A Tale of 2 Tops: Briar Rose Quilt A Loooong

Thanks to my fabric windfall, I had twice as much fabric as I needed so I was able to knock out 2 quilt tops pretty quickly. Now they are just waiting patiently for me to buy batting & finish them up.

Both quilt tops- color explosion.

One of my frog blocks is upside down. Oh well!

double-gauze quilt DONE

After a burst of productivity, I managed to knock out this fun project.

I love the super soft double-gauze top & have been enjoying using this on nights I end up crashing in Mr. Itty Bitty's room. I also really like how light it feels. I'm not loving the scratchy essex linen I used on the back. Ugh. I've washed the quilt twice and it is everything I dreamed in terms of wrinkly goodness but the back is still too itchy for my tastes. Won't be making that mistake again! 

I have also found myself second guessing my decision to be so random with my fabric placement. I'm glad I did it because it definitely took me out of my comfort zone but I think I will forever be wondering if I shouldn't have made some fun pattern out of the greys, yellows & whites. Diagonal stripes? Herringbone? Arrows? On & on. I spend a lot of time looking at this quilt while rocking IB to sleep.  

Technicalities:

This quilt finished up 16 blocks wide by 17 blocks long, blocks were cut 6" square before being made into HST blocks.  Final size was approx 83.25" x 78.75" unwashed & 81.25" x 75.5" after washing. This was my first experiment with not prewashing my fabric & batting. 

I used a bamboo batting & I like how lightweight it is. 

I stuck to the stated plan for quilting- in the ditch diagonally to baste the batting onto the quilt top & then quilted diagonally across the blocks in the other direction after I attached the back. I didn't draw guides for my diagonal lines so they aren't perfectly straight but I really like how it turned out. 

As for the no-binding technique, I really like how it turned out! It was hard to get the backing to the exact size I needed for the front but once I did, it was pretty straightforward to sew it all around, turn it out & hand-stitch the opening closed. I had a couple of puckered spots on the back but I think that is because I didn't use any basting pins. They were easy enough to repair & I was worried about my pins snagging the delicate fabrics so no issues. 

So excited to have finished this one up! 

I mean, I'm excited but I feel stupid: Briar Rose Quilt A Looong

So if anyone is actually making a Briar Rose quilt with me, you've probably already figured this out, but basically I have twice as many squares as I need for my quilt design. Which is awesome because now I can just make 2 of the same & give one to my sweet little niece. However, this revelation has left me feeling pret-ty dumb. Though, in my defense, as noted in this post, I was struggling to understand the whole rotating quilt 90 degrees aspect of this project. I've gotten started piecing my quilt (which is how I realized my mistake) & I am loving it. BUT, I was kind of looking forward to trying some other projects with my Briar Rose stash. Specifically a rainbow HST quilt with a white background and this quilt that I'm now obsessed with.

Double-Gauze Top Complete!

Very excited to report that I've finished piecing & ironing my double-gauze quilt top AND I basted it onto the batting (a bamboo blend).

Since I'm trying a new no-binding technique (from here), my next step is attaching the batting to the top before I sew the backing on.

My plan for the quilting is to baste along the HST diagonals & then quilt a diagonal in the opposite direction through the squares. I'm worried that it will skew the quilt a little bit since it's going to be so one-directional at each stage. Fingers crossed it works!

Sorting & Placing: Briar Rose Quilt A Loooong

So I have 20 fabrics, 21 6" squares. I think I"ll make my quilt 20x20, squares set on point. First I need to figure out what order I want my fabrics in & I want to make sure the size works.

this layout was purple, pink, red

Then I decided I like purple, red, pink better but this quilt only used 19 of the patterns; it was missing the orange calico (my least favorite pattern of the bunch...) I also didn't like having the 2 frog prints at the very top & very bottom. 

I think this is my best option. Orange calico & blue calico are touching & the colors kind of go purple, red, pink, orange, yellow, blue, green but I'm going with it. 

After a couple of false starts, I decided this is the layout I like the best. My squares are approx 8.5" on the diagonal so approx 8" finished (plus additional shrinking in the wash...). Checking my A squared plus B squared equals C squared, the diagonal should be 8.485. PERFECT. Looks like my 20x20 quilt will be 80" & then shrink in the wash. 

Top 

Middle 

Bottom

I didn't have enough room in my hallway to layout an entire 20x20 quilt & I needed to hustle because I spent too long deciding on color order so I tried to stack the blocks up tilted how I want them.  This meant tilting my strawberries in opposite directions and making sure that the vignettes were spaced out in the hex bee, nanny bee & frog pond prints. Hopefully I did it correctly because this is going to be one of those quilts where I don't notice these mistakes until it's almost finished. For some reason I'm having a lot of trouble keeping this quilts layout straight in my head... there's probably a lot of seam ripping in my future. 

Next up, sewing my rows. I stacked my blocks on point from left to right & numbered my rows from 1-20 (top to bottom). So my sewing will start at top left corner & end with bottom right corner. 

Double-gauze progress

My shiny new Briar Rose quilt has been distracting me but I haven't completely abandoned my double-gauze project.

It's been a long, complicated process trying to get all of the blocks laid out- and then making sure I keep track of how the blocks were laid out. 

I've finished almost 12 out of 17 rows (technically I've finished 9.5 rows & I have 2.5 more laid out just waiting to be sewn. 

Hopefully I will finish up soon because my Robert Kaufman Essex Linen (in steel) has arrived and it is so perfect. And I wanted this to be my summer quilt & summer's almost over!

Cutting & Planning: Briar Rose Quilt World's Slowest Quilt-a-Looooong

Giving credit where due, this quilt is completely inspired by Made by Rae & based heavily on this project. OK now that that's out of the way, here's how mine is a bit different: 

1. I'm planning to use every fabric in the line unless size gets completely out of control. I've done a little "A squared plus B squared equals C squared" in my head & I think the project will finish at a large full-sized quilt. 
2. My blocks are going to be 6" squares & I did not wash fabric to preshrink. 
3. I'm planning to do the no-binding technique Rae used on her original quilt.
4. I'm going to change the fabric layout. Necessary because I will be using additional fabrics but also because I think the light pinks/purples blur together to much in the Windham project pics. 

So far I have ordered 1/2 a yard of every fabric (the *official* Briar Rose collectors pack from Heather Ross herself (squee!)). I've cut every fabric into 6" squares, so 21 squares of each fabric. Hopefully I'll end up with some extra squares for my little niece's quilt. 

only messed up cutting 5 blocks with my rotary cutter, not too bad given my skillz

As I've been cutting fabric, I've been doing a bit of issue spotting for the quilt. I am a little uptight about my pattern layouts so I'll have to decide what to do about tilting the blocks on the diagonal. Exhibits A & B: 

A

B

So Exhibit A was to illustrate the issue of trying to make sure this doesn't just look like a quilt turned on its side. I like for all of my patterns to be right side up but that's pretty much impossible since the squares are on point so I decided I would alternate which way the patterns were tilted. As I was testing this, I noticed a 2d issue with pattern placement- I wanted to alternate the frog vignettes, which I pretty well fixed in B. 

This may wind up being one of those quilts that I piece together by putting all the blocks out in order on the floor to make sure the patterns are lined up the way I like. Slow & steady. Next up, figuring out layout. Here's hoping Mr. Itty Bitty takes a nice long nap soon. 

Project List: To Dos To Do

Here are the quilts I am planning to make with my mountains of fabric. List does not include baby clothes, miscellaneous gifts or home dec projects.

Pile of baby clothes projects (minus brown gingham, that is not for baby clothes)

Currently making:

1. double-gauze yellow/white/grey/blue HST full-sized quilt; planning to use no-binding technique & possibly quilt with hand weight fabric, planning to use Robert Kaufman Essex Linen on back  
2. Children At Play balloon bunny crib-sized quilt; another opportunity to practice my appliqué, may do some FMQ on it
3. You Are My Sunshine grey & white crib-sized quilt; made this to practice my appliqué, has a minky back (awesome), currently stalled because I am attempting to hand bind it & I hate sewing by hand

Have started cutting:

1. double-gauze yellow/pink/white small blanket; could be other good option for testing quilting with a heavy weight thread 
2. matching twin quilts- giraffe & hippo rainbow quilts like bitty baby's crib quilt 
3. Heather Ross Briar Rose rainbow quilt for me; planning to make this pattern full-size & make it more in the style of Made by Rae's original Heather Ross Rainbow Quilt & plan to use up all fabrics in the line, not just 17, & will change layout slightly & & & . . . more posts on this coming soon. Feel free to join me for world's slowest quilt-a-long. You'll need 1/2 yard of each fabric + backing. I think it will be a large full-size when finished. 
4. Heather Ross Briar Rose big girl quilt for my niece; will be approx twin-sized, not sure if I will make another rainbow quilt or some other pattern, make mix in some white or these super pretty coordinating solids
5. queen sized Liberty snowball quilt; this is one of those quilts that I think will take me 10 years! I have collected a ton of rainbow Liberty pieces & want to make a quilt with a rainbow/ombré pattern around white snowballs (started this long before Heather Ross rainbow quilt came on my radar) a queen-size quilt is a MAJOR undertaking for me & I will probably have to have it professionally quilted 

Have started hoarding:

1. blue & yellow nautical (Storyboek) quilt; I think this will be a zigzag quilt using the nonHST technique 
2. blue/grey/white mod boy's quilt; lots of Japanese imports, may use HST set on point? 
3. low volume quilt inspired by Red Pepper Quilts; may try using double HST in this quilt? so squares will be made out of 4 triangles
4. Aneela Hoey A Walk in the Woods pinwheels quilt 

Things I want to make but haven't necessarily bought for yet: 

1. gingham quilt; I am hoarding some Riley Blake large gingham for the back of this,  Lurve, Gah, so good
2. herringbone quilt; I haven't seen one exactly like what I want & I keep putting this pattern off b/c it seems like it wastes a lot of fabric
3. lots of ombré things with white backgrounds; maybe I will make a rainbow ombré quilt with white for my niece's Briar Rose quilt 

Squeee!!!!

My new Heather Ross Briar Rose stash has started to arrive. Yay! Just what I need.

My mind is racing with all the possibility! Current plans include 2 quilts with green strawberry backing on one and pink hexagon hive backing on the other. Would love to make myself something out of the purple & yellow hexagon hives. 

And this may become some ridiculously cute frog shorts for bitty baby. 

Still waiting for my official Briar Rose pack from HR herself. 

work in progress... more like shopping in progress

While interneting this spring, I realized that I need to make a low volume quilt (thank you Red Pepper Quilts  and a double-gauze quilt (thank you Made by Rae). Since I'm further along in the process of my double-gauze, I'll chronicle that fabric-hoarding shame spiral.

I've actually gotten so far as to actually piecing some HST but need more fabric to have enough for a full size quilt. I'm planning to use this on the full size bed in the nursery, though I seem to vaguely remember preordering a briar rose collectors pack from Heather Ross for the same purpose. Oops.

Plans. I think maybe they've changed since this?

So anyway, double-gauze isn't something I usually work with so I'm excited to see how this turns out. It also means I didn't have much to pull from my stash going into this project- just some Heather Ross & Japanese imports I had unintentionally collected.

Pretty Heather Ross

I started off at Super Buzzy, my FAVORITE for Japanese imports & got some ridiculously cute panda & honey bear prints as well as some odds & ends I thought might work. At this point I thought it would be a yellow, pink, etc quilt though I have since decided to use the pinks on a separate double-gauze quilt.*

Just a few new fabrics... I might've gotten some extras for a different project.

After my super buzzy order arrived, I reevaluated my fabric choices (decided to make 2 different project) & made some basic guesstimates as to how much fabric I needed. 

not sure why this last pic is so blurry

Then it was off to etsy, my 2d favorite source for Japanese imports. My first order is a good example of why etsy is a distant 2d- it never arrived. So I try tried again with a few other sellers & patiently awaited the arrival of my fun "kawaii" packages. At this point I had decided my quilt was going to be yellow, grey & maybe some blue. I had also decided to use some Heather Ross nursery versery even though it's not double gauze because why not. And I ordered some other odds & ends because why not.

for a future project... couldn't resist adding them to my order.

Once my 3rd round of orders arrived, I started cutting & matching up fabrics. I stopped about 3/4 of the way through piecing to count up my squares & realized I only had about 1/2 as much fabric as I need total so it was back to etsy. 

I'm currently stalled out waiting for this 4th round of fabric to arrive & keeping my fingers crossed that it actually will. I'm pretty proud of how well I did only buying for this project (& the other future double-gauze project...) considering how full my etsy cart was when I went to check out.

*this is another one of my problems- the inability go just make one thing at a time. I always buy extra in case I like my project enough I want to make another or use the fabric in another project.

One day I decided to make a quilt

Back in the day when I was just an attorney, I had time to play on the internet and read interesting things and I read this 3 year old (at the time) blog post. So I decided I would make a quilt. At that time, when not interneting, I also had time to take on random, frivolous, expensive, time-consuming projects. I've been sewing for as long as I can remember and had made a little hand-tied quilt in college (more on that later) but I had never made a blanket at this level. And by "at this level", I mean that can withstand being washed in a washing machine. 

As a lifelong fabric hoarder, I knew that fabric was the key to my success. Of course nothing I already owned would work; I decided that I had to use the practically obsolete Heather Ross Mendocino from the blog post, because I love mermaids, and to use P. Kaufmann Treasure Island backing fabric, because I love pirates. I'm a creative genius. 

Enough chat, here she blows: 

This quilt is actually kind of funny to me because brown & orange are 2 of my least favorite colors

I didn't square up my squares but overall I think it turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself. It took me one or two weekends to finish but it took me a couple of weeks to gather up all of my fabrics. Looking at the picture details, I appear to have finished it in early November 2011. Finished size is 61.5x50.5. I bound it with a scrappy binding because I used so many fabrics in the quilt top I couldn't decide what direction I wanted to go with a binding. I really like how it turned out! Since I didn't want to waste a single scrap of my Heather Ross, I put a scrappy strip across the back. The internet has since taught me that I was improv/slab piecing to make that strip. 

Planning my binding

Scrappy back

This was my first time attempting to quilt anything so I wasn't sure what to expect. I sew on a 12 year old Singer 7468 and didn't have a walking foot or a darning foot at the time. Actually, I don't even think I knew what those were. I ended up using orange thread and quilting (mostly) in the ditch along the zigzags. I thought that I would go back and quilt on either side of the ditch as well but I quickly tired of zigging and zagging- I just wanted to finish my quilt and sit under it while I watched Gossip Girl!

Awesome swim ladies, mangled looking crabs

The coral/orange polka dots turned out to be one of my favorites on the quilt
First of many doggie photobombs

Disfigured mermaids

I'm pretty pleased with how well I lined up the plaid *pats self on back*

My favorite part of making this quilt had to be picking the different fabrics and trying to match everything together. Obviously my jump-off was Mendocino but I added 5 more fabrics plus the backing once all was said and done. Mixing and matching is still my favorite part of quilting. 

Looking back on it, my next zig zag quilt will be made using this technique. I love working with HST in general but I don't like how mismatched my fabric patterns turned out. Live and learn! I've come a long way since this quilt and now that my quilt numbers have reached double-digits, I've decided to start sharing my experiences on the internet. Maybe one day I will even inspire someone to make a quilt.