Category: Quilting and Sewing

Meet my mini pineapple quilt!  I had so many squares left over from making my pineapple quilt that I decided a mini was in order.


The color combination really grew on me during these projects.  The orange/yellow with dark blue and green are so refreshing and cheery.  I quilted a small crosshatch pattern on the diagonal, and the texture of it is awesome.


For the binding I used a Denyse Schmidt print from the Flea Market Fancy reprint, with a tiny strip of orange thrown in for fun.


This was a fast finish.  Sometimes it’s nice to have those, don’t you think?  (Especially if you’re like me and you have a bunch of other projects you thought would be fast finishes that are still hanging around in one state or another.)  It’s also fun to use those extra pieces at the end of a project.

Now to work on some other finishes!

Jennifer

I’ve been trying to use more of my stash this year, and wanted to make a quilt with a lot of yellow and orange.  The pineapple quilt trend looked like a fun and fast project so I made one.  The making of it turned out to be a comedy of errors which exposed the distracted, stressed out state of mind I had at the time.  I made so many mistakes in this quilt.  Not so much in the piecing, but in the reading of instructions and cutting and so forth.

But it turned out fine.  My pineapples are a little taller than most of them out there, and even when I figured out what I’d done I somehow managed to fail to account for it when cutting my sashing, and so there are all kinds of seams where there didn’t need to be.

Still, look how cute it is!


The colors are so vibrant and happy, especially set against the denim colored Essex yarn dyed linen that I used for the background.  It gives the quilt great contrast as well as amazing texture.  I also really love the diagonal plaid quilting.  It’s the perfect pattern for pineapples, don’t you think?  Kaylene Parry did a great job of quilting it for me.


A scrappy binding was a great choice for this quilt, and I’d been saving this awesome green print for the perfect project.  I love it on the back.  It’s a design by Juliana Horner which I scored at Joann’s for $2.40/yard a while ago.  Can’t beat that!


I am pleased with this quilt, and glad it turned out well.  These cute scrappy fruit quilt blocks are fun.  I’m thinking I’ll make a strawberry one soon.  I feel grateful and lucky to have discovered quilting.  It makes me so happy!


Jennifer

Introducing Rosewater, a collection by Verna Mosquera for Free Spirit Fabrics, released (I believe) in 2014.  I’ve had a jelly roll of this collection sitting for at least a year, and it was time to use it.

It’s been more than a month since I attended Kathy Doughty’s workshops here in Utah, but so many things that she said are still swirling around in my head!  She has motivated me to work more within my own stash to find fabric combinations that are a little less predictable, that make each other really shine, and use what I have.  I’d been poking around on Pinterest for jelly roll quilt ideas and came across this jelly roll quilt top which I used as inspiration for mine.  But I didn’t want to just pull out a solid.

Enter black and white gingham.

I got started.


The gingham was cut in 1.5″ strips and I just added alternating borders of prints and gingham.  I ended up cutting a few strips from my stash to add to the project because I wasn’t sure if the jelly roll I was using had enough strips in it to reach my goal of 60″ square.  In the end, it worked out and I had plenty, but it’s nice to have a few other prints mixed in.

Especially that gorgeous green floral by Jennifer Paganelli.  I wish I had a bolt of that fabric.


This turned out to be a really fun and simple project.  Somewhere in the middle I felt a little bored with doing the same thing around and around, but then all of a sudden I was nearly finished and it worked out perfectly.


I’m SO glad I used the gingham!  I feel like it adds depth and interest, and keeps the quilt top from being too “sweet.”  The Rosewater collection is so feminine and delicate; the gingham grounds it.  And makes me want to get a closer look.

This particular gingham is the Medium Cotton Gingham in black by Riley Blake Designs.  It’s a printed, and not a woven, gingham, and was therefore really easy to work with in this project.

I purchased mine here more than a year ago, and it looks like they still have some in stock.


This quilt top feels like a victory to me.  One less jelly roll sitting on my shelf with no specific plans, a quilt top completely from stash, something actually finished around here!  The backing is already pieced (another gingham, I’m so excited!), along with the binding, and I’m trying to decide if I want to quilt it really simply and let the fabrics speak for themselves, or do something else.


I love the sight of a quilt top hanging from my cherry tree, gently blowing in the soft breeze.  Summer!  My heart is happy.

Jennifer