City of Bridges

Several of us from the Pittsburgh Modern Quilt Guild have been busy working away on our Madrona Road Challenge projects!  We decided that our challenge would be a theme based on the story that accompanies the fabric line - we settled on roads and bridges.  I've always had ideas for bridge quilts floating around in my head and I sat down with a friend of mine and came up with a pretty fun design!

I had a dimensioned drawing of my original idea but as I was putting the top together, I made some last minute changes and improvised some portions of the quilt.  It was pretty liberating!  I've never really done any improve piecing outside of a meeting workshop setting.

We had some beautiful weather this weekend, so it was a great opportunity to get a few pictures!

City of Bridges - font

City of Bridges - Back

City of Bridges - FMQ closeup

City of Bridges - finished quilt!

The finished dimensions are about 40.5" by 46.5" - it's a little crooked though...oh well!  The first finish of 2013 turned out pretty well :)  I'm off to work on a t-shirt quilt for a friend and keep on working on my FMQ skills with my Groove quilt!

Farmyard

For years I promised my brother I'd make him a quilt.  In November 2011, I bought a fat quarter bundle of Farmyard by Sentimental Studios.  It seemed appropriate for his style - the fabric has sort of a vintage look to it.  The patterns remind me of the line drawings in the library books at my elementary school.

It's the biggest quilt I've made so far - I believe it finished at 106 inches square. 

These photos were taken during the winter and it was too gross out to get any outside pictures - so I had to stand upstairs and take photos down into the living room to get the full view of the quilt!  It's draped over the couch.

 

I used Moda Natural and some of the leftover fabric to piece the back.

I wish I'd taken some up-close pictures!  The quilt is used on a nightly basis... I'll have to go some pictures of the worn-in version sometime!

More old projects will be posted while new ones are in progress.  I finished up Baby G's pinwheel quilt, just waiting for him or her to  be born so I can write on the label.  It's the first quilt I've put a label on!  After that, there will be photos.   And I've made some good progress on the Charming Stars quilt.  I ordered some Kona solids for the border/backing/binding this morning. 

Melissa

Farmyard Windows

The first finished project I've come up with since starting this blog is a little scrap quilt called Farmyard Windows.

It's made with leftovers from fat quarter bundle of Farmyard by Sentimental Studios for Moda.  Somehow I stumbled upon this Rectangle Squared Tutorial from Film in the Fridge and immediately decided it was time to stop studying and start putting that little roll of scraps to use! 

I even managed to use up a lot of my scraps on the backing and binding!  I've got some scraps of the green wheat and the cream colored chicken prints left but that's about it. 

My favorite part is the narrow pieced border - not sure exactly what it is, but something about the border just makes it all come together so nicely.

Posing with our distressed patio chairs...  they've been weathering on the patio for 5 winters - is it too late to stain them or anything??

Close-up of the sashing between the prints - some of them didn't match up perfectly.  It looks much neater now that it's been washed.  The puckering hides some of those mistakes!  Post-washing photos to come soon.

Melissa