My Precious QAL

I feel I have done quite a bit this weekend.

For My Precious QAL hosted by KelbySews, I am finishing projects. I’m still quilting my Dick and Jane, but have finished the baby quilt in Bliss! Yay! One down.

I’m free motion quilting (FMQ) the Dick and Jane and it isn’t going quite as well as I would like. Seems like the tension is off, the machine is being persnickety or the fabric is bunching! I finally took it out of the machine and will go back to it when I’m in a more patient mood.

I finished the baby quilt below for a grand niece. Angela Walter’s new book came in so handy during the quilting phase. Most of the patterns I tried in this quilt were from her book. She does a great job of showing how to execute the patterns. I’m already waiting for her next book!

Quilt for my great niece. Fabric is Bliss by Bonnie and Camille for Moda Fabric

I worked on the block below for Kim Brackett’s Over and Under quilt using a William Morris jelly roll by Moda. My husband and daughter both tried to claim this quilt. My hubby won. (I actually won this William Morris jelly roll months ago. I believe I won this from FatQuarterShop. The fabric is beautiful!)

Nightshade.OverUnder — 1. William Morris fabrics from Moda, 2. Nightshade center block needs to take the place of pieced center block, 3. Side corners had to be pieced because of fabric design, 4. Fussy cutting these corners took more ‘fussing’ than you would imagine.

I actually wanted to make this quilt in Tula Pink’s Nightshade and needed to make a center block to verify dimensions since I will not be piecing this center square. I had to cut the Nightshade as a diamond to get the sisters in the block and I also had to add small pieces to the side points. I have all of this fabric line, but I can already tell I’m going to need some coordinates to create this quilt. I’m on a serious fabric freeze. I may have to window shop for now…and dream. I’m really excited about this quilt.

I also worked on Liberty of London and linen squares for a quilt. It took some nerve for me to use the Liberty charm pack I purchased from VeryBerryFabrics. I was inspired by Ali at VeryBerryHandmade. See the baby quilt she made using Liberty and linen here. I just love it!

I worked on a muslin of Vogue 8689:

All in all a good weekend. I’m looking forward to this weekend. I have an

extra day since Monday is a holiday. My “to do” list is long!

Happy sewing!

This is the second month of My Precious QAL hosted by KelbySews. I am new to QALs but have really enjoyed this one. It’s great seeing all the fantastic fabrics and patterns everyone is using. Some incredible inspiration out there. I started by using my Dick and Jane fabrics in a quilt top blogged here. I’ve put it down temporarily and will get back to it in July. I plan to finish the back and hopefully quilt it before July’s Precious QAL link date. This month I actually was torn between using Kate Spain’s Terrain, Bonnie and Camille’s Bliss, and Denyse Schmidt’s Flea Market Fancy. The Terrain is cut, I actually started on the Flea Market Fancy, but I’m showing the Bliss. Problem with decisions much?

Bonnie and Camille have some really precious fabric lines. When Bliss came out I had to have some even though I had no idea what I would make at the time. My daughter was expecting my first grandchild, but it was a boy, so no Bliss for him. Then my nephew gave me a new great-niece and I had the perfect excuse.

I decided to use half square triangles and I tell you, if I had it to do over, I would give Thangles a try. These babies are not as simple as they appear. They love to stretch out of shape on me. And finding a placement that I loved was a little time consuming, but this is what I came up with.

Now I have to decide on a border and binding and I’m having a difficult time with that. I’ve changed my mind at least three times and now have three more fabrics I’m trying to choose from.

What do you think? I could not get the colors to show well in my photos. This is close as I could get. The colors on all three fabrics are really good matches. The blue is not the electric blue it appears here and has a tiny pale blue (almost white) pattern. I originally liked the blue because there is so little of it in the main quilt. The red dot is dead on and matches the red dot in the Bliss fabrics. I’m tempted to use it as an accent even if I go with one of the other colors. And the pink blends really well with the fabrics. The fabric at the top of the photo is a companion fabric that I will use for a backing.

If you have a suggestion, I would love to hear it.

P.S. I had intended to submit a bag done in Flea Market Fancy, but found that all Charms are not created equal. Obviously Free Spirit Fabric‘s charm squares are right under 6″, while Moda’s charm squares (which I was using to create the lining) is 5″ square. So now I have to rethink my lining.