This quilt is made with dresden plates which of course inspired the name “Hot Plate.” The plates were fun to make and I am excited to try something else along those lines – but it was a lot of work. Cutting out the pieces is really tedious. I did buy a special ruler for this purpose and it helped quite a bit.

The plate fabric is Kaffe Fasset – I bought it in a jelly roll (which probably didn’t exactly improve the tedious nature of the cutting) and loved the outer pieces…but when I unrolled it and looked at all the fabrics it was terribly disappointing. I didn’t like the fabrics together at all – it just looked like a bunch of junk! I removed the most offending pieces but there are still a few fabrics in there that I look at and think – pardon my French here, but honestly – WTF? I guess I didn’t have to use the fabrics together but my goal was completion and at the time I was just too lazy to rethink it.

I can’t remember what the background fabric is. I’ve seen the honeycomb fabric out and about so it must be from a popular line. The plaid is a homespun that I picked up at the LQS for some other purpose that I’ve managed to forget. The loud KF fabrics begged me for a subdued touch so that is why I mixed it in.

Anyway – I should call this quilt “Hot Plate Mess” because to me the colors and prints are pretty crazy. I do like the overall effect but I think it could have been better with other fabrics. The Husband thinks it looks graphic and bold and he is the artist around here so I guess I will be deferring to his opinion. It is more flattering than my own opinion, so…ya, I think I’ll go with it!

So here’s the current stack:

Whew!

Show links:

Check out the new podcastThe Quilting Pot

Leah Day’s commentary on dropping your feed dogs

Leah Day’s demo of how to modify a plastic closed-toe darning foot:

Click here to play the podcast!

Actually she didn’t get it for me.  She didn’t know exactly what I wanted so she provided funding.  Woohoo for Noelle!  I should have my table in 4 to 6 weeks.

Oh, and I noticed that my link to That Perfect Stitch in the prior post didn’t show up, so if you didn’t see what book I reviewed, here it is again:

Again, FYI – this is an affiliate link.

I hope you have a wonderful day!

And I gushed over my love of Pinterest. You have to check it out!

Thanks for listening – click here to play!

ps – full disclosure: the link for the book is an affiliate link and if you purchase via this link I will earn a small commission.

1) If you are finding that your binding does not feel as if the batting fills it all of the way to the edge, try cutting your binding strips 1/4″ smaller than you usually do.

2) You needn’t master the corner mitre.  A simple but well done binding will beat out a sloppy but complicated method every time!

3) When you connect strips together, use an angled seam to reduce bulk at a single point.

4) It is important that your binding is applied evenly; i.e., it shouldn’t appear 1/4 inch wide at one point and 1/2 inch wide elsewhere.  Be careful to sew an accurate seam width.  Use a guide on your machine if you need to.

5) Always use a thread that matches the binding fabric, both to apply the binding and to connect the strips together.  You want your thread to be as invisible as possible.

So here it is.  I made this for The Girl.  It was supposed to be a transition-to-big-kid-bed quilt when she turned 2.  It wasn’t finished and I think I gave it to her when she was 4.

And for all the time it took – hardly any of the quilting is visible because I did most of it in the ditch.  I will never do that again.  Also I’ll never hand quilt a flannel-backed quilt again, either!

It has been awhile since I’ve done any hand quilting.  I really miss it.  Sometime soon!

The name of this quilt was Black-eyed Susan and it was one of the last patterns I followed.  It was supposedly a “quick” pieced quilt but it took me forever to get pieced.  I can’t remember now what book the pattern was from – The Girl is 7 now so it has been probably 5 or more years since I saw that book.  I wonder what I did with it!  She sleeps with it on her bed in the winter time and Duke (the dog) has chewed some holes in it.  Sigh.

The reason I noticed that I have never posted a picture of a hand-quilted quilt is because I wanted to contribute to the Hand Quilting Celebration over at Michigan Quilts.

Run on over and check it out!

Here is the couch carcass in it’s current state:

And The Husband showing off his handiwork in our Bonus Room:

So what do you think about swapping out one of the charity quilts (replacing it with a quilt I would make from blocks I already have) so that I can keep it?  Does that break the spirit of the challenge?  Leave me a comment to tell me what you think!

You can listen by clicking here.  Thanks for stopping by!

This quilt was made as part of my 2011 charity challenge. I had a set of Kaffe Fassett fat quarters and some leftover jelly roll strips and this is what came out of it. I love the bright happy colors and I hope it cheers a child who needs it!

You can find the tutorial for the top here.

The challenge was to complete 5 child-sized quilts to be donated to a woman in my guild who was collecting them for a local charity. This is the second quilt – I have since finished the top of the third and am working on the top of the fourth. I am holding off on quilting them because I’m hoping to soon be buying an extension arm for my machine.  That should make quilting them much easier.  A girl can dream, right?

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