charm quilt – tierneycreates

“The Quilt is in the Mail”

A package arrived in the mail yesterday. A very exciting package. A quilted quilt!

I could not wait to open the package and see Cindy Anderson’s, of A Quilter’s Corner with Cindy Anderson (inastitchquilting.com), long-arm quilting magic!

Oh the anticipation, now I have to unwrap it from the enclosed bag!

Before we get to the reveal (don’t scroll down and peek yet!) here is a little background on this quilt.

I found the pattern for this quilt, Happy Ending, in a book I borrowed from my public library – Perfect Quilts for Precut Fabrics by That Patchwork Place. The pattern was designed by Lesley Chaisson. I used a couple packages of pre-cut 5 inch squares (charm packs) and deep blue (Ink) Peppered Cotton, shot cotton to make the quilt.

If interested, you can read these previous posts about the evolution of this quilt: Diving into a quilt (and other stuff) and What’s on the Design Wall and What’s on the Design Wall.

After removing the quilt from the box, Terry the Quilting Husband (TTQH) and I opened it up and laid it out on our bed to get the full effect of the completed:

My quilt top traveled from Oregon to Wisconsin and returned from Wisconsin as a quilted quilt!

I wish it was completely done and ready for use, but first I have to make and then sew the binding to the edge of the quilt to finish it.

Originally my plan was to use the deep blue shot cotton (main fabric of the quilt) for the binding. TTQH suggested a contrasting color for the binding instead of the dark blue, like an orange or a red fabric.

I like that idea! I found in my stash a reddish-orange Moda fabric that coordinates with the Moda fabric charm squares. I will post more photos when I get the binding put on the Happy Ending quilt. Photos do not do it justice, the geometric designs of Cindy’s long-arm quilting are lovely on my quilt!

How Do You Trim?

I have a question for the quilters reading: How do you trim the excess batting and fabric off the edges of a quilt that has been long-arm quilted (or domestic machine quilted by you)?

When I began having quilts professionally long-arm quilted, I would use scissors to trim down the quilt. Eventually I moved to using a rotary cutter and a ruler to get a sharp straight edge. This takes a bit of time to complete trimming on a large quilt and I long for the day when I would just use scissors.

Trimming my quilt after long-arm quilting completed

Rotary cutter and ruler or scissors? How do you trim?

Bonus Content

Inside the box with my quilt from Cindy were a couple extra items that made me smile:

A handmade card (not by Cindy but by another artist) from recycled fabric scraps:

Scraps left over from the quilt including some fairly thin scraps that I think Cindy was challenging to make something with! (ok true confession – my quilt back was little bit short on one side and Cindy had to do some “remodeling” on my quilt back to make it work):

And finally – a challenge piece – an embroidered napkin:

When I saw the napkin, I misunderstood why Cindy sent it. I thought she sent it in support of my post The Napkin Story. However, after chatting with Cindy I discovered she sent it to me as a recycled fabric quilt challenge! She wants to see what I can do with it! (I took it out of my cloth napkin drawer and put it in my studio).

Postscript

I love listening to audiobooks and most of the audiobooks I listen to are borrowed from my public library’s digital download system. You reserve audiobooks just like you would hard copy books (the library is given a limited number of licenses of copies of a digital book they can loan out at one time) and the library e-mails you when the audiobook is available for download. On popular audiobooks, you can wait anywhere from a week to a couple months to get that e-mail.

So I went crazy reserving a bunch of audiobooks a couple of weeks ago when I suddenly ran out of audiobooks to listen – PANIC! Then, yesterday in addition to getting the quilt in the mail, I got an e-mail from my library notifying me that FIVE of the audiobooks I had on hold were available for download:

Norse Mythology – Neil Gaiman
For Women Only: What You Need to Know About the Inner Lives of Men
– Shaunti Feldhahn
We: A Manifesto for Women Everywhere – Gillian Anderson & Jennifer Nadel (yup, Gillian Anderson of The X-Files fame)
Good Omens – Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fictions and Illusions – Neil Gaiman

The loan period is 21 days, so I need to listen to all books in 21 days or have to go back into the reserve book queue – yikes!

I went ahead and started listening to For Women Only: What You Need to Know About the Inner Lives of Men as I was in the mood to begin with my nonfiction options. Also I previously read Good Omens and several of the short stories in the anthology Smoke and Mirrors are in the Neil Gaiman book I read last year, Trigger Warning.

The audiobook is very interesting so far! I might share some insights from this book in a future post.

(Shaunti Feldhahn did also write with her husband Jeff Feldhahn the companion book – For Men Only, Revised and Updated Edition: A Straightforward Guide to the Inner Lives of Women. According to Ms. Feldhahn these books are used as reading requirements in some church-based premarital counseling programs.)

Studio

Completion!

September 8, 2015September 8, 2015 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

An update to my post Progress and Fear about the 5 quilts awaiting completion:

Finally, I finished binding all 5 quilts back from the long-arm quilter! I have listed 4 of them for sale on the tierneycreates Etsy shop.

I still need to master photographing quilts as they are much prettier in person than my photos seem to reveal.

Designed by Tierney Hogan, pieced by Terry Hogan, quilted by Betty Anne Guadalupe

Designed and pieced by Terry Hogan, quilted by Betty Anne Guadalupe

Designed and pieced by Terry and Tierney Hogan, quilted by Betty Anne Guadalupe

The 5th one, the “Ugly Sunflower Fabric Quilt” I wavered on and was going to keep, then was going to sell on Etsy, and now I am completely undecided.

I might just hold onto it until the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show entry time next year to decide.

Perhaps I will put the sunflower quilt in the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show as I am guessing bed size quilts are easier to sell at the show than lap size quilts (of the 5 quilts I had in the 2015 Sisters Outdoor Show, only the bed size quilt sold).

The plan is for next year’s Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show, I put in 5 quilts again and Terry “The Quilting Husband” put in 5 of his quilts!

Studio

Some Progress Made…

August 7, 2015November 29, 2015 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Check out Sassy the highly opinionated miniature schnauzer’s latest happenings on her Schnauzer Snips page!

In an earlier post The Quilting Husband Saga Continues, I lament over the fact that I need to do the binding for three of the quilts that Terry, The Quilting Husband, got back from the professional long-arm quilter.

Here is an update – a wee bit of progress has been made. Terry did create folded 2 1/2 bindings strips for two of the quilts and is working on the binding strip for the third quilt. So here are two of the quilts waiting for their binding to magically be put on.

Yes I will go to bed tonight and in the am I will discover that the Binding Fairies, Gnomes, Elves, etc. appeared during my slumber and not only sewed on the bindings but also sewed the binding down! (I am very thoughtful and have left the binding strips draped over the quilts, all ready for the magical creatures to get to work!)

Okay, maybe no magical creatures are coming during the night to take care of the binding, sigh. My main issue is I would rather be designing and piecing a quilt than finishing one.

I think it might be a summer thing and I am just not in the mood to sit for a long spell and sew down binding will sitting under a quilt.

Alright – enough whining – I will get the three bindings done. Sometime soon…

By the way, our long-arm quilter has informed me she has two more of The Quilting Husband’s quilts quilted and will be delivering them soon (look of panic).

Studio

Updates

May 28, 2015 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

One of the cool things about blogging is I feel obligated to complete the projects I write about. Maybe you all do not really care (ha!) but I feel a sense of obligation to finish things or my readers will think I am a…non-finisher (not even sure if that is a proper word).

Here is an update on some projects related to previous blog posts:

The Charming Continues

In my posts What’s on the Design Wall: Rediscovering My “Charms” and What’s on the Design Wall: Pre-cuts Wrangling, I discuss trying to use up my out of control collection of pre-cuts such as charm squares (5 inch pre-cut coordinated squares). Another charm square quilt has been completed – this one I call The Charming Continues. It was pieced by my quilting husband and myself using a couple Moda Basic Grey charm packs and coordinating Moda Basic Grey/Grunge line of fabric. It was long-arm quilted by Betty Anne Guadalupe of Guadalupe Designs. Originally I was going to list it on my Etsy shop but I fell in love with it and it is very happy now in my cozy reading area (where the 370 Craft Books live, see that post…).

The back is fabric from Moda’s Basic Grey line of fabric

In the reading nook waiting for cozy book reading

Right on Target

In a recent post, What’s on the Design Wall: Not What Should Be There, I discuss how at a recent quilt retreat, I began impromptu working on the same quilt another retreat attendee was piecing – the pattern Right on Target. I have now completed piecing the top and now I am deciding whether to use it as a quilt or as a quilted tablecloth. I am going to quilt it myself (just a simple “stitch in the ditch” or “stitch outside the ditch”). I am happy it did not become an UFO (unfinished object) – this can happen to random projects you start on an impromptu basis at a quilt retreat!

Studio

A “Charming Quilt”

April 29, 2015May 2, 2015 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

In my posts What’s on the Design Wall: Rediscovering My “Charms” and What’s on the Design Wall: Pre-cuts Wrangling, I discuss trying to use up my out of control collection of pre-cuts such as charm squares (5 inch pre-cut coordinated squares).

Update: I continue to work through my pre-cuts collection, actually MAKING QUILTS out of them instead of using them to just decorate my studio!

Below is a quilt, “Charming You”, that I created from two packages of charm squares (40-42 squares per package) Moda fabrics. This quilt measures 45″ x 61″ and has a cozy flannel backing. I just got it back from the long-arm quilter and it is ready to put on the Etsy shop!