City Line quilt

My designs often develop in clusters, where I start with one idea that develops in multiple different directions.  City Line is part of one of those clusters, coming along for the ride with the Love Large strip-friendly heart quilt.

City Line by Canuck Quilter Designs
This version made with Northcott Stonehenge Gradations fabrics

In both designs I was experimenting with ways of using panels made of precut strips (spoiler in case you stop reading too soon:  City Line ended up not using precut strips!).

Here's the first draft of what became City Line.

First Draft of City Line

As you can see, it wasn't quite there yet. I played with the center band little more, testing out different spacings, more sashing, less sashing, no sashing.  Eventually I landed on the checkerboard look I chose for the final version.

About this time digital fabric swatches for Northcott's Bordeaux line arrived in my inbox and I recolored with those because they were just so pretty.

Here's where I shifted away from precuts.  First, I don't think this collection will have precuts (it will ship to stores this fall). Second, this would only use 26 of the 40 to 42 strips in a strip pack.  that's not ideal.  Finally, when I used these red and white prints, I had to carefully choose placement to keep the red-on-white prints separate from each other because they blended together otherwise and the design was lost.  Keeping the darker fabric on the left of each column and the lighter on the right created a slight dimensional effect that I rather liked.  So, what happens if the fabrics in a strip set don't have as much value variation?  It might be harder to create that effect.

Maybe yardage, where you have more control over the fabric choices, would be a better bet.  Also, as much as I love these red and white florals, I wondered if more subtle prints or tone-on-tones would do a better job emphasizing the dimensional element.  I reached for Nortcott Stonehenge Gradations for subtle texture.  (All that said, if you don't mind having leftover strips, and your strip pack includes a good range of values, you can choose to use precuts if that's your preference.)

Second to last draft of City Line design

Almost there! The last little tweak came whan I worked out yardage requiremenmts.  I thought eight fabrics was a good number, with enough variety but not too many choices to make.  Starting with that number, and the number of strips needed in each fabric, I found two fabrics would need more yardage than the rest.  Wouldn't it be easier to use the same amount of each?  That way I wouldn't have to decide which two fabrics would have more before I was able to shuffle the fabric on my design wall.  Removing one pair of strips made the math math beautifully.

A nice side effect?  I like the aspect ratio of the final design more than the original.  Yay!

Here's a quick look at the making of the quilt.

Auditioning fabric order

Piecing the panel

Sliced and reconstructed to finish the top

I was thrilled with how quickly this all came together. I think talking myself into basting the quilt so I could quilt it took longer than the piecing.

Basting the quilt

I kept the quilting very simple, stitching in the ditch in the columns and checkerboard, then emphasizing all the vertical elements with evenly spaced vertical lines  in the background.

Quilting the quilt

Rosie seems a little unsure of the quilting choice but I like it. With the simple quilting and Hobbs 80/20 batting, the quilt is super soft, drapey and cuddly.

Quilt inspector at work

I'm planning a quilt-along for this pattern.  It will be a very slow, easy pace, and hopefully a chance to get to know and encourage other quilters online.    No prizes, no hoops to jump through.  Just quilty fun.  When I asked for preferences in my Facebook group, there seemed to be a strong preference for September dates so that's what I'm looking at right now.  Check back for more details, or sign up to receive my newsletter to get the announcement in your inbox.  

I'm considering these fabrics from assorted White Owl Textiles Fundamentals collections for my quilt-along quilt.

City Line by Canuck Quilter Designs
mocked up in assorted blue White Owl Textiles Fundamentals.

Now I'm off to work on a new idea that cropped up while I was scouring my EQ files to share the City Line design process with you.  There was another discarded idea in there that is now tickling my creativity with scrap quilt possibilities...

What is your creativity up to today?

Happy quilting,

Joanne

Find the PDF download version of the pattern in my Etsy shop

 or ask for a print version at your favourite quilt shop.

Love and Cuddles

I haven't made a baby quilt in ages, but when I pieced a backing for Love Large,  my brain latched onto that backing design as the perfect start to a baby quilt.  I'm thrilled with how Love and Cuddles turned out.

Love and Cuddles baby quilt

Here's the inspiration quilt backing for reference.

Backing of Love Large was the inspiration for Love and Cuddles.

Step one towards turning this into a baby sized quilt was to scale down the size of the hearts.  I knew I'd need skinnier strips for a smaller heart but I still planned plain vertical strips.  The visual interest would come from the different fabrics.

When I started thinking about fabric amounts for a pattern I realized that at a smaller scale, a single strip of any one fabric wouldn't use a significant portion of even the smallest cut you can usually buy.  Some shops will cut as small as 1/8 yard, but many will round to 1/4 yards.  Either way, there would be a lot of leftover.

With that in mind, I looked for ways to make the heart visually interesting with only two colors.  Here's my little test block.  I was happy to be able to spin the seams in that middle section to minimize the bulk.  Pressing instructions in the pattern reflect that, or you can press to one side as you prefer.

Test block for Love and Cuddles

It was quick and easy.  I built the base, sliced it and rebuilt it. No individual squares to cut and sew together.  This definitely had potential.   They seemed  a little too small to take the stage all alone against the background panels, so I framed them for a more emphasis.

When I was ready to make the sample quilt, I knew I didn't want to use traditional pink or blue.  I thought some of the currently trendy less traditional neutral tones could look cute, but would look drab out of context on a patter cover.  With that in mind I headed to the quilt shop and browsed for an hour until prints from a 2023 collection from Riley Blake caught my eye.  With those in hand I picked out coordinating tone-on-tones to round out my fabric selection.

The stars and clouds prints and the plaid are from a collection called "It's a Boy", but I think the theme and the green and yellow prints are gender neutral.

It took me about 5 hours to make the top, from pressing the fabric to sewing the last stitch.  That included time to rip stitches and resew when I sewed a whole side panel on upside down. Oops! 

I moved on to the quilting before I took a photo of the top.  I kept the quilting vey simple to match the simple piecing.  The walking foot, as is often the case, was my tool of choice.  

First I stitched in the ditch along every seam in the heart and in the yellow frame, then filled in with a little bit of outline quilting.  Usually, I outline quilt 1/4" from the seams, but this time I chose to use 1/2" spacing.  This echoes the 1/2" between the sides of the hearts and the yellow frame.  I repeated the 1/2" spacing in the beadboard quilting in the background panels, just a small way to tie the quilting in the hearts with the quilting in the rest of the quilt.

Five generous quilters offfered to test the pattern for me.  I greatly appreciate their help.  Despite my careful proofreading and tech editing, there were still a couple of mistakes to catch, so I owe a huge thanks to Pat Minnick, Vicki O., Tammy Howell, Elizabeth, and Susan Brown.

City Line, the other quilt I designed while working on Love large, is up next.  There will be a quilt-along for that one!  I'm still working out the details, including the dates, but I'm committed to it :)

Time to go make dinner again.  I'm not inspired tonight.  I wrote a menu for the week, but none of what seemed appealing before I did the groceries is whetting my appetite today.  What do you do when that happens?

I'll figure something out.  In the meantime, happy quilting and I'll see you next time.

Joanne

Find the PDF version of the Love and Cuddles pattern in my Etsy shop or ask for the print version at your favourite quilt shop.

Love Large matching pillows

Tidying up after making Love Large, I pondered what to do with the bonus triangles cut away while shaping the heart.  Should they head to the scrap bin or the orphan blocks collection?  Maybe they could become a small bonus project?

Bonus pillows to go with the Love Large quilt

I toyed with the idea of a runner or table topper, then decided I really didn't need another runner.  I could use more variety in pillow covers for the throw pillows on my couch though.  I'm tired of looking at the basic brown ones that came with the basic (but comfy) brown couch.

The left and right pillows in the photo above were easy enough to plan.  They used the offcut triangles from the large stitch-and-flip corners of the Love Large heart.  I needed to trim the background one to match the size of the strip triangle, sew the diagonal seam, and trim to the right size for my pillow form.

The center one took a little more thought. I made HST using the offcut strip triangles and background triangles, then experimented with 2 block x 2 block layouts.  These are just the ones I took pictures of.  You could also make a classic pinwheel, or lay them all out with the purple triangle on the lower left.  I've included multiple bonus project layouts at the end of the pattern for inspiration.

4 possible layout for the bonus HST

I decided to add extra stitch and flip corners to the plain halves of the HST using extra purple scraps.  I would have made them larger, but I was limited by the size of the scraps.  Still, it adds a little something to the center of the pillow.

Bonus block from bonus HST

So there we have 3 square pillow tops ready to go, fairly quickly.  The sane thing to do would have been to cut backing panels from a single fabric for the back of the pillows for a quick finish.

I was not sane.  I had more scraps of the purple fabrics just sitting in a pile looking pretty.  This is why it took me longer to finish the pillows than it did to make the quilt.

I couldn't just piece scraps together willy nilly.  I had to overthink things and plan.  Consider every scrap and decide what would be the most effective use of them.  I did math and shuffled scraps again.  Several weeks later I finally stitched the last stich in the pillows.

Backs of the bonus pillows to match Love Large

Despite all that planning, the backs didn't turn out the way I pictured them in my head.  The middle one is simple, no scraps in sight.  The other two lack the symmetry I was aiming for.  The center strip was supposed to run exactly down the middle between the pieced strips.  It's particularly apparent on the pillow on the right that it does not run down the middle.  What happened?

I like to make zippered pillow covers that are easy to swicth out with the seasons or my mood.  That center strip is actually the flap that hides the zipper.  When I planned the two panels that make up the back of the pillow I forgot that the flap would not be centered on the zipper, but sewn into one side of it and extend further past it on the other side.  My planning and math were based on two panels the same size, tied together by the zippper exactly in the center.  That's exactly where the zipper lies, just like I planned, but the flap isn't centered on the zipper so it's off center, not as I planned.

The pillow on the left had a couple of extra snafus.  First, the strips of purple squares were not supposed to have a strip of background between them. I cut the background fabric parts too narrow, 1/2" less than my notes said. I needed to make up the 1/2" so I slipped an extra background strip in there.  Second, I sewed the first panel to the zipper with the wide strip of background by the zipper, opposite of what I planned.  By this point I was ready to be done so I left it and flipped the second panel to match.  Seeing them now I think it would look better the other way around and wish I had taken the time to rip and resew, but it doesn't bug me enough to take the pillow apart and redo it!

I've had a few offers to take the pillows off my hands if I'm not happy with them, but their slight wonkiness has grown on me.  On days when the lack of symmetry bothers me, I'll just make sure the pillows are showing off the front side.

What would you make with the offcuts from the Love Large pattern?  Let me know in the comments.

Happy quilting,

Joanne

PS:  The quilt is NOT a twin size, but it has enough length to be a good bed topper, draping just over the foot of the bed if I pull it way from the headboard and let the pillows fill the space at the head of the bed.  A plain white blanket underneath can be a bedspread while the throw adds the colour.