Modern Art Quilt - Red, White and Pointy

My eight year old daughter recently picked this quilt out of some inspiration photos I had saved over the years as her big girl quilt. I wish I could find where I got the photo so I could attribute the praise properly, if anyone recognizes it, I'd love to give proper credit!

First, I took the photo and reverse engineered some measurements, based on how big I wanted the quilt to be.

Next I cut strips and started sewing and laying them out on the design wall.

 And voila, a top was born. I just eyeballed the measurements of the component pieces of each strip, I didn't end up using exact measurements.

For the back I just sewed together a mish mosh of leftover reds, it actually looks pretty cool that way.

The girl loves it! Thanks for looking. She took it to Girl Scout sleep away camp here (right).

Modern Circles and Squares Quilt

 

It's finished! This queen sized modern circles in squares quilt is done. It may be my favorite quilt so far. I based it off of this baby quilt I made last year and made it bigger and better. You can't see the quilting in this far view, but the quilting is the best part.

 



I thought I'd take you through the process, in case you'd like to make one for yourself!

 

First, decide on how many blocks and what sizes of circles you'd like. For the baby quilt my circles were smaller, but for this one I made 5, 7 and 9 inch cardboard circles.

Next, put the circles on fabric squares and rough cut about 3/4 inch around the whole circle. Cut slits around the circle so the edges will bend nicely, but not very deeply. Then get a piece of tinfoil and layer it like this: tinfoil, then fabric, then cardboard circle. Quickly fold the tinfoil over all the way around and press it flat. Iron well.

And when you unfold the tinfoil, voila! A perfect circle to applique. Continue until all circles are ready.

Applique all of your circles to blocks in random places until all blocks are ready. Then sew together in rows, as desired.

You're ready to start quilting. I didn't mark any circles to quilt, I just eyed it and made as many circles around each as I felt like. I tried to go slowly and treat each block as its own mini-quilt. I did mark straight lines by rubbing a ruler back and forth to make an indent to follow.

 

I added a heart to this one (above). For fun. I used embroidery floss when I quilted inside the circles.
 
This one I quilted as a guitar. Five string. See it?






 The back was red, so it made it's own reverse image and was just as cool as the front!



And so it begins!

Starting a new quilt today! It will be a queen size version of this quilt, but kicked up a notch. 

Here's a hint of inspiration as to how I'm going to kick up the design. Like it?

Inspiration quilt in photo is by Namoo.

In other news, it's beautiful hiking weather for a trip to the state park. Enjoy!

A Twinkle of Stars

My mom just bought me the book Stars by Magic by Nancy Johnson Srebro. It was perfect to make some stars for the patriotic quilt. I love all three of her "by magic" books and many of the things on this blog are made from patterns I found in them. Her "magic" is using only cut squares and rectangles to make all the blocks. So the diamonds you see here started out as rectangles.

Sharp-eyed blog followers will notice that the blue star on the lower left is the one I featured in this post as unintentionally wonky. I lived with it for a few weeks, but eventually I couldn't stand it and I had to fix it!

Enjoy!

Gigi's Heart of My Heart Quilt

Here is my first baby quilt posting - A quilt I made for Gigi called "Heart of my Heart". I made it when I was pregnant with her to symbolize her heart beating inside of me. She is the heart of my heart! Here are some more photos of the quilt with Gigi when she's a little older.