quilting – Knit-Spin-Quilt

Commission Quilting

A few months ago I agreed to barter for quilting services: I would quilt an acquaintance’s quilt top, and she would pay me in yarn and fabric. Life intervened, and she was very patient as I proceeded to have zero free time around the holidays.

But now it’s done! Here’s the front, post-washing:

I stitched in the ditch to emphasize the swirly quilting:

The back (pre-washing, and quite wrinkly) shows the outline of some of the curves slightly better:

If you look carefully on the right-hand side you can see a sleeve for a dowel, so the quilt can be hung from a wall. I’d ordinarily do corners, but this was so wide that I was afraid it would sag in the middle.

I’m delighted to have this done and in the mail back to its owner – and can’t wait to get a box of yarn and fabric in exchange. Now if only the postman would show up to pick it up the way the USPS says they already have!

Finished Penny Patch Quilt!

I FINALLY finished my Penny Patch quilt. Rachel at Stitched in Color started a quilt-along about a year ago and I cut fabric and stitched a quilt top and even machine quilted the whole thing and then… well, then I got hung up on binding it.

But I finished it last Sunday, and I love it. Here it is on my kitchen table:

I grid-quilted it, free-handing it with a walking foot on my Brother P1500Q straight-stitch machine:

And I used a blue and orange backing, stretching the blue gingham I had by adding a center orange panel:

I’ve also been cleaning out my closets, and discovered that I have a lot of quilts that I’ve finished that I just have no use for — they don’t match my personal aesthetic, I made them just to make them, or they’re for babies, and I don’t have a baby. So I’ve put them on Etsy.

Longtime blog readers will recognize two quilts I made in 2012. If you like one of these, and use the code KNITSPINQUILTREADER, you’ll get 10% off.

As before, all income in September and October of 2015 go directly to a donation to the JHU CTY Scholars program!

Edited to add: linking up to TGIFF!

Two-Finish Friday

These are both gift quilts: one for a friend and her husband and one for a new baby. Here they are all folded up, about to be packed and mailed:

The first quilt I finished was made up of hourglass blocks. I pieced them all over the summer on my Singer 66, and then they sat, and sat, and sat over the fall, because I didn’t have time to finish it until the semester was over. But now it’s done!

The backing is a boat print, because the mother and the grandparents all sail. You can see in this picture that I quilted a simple diagonal grid 1/4″ on each side of the hourglass blocks.

I used a black pezzy print for the binding because I didn’t want to emphasize any particular color from the front. I think it works! I wish I had more of this fabric in stash to do the same in the future — I’ll just have to keep an eye out for similarly useful prints. I attached the binding by stitching it down twice. On the back you see two lines of stitching:

On the front, you only see one, because the other is hidden at the intersection of the binding and the quilt:

The other quilt is for friends of mine, because they live in northern England and it gets coooooold! For this one I used a pattern by Elizabeth Hartmann: her New Wave Quilt.

I cut my fat quarters very, very carefully, and had enough extra pieces to showcase the wave pattern on the back of the quilt as well:

This one I quilted by stitching in the ditch along the edges of the white sashing. I stitched smaller diamonds within the “waves” as well. Then I did some free-motion quilting in the sashing, which I’m really quite proud of.

I did the same kind of binding on this quilt, and also bound it in a pezzy print, though this one was navy, to complement the blues of the quilt.

Not bad for a break that only started on December 23rd!

Linking up to TGIFF!