Moda Love Quilt Update

Look what came back from being quilted by Marie of Blueberry Hill Quilts in Chestermere, Alberta?

Moda Love Quilt - FOR SALE HERE

This baby! I just couldn't wait to see how it looked on a bed, so I threw it on our bed as soon as I could!

Moda Love Quilt - FOR SALE HERE

Marie is a genius in picking out quilting patterns and this one is just perfect for this quilt.

Moda Love Quilt - FOR SALE HERE

Every. Single. Time. I am blown away by the way a perfect quilting job turns a quilt from being just ok to being fabulous!

Moda Love Quilt - FOR SALE HERE

This one is backed with a pink print cotton backing. The binding and label are on and I'm just waiting for the weather to dry up a bit and then it will get a full on photo shoot. 

Moda Love Quilt - FOR SALE HERE

I've been seeing so many different color combos for this quilt pattern on Instagram and I know I will be making another one of these soon!

--Ann

Dogs and Buffalo Plaid

Since I purchased an embroidery machine a year and a half ago, I've been looking for projects that mix the beautiful designs available and the quilting that I love.

80188-Beloved Dogs by Kathleen Keil Hill

I know so many people whose dogs are an integral part of their families. When I saw this design package 80188-Beloved Dogs by Kathleen Keil Hill from Embroidery Online, I began to think about how I could incorporate these beautiful dog embroideries into a usable quilt.

 To begin with, I needed to make sure I had all the colours needed for the machine embroidery. I now have a really great selection of earthy brown and black shades for embroidery that I didn't have before.

The designer did a great job of finding shades that reflect the dog breeds and digitizing the stitches that show the details. I mean, look at those puppy dog eyes! 

I went through my stash collection of fabrics to find the perfect backdrop and didn't find what I was looking for. And then I found inspiration through my Instagram feed and found out there was such a thing as buffalo plaid Minky.

So this is the plan for now. Dog embroidery surrounded by a solid black frame on a red print background, quilted with a red buffalo plaid Minky backing. 

It will finish as a lap quilt, so perfect for throwing over the back of a sofa or chair, meant to be used often!

As I now have all the threads for making these designs and you have something else you might want them embroidered on, contact me and we can discuss! (magpiequilts(at)gmail(dot)com)

--Ann

Wild and Free Babies

Although most of my projects are made with my own fabric collection, sometimes I fall in love with an entire fabric line and buy pre-cuts.

That's what happened a while back in my local quilt shop "My Sewing Room". They had just put out an entire line of fabric from Moda called Wild and Free by Abi Hall. I was there to find something for another project and knew that this sweet fabric would be sold out by the time I had a project in mind. So I scooped up a jelly roll and 2 metres of the feathers on a blue background.

The fabrics have been on my shelf for a year or so and I've finally decided on the project. The prints are really cute and I didn't want to cut them too small or those details would disappear.

I decided on a square in a square block. It's pretty simple and straight forward. For each block, cut one 2.5" square of background (white) and two 2.5" squares and two 2.5"x6.5" rectangles of each fabric (prints) for each block.

With a jelly roll, you can get 2 blocks from each strip and a typical jelly roll contains 42 strips, so you can make 84 blocks. For this project, I split the blocks to make two quilts, one predominately blue and the other pink.

Each quilt has 42 blocks laid out 6x7 blocks. I've added a 3.5" border all around from the yardage I picked up at the same time as the jelly roll for the blue.

And on a recent road trip to check out some other Alberta quilt shops, I found some really cute Minky with arrow embossed on it at "Nut for Bolts Etc." They had a good selection of Minky and also a really good selection of modern fabrics, including Birch fabrics.

These will be finished soon and I can't wait to discover my next project!

--Ann

Hexagon Table Runners

A little over a year ago, my quilt guild had a workshop on making these hexagon table runners. 

Hexagon Table Runner

These are made from striped fabrics. This one is a beautiful red and silver gray print.

Hexagon Table Runner

I didn't take any in progress photos, but these runners aren't complicated to make. Fabric is cut in strips parallel to the stripes in the fabric. Then wedges are cut from those strips with a 60 degree ruler.

Hexagon Table Runner

You need 6 pieces from each strip with the identical placement of the strips.

Hexagon Table Runner

Then each set of 6 pieces is sewn together. 60 degree wedges of coordinating fabric are sewn to join the wedges together. Matching the stripe lines is not difficult and the end result looks like an advanced sewing technique.

Hexagon Table Runner

 I finished them with either 5 or 3 hexagons per runner as the odd number seems to just look better.

Hexagon Table Runner

Some fabrics are more interesting than others. This black, red and gray one above is pretty plain without the accent fabric wedge and borders.

Hexagon Table Runner

But this print gave me all kinds of interesting pieces. This one was a little more difficult than the previous two as each piece in these needed to be identical, not just lined up along the striped lines.

Hexagon Table Runner

All in all, these went together pretty fast and were pretty easy to quilt with lines that reflect the shape of the hexagons and the stripes.

Do you want more detailed instructions? I think I could make this into a tutorial if wanted?

--Ann