Blogger’s Quilt Festival – Comfort Quilt #2

I like to participate in some of the quilt blogging events and decided to join the Blogger’s Quilt Festival presented by AmysCreativeSide.com. After you are done reading my post, please hop over to the festival page and check out some of the other quilting blogs for more inspiration. This post is about the comfort quilt I finished recently.

When I turned in the first comfort quilt I made for the Genesee Valley Quilt Club (GVQC) I picked up another kit as well. The May meeting is the last time, until September, that they allow you to turn in the comfort quilts. The June meeting is a picnic so it’s not a great place to drop off quilts and is also the last meeting until the fall.

Completed Cupcake Comfort Quilt

The quilt top, which is square in shape, was easily pieced together with its large squares and borders, but then I procrastinated on picking a backing fabric for it. The quilt top is very cheery with cupcakes on some of the squares so I didn’t want to use just any fabric for the backing. I wanted to make this quilt a little more special for whoever might receive it. Just because I don’t know who is going to be the recipient doesn’t mean I shouldn’t put my best effort into it. The quilt top had lots of pinks and is most likely meant for a young girl. I decided to get fancy with the backing and went on a search for the perfect print.

A trip to Betty’s Quilting Etc. in Spencerport brought me to the perfect solution. I found a great border print with flowers growing out of the selvage and butterflies dancing around the main background of pink in the clearance section! I decided to piece together large triangles of the print to make a big square. I wanted to make sure that all of the print stayed with the quilt after trimming so I and added a matching green border to the backing. To save time I also used the green border from the backing for a self binding. The same green was also in some of the squares on the quilt top so it worked out perfectly. For a comfort quilt is sure is nice to machine sew the entire binding.

Completed Cupcake Comfort Quilt Back

Each square was free-motion quilted using the fabu-motion attachment for my sewing machine. I drew the same design on each square with disappearing ink. A combination of two patterns from a book I have. The back looked just as great as the front with this quilting. A bit of simple quilting in the borders and it was done!

Completed Cupcake Comfort Quilt Detail

Completed Cupcake Comfort Quilt Back Detail

The only hand sewing I did was to attach the GVQC label. When my Mother turned the quilt in for me she said it got rave reviews from the comfort quilt committee. I also had her pick up another quilt kit and will turn it in at the first meeting for the next year in September. The comfort quilts are a great way to practice my quilting and do something nice for someone at the same time. I find it very rewarding. I just wish I could meet the recipient some day.

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Jellyroll Quilt Along – Catching Up

My previous post says it all. I have lost my freedom due to having to work for a living (boo hoo for me). I have been quilting since I started working, just not as much as I did while on hiatus. The one thing I haven’t made time for is to post anything about it. The Jellyroll Quilt Along is one of those quilting things that I have kept up with in the sewing department, but I didn’t even have the time to upload the pictures for the last four of them to flickr to be considered for the giveaway drawings until a couple of days ago.

The challenge of the Jellyroll Quilt Along is choosing the fabrics to use for each square. Some of the squares have been simpler than others. The third square is a fairly simple design, but I like the way mine turned out.

Jelly Roll Quilt Along Square 3

With the fourth square I wanted to make sure that it was more random looking and not too uniform. Again, I am pleased with the finished square.

Jelly Roll Quilt Along Square 4

The fifth square is one of my favorite ones so far. It is called “chain link” by its creator and looks stunning when done in mass with all the same squares and corresponding sashing and borders in a full quilt. You can check out a sample at the designer,Emily Herrick’s blog, Crazy Old Ladies Quilts (just scroll down the page a bit).

Jelly Roll Quilt Along Square 5

The most recent square includes a fussy cut from fabric I hadn’t originally included in my stash for this project. The pink background matched the pink in one of the fabrics so I thought it would be a nice accent for this square. I already used some fussy cut squares in a previous square and didn’t want to use the same fabric for the focal point of this one too. I love the way the butterfly just pops out at you.

Jelly Roll Quilt Along Square 6

Some of the fun of doing all of this is to imagine what it will look like with sashing and borders as a whole quilt. Each time I pick out fabric for the current square I like to lay out all of the squares I have already done to use as a reference for picking out fabric for the current square. I want to make sure they don’t all look the same and that I am using a wide variety of the fabrics I have chosen for this quilt.

Monday the 24th is the next time a pattern will be revealed. I am looking forward to then for square 7!

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