From Quick to Stitch Precuts Magazine Spring/Summer 2015

I am so pleased to announce that my work has been published in a new magazine, Quick to Stitch Precuts 2015.  This magazine is from the folks that produce the fun and modern Fresh Quilts Magazine.  I had worked with the editors, Deb Gore Orhn and Riane Menardi, on a small startup crafting website a few years ago.  When I had the opportunity to submit a few ideas for their new Precuts concept magazine, I jumped at the chance.  Fortunately, they accepted two of my projects, my Summer Harvest Quilt and some cute Pinwheel Pincushions.  I documented my adventure and thought you might like to see how I put together the projects.  I am first going to share the making of my quilt.

Yes, I was kind of delighted to be on the cover.

For the first project, I decided to use 10 inch squares which are also called a layer cake.  I had just gotten myself  Electric Quilt  7 software and I was working my way through learning how to use it.  Here is what the initial design concept looked like.  I was very new to the software, so I did not know how to add the thin sashing that I eventually added between the rows of leaves.

I knew I wanted a bold, modern print and I had seen some fabric designed by Malka Dubrawski called Outside in.  So I grabbed a layer cake package of it to work with.  I started out by string piecing the corners in an natural linen.

Since the corners were pretty big.  I did double stitching so I would have some instant left over half square triangles.

I started laying out the pieces in rows.  At first, I mixed all the colors and squares up but the chaos was too much for me.  Then I started to arrange in groups of color and prints and it came to life.  i have a design floor instead of a design wall.  A design wall is on my to do list.

Here I have it all pieced and sewn together.  There were two squares in the bundle that were about the same color as the linen I had used for the squares.  So I just flipped that leaf pair and used some poppy red corners for it.  See it on the right hand side?  It kind of added a little spontaneity in the quilt.

Here I am trying to pin the quilt on the floor.  It is too hard to move that rug, so I just vacuum really well and then I use painters tape and tape the quilt back right to the carpet.  There is a lot of smoothing and adjusting and then I pin from the center out.

This quilt is a large throw size, so I decided to quilt it myself.  I got out my trusty BSR Bernina foot and I marked a few of the leaves but after two or three, I just went for it free hand.  On the corners, I just zig zagged bag and forth.  All of the leaves had the same quilt design except for the solid fabrics.  In each of those, I varied the design for interest.

The middle sashing just got meandering rows of sort of straight lines.  The effect was still very nice.  I think I am going to do that on a whole quilt next time.

From Quick to Stitch Precuts Magazine Spring/Summer 2015

Here is the full finished quilt.  You can see I used the poppy red print for the binding with a little bit of an extra print here and there.

What did I do with all of those extra half square triangles?  I used them and the leftover linen and fabrics to create a fun back for the quilt.  You can really see the quilting of the leaves on the linen.

You can get the pattern to create my quilt by picking up a copy of Quilt to Stitch Precuts!  I found it in JoAnn Fabrics, Meijer and Kroger.

I will save the Pinwheel Pincushions for next time.  Happy Stitching!