"Seeing Spots" - May do. Good Stitches Finished!

Just in the nick of time, the May quilt for the Nurture circle of do. Good Stitches is done!  May was my month to be quilter and I asked the ladies of our circle to make blocks following this tutorial.  Everyone did a wonderful job and with 36 blocks we were able to make a 60" square quilt.  The quilt will be donated to the charity "My Very Own Blanket" which provides quilts to children in foster care.

Feeling confident after my first learning experience with spiral quilting I decided to use circular quilting to break up the straight lines of all the squares.  I first did a loose spiral, with each line about 1.5" apart. I ended up deciding I wanted a little more, so I added two more lines beside the first to make a triple spiral.  Although it was time- and thread-consuming I didn't have any troubles with bunching, wrinkling, or shifting of the top.

The backing is, what else? Polka dots!  Michael Miller makes this 108" wide backing fabric called "Spot On" in a variety of colors.  The chartreuse (on top) is much more lime-y  and bright than it appears in the picture.

I machine bound the quilt with a dark brown solid and added my customary twill tape label. 

Making this quilt was such fun and I can't wait to see what else our circle makes in the future. I wish all the ladies of Nurture who contributed blocks could see and touch this quilt for yourselves! It is very nice and will make some child very happy :)

This is how all my photo shoots end...

Thanks, ladies!  Happy sewing!

Linking up to Finish it Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts, go see what everyone else is showing off :)

Wonky Squares on the Design Wall

The weekends just seem to go by faster and faster each week, don't they? It's design wall Monday again already!

I am working on several projects this week, including my do. Good Stitches wonky squares top.  May was my month as quilter for the NURTURE circle and the photo above shows everyone's lovely blocks they sent in.  (You can see the tutorial I asked them to follow here.)  The blocks are 10.5" unfinished, so I am making a 60" square quilt.  I am pretty pleased with the initial layout above, but I will probably tweak it for a couple days before I sew it together.

The other project going on, which got taken down off the wall to make room for the wonky squares, I'm calling Bird Houses.  I saw a quilt somewhere on the internet that I based this design on but I can't find where it came from (sorry!)  I pulled bird fabrics that I've been collecting first, then coordinating colors to fill out the color scheme. I really like it :)  I think that the brown sashing strips look like tree branches, hence the name.

I saved all the bonus HSTs that got created from sewing the neutral squares onto the tops of the birdhouses.  Happily, there were enough of them to create this (above) for the quilt back.  Believe it or not, this is the first time I've sewn this sort of HST design, and it was really fun!

So that's what's on the wall this week; I'm linking up to Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times.

do. Good Stitches Tutorial

(Edit: See the finished quilt  here!)

Hello, good stitchers! May is my month to be the quilter for the NURTURE circle at do. Good Stitches and this is the tutorial for the block I am asking everyone to make. We are each making 3 blocks this month, because that's how many this tutorial makes at a time. (I made two sets).

These are the colors I would like you to use, minus the plum colored swatch (4th from left), I'd like to add chocolate brown in place of that. Please try to stick pretty closely to the tones in the swatches (but use what you have).  You will each only be making blocks in one of the colors.  I would like to keep the quilt boy friendly/gender neutral. Here we go!

You need to select 3 fabrics and cut a 13.5" square from each:

a white solid (creamy or neutral white is preferable to bleached)

a polka dot fabric (mine were white-on-solid but yours don't have to be)

a solid that matches the polka dot fabric (mottled or textured solids ok)

Stack up your squares evenly, order doesn't matter.

Make the first cuts from the right and left sides of the block.  These are going to be wonky blocks, but we'll be keeping all our angles 90 degree.  So, cut slices between about 1.5" to 3" from each side.  They do not need to be the same on both sides, in fact, it's better if they're not! 

Push the pieces you just cut out to the side but don't move them.  Turn your cutting board 90 degrees and repeat the process.

Push the pieces you just cut out.  Turn your cutting board back to the original direction and cut again.  These are your last cuts in this direction, so the width of the section left in the middle will be the width of your center block.

One more time.  Push the pieces out a bit, turn the board, and make your final cuts.  You're done cutting.

Be careful to maintain all your pieces in their stacks in the right placement and orientation.  On the outer four stacks move the piece of fabric on top to the bottom.  From the innermost single block stack, move the piece of fabric on bottom to the top.

These are your three blocks, stacked up.  The fabrics on top make one block, fabrics in the middle of the stacks make another, and fabrics on the bottom make the third.  Each block should have one ring of each fabric.

Start sewing your blocks together one at a time, it's easiest to work with your cutting mat right beside you with the blocks spread out on it. Start from the center, sewing in the opposite order that you cut the strips.  Because of seam allowances, you will need to press and trim after each round is added.  Once your blocks are sewn together and pressed, line your ruler up with one of the seams in the block and trim to 10.5" square.

Hopefully you'll be able to get everything you need from this tutorial, but if you have any questions just leave a comment and I'll answer.  Also, sometimes it helps to hear the same thing explained a different way, so you can read another tutorial for the technique used in these blocks here.  (Note, she varied the angles of the cuts on her blocks where we are keeping everything square.)

(Edit: See the finished quilt  here!)

Happy sewing, everyone!