A NY Beauty Finish for February

Posted on February 28, 2015 by nwquiltedcat

Happy last day of February!

We had a beautiful spring-like day here in Oregon. I finished up a mini quilt that I’ve been working on this month featuring paper-piecing and a rainbow of colors!

The pattern is called NY Beauty Circle of Geese by Janice of Better Off Thread. I’ve been admiring this pattern on my Instagram feed for a while and finally decided to tackle the curved piecing!

I started out by selecting a range of rainbow fabrics from the new 2015 Sun Print line by Alison Glass and some Kona cottons. Just love these! My backgrounds are all low-volume prints from my stash.

Here’s the start of the paper piecing:

Paper pieced segments

The quilt has 4 quadrants with some small curved piecing on the insides of each unit. I finally used a 1/4-inch fusible tape technique to help with these curves rather than pins. Much less trouble! After finishing all 4 quadrants, I joined them together and quilted the mini on my HQ16 using Aurifil white thread and free-motioned some wavy, radiating rays from the flying geese out to the edges of the mini quilt. I did some tiny free-motion swirls on the inside low-volume fabrics and concentric circles in the middle.

Free-motion quilting close-up

Once I finished the quilting, I set the mini down on the floor for a quick picture when this guy showed up! My quilting inspector.

Tiger on the NY Beauty Circle of Geese

I think Tiger likes the mini quilt! I convinced him to let me have the quilt back so I could add the binding. I selected a gray print so that it framed the quilt without detracting from the rainbow fabrics.

Here’s my completed NY Beauty Circle of Geese mini-quilt!

Completed NY Beauty Circle of Geese Mini Quilt

I really enjoyed making this mini quilt. It’s so cheerful and bright in my quilting space.

Enjoy!
~Jennifer

Technicolor Galaxy BOM, Block 1 Color Wheel

Posted on February 18, 2015 by nwquiltedcat

Hi everyone!

I’ve been posting regularly on Instagram under the name @nwquiltedcat. I’ve joined a few mini quilt swaps and have been busily working on those fun projects. I have 3 due by late March/early April so I’ll blog about them one my partners have received their packages.

In the meantime, I started working on a fabulous new block-of-the-month for myself. This BOM is called Technicolor Galaxy by Alyssa over at Pile O Fabric. It’s a stunning quilt that you can do in your choice of color scheme. I’m going with the rainbow color scheme because I really love the look right now.

The BOM is designed to teach new skills throughout the year. I’m also participating via the Portland Modern Quilt Guild, which has a discount code for the pattern if you are a guild member. If you are a member, send an email to the guild for the code.

For February, our assignment is to make the color wheel for block 1 using a bias tape applique technique. I’m using Kona Snow for my bias tape and a combination of 2015 Sun Prints by Alison Glass and Kona solids for the color wheel.

This is a quilt-as-you-go BOM so I used a Superior variegated King Tut thread on the top and Aurifil white in the bobbin. I did free-motion quilting using my Bernina.

Here’s a look at the front of my color wheel:

Technicolor Galaxy BOM, Color Wheel

Close-up view of the free-motion quilting:

Color Wheel Close-up

I really love how the Aurifil white thread blends into the Kona solid backing in this picture:

Color Wheel Back

This is a vibrant and cheerful quilt that I’m excited to work on over the course of the year in addition to focusing on mini quilts.

Recently, I had some sad news. My best buddy and hiking dog, Brutus, was diagnosed with cancer. It’s an advanced form and pretty aggressive. I met with a veterinary oncologist today, but I fear that chemotherapy treatments will be too expensive. We’re probably going to focus on palliative care for him and give him the best last few months that we can. He’s not in pain currently so that’s great, and I’m also grateful he’s still active and enjoying life.

Happy quilting!
~Jennifer

We Support You blog hop!

Posted on February 9, 2015 by nwquiltedcat

Hi everyone,

Welcome to my blog where I’m happy to be participating in the We Support You blog hop to encourage, support, and inspire all those who have been touched by cancer, particularly breast cancer. My mother-in-law passed away several years ago from complications due to breast cancer so I definitely know this cancer touches so many lives.

Thanks to Madame Samm of Sew We Quilt for encouraging us to make something cheerful and beautiful in this hop using her pattern and to Pat, our wonderful cheerleader for this hop. You can purchase the “We Support You” friendship pattern for $12 from Madame Samm directly by emailing her at madamesamm@me.com.

I’ve been participating in quite a few Instagram mini swaps lately, and all the beautiful rainbow colored quilts inspired me in my project for this hop.

I started by selecting a text print for the block backgrounds. This text print has encouraging phrases such as “No regret” and “Dream big.” Next, I made 3 little bras in colorful print fabrics to applique to the text backgrounds. The bra straps and hangers are hand embroidered using DMC black embroidery floss.

Next, I pulled some Kona cotton solids in various rainbow hues to create the borders and bound the whole mini using black weave print. I used a Superior variegated thread to do the quilting, alternating wavy horizontal and vertical lines.

I had this really cute little wire heart hanger so I added a sleeve to the back for a perfectly finished little project!