No Luck with the Bleeding Quilt!

I thought I would show you what happened with the quilt I made that ending up bleeding on me when I washed it. I'm so frustrated by this as this quilt was intended to be a gift for a friend. I used synthrapol to try and get the bleeding out and that didn't work. Then I purchased some Dylon and that didn't work either. If you click on the picture you will see in greater detail that some of the fabrics bled. All the fabrics that bled were Japanese, so I don't know what that means, but I assume they have a different manufacturing process. Anyway, chalk this one up to a learning experience and move on. I'll use this one when we go to the beach or something, I guess.

I just wanted to add another picture to this post to show you a close-up of the quilt. A couple of you mentioned that you can't tell that it bled. Here in the first photo you can see the pigs, robots and cars all bled. I'm not sure if they were all by one manufacturer or not. Some were Kokka, but not sure if all were. But, it's the fault of the red backing--that will teach me not to use a Kona solid (or Moda Bella)!!!

Birds of a Feather

This is the latest quilt that I have been working on. It's a pattern from the American Patchwork and Quilting magazine. I just absolutely loved the one in the magazine and so have made it using Denyse Schmidt fabrics Flea Market Fancy and Katie Jump Rope. It was really fun to do the applique--I used a blanket stitch. Now to quilt it! I am going to try something new and have a go at free motion quilting. Yikes, I hope I don't ruin it. Actually, I like this quilt so much that I am thinking about doing it again with different background colors and giving them as gifts. So, hopefully I will get a bit of practice with the free motion quilting. The quilt only measures 36"X45" so it should be easy enough to handle in the sewing machine. I hope...

Summer in the City Finished!!!

Aaah, finally finished! This quilt I have had so close to be finished for such a long time, but didn't have the binding sewn down. I finished it last week, washed the Alexander drool off and have finally photographed it. This quilt was made from Moda'a Summer in the City line, which I love love love! Here I have it paired with a brown fabric from the Tiddly Winks line by Moda. Funny, but looking at my Designer Swappy Poo group it seems like I have not been the only one who has loved Summer in the City. This quilt was made from charm packs I had gotten on sale and I was always kicking myself that I just didn't buy a fat quarter bundle. Well, recently I found a bundle on ebay listed in a way that no one who adores Summer in the City would likely find it and so I ended up winning the bid for next to nothing! So, yes, now I have more to play with. Makes me sooooo happy. This time I will pair it with white in some way instead of brown which I had originally wanted to do.

Help! My Quilt Bled!

Does anyone have any experience with using Synthrapol for getting the bleeding out of a quilt? I just finished a quilt for a friend of mine and wanted to prewash it to make sure that the red back wouldn't bleed, but it did! I did some searching online and ordered a bottle of Synthrapol to see if it will help remedy the problem. I sure hope so! Please let me know any of your experiences...

Blogger's Quilt Festival

I thought I would enter one of my favorite quilts in the Blogger Quilt Festival hosted by Parkcitygirl. This happens to be a very simple quilt with nine patches using Amy Butler fabrics from one of her older lines called Charm. The layout of this quilt was completely inspired by a vintage quilt I had seen online. Sometimes I browse the vintage quilts on ebay for inspiration and I found a quilt similar to this that inspired me. What I thought was interesting about the vintage quilt was that the person who made it used like fabrics next to each other throughout the quilt rather than placing them randomly and far apart as I would have thought to do. I liked the idea of placing same fabrics next to each other and so this quilt was born. I also decided to arrange the patches in color areas on the quilt. If you look closely, there is a blue corner, a green corner, a pink one and an orange one. This quilt is currently being used on our bed.

More Red And Aqua

Ok, lately I am having a real obsession with red and aqua. I've also been inspired by RedPepperQuilts in the way that she uses a solid fabric with bright modern fabric choices. I see that she is going to be a big influence in the way that I quilt from now on. I just love the way the fabrics look when you have a solid fabric to give the eye a rest. I'm also a big fan of half square triangles because I know that I can cut them trim them and have perfect corners. It's taken me a while to become picky in my piecing, but the more I piece the pickier I become.

I also Finally figured out how to attach bindings with a hidden stitch using the ladder stitch. Where was I? How many of you use this stitch? I was using a very strange method before reading on a blog about the ladder stitch and now bindings get done much quicker!!! I love being able to learn so much from other bloggers!!!