Amy's Quilt

This is my first finish of 2014.  I received the commission to make this quilt last October.  I gave Amy plenty of warning that it wouldn't be ready anytime, soon, especially with the holiday quilting season coming up.  You can read about the process of making this quilt here.

I'm really in love with how this queen size Modern Positive Quilt turned out.  If you want to make one of your own, you can find my tutorial here.

And the quilt back:

I even named the quilt back!  Split Moons.

The quilt measures 86" x 94", the perfect queen size.  The quilting pantograph is called Simple Feathers.  My long arm quilter is Janiel Miller, right here in Murrieta.

Bob and I went down to our clubhouse and used the dance floor to take these photos.  We spread the quilt, then I went up on the stage and took the photos.

May your bobbins always be full,

A lovely stack of quilts, just waiting for bindings.

My long arm quilter has a couple of vacations planned.  Right now, she's in Connecticut, visiting her daughter, and in March she and her hubby are going on a cruise.  Before she left for CT, she concentrated on getting some of my quilts back to me.  She still has two!  She's a wonderful gal and I really like working with her.  Before I found her I tried four other long arm quilters.  Two weren't any good, and two quilted the wrong pattern on the quilts I'd entrusted to them.   

The top one and the bottom one are commissioned quilts, I'll get them done first, and get them in the mail, once payment is received.  The larger center quilt is for my daughter, Carrie, and the other two are just because I made them quilts.

May your bobbins always be full,

Split moons

Remember this Positive quilt top? 

I made this Falling Moon quilt back to go with it.

I got a phone call from my Fabulous Long Arm Quilter, letting my know there was a problem with the quilt back.  I went over and she explained the problem.  Basically, she couldn't be sure that the design would quilt smoothly.  We went over options and I headed home with the quilt back.  This is what I came up with:





This was taken before the half circles were stitched down.  I'm calling it Split Moons.  What do you think?   My Fabulous Long Arm Quilter, was very happy with it!

May your bobbins always be full,

Floating Moons

This is the quilt back of the Positive Quilt, I'm making for Amy.  When I started thinking about how I wanted the back to look, I thought of circles, to balance the plus signs on the front.  I've never pieced circles, but that's never stopped me, before.  The front on the quilt uses 12 Kona solids, and I own a 30° ruler, so I figured I was set.  12 x 30°=360°, no problem.

When I laid out the circles, I didn't want them all lined up, nor all looking the same.  I offset them and twisted them, to hopefully gain the feeling of movement.

This is a lot of fabric to wrestle.  The quilt is 86" x 94", so the back is 92" x 100", I pressed as I joined but failed to press the whole back after completion.

Here's the quilt top.

May your bobbins always be full,

Positive Quilt Top is complete

I've gone from this , to this .  I'm really happy with the result.

This is my second attempt to photograph this Positive quilt top.  It's a queen size and I'm not too short, 5" 6", for the first attempt I took a step stool, that I've used before, with me down to the tennis courts to try a get a photo.  Even stretching as much as I could, I couldn't reach high enough so that the quilt top didn't touch the ground.  Then my trusty quilt model gave it a try.  Bob is just a tad less than 6', but it still was a no go.

We went back home and got the step ladder, went back to the tennis courts, and got the shots!  The only negative, is this Positive quilt top got a tad wrinkled, bummer.

I finished this quilt top a couple of days ago, but we had a bit of drizzly, and blustery weather, so I had some time before I could take photos.  I used that time to start something for the back of the quilt.  I thought some circles would be fun.

I'm going to be busy with lots of life things for the rest of this week, and next week I'm going to be busy with Thanksgiving prep, you know how it goes.  After Thanksgiving, I'm hoping to finish the quilt back.  This quilt and my test version won't go to the long arm quilter until after Christmas.  She has enough on her plate with all the quilters who don't plan ahead and want something done right before Christmas.

May your bobbins always be full,

Modern Positive Quilt

I'm finally ready to start cutting Amy's Modern Positive Quilt.  Yay! All the fabric is here, and the tutorial is written, if you want to make your own Queen-Size Positive Quilt.  Above is the throw size quilt that was Amy's inspiration, below are the colors I'm pretty sure, according to my Kona Color Card, are in that quilt.

These are all Kona colors, Maize, Corn Yellow, Cheddar, Lemon, School Bus, Amber, Tangerine, Carnation, Pomegranate, Blush Pink, Pink and Peony, in case you want it to look just like Amy's.  These colors really work well together!  Now, off to the cutting table, AKA the dining room table.

May your bobbins always be full,

Positive Queen Quilt Top, first edition

I take getting a commission for a custom quilt pretty seriously.  When Amy asked me to make her a certain quilt, I knew I could do it, but there was no pattern or tutorial for a similar quilt, that I could find.  I decided that my best course of action would be to make a "trial" quilt top, writing a tutorial as I went.  The quilt Amy wants is made of solids, and very modern.  I wanted to keep the trial quilt top modern, but I wanted to use fabric from my stash.  These are the fabrics I used.

I kept pulling and rearranging fabric, until I was pleased.  Then I got going with the math and writing the directions.  I'm going to post the tutorial a bit later, it'll be here, if you're interested.

The quilt top turned out perfect, to me, and it was pretty easy to put together.  It's just very time consuming putting together a queen size and wrangling all that fabric.  I told Bob we may need a larger house, if I keep this up!  (Just kidding, and he knows it.)

Here's a shot, outside on the grass, and below on my bed.

I'm thinking, this first edition of the quilt, may need to stay at Casa Prytz!

I'm linking up with Sew Cute Tuesday.

May your bobbins always be full,

A New Plus Quilt

Via etsy, I had an inquiry about making a custom quilt, in mid September.  We went back a forth a little, and the buyer, Amy, sent me a 50% deposit this month, and I placed a fabric order.  This is the quilt she wants, I'm sure you've seen it on Pinterest.  Here is the original source.

Even though it isn't one of my designs, I'm pretty sure it will turn out wonderful.   I purposely ordered too many colors, thinking I was sure to hit the correct 12, wrong.  Even making my best guess, I was a little off on colors. Here are the ones' that made the "cut", pun intended. 

I've ordered some Kona Pink Blush, to fill the empty spot.  While I'm waiting for the fabric, I'm going to start on the math.  Amy wants a queen sized quilt, and she wants only one color in the binding, the lightest yellow.

Here are the leftovers.  My daughter Carrie has asked me to make her a quilt, using light pinks and yellows, she calls them non-colors, so some of these will go right into that project.

May your bobbins always be full,