A finish, A flimsie and a fun quilt in progress

I've got quilts in so many different states today, but that's how we like it isn't it :) A couple of new starts, a 2.5 in strip quilt for a 4 year boy started and triangles started.  I've been drooling over those triangles in QAL for seems like months now.  I'm doing a practice table runner before I start on the real quilt.   Just got the triangle die for accuquilt and I LOVE it.

And a Flimsie - this one if for Relay for Life.  I'm going to quilt the title of pattern in the quilt, Hope Takes Flight and then I'll quilt some butterflies, dragon flies and flowers with some back ground swirls.  

There's one butterfly that must have been off by an inch when I trimmed , I might have to rip that one out and redo it.  

This is the biggest quilt I've made since Bonnie Hunters' Easy Street.  Pattern is Urban Shades, you can find this at Moda Back Shop.  This one is 7 blocks square - 96 inches square.  Should fit wonderfully on a queen size bed after washing.  I used Omni thread for the first time.  I like it.  Seems a bit thicker and tougher than Glide so I don't think I would use this thread for any dense quilting.  But my machine liked it well enough.   If I want a 40 wt thread with no sheen, I would definitely use it again.  Batting is Hobbs Poly Down.  Quilting pattern is Contempo, looks great and quilts really quickly.  It's a big quilt and I didn't want to make it too heavy with a cotton batting.  I used the left over fabric for a strip on the backing and a nice soft flannel on the sides of that.  I tried to place the blocks such that the concentration of color was in the center and as it goes out there is less color and more shades of grey.  I think it would have worked better with smaller blocks. 

Urban Shades

Urban Shades

Urban Shades back

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Design Wall Monday - Really

Woohoo, I have something on my design wall!  The pattern is from Moda Bake Shop - Urban Shades 
I feel like it's been sew long since I've really had anything on the design wall

Urban Shade

I also finished quilting a baby quilt for a local quilt shop.  The fabric used was one of their new collections Sphere by Zen Chic - LOVE LOVE LOVE this line of fabrics.  No surprise they requested circles for this one.  Another Moda Bake Shop pattern - Stacked Coins Baby Quilt - 2 charm packs, some background material and you're set with an adorable Baby Quilt.  Batting is quilter dream cotton - is there anything softer, love that batting!  Bottom line on both top and bottom.  I wanted to use a very thin thread on top because there is a little bit of overlap on the circles and that's a bit of thread play. But with a thin thread it just sinks in and you can't even see it.  

Moda Bake Shop - Stacked Coins Baby Quilt

Stacked Coins Detail

Stacked coins back - love the solid back with one stack of coins. 

I have one more quilt that was quilted last night and I'll update this post as soon as I get some pictures.

On those circles a few people saw yesterdays post with Round and Round which had circles in a more uniform pattern and a few have asked how I did them.   Well, it wasn't really me, it was the Hartley Fence that came with my long arm machine.  It seriously makes perfect circles!  I can't even mess them up :)  It does take a bit longer to complete a quilt with these perfect circles, you have to start and stop with each and every circle, so it's slow going. But man, what a great impact they have.  I don't use this much but every time I do, I love the results. If you have a Hartley Fence and haven't used it, check out the videos on You Tube, Hartley Fence Circles 1 - 3 you won't be disappointed.

Hartley Fence for Long Arm Machine

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