Finished Double Irish Chain

I know I promised this a long time ago, but I'm finally getting around to posting pictures of my finished Double Irish Chain quilt. :) We've been using it for a while now so I figure I should show it off!

Here it is all happy on our bed. :)

We love it! I backed it with a really soft cotton bed sheet. It was the easiest back I've ever used. I used a king size sheet for this queen size quilt. That gave me plenty of room for excess around the edges for quilting. And, it was only $15 at Target since it was on sale! What a steal for a quilt back. 

I love how the quilting makes it puff. You can see the stitches a lot better on the back. 

I wasn't always perfect with my lines, as you can see... I used a plate to mark the quilt on the front side. It worked well but I always have trouble following a line when I'm quilting. I do much better free-hand. 

And of course while I was taking pictures my cat Sasha had to help out. 

There she is as a lump under the quilt. Even she likes to crawl underneath!

And here she is all exposed. It's been cold here so we have several blankets on the bed. Of course we have the prettiest on top. :)

I have been doing some other sewing lately, but can't show it until after we've celebrated Christmas. I'll be back with an update after that for sure! Hope you're all enjoying the shift into winter. Happy sewing!

Double Irish Chain Top

Hi everyone! I hope you're all enjoying the transition into fall. It's a blustery 65 degrees here (55 yesterday) so I'm enjoying snuggling up in all of my warm quilts! :)

I have been really busy this month. At the beginning of the month I talked about wanting to work on my Double Irish Chain quilt. I've had this one in the works for 3 years now. I had all of the pieces cut out, but none of the 81 blocks completed. So, I set out to get the top done this month and I've succeeded!

It measures 96 inches square with the border. Each block was 10 inches (finished) and I added a 3 inch (finished) border all around. This is definitely big enough for our bed. Here's a pic of it on the bed before the border was added:

This is going to be the largest quilt I've ever made. My Super Mario Quilt was longer (105 inches), but it was only 75 inches wide. This one will be just as hard to maneuver though. I need to get backing fabric for this yet. I'm not sure what I want to go with. I'm thinking a dark green would be nice since there's so much light green in the top.

I wasn't quite sure about the light blue print when I started putting all of the blocks together. It's still not my favorite, but it's growing on me. I didn't want to go out and buy a different fabric since it was already cut up into the squares.

So, any suggestions on how I should quilt this beast? All over pattern? Something specific in each colored section? Border treatment? An all over stipple would be the easiest and wouldn't take too long. I could also do straight line quilting to play up the diamond effect of the quilt. That might actually be even easier. Hmmm... what do you think?

Design Wall Monday

Well, now that I've finished the Mario Quilt, now what do I do? My husband and I have joked around that I should just retire from the world of quilt making now that I've completed my masterpiece. But - I know I just can't do that!

So, I've started to revisit my Double Irish Chain quilt. I designed this one and started cutting out all of the pieces before I even started the Mario Quilt. So, this one has been in the works since October 2011! I really want a nice quilt for our bed, so that's where this one is going to be. (Sorry honey, the Mario Quilt is not going to be our bedspread!)

I've figured out how many blocks of each design I need to make - it's quite a few, but I think I'll be OK.

The other project I'm working on that I have on my list of July goals to finish is the beach blanket quilt for my friend in Miami. Her birthday is coming up at the beginning of August, so I want to get this finished by the end of the month. I think I'll be completing the top this evening and the hopefully basting and quilting it throughout the rest of the week.

So, what are you working on this week? Happy crafting!

Double Irish Chain Quilt

I realize I have been on a bit of a craft binge lately. Previously I was all about recipes and food, so I guess I'm trying to make things even. I'm sure I'll have another tasty blog about food sometime soon. I'm bound to make my lasagna for one of these cold nights!

Anyway, I spent about 5 hours at the Wisconsin Quilt Expo with my mother yesterday. All of the quilts there were very well done. I suppose you don't make it to the judging wall/maze unless the preliminary jury thinks it's well done as well. So, I probably don't have a chance in getting mine in that show next year, but it has really inspired me to continue working on my quilt. Here are some pictures of my favorite quilts from the show:

This frog quilt was AMAZING! I'm pretty sure the tag said it was made out of recycled materials where the proceeds went to help save the rain forest. Regardless - even it if was made with un-ecofriendly material, it is sill GORGEOUS! I think this is made from all appliqued and pieced work - something I will probably never try, and definitely not on this scale! I can't believe this only won 3rd place!

Of course I loved the Badger quilt. There were many other Wisconsin themed quilts - from cities to sports, but this one was my favorite. I liked the song lyrics and football chants that were embroidered into it. Embroidery is probably something else I won't really do. I'd need a fancy-dancy sewing machine for that. Maybe someday...







This sunflower quilt was my pick for "Viewers Choice." I loved the detail work with the quilting patterns and also the diamond shapes on the border of the quilt. Apparently this technique is really easy and you just need a special ruler to cut the fabric - I think it's called the double diamond ruler? Sometime soon I'm going to make a tree skirt and a Christmas table runner that uses this technique. I would have bought the special ruler at the quilting show, but apparently every single booth sold out of it about mid-way through the second day. Oh well. That just gives me an excuse to go to a craft store later! :)


















So, all of this talk about quilts means I've got to show you a sneak peak of the one I'm working on. Here's the pattern for the pieces and colors I'll be using. The quilt uses black, light and dark green, light and dark blue, and light and dark turquoise. I'm making this for our bed and hopefully I'll have it done for us to use by Christmas - top quilting included.

 Here is the pattern for the quilting that will be on top. I haven't decided if I'm going to hand quilt it or machine quilt it yet. For hand quilting I can at least do that here myself. For machine quilting I would have to find somewhere that would let me use their long arm machine or top quilt it for me. We'll see what actually ends up happening.

And, here's a sneak peak of the top left corner of my quilt. I've got most of the pieces cut out, but I just couldn't resist putting things together to see what it would really look like. I really like the combination of colors and I think it will work well with the dark brown tones we have in our house.

So, I'll keep you posted on how this long-term project goes and any other little things I come up with. Happy crafting!