Bloomcore Quilt Gift

One of my co-workers is leaving our job, so my other teammate and I decided her going away gift would be a super girly quilt. I used the Bloomcore fabric line from AGF and a kit from myfabricaddiction.com, although after the second row I realized I made a HUGE mistake and instead of taking apart 50% of the quilt and redoing it, I took apart only 15% and changed the pattern to fit my mistake. You can see from the picture at the bottom that every other X block was supposed to be turned. Oops. I started this quilt in November and put it aside, so this was my lesson learned that it is SO MUCH HARDER to try to figure out where you left off and pick it up than just to power through and finish projects when you start them. 

I love the crinkly-ness of it. I debated between a solid background that matched the binding and this floral print, and my teammate and I decided since our co-worker is in a house full of boys she deserved something feminine and girly and all hers. 

And here is what it should've looked like. At first glance it looks like an easy project but even though it's only made of two shapes (triangles and rectangles) it is one of the most mathematically difficult patterns I've ever tried. It's so cute though! 

 

Wooly Stars Quilt

I made this fun quilt for no particular reason. The pattern caught my eye at myfabricaddiction.com and I couldn't resist! The directions were pretty simple. Complete steps 1-29 and then repeat 8 times. Haha. I do best when batch-processing so it didn't take nearly as long as it could have. The hardest part was determining the pantograph to quilt it with on my longarm. I ended up going for a swirl repeat pattern. Next time I would probably choose something different (maybe smaller cloud puffs?) but this was cute and I like how it turned out. 

Also for the first time I used a bedsheet instead of store-bought fabric as the backing. I wasn't sure I would like it but it turned out great and I had plenty of the queen-size sheet fabric so I felt comfortable with it. 

 

Campfire Quilt

 I made my husband this quilt using a kit from myfabricaddiction.com. I used a flannel backing which really threw off my longarm, so that's definitely something I need to keep practicing. The pantograph is campfires, which adds to the warmness of this plaid design.

You can already see some loose threads I had to go back and fix. Not my best work but I learn something from every quilt I make. Next time will be better! 

Mixmaster Manchester Precut Sew-Ready Quilt Kit

I had a goal to finish all of my in-progress quilts before New Year's, and I was SO CLOSE to meeting that expectation I set for myself. This quilt kit I purchased from myfabricaddiction.com a few months ago, and loved it because it came with a few different patterns I could make with the same set of blocks. I've made a similar version before, so I thought I would try this design, which started at the bottom right corner and worked both vertically and horizontally. I'll be honest, it took a lot more brainpower than I thought it should making sure the columns and rows were correct each time (it was a growing pattern, so I was constantly counting!) and I didn't really like having to build one small row/column at a time. There was no way to put it together in sections. Even though I was completely random with my block choices (I don't know the effort it would take to try to plan it out carefully) I ended up with the same fabric repeating in a certain area (which is WILD to me because I literally just grabbed and sewed, and since it's going together one at a time I sewed all 19/20 columns/rows and then attached them). I can't say I'll do this one again, but I learned a lot and am glad I did it. 

Before quilting- 

Here it is at the end of October as I put each row/column together one by one. I set it aside once finished because I couldn't find the perfect backing fabric. The last time I went to my local fabric store I found a great green and white floral wideback that was great.