Perfectly Polished Tutorial - Finding Inspiration Everywhere!

Below is a guest post tutorial that I originally wrote as a guest post at Jedi Craft Girl. Enjoy!

Today I'm going to explain a bit of how the design process works for me and follow that up with a tutorial for the block that I've designed!

I'm a scientist by training and although I've always been a crafter, designing doesn't always come easily to me. In fact, my favorite projects are typically the product of a simple idea (or a mistake! Ha!). While I was working on an idea for my tutorial I decided to take a break and skim facebook for a bit. That's when I saw this advertisement pop up:

I instantly knew that I had to create a quilt block based on the photo. I started out by drawing on graph paper (technically this is engineering paper, for fellow nerds and nerd spouses out there!). I like to start with graph paper because it's easier and faster for me than using the computer. I also pulled out my own bottle of Essie nail polish and measured it (1" wide by 1.5" tall) so that I could keep those proportions in my design.

My first drawing was quite basic. Based on the actual bottle size, I had decided on a finished size of 3"x4.5" for the colored blocks. I liked my first drawing (top drawing above), but I wanted to include the narrow spacing that the glass bottles naturally create between the blocks of color. My second drawing incorporated the spacing. This is also the point when I started to think about the easiest way to piece the block and draw in my piecing lines. If I wasn't quite satisfied with my design I would have continued to tweak my drawings and redraw them as needed until I was happy with the design. In this instance I didn't stray much from my inspiration. Sometimes the inspiration is barely recognizable in the final design and other times it's a near replica. Don't be afraid to play with different ideas!

(Reality check: sometimes my drawings end up in the recycling bin or a binder, only to be see months later. And other times they turn into great quilt designs!)

I had a few math errors in my second drawing, so I made a third drawing but didn't include a photo here. I never start drafting on the computer until AFTER I work out all of the math on paper. For me, it's easier to calculate everything on paper. And don't forget to include seam allowances (I don't draw them in, but keep them in mind when writing out cutting directions!). Once I had my block design worked out on paper I moved over to the computer. I use Adobe Illustrator for my graphics (I wish I could provide a tut on that, but alas, I am still a young Illustrator grasshopper!).

I'm calling this block "Perfectly Polished"!

Now, let's sew up the block!

For starters, here are the supplies:

6 scraps for the color blocks, at least 4" x 5.5"

1/4 yd background fabric*

To create a 19" square mini quilt, the following are needed:

1/3 yd background in place of the 1/4 yd listed above*
22" square batting

2/3 yd backing

1/4 yd binding

Cut your fabric as follows:

6 color blocks: 3.5" x 5"

Background (it's helpful to label the individual pieces here):

A:  2.5" x 6"

B:  1.5" x 3.5"

C:  3.5" x 4.5"

D:  1.5" x 5"

E:  1" x 5"

F:  1" x 3.5"

G:  1" x 5"

H:  1.5" x 5"

I:  1" x 5.5"

J:  1" x 3.5"

K:  3.5" x 4.5"

L:  3.5" x 4.5"

Refer back to the illustration above whenever needed during the piecing.

For this block I find it especially helpful to lay out my design on a design wall or a nearby table. As I sew and press my seams I place the sections back in the appropriate places within the design.

Press all seams as you go. I prefer to press open, especially when using a light colored background fabric such as in this project.

Start by sewing piece B to the bottom of color 1.

Sew piece C to the top of color 4; sew piece J to the bottom of color 4.

Sew piece D to the top of color 2; sew piece E to the bottom of color 2.

Sew piece F to the right side of color 3.

Sew piece G to the left side of color 5; sew piece H to the right side of color 5.

Sew piece K to the left side of color 6; sew piece L to the right side of color 6.

Now sew piece A to the left side of the color 1 section.

Sew piece I to the bottom of the color 3 section.

Now it's time to start piecing the colors together! Begin by sewing the color 1 section to the top of the color 3 section.

Sew the color 2 section to the top of the color 5 section.

Sew the color 4 section to the left side of the color 2+color 5 section.

Now piece the color4+color 2+color 5 section to the right side of the color 1+color3 section.

Finally, piece the color 6 section to the bottom of the block!

Your block should now measure 12.5" long and 13" across.

To create the 19.5" mini quilt, continue below.

If you'd rather square up the block for another use, simply sew a 1"x13" background strip to either the top or bottom edge of the block. This will give you a 13" square block which will finish as a 12.5" square block.

To create the mini quilt, do not add the 1" strip to square up the block.
Cut the following borders from your background fabric:

2" x 12.5"

2" x 14.5"

5.5" x 14"

6" x 19.5"

Sew the 2" x 12.5" strip to the left side of the block.

Sew the 2"x14.5" strip to the top of the block.

Sew the 5.5"x14" strip to the right side of the block.

Sew the 6" x 19.5" strip to the bottom of the block.

Baste, quilt and bind!

Thanks so much to Amanda for having me over for tutorial week! I would love to see any projects that you create from this tutorial. You can always contact me through my blog or post in my Flickr Group!

Guest Posting at Jedi Craft Girl

Today I'm guest posting over at Jedi Craft Girl for "A Week of Quilt Tutorials"!

Stop on by and read about how I created a modern block from a nail polish ad (yes, for real!).

Then follow the tutorial to create your own "Perfectly Polished" mini quilt, or make several blocks for a larger quilt!

Be sure to check out the other tutorials from this week as well. Lots of quilty inspiration!
And browse Amanda's creations, too - she has some really fun tips for tie dying. It's a great summer project and fun for all ages! We just tie dyed with 10 kids at Addy's 6th birthday party, and it was a blast. Plus the shirts all turned out great!

The Mama Star Quilt

This is the star quilt that started it all! A friend asked me to create a custom king size quilt for her bed and a coordinating twin for her daughter. My friend was open to nearly every design idea that I brought to her, but I kept coming back to an image of a lone star quilt that her husband's aunt made for them. The lone star quilt was used on their bed for years, and it remains a very special piece for them.

I contemplated creating a new lone star quilt, but I wanted to do something different. I searched quite a bit and came up with lots of modern star quilt ideas, but I couldn't get this quilt by Kati at From the Blue Chair out of my mind. I especially loved that she used paper piecing, which is a great method for ensuring that your piecing is accurate.

I pieced my quilt in much the same manner as Kati outlines on her blog, but I changed the design quite a bit by creating concentric stars that have quite different angles.

The center star is about 64" from point to point, and the entire quilt is 120" square. The star looks a bit small here, but I designed it so that it would sit perfectly on their bed. The thin dark blue border is a great frame around the edge of the quilt as it drapes on the bed!

Unfortunately my colors are way off in these photos. We were rushing to get the pics before the sun went down, and we didn't have anyone to help hold this huge quilt! I wish I had more time to take better pictures, but I flew out of town the very next morning and took the quilts with to hand deliver.

Here's a close up of the star, the colors are pretty close in this picture and it also shows some of the quilting that I did:

I had so much fun quilting this! The light blue background is quilted with straight lines 3/4" apart and each ring of the star is quilted with a different design. Here's a shot of the back of the quilt, where the designs really show up well:

This is only the 3rd quilt that I quilted on the long arm, so I'm pretty happy with the result! Here's one more picture of the quilting on the back, this shows how I quilted the dark blue stripe around the quilt:

I brought the quilt inside and put it on my bed for this picture. Unfortunately I have a queen size bed, so this isn't the most accurate shot. I does show the colors really nicely, though, and the proportion of the star:

I took both quilts with me when I traveled back to Illinois a few weeks ago, and I was able to hand deliver them to my friend. She really loves both of them, and I've seen several photos of them in use! This was biggest custom order that I've ever received, and I was a bit nervous to quilt this giant quilt. But I think they turned out quite well in the end!

Seeing Stars Quilt

I made this quilt for a friend's daughter. I actually designed a king size quilt for my friend first, and then created this one to coordinate with the king size. But I want to share this one first. :)

I wanted to make a star quilt, something fun and whimsical for a sweet 6-year old girl to enjoy now and as she grows. I certainly added touches that she will love now (such as the awesome Art Gallery Menagerie print from the Indian Summer line), but tried to stay away from anything too cutesy (which isn't her style, anyway!).

I used the Sparkle Punch quilt by Oh Fransson! as a jumping off point, but added in 3 large stars (centers are 9" square, stars about just until 27" from point to point!) and some itty bitty stars (centers are 1" square, and less than 3" from point to point!).

Warning: Picture colors are off a bit...I was short on time and my lighting options were either full sun or full shade!

I played around with arrangement a bit, but ultimately decided to not disrupt the flow of the majority of the stars. Because of that, I ended up with a decent amount of background around the larger stars. I filled it in a bit with the tiny stars, and I'm really happy with the layout! I like the extra background space, as I think it calms the design down a bit.

Here's that great Menagerie print! I initially bought this for my stash, but I had to use it for this quilt because it suits the recipient so well. (And now my LQS has the print in BOTH colorways, so I restocked my stash!)

If you follow me on instagram (I'm TheGirlWhoQuilts), you probably know that I've been keeping a quilty secret for a few weeks now...I took the plunge and bought a long arm! I'm now the proud owner for a Handi Quilter Avante 18, and I'm so happy with it! It was quite a whirlwind for a bit though, as we set up the machine and I practiced a bit before diving into these customer quilts. This was only my second official quilt on the long arm, and I'm pretty happy with it! I went with a simple swirl design to keep my stress level low. ;)

For the back of the quilt I used mostly the solid from the front, plus a strip of this fun peacock print:

Quilt stats:

Name: Seeing Stars

Size: 75" x 90"

Background: Kona peacock

Prints/fabric lines include: Dear Stella (peacock feathers), Constellations Lizzy House, Architextures, Cuzco by Kate Spain, Pearl Bracelets, Backyard Baby, Indian Summer, Children at Play, Bella by Lotta Jansdotter, Luxe in Bloom

Binding: Constellations by Lizzy House, Supernova pint in purple

Dresden Sparkles

As you can tell from the pictures below, I made this quilt a few months ago. I intended to give it to my brother's girlfriend, Caroline, for Christmas, but I ran out of time. I had to set it aside and I finished it up in February, I think.

Caroline loves purple, so I started by pulling out the purple colorway of 1,001 Peeps by Lizzy House. I used a pale purple for the background so that the prints and the piecing would pop. After the EZ Dresden challenge last year I had the idea to create these "sparkle" blocks. There were plenty of similar quilts in the contest, and I was really drawn to the simplicity of alternating a print with a background solid.

I quilted the background in a small meander and left the sparkles unquilted so that they will "pop" a bit. In hindsight, I wish that I had stitched in the ditch around each print. It's not too visible from the front, but it is from the back.

I really love all of the Lizzy House's work, and this line is no exception. Caroline is a sweet, fun girl, and I thought she's appreciate the whimsical tone of these prints.

On the back I used two different purple solids and the left over prints. The binding is an eggplant color, as that's Caroline's favorite shade of purple.

Caroline loves her quilt, and I was happy to cross this WIP off my list just before I headed off to QuiltCon! Last week I finished up two custom quilts and delivered them over the weekend, so I'll have a few new things to share as soon as I edit the pictures!

The Wall Street Freaking Journal!!!

I know it's been really quiet around here lately, but trust me when I say that my quilting studio is anything but quiet right now! I'm getting ready to head back to Peoria, IL for a quick visit with my in laws and to run the inaugural Run River City Marathon! I'm really excited to get back to the midwest, even if it's only for a few days. While I'm there, I am going to deliver two custom quilts, one of which I'm still working on. I have faith that I'll get it done, but with race training and quilting that doesn't leave much time to blog!

I wanted to pop on here to share the exciting news that there is a great article in the Wall Street Journal regarding modern quilting! To read the article, search the following text in your search engine of choice:

Modern Quilters Stress Simplicity

You should come up with the WSJ link! (If you attempt to link through the WSJ website, it's a paid subscriber only article - booo!)

There's also a short slide show of quilts from Quilt Con, you can find those here. I'm super excited to share that my quilt is on slide #5! A sweet friend alerted me to the photo this morning, and I've contacted the WSJ so that they can (hopefully) include a photo credit! Either way, my quilt is on the freaking WSJ website!

OK, I'm off to shower after my morning run - I've been chatting with my hubby, my mom, and anyone else who will listen ever since I found out that my quilt was online! I have a few older quilts to share, I'll try to post about at least one of them before my trip next weekend!

Field Study for Easter (a bit late...)

A friend of mine asked me to make her two girls matching Easter dresses and a coordinating bow tie for her son. I gave her a few fabric ideas and crossed my fingers that she would choose Field Study in rayon challis (then I'd have a great excuse to buy a bit for me, too, right?). A girl after my own heart, she jumped at the idea!

Because the rayon challis is about 54" wide, I was able to order the same yardage that I would have for quilting cotton - so don't be turned off my the slightly higher price! The first thing that I noticed when I received the fabric was the beautiful drape. It is buttery soft with a slight sheen, and it gives a bit more than quilting cotton. In my amateur opinion, rayon challis is one of the best garment fabrics and I'm so glad that wonderful designers like Anna Maria Horner are offering their prints in rayon!

For the dresses, my friend asked that I make something similar to this tutorial. I used a template for the bodice of the larger dress and for the toddler dress I traced the bodice of an old 18 mo old dress. I was really nervous about the fit of the two dresses - I had the girls' measurements, but it's still a gamble!

I deviated from the tutorial a bit and added more gathering in the center front and back. I kept the shape of the bodice and the sleeves, though, as those wear the details that my friend really likes! Here are the two dresses, the larger dress is about a size 6 and the smaller is an 18mo:

 

The back of the dress has a button closure. I used covered buttons, because I couldn't find a shank button that I liked!

And here's the bow tie!

I was really happy with how everything turned out! The size 6 dress was a bit too big (which surprised me, since I used a pattern piece for the bodice measurements!) but my friend opted to leave it as is, so that her daughter could wear the dress for a few years. I think the dress will look great as a tunic for a few more years - and it will even layer well over a long sleeve t when the weather cools off!