City View Quilt for Brian and Jennifer is finished!

I'm just in lo0ve with how great this quilt turned out.

I kept the quilt back very simple, with just a couple of zig zag rows.

The quilt size is 52" x 69".  Brian and Jennifer requested 48" x 60"; but this size worked best with the design.  I love the border and the binding fabrics that they chose.  The quilting pantograph is called "A Tisket A Tasket".

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,

City View Quilt Back

For the back of this quilt, I divided the 12 fabrics that were used in the City View quilt top into two groups, those that were "more" yellow, and those that were "more" orange.  I made four HSTs of each fabric and joined them into two zig zag rows, for the focus of the quilt back.

The over all size of the quilt top is 52" x 68", a bit larger than the 48" x 60" size ordered.  It's larger because of the design; my choice was larger or smaller, so I went with larger.  Some of that will shrink up during the long-arm quilting, and still more when my customers wash it.

Now, we just have to wait for the long-arm quilter to work her magic, so I can get the binding on this beauty and get it in the mail.

May your bobbins always be full,

City View Quilt Top is complete

I'm really lovin' this quilt top.  Today I added the border, it's a very subtle gray with wavy lines, called Stems in Gray by Allison Harris.

This is my first time making mitered corners, and I think they turned out great.  Thank heaven for Pinterest!  Before I accepted this commission, I pinned what I thought was a good tutorial for mitered corners.  It proved to be a good one, but her math was a bit off, and wasted some fabric.  That fabric will go in the scrap pile!

Now, I ready to start on the quilt back.

May your bobbins always be full,

Step by step

No wind today, sure makes taking photos a lot easier.  This morning I pieced the sashing between the rows of blocks.

I never can resist a good "back-view".   This quilt to looks good from the front and from the back!

A couple of views with the outside sashing in place.  The next step will be to add a wide mitered border, all the way around.  That'll wait until tomorrow, Bob and I are going to the movies this afternoon.

Oh, the life of  retired folk!  We actually saw two movies, yesterday, American Hustle and Lone Survivor.  Today we're going to see August: Osage County and Nebraska.  We tend to go to the movies in spurts, so this is our January movie, spurt!

May your bobbins always be full,

Workin' it

I've sewn all the blocks into strips for the center of the quilt.  Each row is put together the same way, (top photo) but every other row will be turned to get the City View pattern.

We're in the middle of a Santa Ana wind event, here in SoCal, but I managed to get some photos between gust!

May your bobbins always be full,

City View Quilt

I've been making steady progress on this custom quilt.  After I cut all the pieces for the blocks, I sorted them out.  I wanted each block to be different.  With 12 different fabrics, I cut 3 each of the 5" squares and the 2.5" squares, plus 6 each of the 2.5" x 5" rectangles.  I set about sorting them into individual stacks.

Also, one of the fabrics, Tile Flourish, has a beautiful medallion; so I fussy-cut that fabric, for the 5" squares.  Here's one of the completed blocks using Tile Flourish.

Over the weekend, while Bob was watching football, I did some marathon sewing and finished 27 block.  Today I think I'll complete the remaining 9 blocks.  I'll then be ready to determine the layout and add some sashing.

BTW, I found the answer to "what pattern are you using?" It's called Modern View, by John Kubiniec!  He was going to teach the class at City Quilter, and that's why the quilt was on display.  Of course, I'm not using a/that pattern, I'm doin' my own thing, as usual.  But the photo of John's quilt is definitely the inspiration for this quilt.

 Since I took the photo at City Quilter, I've decided to call this version City View Quilt.

May your bobbins always be full,

Getting started

On Monday I placed an order for the fabric for the custom baby girl quilt, and the fabric came, yesterday.  My, Hawthorne Threads is fast!  Today, I got everything unpacked, and photo taken, and I'm ready to start cutting.  I love this beautiful fabric by Joel Dewberry, it's his Heirloom line, in the Citrine Palette

This is going to be a great palette for a little girl quilt.  They've asked for a 48" x 60" quilt, so it will be useful for a long time.

Today I'm cutting (35) 5" squares, (35) 2.5" squares and (70) 2.5" x 5" rectangles.  Let the fun begin.

May your bobbins always be full,

Practice blocks

I'm waiting for the fabric to arrive, so I can start a new quilt.   Today, I thought I'd make some more blocks, just to get in some practice making this block.  I pulled scraps and cut away.  This time I narrowed the sashing to 1", after sewing and pressed the seams open.  I really like this look, better.

What do you think.  Also, does anyone know the name of this block?  If not, I'm open to naming suggestions.

May your bobbins always be full,

Well, this is interesting.

Over the weekend, I had a series of Etsy convos with a potential customer for a commissioned quilt.  A total of 12 convos back and forth.  Every customer is different; this was a couple, the man is the spokesperson, expecting a new addition, a baby girl in April, and they are very focused on the "quilt to be".  They'd decided on a quilt design, based on this photo that was on this blog, in June of last year.

This was taken at City Quilter, my favorite quilt store in NYC, when I was there in May.  They have chosen a fabric line, a border fabric and the binding fabric.  Yesterday they paid the 50% deposit and I ordered the fabric.

Since this is not one of my designs, today I grabbed some 5" squares from my scrap pile and made four sample blocks.  This was a test to see proportion, concentrating on the width of the  sashing strips.

I think I got it right the first time.  These test blocks will go into my stack for my Christmas project for next year.

I make quilts as my creative outlet.  I do custom quilts for the same reason, and to make my customer happy.  Bob and I always shake our heads when someone that we don't know, ask me to make them a custom quilt.  Out of all the quilters in the US, and all the quilters selling on Etsy, how do they choose me?  It's a mystery.  Of the custom quilts I've made I've only "known" one of my customers, she was a former blogger, who I'm still in FB contact with.  The rest have appeared via an Etsy convo.

This quilt will be a bit of a rush, because I need to have it in the mail by the end of March.  I saw my fabulous long arm quilter, yesterday, and came up with a game plan.  Right now, she has seven of my quilts, including another custom quilt, and this one will make eight!

May your bobbins always be full,