The Ever Kelly Playmat

So about a month and a half ago, I found this posting on the Seattle Modern Quilt Guild about a new-to-here fabric designer that needed samples made for Spring Quilt Market. She had some really cute prints, so I figured why not? Kelly and I chatted and planned over email. When her fabrics arrived, we finally met up over lunch and she literally loaded me up with fabric. Her pattern in hand, I set off to make her cute playmat (finished at about 50"x60").

(Photo by Kathy Mack, Pink Chalk Fabrics)

It reminds me of sandy beaches and cute island living. You can see her version of it in different fabrics in the patterns at the bottom. Given how adorable everything looks here, there should be no surprise that Kelly won a booth award, right? ;) Actually, no, most of the cuteness is elsewhere in the booth, starting with that green fuzzy thing in the bottom left corner.  You can see more of the Ever Kelly booth on her blog!

So, on my experience with making the thing: it was my first time doing fusible appliqué. I started out following her instructions (adapted from other techniques) and ended up doing my own version*. (I am typing out some notes on that, but unless you're making the pattern, or something very similar, it won't make any sense at all. :) )

And, believe it or not, this is only the third major piece that I have free motion quilted. The one prior was done in Dec 2010, so it had um, been awhile. (I did a lot of straight line, and small swap item "quilting" in 2011.)  But with a deadline looming, I managed to both "remember" FMQ, and try out three new quilting patterns, to boot. In fair disclosure, I had been practicing by doodling new patterns for weeks, so it wasn't entirely a cold-start. Also, I chose thread colors that disappeared into the fabric, so even if I screwed up (and I do have a number of ugly moments), it's not immediately noticeable. There is a long, stretched meander in the water, loopy daisies in the meadows, and square meanders and "loops" around the houses. I am pleased I "learned" how to do loopy meander. I tried and tried to do the casual loops on paper, but I kept getting myself in awkward corners. But on actual fabric, I had no problems at all. So if you can see the pattern, but can't quite draw it, you might try stitching it anyway. It could work!

I bias-connected the binding on this one. It would've been so much easier to do a straight-join at the end, but I thought I should "do it right" this time... it does make for a less bulky join, but oh, so much more finicky to make! The binding is part of the 4-in-1 print

The back I have yet to get pictures of, as the quilt literally left my hands as soon as it came off the machine. But it is backed in the turquoise houses, with a bit of basic piecing to "stretch" the width.

All said and done, this is an adorable line of fabric, with cute little details you don't notice until you sit down and get your hands busy playing. I'm really looking forward to making some of my own projects with all the extras Kelly gave me, so stay tuned!

In progress: the continued allure of solids...

Once you complete a project that's all solids, it's hard to go back. For me, at least. There's a... seduction in "perfectly" executed color blocking. Maybe it's that I can't quite visualize prints playing together before they're sewn together. Not with the same precision that I can "see" with solids. Or maybe, it's the comfort that if you run out of a solid, you can always get more. (It's only annoying to run out mid-project, as the dye lot will be slightly different.) Especially with manufacturers making limited runs for print collections these days, it's liberating to not have to plan for the best use of that piece of print. So yeah. Relationship with solids? Still falling. :)

So, okay, enough with the musing, onwards to two recent unfinished projects.

...a baby quilt-in-progress for a nautical nursery. Said baby L is only a few weeks old, and the quilt top is basted, so I'm actually doing okay!

(Bad camera phone shot)

This is yet-another-failed-attempt at a wholecloth quilt. I can't help it. There's always some little bit of piecing I want to do.  In this case, it was a stylized sailboat and a pair of gulls, because the sky looked a little lonely without them. Of course, I drew up an Illustrator file for the boat and layout, but ended up eyeball-piecing in the end. That said, now I need to make a paper-piecing pattern for it, because it is seriously cute!! The gulls were more improvised; I nearly scrapped my initial attempt, but realized I could salvage it, and I'm glad I did.

Originally, this was going to be a two-sided quilt, with this for the other side:

(Another bad camera phone shot)

...but the hubby pointed out it'd be entirely too busy, so I guess I'm saving the fish for another occasion. These torpedo fish aren't as cute as the sailboat.

I ended up converting the green-blue-white stripe I was going to use as a binding into a backing instead. I found I had just enough of a bold red and white stripe (that emphasizes the nautical idea!) to use for binding. I have this quilt all basted, my beginner FMQ skills are dusted off (more on that soon)... expect Quilt #4 soon!

(Speaking of dye lot differences, there are two different shades of Kona Royal in the above two quilt tops. It's hard to tell, but there if you look for it. Still annoying.)

Fabric used: Kona royal blue, grass green, candy blue, cornflower blue*, corn yellow, bits of some prints

* = only color not available at Joann's.