A Labor of Love - DWR Challenge Complete!

 I am so thankful for the wonderful week I was able to share with family and friends. Having a few days off for Thanksgiving and just getting to rest/quilt was such a treat. This much needed break afforded me the time to finish up the Double Wedding Ring challenge for the NYC Mod Quilt Guild.

So here's what happened:

After ordering the EZ Quilting DWR acrylic ruler, I sketched out several different patterns that I wanted to make on graph paper. I was able to roughly figure out how many A and B pieces were needed to make this project happen. Who knew you would need that many pieces for just 4 (not so little) rings?

I started by cutting up the scraps from my last major
project: the Rainbow Ribbon quilt.
I love my Kona collection of colors.
(I wish I could afford to buy the bolt for each color they make.
I would then need a bigger house to hold 220+ bolts!)

A lot of little pieces to cut.
(The original designer of this pattern had A LOT of patience!)

Since I wanted to make a ticker-tape-style design,
I cut freezer paper as a place holder for the rings on the background fabric.

All of the cut pieces stayed on the "designing/dining room table"
for a while before I settled on the quilt top.

I loved how this template is just made for a rainbow design.
The six A pieces formed lovely arcs of joyful color.

Hindsight being what it is, I realized too late that
the freezer paper would be too small
because the templates of are for sewn arcs. 

This part was not as easy as it might look.
If they are not lined up just right, the circles will not close.
(It took 2 days of not sewing a thing to get all four rings to work!)

Three glue sticks later...

...I didn't trust taking it to the machine so I taped them, too.
(Hindsight again says why didn't you just use
double-sided fusible before you
cut the pieces so you could just iron them?)

I sewed around the edges of each ring
so they would say in place for layering the quilt.   

Once they were sewn, the fun part was
taking off the tape to see how many arc were left to sew.
(Almost as rewarding as popping bubble wrap.)

The top is finally finished!

It's sandwich time!
(Also known as time to mop the floor first
before you do anything else.)

I like when I can start to
see the finish line. 

I spray basted and pinned
this beast.
I don't do both steps often
so when I do you know it's love.
(Or the fear of puckering...)

Round and round I went, stopping only to sleep and eat.

I finished the binding last night and
went to the park to get the best light today.

When Two Become One

This quilt really challenged my patience at times but I loved seeing the final photos today. When you can see all of your hard work come together into something fun, the struggles along the way seem so minor. It's much like a marriage in many ways because the imperfections are not really important when you can step back and see the love you share. Marriage is a labor of love because you have to figure out how to make it through the tough times to really make it work.

So I call this quilt When Two Become One because that's what I feel a marriage represents. When two souls that are quite different (slightly off centered at times) join together, they form a beautiful union.

Quilt Info:

Name: When Two Become One
Completed: 11/29/2013
Size: 60 inches by 76 inches
Materials: Kona solids
Cotton scraps (rainbow polka dots and black and white checkered prints)
Three shades of gray background fabric
Warm and Natural cotton batting
Rainbow hearts cotton backing
Gutermann Thread (Colors 5709, 102, 6206, and 116)
Glue Stick (acid-free)
Quilter's tape
EZ Quilting Double Wedding Ring Acrylic Templates


Thanks for reading my post. Hope it inspires you to get creative and make your own Double Wedding Ring quilt.

So Thankful!

I am working my fingers to the bone to get caught up from my vacation and to be able to have time away next week for Thanksgiving. I am pretty tired but excited about getting some time to sew again soon.

I did sneak some time over the weekend to visit my family in Miami to celebrate my niece's Sweet Sixteen. I can't even tell you where the time has gone but it was a delight to see the young lady that she is becoming.

My sister, the party planner extraordinaire, was able to put this "Hollywood Movie Star" themed night together with style. I know who I want to plan my next gathering.

Can you believe this cake?
It was tasty, too!

A huge space for the many friends and family that came to show
their love to my niece.
There were 16 tables!

I am so thankful for many blessings in my life including my love, my furbaby, my family, my friends and my home. (I am even thankful for my job that keeps me really busy and away from quilting days at a time.)

This weekend, I will finish up the Double Wedding Ring quilt that was started several months ago. I'll post those pics when I'm all done. What are you working on?

Wishing you a fun Friday!

Sunday, Fun Day! - Day 6

I love rainy, quiet Sundays. I was able to get in a nice walk before the rain started and spent the rest of the day in my sewing room.
I finished my design of the Double Wedding Ring for the DWR Challenge. I spent a good part of the day cutting and organizing my colors so I can start sewing them next weekend. I'm pretty excited about the outcome and can't wait to show you when it's all done.

All 194 of my little "A" pieces!

 After all of that cutting I wanted to get some sewing done, too. I am working on a gift for my dear friends who will celebrate their ten-year anniversary next March. They are both gamers so I had many designs ideas. I wanted to give them lots of color and still keep it simple, too. I promised her a queen-sized quilt a few years ago so I have to get it done soon.  (I still don't know if I can fit it in my tiny machine. I may have to take it to the long arm!)

I decided to make them a Tetris quilt! It's squares that I can make really large and piece together really easily. I decided on 5.5 inch blocks then got to work on graph paper to make up a design. I haven't played with my Sharpie colors in a while so this was a lot of fun.

                                   

Once I had the design I wanted, I counted up the number of colors and background blocks I would need. (Somewhere along the way, I changed up the final design so please don't copy these numbers if you want to make one, too. It would be best to draw your own and count them up to work for you.)

I had to do more cutting which took no time (or any fancy templates!) to get this little baby going. 

 If you have a design wall (or clean floor) handy, lay out your blocks and start sewing them according to your design. I usually chain piece for faster sewing but had to take extra care to keep all rows organized. I started from the bottom and worked my way up the following my graph paper pattern.

Crossing out the row as I went, helped me stay organized.
I almost duplicated a row which would mean picking threads out and starting again. Yuck!

I used Post It Notes to keep all rows in order as I moved up the line and when they were all done, I lined them up to make sure I had my design just right.

My secret for lining up squares perfectly is to use pins. I stuck a pin in the opposite end of every other row to keep them organized for ironing. (I don't have a good pic but simply: Left side pinned in rows 1, 3, 5, 7 etc. Right side pinned in rows 2, 4, 6, 8, etc.) Then, I ironed each row using the pins as a guide for which direction to press the seams.

I iron from right to left.
I place my pins on the ironing board on this side so I can just press in one direction.
Make your preference work for you.

When you bring your rows together to sew, they nest perfectly every time.

I finished sewing my rows together and will be adding a border with some other finishing touches in the next few weeks. Here's what I have so far:

Quilting this will help emphasize the individual blocks that make up a Tetris piece and help this design pop. Since each color has a distinct shape, it's hard to tell the separation when looking at just the quilt top. More pictures to come!

I didn't plan on writing a tutorial but I saw the "Process Pledge" on another blog and think I should share how I create my quilts as I blog more this month.

I hope this gives you some inspiration for making your own pixelated design of something you'd love to see. I'm thinking about making a shades of black and green Tetris quilt next to make it look like the original Gameboy version I played when I was a lot younger.Then, there is Galaga, Pac-man, Ms. Pac-man [I would have called her Pac-woman but I digress]...I can make a long trip down memory lane using the old 8-bit or even 16-bit games we used to play.

Did you get to sew today?
(Hope your Sunday was a fun day!)

I am officially tired and heading to bed early for a change.