Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Quilt Tops & Serger Struggles


These last few weeks have been pretty productive for me – which is rare but a nice surprise!  Of course, my share of the laundry and housework is another story altogether…

I just finished 2 quilt tops, and am completely in love with them both.  I also have another one just waiting to be cut, but I think I need to get a handle on these first.

First up is a fat quarter quilt from Anna Maria Horner’s Innocent Crush line (at least I think it’s all Innocent Crush).  This came from a kit that included a pattern, 16 fat quarters, backing, and binding that I got for a ridiculous deal last weekend.  I normally don’t like quilt kits, but due to the awesome price and the fact that my husband said he liked the fabrics, I jumped on this one.



The pattern is “Just ‘Tween Us Girls” by Carlene Westberg Designs.  I followed the cutting instructions and one of the layout options, but changed the block construction a little.  The pattern called for the different widths to be randomly sewn together.  Oops!  I have to say my Type A self likes the slightly more orderly look.


The backing will be the light purple print with the flowers.



The second is a longtime WIP.  I made the 6 inch bowtie blocks from Kona Coal and scraps a few months ago, and let the stack just sit.  I wasn’t sure how to lay it out until I saw this one that had a similar vibe.  I didn’t see hers before I picked my colors, but it was a happy coincidence.




The only problem I have now is that I’m wishing it was a little bit bigger to fit our king-sized bed.  The top measures 73 x 85 unfinished, so that’s a no go.  But, I’m out of most of the scraps I used for the top, and I can’t come up with a good way to make it bigger except maybe borders?  Times like this are when I wish we had a guest bedroom, just so I could display quilts!

In other much less interesting news, I’ve finally gotten my awesome Christmas present out of the box, a Brother serger.  It gets rave reviews online and I am really excited about it – except that I can’t get it to stitch correctly!  The right needle thread (1 of 4) makes giant loops like it has no tension, no matter what I do.  And that’s supposed to be the easy part to thread.  I should have known it was too good to be true when I had no trouble threading it the first time.  I’m probably doing something very obviously wrong.  My sweet hubby bought me a serger book to go with it, and I got some real serger thread today to use instead of the weird stuff that came preloaded.  Hopefully research and nice thread will give me the upper hand over my new nemesis!


Photobombers!! (Or, why I take my pics outside, alone!)



8 comments:

  1. Beautiful quilts! I wish I had a guest room for quilts too, that would be so cool.

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  2. LOL My cat does the same thing. Except; he gets UNDER the tops and then they tend to run away on me.
    If you don't mind my suggesting; you could use different scraps and just 'stretch' long width borders with four patch blocks separated by blocks of just the dark fabric? (I'm sure you've thought of that) even if you...uh oh...might have to go back to the fabric shop (don't we all hate that?Laugh)
    Just my two cents worth.
    Best!!

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    1. ooooh I like the 4 patch idea! And yes, I might have to go fabric shopping - the horror!! ;)

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  3. I really like the bow tie quilt, the scraps really come through with the coal centers, it's not too colour-mixed that way.

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  4. Great quilts. I really like the bow tie one, I think the dark background makes the colours pop.

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  5. Haha!! That's so awesome (the bombed photo) Very, very pretty quilt, too!

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  6. this bowtie quilt is so pretty. you did such an amazing job. the grey in it really makes it come to life.

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  7. Beautiful! I love the idea of the coal background for the bowties! May have to try this!

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