Modern Courthouse Quilt | featuring citron Hortensia

I may have mentioned last week that I want to make a baby quilt for every one of my fabric designs. Here is the first. Let me tell you, I am just getting started.

Digging through my stash, I am realizing just how many colorways and test prints I have accomplished. There could be a lot of baby quilts in my future. Inspired by Hopewell's Courthouse Steps Baby Quilt and a quilt my mom made with my minty Longlegged print, I jumped right into the pile.

I paired some gorgeous buttery Art Gallery Pure Elements solids in Empire Yellow and Peach Sherbet with my very own Hortensia in citron (available for sale in my Etsy shop). Magically, I had a sumptuously soft peach floral stashed that went perfectly for the backing.

When I sat down to quilt it, I made a discovery. My stitch guide does not attach to my walking foot. How silly is that? (I have now seen Nicole of Modern Handcraft masking tape her guide to her foot, so I will try that next time.) Not to be stopped, I had a masking tape party with Paul and Mary of the Great British Bakeoff. Together we plowed our way through cakes, biscuits, and quilting. I have found my new favorite quilting companions!

Initially I thought a fun stripy citron binding would do the trick. However, the longer the stripes sat on the folded quilt, the more I felt they clashed with the backing. At the last second before walking out the door to sewing night, I traded the stripes for Pure Elements Apricot Crepe. The result is delicious.

Per encouragement from my mom, I practiced my machine binding skills to give it a sturdy washable finish. It truly is much faster to machine bind. (If you get it right the first time and don't take the whole thing out twice like I normally do.) I think I am going to keep practicing machine binding. It adds a quick and sturdy finish to quilt.

And on the next baby quilt! (Shh don't tell, but I've actually already finished the next one and will be sewing on the binding tomorrow night.) Can't stop. Won't stop. Have a lovely Tuesday.

Straight-line Quilting + Eggplant Printing

Straight-line quilting on the modern eggplant-printed quilt is complete! I whipped out the second half last Wednesday at sewing night while watching the Philadelphia auditions for American Idol. My current idol favorite is Jenn Blosil. She is hilarious and unique and such a hoot but so great to listen to as well. Have you been keeping up with the auditions? They make for good sewing tv, except that as soon as someone starts singing, I feel like I should stop adding the chug chug of my machine to the mix.

Brent was a doll and held up my quilt for me this weekend since I am out of masking tape. I guess it's time to swing by Target! (Alert: danger zone. Target also has a quilted men's sweatshirt I'm kind of dying to have but since Brent already owns it...I'm not sure if I'm allowed to buy it as well...) The next step is tying all of those threads to the back. Then it will be free-motion quilting time. I decided to try lines first this time to achieve a flatter quilt with less chances of puckers. So far so good.

I've been wanting to get back into posting progress photos, but if I post them on their own, then the finished post doesn't have any progress photos...dilemma. What do you think?

Follow the progress of this quilt with the links below:

Inspiration

Sandwiching

Finish

I'm linking up to WIP Wednesday today over at Freshly Pieced. Hop over there to see some more unfinished beauties.

Stone + Bloom: QuiltCon

There are simply too many ideas rolling around inside my head to have enough time to quilt them all. QuiltCon was a great opportunity to actually realize one. I have been experimenting with screen printing on quilts for almost two years now, and it was time to scale up. Measuring about 3' x 3', this is my largest printed quilt yet. Big isn't actually all that much slower to piece and sandwich, but quilting it does become a bigger beast.

red and grey modern minimal screen-printed quilt | Lovely and Enough

I began with free-motion quilting the blooms one Wednesday. It seemed like the logical place to begin, and then I stalled. I always forget the number of hours I can spend staring at a quilt deciding how to quilt it. Eventually, I decided on matchstick quilting the white bars, but stopped at the edge of the printed blooms.

red and grey modern minimal screen-printed quilt with matchstick quilting | Lovely and Enough
red and grey modern minimal screen-printed quilt with matchstick quilting | Lovely and Enough

The grey was more difficult. Beginning with 1-inch spaced straight lines, I wasn't happy with the wrinkles and how much the pistachios faded from the design. After several more hours of staring at it taped to the dining room wall over Thanksgiving, I added more quilting to the the solid grey to achieve half-inch spacing.

red and grey modern minimal screen-printed quilt with matchstick quilting | Lovely and Enough
red and grey modern minimal screen-printed quilt with matchstick quilting | Lovely and Enough

The whole quilt was a little wonky after quilting, so I pinned it to my printing board and blocked it with a spritz bottle and then began the Great Binding Debate. (Did you know that I have had multiple quilts that arrive at this step and never make it further because every binding I audition feels like it will ruin the design? #perfectionistquilterproblems) Eventually, I decided red but with bits of grey. That way red wouldn't touch the red blooms along the edge. I still think light grey could have been zen...or boring...we will never know.

I also can't decide which side I like up. What do you think? Horizontal or vertical bars?

red and grey modern minimal screen-printed quilt | Lovely and Enough

Follow the progress of this quilt with the links below:

Inspiration

Progress