam edges on the backside of the quilt. I didn't worry about making the plaid squares line up. That would have been a nightmare for me!  I normally wouldn't have picked a plaid, but it was the only patterned fabric that had the colors as the front fabrics that I liked. My husband was happy to get a quilt with "soft warm material" on front and back of quilt. He will stay warm under his quilt during the cold winter nights while watching tv on our comfy sofa.

A Southwestern Vibe

Back in May, my son visited me with 4 bags of tee shirts from his years in college. A couple of tee shirts were from his high school years. He asked me if I would be interested in making him another quilt and again use some of the tee shirts for the back design. Time went by, he had moved to Phoenix, and daughter's wedding events were now in the past. 

I was in the mood of doing another Delectable Mountain pattern, but I wanted to change it up to look like lanterns. Since my son was now living in the Southwest, I picked colors that have a Southwestern feel: green for the cacti, blue for the sky, and oranges for the earth. He enjoys playing his electric guitar; so, I used a blue fabric with electric guitar motif for the lanterns. 

I decided to use a nontraditional approach for piecing the tee shirts.

I surprised him at Christmas with the quilt. He had thought I had forgotten about the tee shirts. He loved the Southwestern vibe and was totally surprised that I had completed the quilt this year.

Long Overdue Christmas Quilt

For the last 4 years, I have wanted to make another Christmas quilt. This year I set a goal to get it done! I had some saved fabrics for this project from past years, but I needed a couple more yards to make a good size lap size quilt (65x65).

I enjoy watching Jordan's Youtube videos from Jordan's Fabrics. She had recently posted a video with this design. It isn't her pattern; so, she couldn't post the directions. She just showed how to assemble. 

After looking at a couple of assembled blocks, I figured out a general idea of the dimensions of the quilt blocks. 

I changed the color of the small squares and the corners' color from what was suggested. I wanted to bring in more red throughout the quilt. 

I decided to just quilt on one side of the seams to form rows.

I wanted to add a binding with a flange to this quilt to carry the white out to the binding, but have the white not overly dominating. 

Stitching in the ditch of the flange and binding to stitch down the binding.

Stitching this way was easy to do and gave me the look that I wanted for this quilt. The binding fabric (green) is 1 3/4 inch wide, and the flange (white) is 2 1/2 inches wide. 

I incorporated some of the leftover strips meant for the front quilt blocks to the back of the quilt to make the back of quilt more interesting.  
 

It's Beginning To Look Like Christmas

My daughter asked for a decorative Christmas Tree ornament similar to one my mother made for me decades ago. It's a 5 inch stuffed felt pine tree with bead work to represent ornaments on a Christmas tree. Instead, I'm surprising her with a different one, a quilted tree. 

I followed Jordan Fabric's Christmas tree pattern for assembling the tree and border. Blocks were sewn into rows. I then decided to make this project into a quilt-as-you-go.

The batting was set up for assembling the rows together by using the quilt-as-you-go method.

Once the rows were all sewn down, I then added a flange before adding the border. 

Buttons and beads are the final touch. The beads are from my mother's bead stash and the buttons I found. 

The Outdoor Wedding Quilt

The ivory colored material for this quilt was purchased decades ago when I lived in Tokyo. An American friend told me that a wedding shop was selling used, rental, wedding kimonos--just that day. We headed to the shop with such excitement of seeing a wedding kimono and not really planning on purchasing one. Well, I purchased two kimonos for $50, one for my daughter (then age 4) and one for a future child (my son wasn't born then).  I thought one day it would be a wedding gift, a reflection of their bi-racial heritage. 

This is the wedding kimono that my son will receive in the future. These kimonos are very heavy. I remember dragging both home on the trains. I lived in Shimokitazawa at that time. Over an hour home with a long walk from station to house. My arms were so tired.

Both kimonos have sat in the bottom of this large Japanese tea box since 1994. I covered the tea box as a project while living in Japan.

The tea box holds my tablecloths and runners. A tea box is the best place in protecting materials for decades. 

My daughter wasn't interested in having her kimono; it takes up space and not her style. But I still feel the way I did the day I purchased those kimonos. I want my daughter to have something that represents her heritage during her wedding, and afterwards a memory of that day. My side of the family is European descent. Since my 91 year old mother can't make it to the wedding, I pulled my mother's fabrics from my stash to be in the quilt. Those fabrics will represent my mother.

I thought what pattern can be used without loosing the crane motif in the ivory fabric that was used for the kimono and also represent the European side of the family. Yup, an Irish Chain came to mind. 

Next, it needed to work for the quilt-as-you-go block...

... and can be used for the outdoor wedding in the Tetons.

The back is jean material. Yes, I still have more jean material! The quilt needed to come together quickly since I had little time with turning the kimono into a useable quilt. 

The motif of the wedding kimono's material is cranes. The Teton region is home to the Sandhill Cranes. In Japan, cranes are a national treasure that symbolize happiness, good fortune and longevity. When I approached this project, I wasn't thinking of the cranes in the Tetons. How appropriate this quilt has become. My future son-in-law is Korean. In Korea, the crane symbolizes harmony, long marriage (cranes mate for life), and respect for ancestors. It brings me even greater joy knowing that it will be used during their outdoor wedding. It speaks greatly of heritage, happiness, harmony, and longevity. 

Summer Confetti Rag Quilt

 I'm on a roll with making rag quilts. I'm still using up the jean material. Yes, I do have lots.

This looks like it could be confetti! It's a mix of my mom's fabrics and my scrapes.

I had leftover white squares from an Irish chain quilt project that I did for my younger brother years ago. The pile was calling to me to do something with those white squares. Confetti squares were arranged with the white squares to form blocks.

After arranging the layout of blocks and sewing up the blocks, I got down to sandwiching the blocks and quilting the layers. The 13" jean square is on the bottom with 11" square of batting between the 12.5" top layer. 

Blocks were sewn together using 1/2" seam. The quilt was needing something else and was just a wee bit small at 48". So I made a border!

My favorite ruler!

Backside of quilt!

Quilt came together in less than a week!