Letter Making

Today I am working on some improv letters to add to my bear quilt. This project started with Lorna's quiltalong over at Sew Fresh Quilts. 
It will become a camping quilt to commemorate the year I saw a bear up close and personal. That experience has become a family legend, complete with a song written by my brother-in-law, and therefore this legend requires a commemorative quilt. I'd like to have it done in time to use for camping season this year.

There are many ways to sew letter blocks to add to a quilt, or to be the main focus of the quilt. I have tried many techniques over the years and have enjoyed all of them. 
Here are some of the many resources that I have consulted:

1. Letter Sew-along hosted by Lynne Tyler. She teaches how to make make letters using improv piecing. If you need inspiration, she has many creative letter quilts on her blog Patchery Menagerie. My finished quilt from the sew-along that I finished in 2013 can be seen here.

traditional patchwork letters

2) Temecula Quilts hosted a quiltalong called "Little Letters" and it made an adorable baby quilt. The free pattern is still on their blog here and is made using traditional patchwork techniques.

3) Patch and Dot is hosting a new quiltalong making ribbon letters using traditional patchwork. You can read her ideas and see the first 3 letters here.


4) My two favourite reference books for improv pieced letter blocks are Word Play Quilts and Out of the Box.

improv letters

Scraps and Improv

I am teaching an improv piecing class in Paris (in Ontario, not France!) on Saturday and am getting all my samples out of the closet. I decided that I really wanted to have my Scrap Vortex finished to show the students. It's one of my favourite quilts and it demonstrates how you can use crumbs, scraps and letters to make an "interesting" quilt. 


I started this quilt in June 2015 and this is how it looked when it came out of the UFO closet this week.

I still loved it, and particularly loved that the 'S' in SCRAP turned out to look not as bright as the rest of the word. That's seredipidy!
However, I really wanted to have the word 'vortex' in the quilt, so I pieced the letters, surrounded them with scraps, cut the quilt top in half and inserted the vortex strip.

Here it is...
UGH!
OH NO! 
Definitely not serendipity!

The R's cannot be right above each other! That just didn't look like how I had envisioned it!




Out came the seam ripper, and the quilt top was dissected again! 
I inserted a scrappy strip between the words. 
Better.
But there are a few things that need to be changed so I can like it more. And a great border idea popped into my mind, so this project isn't close to being a finished quilt top yet! But it's ready for a road trip to Paris on Saturday!

Linking up to Cynthia's Oh Scrap! party!

Friday Finish

Can you believe that May is over?!? 

And can you believe that I finished my May UFO for the Lovely Year of Finishes?!?

Me either!

This quilt was started at the Red Letter Quilt Along almost 2 years ago. The letters were made using Tonya's book called Word Play Quilts (a great reference book that every quilter should have in their library IMHO). The 37 asterisk blocks were inspired by Jean's quilt, and I used a tutorial at the Selvage Blog to learn how to sew them. They were really fun to sew and I think I will probably be making more of them in my quilting future.



It took a while to settle on a machine quilting design to go around all the letters, but I decided on a swirly pattern. 

Then I had some thread snapping issues.
I tried to slow down, but this did not help.  This is the point at which beginning machine quilters struggle, and sometimes give up.  For sure it can be really frustrating, but I always encourage people to just kept trying a different combination of thread and needles.  It is totally dependent on the quilt sandwich, what batting you used, how thick the fabrics are, the combination of the type of thread that is on top and in the bobbin, and how your machine feels on that particular day! For me this week - the quilting needles and the embroidery needles didn't work, but the Topstitch 90/14 needle solved the issue completely.
I was happy to find this fabric in my stash which was perfect for the binding...and I had enough of it to go all the way around! That hardly ever happens...I usually find the perfect fabric, but don't have enough of it :)

The backing of the quilt is a plain white fabric with letters on it.
Click here to see other quilts finished this month.

Virtues Quilt

When I saw Jean's blog post about sewing UnRuly letters, I just got a craving to sew some letters. There is something about that process that is more relaxing and creative than other kinds of sewing for me.
But what to sew??? I decided to add to my Virtues quilt and went to the master list of words and guess which word I picked to sew next?!?

After spending almost every non-work moment this past month with my brother, the only word I could sew was "DETERMINATION". The definition of determination is  - "You focus your energy and efforts on a task and stick with it until it is finished. Determination is using your will power to do something when it isn't easy. You are determined to meet your goals even when it is hard and you are being tested." 
My brother's determination to continue to live through pain, has been always been inspiring to say the least.  Here he is on his first outing (outside of hospital or his apartment) in over a month, at his favorite tea shop. The lung drainage tubes are cleverly hidden in the shoulder bag...it was an ingenious solution.

Here are the virtues I have sewn so far. I have no colour co-ordination for this project and have just been gathering dotty fabrics that I have found on my travels. To sew all 52 virtues would make a humongous quilt, so I think I will pick my favorites and soon decide how big of a quilt this will be.

Design Wall Monday #43

I finally have some progress to show on my red letter quilt along, which was inspired by Word Play Quilts. I showed it on my design wall blog post 3 weeks ago and although it doesn't look much different from that post, it is very different!

It took me this long to get all the bits of sashing around the 32 various sized asterisks blocks, then join them together to be the border to fit around the letters. I am very happy with how it looks now, I am just not sure yet if it is finished, or if this quilt wants to be bigger?! Any suggestions?!?
To see other design walls today, hop over over to Patchwork Times.

Design Wall Monday #39

This project is still on my design wall but lots of progress has been made. I followed the advice that Krista gave on last week's design wall Monday comments, and moved the purple asterisk in the 3rd row to the left of the letter 'P' and I like that better.
The letters are now sewn together into rows (which took way longer than I thought it would!) and I just need to make all the rows the same size by adding pieces to the sides of some of the shorter rows. 
Then I made 12 more asterisk blocks to make into a border. I love how those blocks are all different sizes depending on the width of the strip of fabric I used. I plan to keep making asterisks until all the strips are gone and might end up putting some on the back of the quilt.
If you want to make a similar alphabet quilt, check out Lynne's Red Letter Quilt Along. And to see other quilters' design walls, hop over to Patchwork Times.

Design Wall Monday #38 and Happy Thanksgiving!

Today is the Canadian Thanksgiving and everyone is enjoying a relaxing day at home. I will be doing some gardening and some cooking, but hope to sew most of the day.
Today is also Design Wall Monday and this is what I plan to be working on... my Letter Quilt Along project.

I made each letter with a random choice of the colours in my focus fabric, and am not loving how the red letters line up, but I decided that I am not going to fuss with any of the colours. Nor am I going to worry about the shape of each letter. I know that some letters are too tall or too small, too thin or too wide, but I am just learning how to make letters so I keep repeating to myself "it is what it is"!  Now I have to make all the letters be the same height, and then I have to make the rows be the same length.  Thanks to Tonya for her great book Word Play Quilts and to Lynne for all the tips and inspiration. 

I got the idea for adding the asterisks from Jean's letter quilt, and used the tutorial on the Selvage blog.  The green block was my first one using the tutorial sizes. Each successive block grew a little smaller and now I am totally in love with this block and want to make a whole border of the asterisks blocks. I don't know how far my fabric will stretch, but I decided to just start making them and see what happens.... how fun!

To see other design walls, hop over to Patchwork Times.

Happy Thanksgiving to my Canadian blog readers!

Letter Along A to Z finished!

I have been slowly working on my letters for Lynne's Red Letter Quilt Along, and have finished to the end of the alphabet. Some of the letters were so easy (T and U) and some have a few tricks to make them manageable. Between Lynne's tips and Tonya's descriptions in her Word Play Quilts book , I managed to get most of the letters done quite easily. 
I had a little trouble with the 'W', not leaving enough space on the bottom of the 'W' so that joining it to a sashing would cut off the bottom. It was fixable though, and not too many swear words were heard in my sewing room!
I will post my whole alphabet as soon as I find where I have hidden safely stored them.
Now I have to decide on some spacer blocks and am reading my new book for some ideas.

Letter Quilt Along

I have been the lucky winner of two blogland draws recently!
I won a book I had been wanting to read called "Out of the Box" from Lori at Humble Quilts. And I won two pair of fabric earrings from Julie's 900th blogpost celebration giveaway.
Thanks so much to Lori and Julie for sharing these gifts with me!

After my big UFO finish this week, I have slowly been working away on my letter project and am caught up to the Letter Quilt Along. I am now finished up to the letter 'R' and am amazed at how these letters look so different when they were all made from the same piece of fabric (which you can see in this blog post).
And when I saw "slowly" working...
I mean s l o w l y! I have been working with making some of the letters a little different...like making the top of the 'M' look yellow, and the bottom look green by cutting the fabric creatively. I also tried to get my 'O' to look a little more circular.
Some of these letters were tricky and my stitch ripper was put to good use! Look what happened to 'Q'! 
Since it's Saturday, I should mention that the colour this month for the Rainbow Challenge is black.... and I don't have any black scraps, so I'll be taking the month off from that challenge and getting some other projects finished up.

Design Wall Monday #30

Thanks so much to everyone who offered suggestions on last week's design wall dilemma. I have read every comment and have become frozen with indecision. I am working through my positive self talk strategies following my Mom telling me (after looking at the quilt on the design wall) that it is "a nightmare"! Thanks Mom!
So on my design wall today is something different - my letters from the letter quilt along, based on Tonya's book.
I am up to 'J' and finding that each letter takes me quite a while to figure out. No matter how hard I try, the size of each letter varies considerably. I guess that getting a consistent size takes more practice? I am resisting the urge to trim the letters as Lynne recommended.

I practiced making some 'E' blocks to make another word for my virtues quilt, but this is as far as I got this week.
To see what other quilters are working on this week, hop over to Patchwork Times.

Design Wall Monday #28

This is what is on my design wall this morning....two Unruly letter projects.
Lynne is hosting a letter quilt along...what's not to love about that?!? I have been trying not to start new projects, but I couldn't seem to resist this one. I can just hear you saying "doesn't she already have a letter/word project in the works"?? Yes...at the top of the design wall are the first 4 words of my Virtues quilt project and I am still enjoying it and wanting to make more words, so the letters are just a quick little irresistible side diversion.
I have been watching Jean's and Judy's adorable letters appear and they have worn me down (I have to blame someone for my lack of self control!)
I got out an old Laurel Birch fabric and cut it into colour strips and I'm going to make each letter from one of these strips.
Here are my first 3 letters:

Either 'B' is too small or 'C' is too big! I was supposed to be putting the spacer strip on the right of each letter...I changed it on the 'C' and hope I remember for the rest of the letters!
Are you looking for some relaxing web surfing on this long summer weekend (it's the civic holiday in Ontario today)?

Here are some ideas:

1) Vicki's Web Field Trip

2) Lee's W.I.P. Wednesdays

3) Quilter's Home Magazine's list of 55 best quilt blogs to visit ( a little harder to access because it is an article and you can't just click to link)

4) Quilting Gallery's list of 5,410 quilt blogs (no...I haven't visited all of these!)
5) Design Wall Monday

There now...that should keep you busy for the day!

Scrappy Saturday - Pink

If you're looking for the quilt auction report, please come visit tomorrow...I haven't even had a nap or downloaded my pictures yet!

Today is the last Saturday in May for the pink Rainbow Challenge. I was able to make 2 words this week using the letter patterns from Word Play Quilts for my Virtues Quilt. Thanks again to LeeAnn for the inspiration for this project!


My first pink word was only 5 letters and was made with scraps from this quilt.

"Trust" was quick and easy to make. If only the virtue was as easy to build ..."Trust is having faith in someone or something. It is a positive attitude about life. You are confident that the right thing will happen without you trying to control it or make it happen."

The second word I picked to sew is joyfulness:
"Joyfulness is an inner sense of peace and happiness. You appreciate the gifts each day brings."
This is a generally an easier word for me in my life, but to sew it was quite challenging and used almost 2 fat quarters!


Here are my first 4 words together... 2 from the purple month and 2 from the pink month.


It really tickles me that I spelled 'Joyfulness' wrong! I can't decide if I want to change it or not! Would you?

Scrappy Saturday - Purple

I'm late in posting my Scrappy Saturday post...I didn't actually sew anything on Saturday this week, since we were celebrating my mother-in-law's 86th birthday. But I did work play this week with my purple scraps for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge and I also started a new project...whoops!
The inspiration came from LeeAnn at Nifty Quilts when she posted her new project on the UnRuly Quilting blog.  She is making a word quilt, based on the Virtues Project. I was looking for a project to practice making letters from Tonya's book Word Play Quilts which I got for Christmas, and this seemed to fit the bill perfectly!
I decided to combine this project with the rainbow scrap challenge and got out my purple scraps. Then I checked the list of virtues and picked out some of the shorter/easier words. This word seemed to be the easiest one to start with, and the perfect word to post on Easter Sunday!

I decided to select the background fabrics from my collection of dotty fabrics, and tried my second virtue (with the Canadian spelling, which generally follows the British spelling!)

These were fun words to sew and I am always amazed that the process outlined in Tonya's book actually produces words - like magic! It's a great start to my virtues quilt. I don't know how many words I'll sew, or how big the quilt will be. I'm sure I won't make all the words in purple, but am very happy to have used up these purple scraps. To check out what other quilters are sewing with their purple scraps, hop over to SoScrappy's blog.

Today I will be sewing star blocks for the border on this quilt...here are a few stars made from my purple scraps:

Rainbow Scrap Challenge - Blue

Last Saturday I posted my scrappy blue quilt top with 35 blocks and this week I was able to get 7 more blocks from my scraps to make an extra column of blocks bringing it to 42 blocks, and even had a 7" x 1 1/2" strip of the light background to spare!
Although I was unable to find more of my original background/light fabric, I did find something similar, and then I got the great idea to use my new book "Word Play Quilts" by Tonya Ricucci and learn to make the letters of my nephew's name to put across the top of these blocks. (You should check out the UnRuly Quilting blog and see some of the fun projects posted there.)
It was so much fun to make UnRuly letters! I used my new light background fabric (which is a lovely sky print from Northcott's Stonehenge line) with more of my blue scraps.
I had a few mistakes learning opportunities along the way.
The letter on the left doesn't exactly look like an "H" but that was fairly easy to fix. Also, I had a little trouble with the letter "N" and decided to start over with that one. Isn't the "N" on the left much nicer than the one on the right??
Eventually I made all 6 letters following the wonderful directions in the book, and was very happy with how it turned out.

This is my scrappy blue quilt top (48" x 56") with my nephew's name at the top. I am thinking of paper piecing 2 airplane blocks (his current interest) for each side of his name. And I'll be on the lookout for some airplane fabric for borders.

I am so delighted with how this project is coming along...from a long forgotten (and much detested) project, to a very cool quilt top with a fun optical illusion effect, on it's way to becoming a gift! Thanks again to Angela for motivating me to dig out this project with her Rainbow Scrap Challenge (click here to see the last of the blue scrap postings...soon we'll get a new colour!)