Fabric Friday: Mod Times Mendocino Quilt-Along

Mod Times Mendocino Quilt-Along a photo by clumsy chord on Flickr.

It's hard to imagine that these stacks of fabrics will actually make a quilt, but that's 65" x 83" worth of quilt top.

There are fifty rectangles and eight squares of Mendocino fabric. Three hundred thirty-six squares and rectangles in aqua. Three hundred ninety-three rectangles of purple.

If anyone is quilting along (Mod Times Quilt-Along) and wants to make their quilt larger, this is what I decided to do. I'm making mine nine columns across and six rows down, with no changes to the size of the pieces. It should come out about 65" x 83".

From the print fabric, you need:
50 @ 3.5 x 7.5
08 @ 3.5 x 3.5
From the border fabric:
049 @ 1.5 x 9.5
100 @ 1.5 x 7.5
108 @ 1.5 x 5.5
016 @ 1.5 x 3.5
120 @ 1.5 x 2.5
From the background fabric:
240 @ 2.5 x 4.5
096 @ 2.5 x 2.5

I very much hope that I got the numbers right when I was figuring out what to cut - I don't have very much spare purple and what what left I cut into 2.5" strips for binding. I really want to finish the quilt with that purple framing the edge, but I don't know if I'll have enough length left to do the entire way around. I may have to piece it with other scraps or to use some aqua (I do have a fair chunk of that left). I could try buying more of the purple, but I don't recall what colour it was and I'd be concerned about dye lot anyway. (Looking at the inventory at Simply Solid Fabric, where I bought it from, I think it might be Kona Raisin, but it could be Hibiscus or Dark Violet or some other very deep, dark purple.)

It took me a few hours today to cut all of that, and now my legs are tired, cramped, and sore, and I've got a headache to end all headaches. But hopefully I'll get started sewing tomorrow, because I'm excited to see what it'll look like.

Talk to Me Tuesday #44: Works in Progress

In which I show off my Firefly shirt, show a bundle of black binding for a quilt, and talk about starting another quilt-along, the Mod Times Quilt-Along.

I very often record my TTMT videos on a Wednesday, as this one was. I was having problems with Windows Live Movie Maker crashing my computer though, so I wasn't able to save it until this morning and get it uploaded. (When it was at 99% recorded I thought for sure it was going to crash again - my laptop SOUNDED like it was slowing down, about to turn off, which was what had been happening - but fortunately it didn't.)

Here's a usable link to the Mod Times Quilt-Along. You can also see some pictures of what I and the other are doing at the Flickr Group. Somehow has posted a pretty amazing looking version done using Joel Dewberry's Aviary 2 line, which works really beautifully in this pattern.

Finished Project: Pink Quilt-along Quilt

Pink Cherry House Quilt-along quilt
Originally uploaded by clumsy chord.

This is the very moment that the pin on the right let go and the quilt nearly went flying across my muddy, nasty backyard while I had a (video) camera hung around my wrist and the regular camera around my neck and a pair heels for shoes that were aerating the grass. Fortunately only three of six or seven pins let go, so the quilt stayed hanging awkwardly on the fence while I mentally debated the benefits of recording the moment versus trying to stop it from happening. (And in light of the shoes, I probably couldn't have made it over there fast enough to catch the quilt if it had gone airborne anyway.)

I'm going to have to try another day to get a full-on shot of the quilt, because I don't like any of the against the fence ones very much.


Of course, I do have other shots I can use anyway. It's not that they're horrible (though I'm no photographer), but the lighting isn't quite right and I really, really should have pressed the quilt before trying to photograph it. I had, originally, pinned the quilt to the fence down the right hand-side so that it wouldn't get caught by the wind, but that mainly worked to show off how badly it needed pressing.

WIP: Cherry House Quilt-along Quilts 1 & 2

Brown baby quilt a photo by hold your spin on Flickr.

Late in January this year Cherri House (of City Quilts fame - and if you haven't read that quilt book - yes, read it! it's worth it even if you don't do any of the projects - you really should) decided to do a quilt-along of a simple, but very lovely quilt. (All the entries about it are here. Scroll down the bottom and make your way back to page 2 to get them in order.) One of my favourite online shops, a Canadian one!, Mad About Patchwork, made up kits for each of the four versions that CH came up with.

I wasn't going to start any new projects this year, but somehow two of those kits made their way into my life. I picked up a kit in brown and blues and one in various pinks. They're both completed tops, at this point, but need to be quilted.

Pink baby quilt a photo by hold your spin on Flickr.

They're very small quilts, about 34-in x 36-in, which means they won't take terribly long to quilt. So long as I can talk myself into actually doing it. I have bought thread and decided on backings - the pink will be a plain pink backing, the brown will have a print with tow trucks and cranes and that sort of thing on it - and even picked up batting. I just need to stop thinking about quilting them and start actually quilting them.

These quilts are both made primarily with Kona cotton, though the pink one has some sprinklings of Back Porch Bouquet in Pink and Tan Dots. The colours in the brown top are: Espresso (background), Ivory, Aqua, Robin Egg, and Sky. The colours in the pink top are: Pink (background), Baby Pink, Carnation, Pearl Pink, and Garnet.

To Do Pink: Completed.

To Do Brown: sandwich, baste, quilt, and bind.