Curio Hourglass Quilt: A Finish

The Beginning

I went out to Holly Hill Quilt Shoppe with mom for the first time quite a while ago and they had a collection from BasicGrey that I had not seen before, Curio. I loved the yellows in it and definitely wanted to add this collection to my stash.

There wasn't a lot left yardage wise, so I decided to pick up a layer cake. When I was browsing around on Pinterest, I cam across this quilt complete with video tutorial. Perfect! Over at Fabric Depot, I picked up some white from the Moda Grunge line for my neutral because I liked the way it complimented the collection.

The process didn't go as fast as I thought it would but all in all wasn't too bad.  Before long I had a completed quilt top.

The backing went together easily and I am quite pleased with the print I ended up with the main part. It has a tiny script on it but reads mostly solid without being boring. I also used up the rest of the layer cake squares to add some interest. And let's face it, what do you do with random left over pre-cuts? I mean, throw them in the scrap box for sure, but I always struggle with how to use them. Though, I am getting better at this thanks to all the scrappy inspiration out there in blogland.

Crappy photo trying to get a feel for how the back would look.

Let the Madness Begin

I knew that I wanted to keep the quilting simple and planned to just outline each of the hourglass shapes on either side. I picked out a medium colored brown Aurafil thread and set to work. This is where things got crazy and this quilt started it's journey to the long wait in the UFO pile.

As I was quilting, I felt like my stitches were bunching up strangely, but there weren't any wrinkles or puckers in the fabric, so I forged on. The quilting was going quite quickly so it was when I was OVER half done that I got the bright idea to give the stitches a little tug. I instantly heard, SNAP! POP! and thought, NoNoNoNoNo!  Yep, the thread broke, in many places. I kept tugging. It kept popping. It was painful, but I knew the quilt wasn't viable as it was. I still have no idea what caused it. The thread, the machine tension, the batting (which was a new kind for me)?

To the UFO pile it goes. I needed to pull out nearly ALL the stitches and start over. I had no idea when I would get around that unpleasant task.

One day when I was thinking I wanted to do nothing but watch TV and feeling guilty about it, I decided the pull the quilt out and rip stitches while keeping an eye on what Castle and Beckett where up to. It wasn't quite as painful as I had imagined, though it did take a good long while.

Back at It

After another good long wait in the UFO pile, I was ready to give the quilting another shot. I hadn't done any re-pinning or anything after the pulling the stitches out. I loaded the same thread into the same machine and set about my business. It all went beautifully. Before I knew it, I was done and the quilt was ready for binding!

Without procrastination, I went and cut out my binding, sewed it together, pressed it and got it sewn onto the quilt. I am on a roll!

To continue my progress, I made the gutsy decision to take the quilt with me to the agility trial that weekend. There is a fair amount of down time, but it isn't the cleanest place to take a not-yet-finished quilt. I managed to get half the binding hand sewn over the weekend without incident.

I was on a roll! It didn't take very to finish the sewing the binding and just like that, I had a finished quilt that I was darn pleased with! So far, I managed to keep it from mother's clutches and have it listed in my Etsy shop. SOLD!

Quilt of Honor Top

My New Team

Is super awesome!  I love being part of the local Portland Etsy team, and being able to get together in person and talk shop.  However, despite my efforts, I have not been able to find another quilter on the team. (If you are out there, make yourself known!!!)  Quite frankly, that is what all my questions are about, quilting and selling quilts.  Enter the Quiltsy Team :)

Okay, so I found these ladies intimidating when I looked at the requirements to be on the team but I really wanted to ask quilting questions, so I wrote up some shop policies and forged ahead.  I was gleeful when I got the message that I had been accepted onto the team!!!

And of course, there wasn't anything to be scared of.  Everyone was so friendly and welcoming.  Also, SO. MUCH. TALENT.  To learn more about the team, you can visit our blog, here.

A Call to Action

A discussion thread was posted to the group on August 11th asking for help making five quilts to be presented on September 11th to a group of veterans that were being honored at an event in New York state.  A month was a short timeline to be sure.  BUT I really wanted to help and a fellow team member had offered to quilt and bind a completed quilt top, so I said I would make the top for her.  Eek, this is exciting! Quick like a bunny, not time to waste on this one!

Quick Quilt Top (that I can still be proud of)

I really liked the idea of sewing something from my stash and was surprised how much red, white and blue fabric I have (mostly thanks to my mom and all her good garage sale finds) but the idea of trying to do something scrappy and improvy seemed like too much for the short time frame.  I decided that I would see what I could find on Pinterest.  You can see all of the ideas I gathered here.

In the end I decided on a variation of the quilt below.

If you look closely you will notice that the strips aren't actually full rectangles.  They are a little wonky, but in a very specific way.  The pattern called for a template ruler which meant individual pieces, which was a no-go in this situation.  Luckily, I have done a few other variations on rail fence.

A purple skull quilt for my mother in law:

A pink quilt for my Nana's pink house:

and I knew I could achieve a very similar effect with regular old strips AND at blazing speed.  Off to Fabric Depot!

Let the cutting commence!

This quilt top went together beautifully!  And quickly, just three evenings!  After all the trouble I had with my Jitterbug quilt, it was so nice to have all my blocks line up and seams match!  See, I told myself, you do know how to do this. I have also learned the importance of squaring blocks after sewing them together.  Ah, the fun of being self taught :)  Thanks to all my unknowing internet guides and teachers I am slowly filling in the gaps in my quilting know how.

And here it is!

The blocks all laid out before being sewn together.

A quick snapshot before being mailed off!

I sent it off to Vivian in South Carolina to finish!

She turned it around in just a few days, amazing.  Her quick snapshot before it was in the mail once again :)

At Last!

This project was super duper top secret so I couldn't share before the event.  Finally the day was here! I was so excited to see the below photos from last night!

A shot of the quilt tag, with my name on it!

The quilt and recipient :) So awesome!!!