Love and Kisses Blog Tour

When Sherry Shish of Powered by Quilting was putting together a group of bloggers to showcase her new signature collection of batiks from Island Batik, I was thinking of making a new version of Stellar Breeze.  Perfect!

This is Stellar breeze in Love and Kisses fabric provided by Sherry and Island Batik. I loved working with these fabrics. They are crisp for cutting and pressing, but the finished quilt doesn't feel stiff.  And the colors and prints are so, so pretty.  I'm not sure my camera captured the colors quite right, but you get the idea. 

I'm sure you notice I quilted this very lightly.  This was one of those "quiet" quilts.  It just wouldn't tell me what to quilt.   Actually, it did say something about all-over swirls, but I'm terrible at those so I told the quilt to go back and think a little longer.  Well, it didn't get back to me in time for the blog hop deadline, so I started just stitching in the ditch, hoping inspiration would strike while I did that. Guess what?  My mind stayed blank.  I let it sit a day, then decided that outline stitching outside the aqua stars might help emphasize the suggestion of curves, so I did that.

The outline stitching did dress things up a little bit, though very simply. When I stood back and looked at it, I rather liked the simplicity.  I see so much intricate, beautiful custom quilting online that I often feel like I need do more, but sometimes something simple and quiet is all that's needed. This quilt was a good reminder.  Close up, these fabrics and quilt design are pretty enough to shine all on their own. The minimal quilting doesn't look like much in the photo, but it's just about right draped over the living room couch.

That said, I do need to go back and add a little bit of quilting, because those outside half-octagons are definitely large than the minimum quilting distance recommended for Hobbs 80/20 batting.  I'm still not quite sure what I'll quilt there, but I went ahead and bound the quilt so I could show it off  share it in the blog hop.  Whatever specific design I end up with, I'm pretty sure it will involve simple, clean lines.

Oh! Oh! I can't believe I almost forgot!  I had enough scraps left over, with the addition of a little more Island Batik left over from a quilt back, to piece a back.  I think I like it as much as the front.

The Stellar Breeze pattern is available for purchase in my shop.  It has instructions for 5 sizes, and includes templates to use if your ruler collection doesn't include Tri-Recs tools or similar rulers for making triangle-in-a-square units.  If templates make you turn away, check out my recent  posted a tutorial on an easier way to cut shapes with paper templates, no scissors required.

I invite you to visit other bloggers on the Love and Kisses blog hop (links listed below).  It's always great fun to see the very different projects made with the same line of fabrics.  Love and Kisses is in shops now for you to create with as well.

December 1 - Sherry Shish of Powered By Quilting 

December 2 - Jen Strauser of Dizzy Quilter

December 3 - Laura Piland of Slice of Pi Quilts

December 4 - Jessica Caldwell of Desert Bloom Quilting

December 5 - Trisch Price & Jenifer Dick of Everyday Stitches

December 6 - Leanne Parsons of Devoted Quilter

December 7 - Andi Stanfield of True Blue Quilts

December 8 - Becca Fenstermaker of Pretty Piney Quilts

December 9 - Suzy Webster of Websterquilt

December 10 - Sally Williams of Paleofish designs

December 11 - Joanne Kerton of Canuck Quilter   <<< You are here

December 12 - Andrea Arledge of Little Life of Mine

December 13 - Sarah Vanderburgh of Sew Joy Creations

December 14 - Kate Starcher of Katie Mae Quilts

December 15 - Linda Bratten of Linda B Creative

December 16 - Anja Clyke of Anja Quilts

December 17 - Marian Pena of Seams To Be Sew

December 18 - Sherry Shish of Powered By Quilting

Stellar Breeze

I really, really like how Stellar Breeze turned out.  I was working on a different design when just one part of it caught my eye.  That one part seemed to want to be the focus, so I started over.  EQ8 got a workout that day!

Would you believe that my favourite parts of this design are actually the two that I least like to sew? For me, the sashing and border are what take this from OK to "Ooh, I like".  They open up the design just a little, making it seem a little lighter and a little more delicate.

The sashing has the added bonus of coming between the points, so if the points don't line up perfectly, no one will notice.  Well, unless someone grabs a  straight edge and checks, but anyone who would do that wouldn't get a quilt form me!

Matching the border to the background made the quilt lighter, but the skinny border and matching binding work together to turn the borders into a frame anyway, without the visual weight of colored borders.

That said, different fabric choices will change the look.  I like these EQ mock-ups too.  What would you choose?  Light or dark background?  Brights or neutrals?  Something else?

My thanks to my pattern testers Sandie L, Kathi Kivi and Kathy Bruckman for providing valuable feedback for the pattern.  Check out Sandie's version on her blog, and  Kathi Kivi's  progress photos on Instagram of her lovely version in rich fall colors. 

The pattern is now in my shop.  Get yours at 25% regular price now through October 7th.

Starlight Plaid is a pattern!

I'm pleased to present the quilted and bound cover quilt for my newest pattern, Starlight Plaid.

Starlight Plaid by Canuck Quilter Designs

I had planned to quilt this one myself, but there just are not enough hours in the day. The pattern was written, the tester feedback was in, the edits were made, and still the cover quilt was not quilted.  Something had to give so I sent this one out to Liz Meimann to quilt.  It was the right thing to do.  The longer the top sat unquilted in my sewing room, the more the frustration of not having found time to quilt it ate at me.  With that baggage, I started falling out of love with the quilt.  I handed it to Liz and in a day or two (I swear that woman does not sleep!) I had a beautifully textured quilt to bind.  By the time I finished binding it with a pop of solid red, I had fallen back in love again...and promptly lost the quilt to my daughter, but that's another story.

The greys and reds remind me of cozy plaid flannel, so I had to put some flannel on the back to make it as cozy as it looks.  It is so, so cozy as the weather gets colder.

The pattern features four sizes:  baby, throw, twin and queen.  It also has my favourite stars:  the kind whose points you can't accidentally cut off! 

Get your copy of the pattern in my Etsy Shop at 50% off the regular retail price now through Christmas Eve! (Sorry, cute dog not included!)

Triple Sunset photo shoot

Fall colour didn't last long around here this year.  Leaves seemed to drop almost as soon as they changed colour.  I was glad to get Triple Sunset quilted and bound in time to have a photo shoot with the last of the leaves!

The wind gave us a little bit of trouble, as you can see.  It seemed to pick up every time we unfolded the quilt, without fail, but we still managed to get a few good pictures.

I love this one on the bridge, though it does look a bit like I forgot to quilt whole swaths of the quilt.  That's a bit unfortunate, considering all the hand wringing that went on in the sewing room about how I should quilt it.  I pushed through it and my favourite picture doesn't even show it!

This one is a bit better.  You see those vertical quilted lines up at the top?  There are some of those filling in all the white spaces that are not quilted with diagonal lines.  My original plan was to quilt half the quilt background in one diagonal direction, and the other half in the opposite direction. As I often do, I changed the plan partway through and ended up with the crossing diagonals.  Then I had to decide what to quilt in the rest of the background.  After opting for vertical lines, I quilted one section and hated it.

"Comparison if the thief of joy."

I don't know who first said or wrote that, but I need it on the wall in my sewing space! I had been so sure that this modern design needed very straightforward, clean lines for the quilting. After seeing some gorgeous free motion work online I started thinking about what someone else would have quilted instead and my plan didn't measure up. That is useless path to go down!

After sulking for a few days, I put the walking foot back on my sewing machine and made myself finish what I started. There wasn't any chance that I was going to pick out what I had already stitched, and there was a deadline looming, so I pushed through.

As soon as I put the last stitches in, I knew I had been right after all and I fell in love with the quilt all over again.  The quilt really did want simple lines.  The orange starbursts make me happy and they are the focus here.  The quilting is the supporting cast. Playing with varying orientations for the groups of quilted lines gave it just enough movement. The orange binding finished things off perfectly, but it would have been overwhelmed by dense, fancy quilting bedside it.

Here's a closeup of the outline quilting in and around the stars and geese.

I outline quilted in variegated orange thread inside each shape for several reasons.  It emphasizes each patch.  It brings a touch of tradition to a modern quilt, as many older hand quilted quilts feature outline quilting in patches.  It avoided some bulky spots in the seams where my ruler foot got stuck when I tried stitching in the ditch.  OK, I admit I used the first two reasons to talk myself into outlining when stitching in the ditch turned out to be a pain!  I do, however, love the end result.

It looks pretty cool on the back too.

Again, my vertical lines disappear in the photos!  All the outline quilting was done with a ruler foot and straight edge ruler quilting template. The background was quilted using my trusty walking foot.

One thing you can't see in these pictures, even in the closeup, is the fabric texture.  The top is made entirely with Moda Grunge fabrics, so there's a little bit of texture in real life.  Seeing these pictures I would say solids would be effective as well.

I almost forgot to explain where the quilt's name came from.  When I finalized the design, I asked my astronomer husband if there was a specific astronomical term for star systems composed of three stars.  Apparently it's just a plain old "triple star system". Hmph.  I googled that term to see if it would be linked to something more interesting and I found an article about a planet detected in a three star system.  The title of the article referenced a triple sunset, presumably because the three stars would be like three suns to the planet, and there would be sunset for each.  I rather liked that idea, so I borrowed it for the name of my quilt.

I'll leave you with just one more picture, just because I am enjoying these colours so much!  I'm trying to hold on to fall just a bit longer.

Starlight Plaid is a top

Here it is, Starlight Plaid in red and grey!  You may remember last month's post about trying to make the blue stars work, but I think the red was the better choice. Maybe I feel that way because it reminds me of my son's black and grey and red plaid flannel shirts.

Starlight Plaid top designed and sewn by Joanne Kerton, Canuck Quilter Designs

I've been alternating sewing it up and writing the pattern.  I had it all written up before I started sewing, then decided I really should include alternate sizes, which then led me to assemble the star centers in strip sets, and it all required lots more calculating and figuring for the various sizes and in the end I have a much better pattern. All it needs now is testing.  If you'd like first crack at this pattern as a volunteer tester, send me an email (joanne@canuckquilter.com).  Pattern includes baby, throw, twin and queen sizes.

Though it really is a straightforward pattern, making the top was a bit of an adventure.  I think because it was such a simple construction I didn't pay as much attention as I should have and I let my mind wander.  Sigh.  Sewing while distracted leads to miscutting, mistaken seams and ripping!

Exhibit A: miscutting

I try to include a little extra fabric in my patterns' fabric requirements for miscuts. Unless it leads to a ridiculous amount of extra fabric, I add one extra width of the widest strip needed then round to the next 1/8th yard.  Unfortunately, I used up the extra in making the blue blocks I decided not to use, so there was no wiggle room when I miscut one square 1/2" too small.  Just one square!  I pieced a couple of scraps together to make it up and the print hides the seam well.  Crisis #1 dealt with!

Things went very well after that until I started assembling rows.  I used the very clear assembly diagrams in my pattern and promptly sewed row 3 to the side of row 4.  The pattern did it right.  I did it wrong!  I clued in when I started pressing the seam.

Exhibit B: That's not right!

That was a really long seam to rip and redo.  Of course after I did so, I read @homeinottawa's comment on Instagram, which kindly pointed out I didn't need to rip the whole seam.  I could have removed the end triangles and reoriented them without ripping the whole long seam.  I took note for next time!

And yes, there was a next time, though I don't have photographic evidence of it.  Solid fabrics are the same on both sides.  The skinny red border is pieced to make it long enough.  It's a red solid.  Can you guess what I did?  Yup.  I sewed the border on wrong side down, so the seam allowance where the two strips meet ended up on the right side of the quilt. There were grumbles, but also a tiny bit of smugness because this time I just ripped the short seam in the binding strips, and resewed that with the seam allowance relocated where it should be, rather than ripping and resewing the whole border.

The borders were not done with me yet.  I sewed the last borders on in the wrong order.  The pattern clearly states to sew top and bottom borders first, then the side borders.  So of course I did the opposite and my top and bottom  strips ended up too short.  My husband, who had just proofread the pattern for me and knew what it said to do, looked at what I did and commiserated about people who just can't seem to follow the directions.  I love him anyway.

Finally, can you explain this to me?

Exhibit C:  Amazing expanding border strip

I measured!  Three times!  The top and middle and bottom of the quilt had the same measurement. I double checked! I even measured by laying the strip on the quilt and marking the strip!  I cut both top and bottom strip together, so they would be the same size.  The top went on perfectly.  The bottom is 1/2" too long. The previous borders were the same length so I don't see how things suddenly became 1/2" off.  Sigh.  At this point I just wanted the top finished so I decided to just smooth it on flat, pin it,  sew it and chop off the excess. That isn't best practice in borders, but at least it's flat and done.

Starlight Plaid top designed and sewn by Joanne Kerton, Canuck Quilter Designs

I know how I want to quilt it, but it is going to have to join the queue.  I have never had this many unquilted tops before. Counting this one, there are 7 in the queue.  This one might cut in line...