First Finish of 2016: Low Volume Cars for Blake

This quilt has been in the works for awhile, but it is finally done!  I used bits of car themed Echino for the pieced centers of the blocks and then just kept sewing fabric around them improv-log cabin style until they were at least 12.5" square.  Then I trimmed the blocks to size.  I Love that kind of piecing.  It is so freeing to just sew.

I quilted it with free motion squares (here is a link that shows what I tried to quilt more clearly).  The quilting went pretty fast.  I like quilting on a long-arm machine, but when I am using my own machine I kind of just want to get it done.  Fast.

My husband says there should be a contest for who can hold up a quilt the longest.  He thinks he could win.  :)  I think he needs to train more.   We can practice by him letting me take 3x as many pictures.  I also think extra points should be awarded to the person who can hold the quilt the flattest and stillest.  What do you think?

This is my first finish for my Finish-A-Long Goals.  Yea!

Echino Top Finished!

Well, I sewed the 10 extra blocks onto the main quilt this morning.  It went really fast.  Yea!  Unfortunately I used more white Eiffel Tower fabric in the new blocks than I used in the old ones so the left side of the quilt is kind of heavy on white.  But it is probably one of those things that no one else would notice unless you pointed it out.  Which I guess I just did.

I bet no one would notice my daughter's head peeking out over the top of the quilt unless I mentioned it either.  I need to make her do more push ups so she will be able to hold quilts all the way up over her head for loooong periods of time.  You have to have good upper body muscle tone to be in a quilter's family.  :)  Seriously though, I usually take the quilt pictures around here, but I held up a quilt for someone awhile ago and my arms got tired fast.  So I have a bit of empathy.

I think I am going to skip the batting and use fleece to back this.  Has anyone done that?  Good results?  Things to look out for?

Linking up to WIP Wednesday.

Echino Car and Neutral Quilt: Finished-ish

So a few weeks ago I had a really bad day.  Everything seemed completely pointless.  I knew I was just being crazy, but I also knew that I needed something to distract me from how totally blah life was until I snapped out of it.  So I turned on BBC's The Lord of the Rings (LOVE IT!) and started to sew.

I had been crushing on this quilt for a couple of weeks and decided it would fit the bill.  It would be low stress sewing (no matching points or exact cutting) and I could use up the small cuts of Echio fabric that I had been collecting.  I thought it would be fun to make a car inspired quilt for my mechanic brother, but knew it would take a ton of (expensive) Echino to make a full quilt.  With this quilt I could use what I had and fill in the rest with neutrals.  Lots of the neutrals were scraps from my neutral prisms quilt.  Sweet!

I pieced bits of the Echino canvas for the centers and just started adding fabric around them.  I finished up 20 blocks that day.  The only problem is that it is a little on the small side for a grown man.  (48 x 60)  But to make go from 4 x 5 layout to 5 x 6 I need to make 10 more blocks and that feels like a lot.

We'll see what I end up doing.  Maybe improv borders would be faster?  I know I need to finish it, but the I-must-make-that-quilt! itch is gone and I have other projects on my mind.  Ahhh....life is to hard when you have so much fabric.  :)

Have a great weekend!  I am linking up with Finish It Up Friday.