Unbeehaved

What Could Possibly Go Wrong??

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Free Pattern Friday, June 2

How in the world did it get to be June already? The kids are out of school, vacations on the horizon, select baseball looming… I’m not sure how much quilting will get done over the next few months!

Although you can’t tell by my blog posts, I have been doing some quilting. I finished two cute quilting jobs for a friend, but I’ll show those next week. I’m sure you’re really here for the free pattern!

This beauty is from Katrina Roccella’s new fabric – In Blue. I like the blue, white, and salmon colors, although wish the pink was more pink. Or even more orange!  Either way, the quilt is a bit more complex than most I’ve ever constructed, so make sure you read the instructions before you start!

Here’s the full pattern.

Lapis Lazuli Instructions

Have a great weekend!

Becky

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Free Pattern Friday, May 26

I’m not too worried about technological singularity being an issue in the future – it’s already in existence for me!  This week’s isosceles triangle quilt pattern continues to give me fits!

Last week, I had planned on using a pattern that was based on an isosceles triangle but couldn’t figure out how to make EQ7 dance to my tune. This week I did figure things out but have been stumped by the export image. Normally it works beautifully, but this time there is a missing triangle! I’ve started from scratch, put other colors in… all to no avail. So just put your thumb over the missing triangle and keep reading!

The original pattern features fabric by Malka Dubrawsky. Have you seen her fabric before? It’s very taste specific, so I’m not sure if the original pattern and fabric would speak to a lot of people.

As always, changing the fabric a little makes a big difference in the quilt. In addition to the original placement, I also mocked up a random placement as well as one based on hexagons.

My favorite option is the random placement. I reused the same Art Gallery Fabric from last week – Joyful Fusion. I do love the pinks, blues, and greens together.

But back to Malka Dubrawsky, my favorite product of hers is a book called “Color Your Cloth: A Quilter’s Guide to Dyeing and Patterning Fabric”. I haven’t had a chance to read through the entire book, but I plan on trying out a couple of projects over the summer (using the kids as “assistants”) to see how that works. I have a bunch of RIT dyes and really look forward to experimenting to see how it all works. RIT dyes are not as fancy as some dying products but you also don’t need to worry about respiration and mixing, so there are some compensating factors.

Enjoy the pattern!

A Stitch In Color

Becky

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Free Pattern Friday – Sugar Town

It’s fortunate that I don’t feel the need to alter ALL of the free patterns that I see online! I have been working on an isosceles triangle/hexagon pattern but my EQ7 skills aren’t up to the challenge yet. Art Gallery Fabrics has the perfect solution for my dilemma – lots of fabrics that I love!

Have you ever sewn with Art Gallery Fabrics products? I have to admit that I have not, although I hear nice things about the drape and softness. And I know that I like many of the fresh designers that are part of that team. The trouble for me is getting it at my LQS – Montgomery Quilt Company is interested in stocking these fabrics but hasn’t been able to get in touch with a rep.

Of course, no Free Pattern Friday would be complete without me wanting to make some sort of adjustment. The photo above is exactly the quilt that can be found in the attachment. I would rather have seen some stronger colors instead of the double light fabrics that are around the white-centered squares.

What about the great colonial blue with chalk flowers?

Or this denim – type fabric?

Something to make the quilt a little more bold. I enjoy low volume fabrics in their proper place, but I think that when they are paired with electric pink that they need a little judicious restraint.

Ok, I know what you really want – check out the pattern link below.

Sugar Town Pattern, AGF

Thanks for reading!

Becky

 

 

 

 

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Green Zone Quilt

This week I finished up a patriotic quilt that I made to donate to a veteran who is the recipient of Green Zone Housing’s first container home. Green Zone Housing is a great non-profit organization that is located here in Montgomery (http://www.greenzonehousing.com). The project is designed to create a community of veterans who need a hand up in order to combat suicide and unemployment. Will Franks is the first recipient and is contributing sweat equity to get his container built. It’s a great project that brings a lot of people from our community together.

I knew that I wanted to make a patriotic-theme quilt, but I didn’t know how much time I had to get it done. Thus, I was fortunate that my friend Joyce donated the blocks, which were part of an old bee block exchange. I didn’t have enough blocks to make a whole queen sized quilt so I sketched out an idea and ran with it! Since I didn’t include a lot of measurements in the sketching phase, I had to run to the quilt shop several times (and also got 8″ WOF delivered on a Sunday – thank you, Amy!!) in order to finish the quilt.

The block was a clever HST-type of construction. There are two ways to go with this – you could make everything into squares or HSTs and put those together in a 4×4 grid (so a combination of 16 HSTs and squares). In this case, the block was constructed by putting squares onto rectangles and making sewing across the diagonal on the square piece (this is how Elizabeth Hartman constructs her hedgehog pattern). By this method, you only need 8 pieces. I’ve done it both ways, and I like the accuracy of trimming down my HSTs. I truly struggle to do this with the rectangle/square pairing.

Joyce had also given me several fabrics that I was able to pair with a navy blue Kona to piece the back together.

Basting is my great nemesis. I always have had trouble getting the backing fabric taut – whether on the floor or stretched on the table. Joyce gave me a hand quilting contraption and my husband was able to mount it onto one of the walls in my sewing room. It’s up high near the ceiling, so I need to stand on a step stool to get the layers attached to the muslin (I use straight pins). Stretching is a small price to pay for easy basting! It’s definitely not how the original equipment was designed to work, but I was happy that I was able to modify it to suit my space and needs.

This is the biggest quilt that I’ve made, so I was nervous about using my new contraption for the first time. It wasn’t perfect, because the quilt was too wide, but I was able to fake it and everything worked out. Since then, I have basted several tops that have been languishing and hope to get a lot of quilting done this summer!

I ended up quilting the quilt in clear poly thread. It was my first large scale quilting project with the stuff and the results were a bit mixed. I had a few tension issues because the thread wouldn’t stay on the spool and kept getting tangled up in various parts of my machine. However, I did like not having to worry about choosing between a light or dark thread or changing thread colors every time I went between red & white.

For the binding, I used some Cookie Exchange fabric that echoed fabric that I used in the quilt top. For the first time, I finished with perle cotton. It wasn’t nearly as difficult as I thought to work with. In fact, it was pretty much the same as using regular thread. I always have a tough time threading the needles with perle cotton, so that was a small complication, and I also had to adjust how many times I wrapped the needle when I was making a knot at the end of a piece. Once was enough, and I still had to struggle a bit to pull the knot under!

Thanks for reading!

Becky

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Free Pattern Friday, May 12

Today’s FPF is using one of my favorite designers, Brigitte Heitland. Can you believe that she only started her Zen Chic brand in 2010? I love the colors that she has used in some of her older fabric lines, particularly For You. I mean, where else do you find dark gray, pink, orange and blue?

The original pattern fabrics don’t do much for me. I also feel that the colors are close enough in tone that it is difficult to pick up some of the light/dark nuances in the pattern.

I hope you like the new version!

 

And if you’re interested in the pattern, click below:

1862 Battle Hymn Pattern

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One Charm Plus Free Pattern Friday

Welcome to the first Free Pattern Friday!

Have you ever noticed that some new patterns remind you of quilts that you’ve seen before? Or maybe you haven’t. Whether I like the fabric that is used in a quilt/pattern has a lot to do with whether I like or even remember seeing it.

I’ve decided to take some free patterns and run them through EQ7 to update the colors and make them beautiful in my eyes, and hopefully yours too. So don’t freak out when you download the pattern and it doesn’t look like the photo that you liked!

Charm Pack Quilt made with Bonnie and Camille fabrics

Meet the 1 Charm Plus Quilt. This quilt can be made with a charm pack and a few bits of yardage. I love how easy and quick it is. I did deviate somewhat from the actual pattern, but that’s fairly typical for me. I have a hard time following the rules!

1 Charm Plus Download

Enjoy this easy, free pattern!

Becky

 

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A Finish and a Beginning

Every blog has a first post, and although it seems like my favorite bloggers have mastered the art and are full of creativity and self confidence, I suppose that they all started somewhere too. For my starter, I’d like to show off an easy plus quilt that you can whip up for a quick weekend finish.

This was a fun pattern from a book that I bought at C&T Publishing’s crazy spring sale. $5 books??  Yes, Please!  “Go Big, Go Bold” was the title and I loved more than one pattern and especially appreciated the suggestions for incorporating the front-side pattern on the back (although I chose not to do so, this time). http://www.ctpub.com/go-big-go-bold-large-scale-modern-quilts/  I especially liked that this quilt was easy to whip up in a weekend, which gave me that all-important almost instant self-gratification.

While the top was certainly easy and quick to assemble, the basting was a challenge. I know that I am seriously basting deficient. In all but the smallest quilts, despite the best of intentions I always end up with a giant wrinkle. You know, the kind that could be seen from the space shuttle. I’ve tried many different methods with almost no success. My knees are too delicate (ha!) and my floors are too high traffic for floor basting. Using the dining room table and clamps held some promise but also resulted in some epic failures too. A friend had mentioned the existence of ceiling frames (mostly used for hand-quilting), but I don’t really have a space that would work. But then I thought that perhaps a large wall could work instead and I could try vertical basting. I took down my project wall (which is just a duvet cover) and went to work.

The safety pins were clipped onto each layer and looped over the black rope that normally supports my project wall.

A few obvious shortcomings quickly became apparent, mostly relating to my wall being too short for this project (and that I need to relocate the storage bins on the left side!). Despite the logistical challenges, I was quite happy with the basting results – I managed to avoid any epic wrinkles and got the job done in a relatively short period of time. This quilt is a twin size – so wider quilts will present additional challenges. I have a couple of ideas for improvements to the system. Watch this space!

Once properly basted, onward to the quilting. I do either free motion quilting or walking foot quilting on my domestic machine – A Bernina 1230 that a friend found at a garage sale for me. My FMQ meander is the easiest option, but I went for more of a modern twist and tried to keep most of the traveling on a left right axis. It went fairly quickly, although I needed to take quite a few breaks because it’s been a while since I last quilted.

The backing is a linen cotton blend that I got from Craftsy.  I do love their sale prices. It makes the quilt a little more girly than my usual, but most of the Zen Chic fabrics on the front already made this a feminine quilt.

And that’s it for my first post! I’ve got lots of things that I’m working on, so there will be lots to share going forward. I also have some good ideas for regular posts, so as my blogging skills progress there should be more interesting things on the way!
Thanks for reading!

Becky