Texas Hill Country Quilt

One jelly roll of Cotton and Steel Basics, a bit of yardage, some time, a lot of deliberation, and a "few" stitches later...

You get a quilt that belongs in the Texas Hill Country! 

This one is being gifted to a wonderful family we have been friends with for a long time. And they just bought a "ranchette" a few minutes west of Austin. We just spent the weekend out there with them and seriously, "Ahhh, beautiful." is all that I can say.

The shadows highlighting the quilting from the back.  

Rattlesnake print backing. Appropriate, no? Stitches, and more stitches.

I opted for a medallion like quilt again on this one. 

One more picture.

"Figuring" it out as I went.

I'm convinced I'm not the only quilter that purchases precuts without a plan. 

Case in point: I picked up a charm pack of "Figures" by Zen Chic for Moda at Quilt Festival.

And I would love to know how many start the quilt without an end game. 

I did this time. 

I made nine-patch blocks with white centers.

Then I stared at them on the floor all lined up in a grid (I like to create obstacle courses for people trying to get in and out of the room... ha.).

And I stared. It just didn't do anything for me. 

I kept staring for weeks. 

And weeks.

And I found something else to work on. (Lots of other things.)

And then after a while it just smacked me. 

Set it around a hexagon in a squares and equilateral triangles layout.

Easier said than done. 

I'd never calculated anything like this. 

And I've not done much with Y-seams in general. 

They are a bit time consuming and little more tedious than lining up the usual points in a quilt, but it was exciting to try something that stretched me a bit. 

 And the centered "medallion" aspect makes it particularly pleasant to me. 

I didn't want the middle to be a "boring piece" with too large a gap in the design and no focal point so I re-engineered a star into it. 

The center star actually required me to rip apart two of the nine-patch blocks, but the whole thing required 40 charm squares and some background yardage. 

And to further accent the medallion aspect, I did irregularly spaced concentric circles for the quilting. 

Pretty sure I traced every circular object in my house... to get it started in the right direction. All of the lines past the first circle of blocks had to be echoed around the inner circle using the markings on the walking foot because I couldn't find any larger circles to trace. 

And of course I chose a large scale print for the back like I always do... well, almost always. 

No absolutes here. 

It finished at about 39" x 39". 

Daydream

The only goal for most people in doing anything is to find more time to spend doing things that make them happy. Quilters neeeeeeed more time to quilt. There will never be enough hours in the day or years in a life for most of us fabric addicts. Maybe some people have their addictions under control. 

I do not. 

I like diet coke. 

And fabric. 

And apparently books and gardening and volleyball and piano and kids. 

Oh and science. ANYTHING nerdy and genetics/physics/chemistry related totally gets me going. 

I fully admit it. I'm an addict of MANY things. 

But if I could combine enough of them together and multitask my enjoyment I could create the most productive and efficient enjoyment machine for my life. I could sit in a garden drawing molecular models in my quilt designs sipping diet coke watching volleyball on television (no volume) while the children frolic through the plants nibbling berries and licking popsicles to classical music. It'd be awesome. And then maybe I could find time for the mundane cleaning and laundry type activities that seem to fill up entirely too much of my life at present. Hello sippee cups. And trips to the potty (Potty-training twins is a blast... said no one ever.). And endless dishes full of food that wasn't even touched. (No wonder my parents just took us to McDonald's.)

But constantly trying to whittle a little time from each of the necessary activities of life to make a little time for a hobby has kind of turned into a game. For instance, if I can get these dishes done while making dinner, flipping a load of laundry, and helping a kid get their homework done, I can free up at least 30-60 min that night for something else. If I do them sequentially I won't even finish today. One day when the kids are all grown I will probably find myself multitasking my hobbies. And then I'll miss the sippee cups and everything else. :)

So I'm sure a few loads of laundry and dishes have had to sit a few extra hours so that I would even have quilts to share on my blog. 

How do you find time for quilting? 

This little baby quilt is in Kate Spain's Daydream fabric line for Moda. 

I quilted a different texture pattern in each of the continuous negative space sections. Quilting multiple designs in a single quilt is so much more entertaining. I highly recommend you try it. You could get a new addiction! 

It could really use a name. I was thinking something along the lines of "party streamers." Any thoughts?

It measures 32" x 36" and is in the shop. 

Sloops

Sloop /slüp/ noun : a one-masted sailboat with a fore-and-aft mainsail and a jib.

About a year ago I started this project for my biggest little man. I designed and constructed it just for him from one of my all-time favorite fabric lines - Salt Air (by Cosmo Cricket for Moda). It fits his personality perfectly and he LOVES it. In fact, he's been loving it almost a year now. 

And it took a LOT of love for me to let him have it once it was complete. A queen-sized paper-pieced quilt in lovely fabrics... and he still occasionally has bedtime accidents. It's a good thing he's cute.

And it's about time I shared it on the blog. This seems to be the two hardest parts of quilting for me lately. Photos and journaling. Oh, and I'm sure you'll notice the fish pillow with clamshell pattern I made for him too. He jumps on it. Yes, I love him very much and he's very very cute. HA!

But back to the sloops. 

The paper-pieced little boats are offset to emphasize the equilateral triangle design and create continuous visual lines on the diagonal across the quilt.

And you can have one too if you like. Pattern here and here.