Flapper's Fancy Again

I probably should have pulled out one of my older UFOs where I'd already started cutting fabric, but I just didn't feel like it. Instead, I started working on making Flapper's Fancy again (using Jason Yenter's Deco Elegance fabric). I finished this quilt once before in August 2023, but my aunt REALLY wanted it, so I gifted it to her. I still really like the pattern, so I thought I'd make another for myself. 

Luckily, back in 2023, I bought another yard of the small medallion fabric, and I’m glad I did, because I can’t find it for sale anywhere right now. Other than that one piece, I really don't want to buy more fabric, so the rest of the fabrics are just what I had on hand that came closest to my original palette.

I spent more than three hours making the center block, as I am way out of practice on mitered seams. Also, the outer edges are not as aligned as I’d like, so I may end up making another center block now that I’ve had practice.

I tried to cut out all the pieces for all the blocks at once, but I kept making mistakes, so now I’m finding it easier to cut out and make one set of blocks at a time.

Once the quilt top is finished, I will likely use the same quilting pattern, as that is one of the things I liked about the original quilt.

Linking up with:

Wednesday Wait Loss

Mayan Mystery Finished!

Mayan Mystery is finished!!

I was finally motivated to get this project moving along so I quilted and bound it this weekend. I'm pretty surprised too!

I quilted it with the Lorien's Dragons pantograph by Hermione Agee. I love this pantograph and I've used it on another of my own quilts.

I used bright gold Madeira Aerolock thread hoping it would show up better than it does, but it does certainly make the pantograph more visible than if I'd used green.

As usual, I used Quilter's Dream Green batting. My favorite.

I'd already made the quilt label with the last batch, so I was already able to trim it down and bind it right after I'd finished quilting it. Yay! It's done. Once I get good photos, I'll be able to mail it off to its recipient.

This pattern is surprisingly simple to make and is called Mayan Mystery. It is designed by Maggie Ball and is from her Bargello Quilts With a Twist book. 

Linking up with:

Design Wall Monday

Sew & Tell

Monday Musings

Brag About Your Beauties

Off the Wall Friday

Mayan Mystery Flimsy

The flimsy is finished!! I'm happy to have this one done. As I said before, this is the Mayan Mystery quilt design by Maggie Ball, from her Bargello Quilts With a Twist book. It's really cloudy here today and so I don't have very good light for the photo. I'll take a better one when we get some sun.

I've already got the backing ready and I'll work on choosing a pantograph tonight and see if I can get the quilting started tomorrow. I'd love to have this entirely finished by the end of the week.

Mayan Mystery Blocks

I finally found the motivation to start a new project. This one is called Mayan Mystery and is designed by Maggie Ball, from her Bargello Quilts With a Twist book. I am making it for a friend whose favorite color is blue. I pulled all the fabrics from my considerable stash.

The finished quilt will look something like this.

I finished sewing the blocks in one day, so it is going together pretty quickly. Assuming I can keep myself moving, I'll sew the blocks together this week and add the border. I'll probably quilt it with an edge-to-edge pattern, but I haven't decided yet.

Linking up with:

Design Wall Monday

Monday Musings

Sew & Tell

Twirl Around Finally Quilted

It's been a minute since my last post! I lost my quilting mojo for a while and haven't been very active on personal projects — though I have been quilting, just not anything I can show you. I've picked up a few paid gigs since we last talked, and since that's customer work, I don't feel right sharing photos here without asking permission.

Right after I posted my quilting plan back in December, I quilted Twirl Around on the long arm. But when I pulled it off, the tension was bad enough on a couple of sashings and bottom border that I knew I'd have to rip them out. I just... didn't. I wasn't motivated to spend my time undoing work.

Then I started seeing the same tension trouble on customer quilts, which was the push I needed to finally take the machine in for service. I got it back and set up again yesterday — and wouldn't you know it, that was all it took to find my motivation again. I've already ripped out the bad quilting on Twirl Around and finished requilting the borders that needed it yesterday.

This was my quilting plan I designed using elements from Kimberlee Diamond's (from Sweet Dreams Quilt Studio) Dawn's Bundle. (The individual pieces are still available, but it doesn't look like they're available as a bundle anymore.)

I used some large scraps of Quilter's Dream Green batting and I quilted it using a green variegated Madeira Aeroquilt thread. As usual, I still need to make the quilt label and bind it. I might have enough quilts at that stage now that I'll do that next.

Custom Quilting Gig

I had a new client bring me a little wall hanging and she wanted me to do a custom quilting job. Because it was fun, I spent quite a lot of time preparing a couple of different fancy plans.

When I showed them to her, she didn't like either. Her quilt is pretty small and she was worried this was too much stitching. She may have been right. So, I put together something way simpler. This is the one she ended up choosing.

I didn't get great photos, but it turned out pretty well. I didn't really like the cable pattern on the border because it had so much backstitching it was very easy it to knock it out of alignment so the second pass had shifted.

Since I was playing with my quilting software, I decided to also work on a custom pattern for my Twirl Around quilt. It always feels good to finish a simple quilt with fancy pantographs.

More Quilting Gigs

I've done a couple of paid quilting projects since my last post.

I quilted a quilt for a friend who is just starting out on her quilting journey. She made this quilt without a pattern and was just winging it. It was pretty amazing for no pattern, but her borders were really wonky; I actually had to baste down a pleat. I wasn't 100% happy with it, but short of taking off the borders and putting them back on, it wasn't really something I could fix. I did the best I could.

Here, she sent me a photo of it once it was bound.

My friend chose the Orbit E2E and tan thread.

I also finished a baby quilt yesterday for another client, Joy. She wanted a bold dense design. 

I used the Color E2E from Anne Bright Designs. I stitched it out in Dark Pink maxi-lock thread. This was a fun quilt.