Quilts of 2013

I'm going to make this  pretty short and sweet--y'all have seen my quilts a lot, and I have a mini I'm trying to finish today (and will add to this post later).  Here's all my finished quilts from the year!

King's Corner

Doll mini ticker tape quilt

Doll mini

Salt Water Triangles

ChrisBobSquarePants

Lone Star, grey side

Lone Star, pink side

Practice quilt turned mini.

Forest Quilt

Mini lone star

Also two Gallifreyan minis I don't have photos of...

TARDIS quilt

The Doctor's Starry Night

Aspen mini

The Doctor's Starry Night Quilt

I'm am so, SO glad to finally be posting about the finished quilt!

Finished size is about 79" x 84"

This quilt was commissioned by my brother's girlfriend Andrea, who is now my friend of course.  Now that she has one of my nicest quilts she might as well be family though (hint hint).  She originally asked if I would make her a TARDIS quilt for her full sized bed.  I bought a TARDIS panel from Spoonflower (which is no longer available), thinking it would make it a quick, easy quilt.  Then I asked what she'd like on the back and she mentioned something inspired by this Dr Who fan art of Starry Night.  She meant something simple--just blues and greens and maybe some stars.

I put navy binding on the sky section and green binding on the hills.

But my brain exploded with the possibilities and I started drafting patterns for a full sized Starry Night on the back of the quilt.

Concept sketch/quilt pattern.

I started really working on the quilt at the end of August, though the design process started back in April (with a house move in between taking up 2+ months).  So it feels as though I've been working on this quilt for the better part of a year!  Thankfully, I love this quilt.  Even when it was driving me crazy, I felt incredibly proud to see my vision turning into something tangible and beautiful.

I'm a little disappointed that the quilting doesn't stand out better.

By the time I finished the quilt top, I wasn't sure it was worth putting the TARDIS panel on the back anymore (because clearly the Starry Night side now had to be the front!).  I just knew the quilting I had planned wouldn't do the TARDIS panel justice, so I turned it into its own little lap quilt you can see here: TARDIS quilt.

And I did something else on the back--some navy fabric and strips of globe fabric that resembles Gallifreyan.

Where the swirls meet!

I quilted the first lines about 1-1.5" apart, then went back and added three more lines of quilting in other thread colors between the first lines.  It was a LOT of work on a domestic machine!

Trying to capture some of the texture all those lines create.

There are lots and lots of posts on the process I went through, which you can browse here.

I used one layer of Warm and Natural batting for the quilt.  The mini TARDIS I quilted separately using two layers of scraps (I think one layer was poly and the other was some mix) and then hand appliqued it onto the quilt so there wouldn't be stitches on the back.

Made from this free paper piece pattern.

I used almost entirely Aurifil thread from Pat Sloan's collection called Eat Your Fruits and Veggies I won earlier this year.  The threads are just gorgeous!  Here are the ones I used on this quilt: #2605 (med grey, which I bought seperately) on the back, #2740 (royal  TARDIS blue), #5005 (bright blue), #2545 (royal purple), #2887 (sage green), #1147 (bright green), #1135 (light yellow), and #2000 (cream).

I wish all the quilting/thread was more visible in the pictures!  Here's a close up of one area:

Five colors of thread in this photo!

For all Andrea's patience and flexibility in the design, she's gotten a TARDIS zip pouch, a TARDIS lap quilt, a Gallifreyan mini quilt of her name (you can see the process post here), and this full sized Starry Night quilt!

Quilt labels: I used a Pentel Gel Roller for Fabric on muslin with interfacing on the back for stability while writing on it and the Quilts of a Feather one is from  TagsToGo on Etsy.  

Linking up with...EVERYBODY!  In addition to those in my sidebar:

More TARDIS quilting

Y'all are probably still pretty busy entering the HUNDREDS of giveaways over on SewMamaSew.com (oh man am I sick of entering giveaways, haha--but hopefully I win something this time, right?!), so I am going to keep this pretty short and sweet.

Last time I showed everyone my paper pieced TARDIS block:

Just after trimming the edges.

After a little bit of work it looks like this:

Quilted on the "Police Box" using press n seal (see my post here for details) and used a sharpie to draw on the window lines.  I quilted in the ditch with two layers of batting for extra depth.

Today the quilt is finally trimmed and ready to be bound!  I even made different colored binding for hills and the sky.

Never before has my binding looked so nice before putting on a quilt! 

Now I'm just waiting on some motivation to do it, a decision on whether or not to machine or hand finish the binding, and what to write on a quilt label (which I like to have stitched down with the binding).

PS My giveaway is open until Friday evening, go enter, it's an easy one!  Also, how the heck are so many people giving away such awesome prizes?  No way am I about to part with my top-shelf fabrics--I have plans for those!!

Giveaway Day!

Today is Giveaway Day over on SewMamaSew.com and I actually heard about it early enough this time to plan for it, haha.  If you've never heard of it, go check it out--it's tons of bloggers linking up their giveaways this week!  

So, here's what I'm giving away (to three winners):

Big o' pile of fabric!  Basically stash busting.

It's a big mix of size, type, and color.  There are a few organics, batiks and flannels, but mostly quilting cottons.  *I'm not sure how I will split them among the winners yet--you will probably get a random sampling from the pile!*  Here's a closer look at them:

That bug print on the left is nearly 3 yards of flannel!

To enter this giveaway: please go check out my quilts and tell me in a comment which one if your favorite!  The only one not pictured on that link is my Starry Night quilt (which will be done soon...ish...):

I will draw THREE winners at random after 5pm on December 13th.  International entries are welcome!  I will email the winners--so if you are a no reply blogger, please include your email in your comment!  Thanks for visiting, good luck with all the giveaways!

Paper Pieced TARDIS

After my two day marathon of quilting on my starry night quilt, my body was exhausted and sore...and needed a whole day to recover.  While waiting for motivation to strike again, I did a bunch of research on TARDIS (again) and finally chose fabrics to make a mini TARDIS to applique onto the Starry Night quilt.

Some of you may not know, or have forgotten, that my Starry Night quilt is actually another Dr Who quilt.  In one of the episodes, the Doctor goes to visit van Gogh and ends up inspiring some of his paintings.  Well, my quilt is inspired by some fan art implying that van Gogh painted the TARDIS in his Starry Night painting.  

Anyway, I chose this TARDIS paper piece pattern because it includes the light.  I intentionally did not make the block the full size because I plan to trim it pretty close to the TARDIS to applique it on...so most of the background will be waste.  

I used scraps from the Starry Night quilt for the background fabric, and wish I hadn't used the polkadots...but oh well.  My inner Dr Who nerd says it's not complete until it says "POLICE public call BOX" on it (and window panes, but those should be simple).  I wanted to use a white fabric pen, but decided after my last issues with white fabric pens that it was worth just trying to quilt the letters on.

So, without any water soluble stabilizer (still), I decided to use Press 'n Seal again.  

Finally found a picture with the right angles, printed it, taped it to a window and then traced the letters onto the Press n Seal (the outlined letters). 

So...next I think I will quilt those letters onto the TARDIS block, and then quilt the rest of it...and finally put it on the Starry Night quilt.

WIP Wednesday: Starry Night...some more...

I really hope y'all aren't tired of seeing my Starry Night quilt yet!  The good news is I can see the light at the end of the tunnel!  I promise I can count the number of blog posts remaining  for this quilt on one hand.

I had a frustrating week with the quilt, but somehow powered through and made a huge amount of progress the last couple of days!

Progress as of Sunday morning--working on the first blue lines on the sky, about half done.

The top shows the first lines--about 1-1.5" apart, the left is the swirl quiltings, which has the second and third lines, and the green is finished (three lines of quilting between the first lines). 

I finished the first lines on the sky Monday and then finished the second lines yesterday--they were so much faster!  So now I am adding in with the third and fourth lines in purple thread:

This section is DONE (unless I decide to add more to the moon...?).  Isn't that texture awesome?

I quilted almost all day yesterday (around the kid's demands, of course) and can't believe how much I got done!  Hooo lawdy my arms and shoulders are tired!  Here's how it looks now (up on the design wall while I fill more bobbins!):

All that's left to quilt is the fourth lines on the swirls and the top left corner!