Intuition Quilt, Final Day

I’m falling so behind on posting pictures, but I’m happy to say I’m slowly catching up on the to-do-backlog that was stressing the joy out of me earlier this year.

My Intuition Quilt, “Listen to your heart”, was finished and wrapped up about half an hour before my daughter came over to celebrate her birthday. It was rather early in the morning, before proper daylight, so please do excuse the bad lighting. Usually I would take pictures outside, but our deck was covered with ice and I have already tried that once. Mrs Moen on ice; like Bambi, lots of long legs but with less grace.


I love everything about this quilt (did I say that already; oh well), and even though I would like to keep it for myself, I love it even more because my daughter is so happy with it. The corners are square and the sides are straight so pictures actually do lie sometimes.


The colours look more correct with the flash on, that doesn’t happen too often, does it.

The appliquéd heart; so strong and so fragile at the same time, just like ours. I still have more of the (wo)manmade fabric; just waiting for a brilliant idea to strike.

The binding. I used 3 of the fabrics; one on the top,

one on the sides

and one on the bottom.

I know it has taken me forever to finish this quilt, but I have enjoyed every single piece of fabric and stitch I have put into it. Thank you, Victoria!

Task of the day, January 21st

On this date 25 years ago, I walked into the hospital to have my first and only child. I remember thinking (as I waddled towards the entrance) that the next time I’ll be outside I’ll be a mom and nothing will ever be the same. Tomorrow is daughter’s 25th birthday, and I am as happy to know her as I was when we first met 25 years ago. I was right, everything did change and I discovered I had superpowers.


The only thing left to do tonight is finishing her quilt by attaching this heart. I’m thinking simple whip stitches in bright pink thread.

Grandson and I have created a piece of collaborative art and a collaged card. Pictures of both will follow when the gifts have been handed over; I really don’t want to ruin the surprise in case she stops by here.


Tonight it's also time to draw the winner of my 600th post giveaway, and blah blah random blah blah the winner is

No 42, Mimi.


Congratulations, Mimi, you’ll receive an email from me. To the rest of you, thank you for playing along!


Now onto stitching the heart; have a wonderful weekend!


Oh, I almost forgot; I did take pictures of the whole Christmas table cloth before it went into the laundry as requested. Isn’t it just perfect!

Intuition Quilt, Day Twelve

Ok, so I’m officially in love with this quilt. It literally brightens up the dark and grey days of a snowless winter and brings much needed warmth and light into my day. I keep it hanging over a chair in my living room just so that I can enjoy it when I’m not working on it, only removing it when daughter’s coming over.

What can I say; I love the lines and colours

and the little bumps made by stitching around circles

which are showing even better on the back

and the threads, oh all the lovely thread.

I don’t even mind that a little red has bled into white dots (that’s why I usually wash everything. Everything!). It must have happened a long time ago, I just hadn’t noticed.

I had picked some possible binding fabrics way back

and added one more into the mix.

If daughter has changed her mind about this quilt, I wouldn’t mind. I can keep it. Seriously.

Intuition Quilt, Day Eleven+Threehundredandsomething

Day 10 of my Intuition Quilt posts came and went in silence last year; I don’t even remember what I was supposedly documenting through the Day 10 pictures which I found stored on my computer. Anyhow, I do recall how I wanted to quilt the top almost a year ago; that is I didn’t really want to quilt it at all as I loved the crisp lines of the fabrics as they were, but since it’s not a quilt until it’s quilted, I had a firm idea how it would be.

Three colours of variegated thread were purchased back in March as I couldn’t make up my mind in the store. And of course I needed three spools of each of them just in case the quilt would stretch to king size during the process or something. I would have been surprised, but prepared. I should add I rarely buy thread for specific projects any more, but use the ones that I already have. Seriously, I’ve got enough.

Looking at the top with fresh eyes I have decided to use all three of them, starting with the brownish on the bottom border.

Marking the quilt design wasn’t much of a job.

All I need is a few of these little fellows

which will be spending most of their time up here

and a few seconds down here every now and then.

It has been a long time since I have been this much excited about the quilting itself. I started this project on January 10th 2011, so it’s about time it got finished I’d say.


Happy quilting!

Intuition Quilt, Day Nine

One of the fabrics in the block from this post started bugging me as soon as I got the top back on the wall after attaching the last borders. The brownish-green plaid flannel did not go with any other fabric in the quilt at all. With this large number of different fabric scraps in one place that’s quite an accomplishment I’d say.

It just had to come out but I had used up all the suitable greens in my box. Then I remembered I had pulled out some strips for the string quilt from the same box just a few weeks before this scrap extravaganza started, so I decided I was allowed to put them back in. Lo and behold; right there were two green strips which would fit perfectly.

I’m still not that fond of seam ripping, but it was worth it after all.
Oh ..., I see another little piece of fabric that will probably bug me. Yeah, I’ll have to wait for a few days to see just how much. What also bugs me is that I actually have to quilt this top to make it into a quilt. I really like it as it is right now and don’t want to mess it up with quilting stitches. Does that ever happen to you too??

Intuition Quilt, Day Eight

The leftover flowery strip from “View from the park” for the left border of my Intuition Quilt was about 9” short, so I needed a 9 ½”*9 ½” square to complete the border. I collected every little piece of fabric (still from the one and only box of scraps I'm using for this project) which could sort of work with the greens and started puzzling them together. The pieces in the mid section were leftover from a fusible appliqué project, “Gridded circle” and had to be pressed with caution. You’ll find more pictures of the process on my post at 15 Minutes Play.

When the left border was complete, I started auditioning fabric to add the bottom border which I had turned the wrong way. That’s batik fabrics for you.
And at last, adding a little heart from my self made fabric; little scraps of fabric sandwiched between two layers of grey organza, then two layers of wash away stabilizer and free motion stitched together with silver metallic thread. I made the fabric for a quilt back in 2006 and have quite a bit left over.
Also; you may have noticed that I’ve got the top-in-progress up on my design wall - a flannel sheet hung on two nails on top of our dining room artwork. It works just fine; in fact I wouldn’t mind just leaving it up there.

Intuition Quilt, Day Seven

The offending bottom part of the right border has been replaced. I’m not all that fond of ripping out and replacing bits once they are stitched in place but this one would bother me to no end if I didn’t.

Intuition Quilt, Day Six

I’m still a bit behind posting the progress of my Intuition Quilt, but it’s slowly moving forward.

The bright red & pink bottom border-to-be was so obviously not a border, so the quilt was in dire need of a bottom (border that is).

Having another look through my big box of scraps I auditioned different fabrics, and after a few trials and errors (you’ll find them posted here at 15 Minutes play) I found this beautiful strip of batik which actually looks quite good. There’s some yellow in it which complements the yellowish green in the left border very nicely.

Yes, I’m happy with the bottom border but now the bottom third of the right border looks just plain wrong. Hmmmm.

Intuition Quilt, Day Five

Adding a bottom border to keep all the reds in order and a side border made from scraps in colours that bring out the teal from the first block and the greens on the other side. Yeah, it looks much better with a right side border, but the raggedy old design chair does not work so well now that it’s growing.

Intuition Quilt, Day Four

I’m making real progress with the intuition quilt, but with all the sickness & not so much health that has been going around at our house; I have been falling behind on the documentation of the progress. Daughter’s birthday for which this quilt was supposed to be a present, came and passed, but I had already asked her if it was OK for me to spend more time working on her quilt instead of rushing it to completion. I would hate to have to do that as this is my favorite quilt in a long time.

Anyway, back to the quilt; the hot chucky border idea from this post took on a life of its own and became even hotter and more chunky than anticipated. I tried to find a balanced mix of prints and solids, darks and lights and with a little blue to break it up.

I started sewing the border block from the middle and auditioned different strips on the sides and top. The light dots were added to pick up the lights in the first block and the dotted border on the top.

The long red strip bothered me so I cut it in two and added pieces of blue and dark red.
I had no idea how long it would take to make this border block, but after hours it was finished and attached to the top. I’m thinking this is not a border at all, it’s more like a second half of the quilt and the reds are falling off the side. It needs more actual borders.


For more pictures, see my post at 15 Minutes Play.

Intuition Quilt, Day Three

I never think I have interesting scraps; they are colourful enough but not many interesting patterns. However, I lucked out choosing this specific scrap box for the intuition challenge ‘cause I’m feeling like a little girl in a candy store picking and choosing whatever makes my mouth watering and the best thing is that all the treats are sugar free.
These strips from the “View from the park” quilt were perfect for framing my centre block from this post. The teal batik is one of my absolute favorite fabrics; you wouldn’t believe how hard it was to cut into it the first time. It sure looks good with the hot pinks though.

For the next border I’m thinking green side borders and a big chunky hot border on the bottom with a little strip of dotted red on the top for balance. Yeah, I think I’m on the right track. The colours seem even brighter in flash light, but there you go, the days are still on the short side up here.

For more pictures, see my post at 15 Minutes Play.

Intuition Quilt, Day Two

I did my first Intuition Quilt post at 15 Minutes Play yesterday and documenting choices requires a lot of pictures for sure. You’ll find my post with all the pictures here.

I had a great time making my centre block. The pieces were small and everything went together pretty much effortlessly.

I first sorted the scraps from this post into piles by colour, leaving the crumbs for the centre block.

Then I started puzzling them together on the table. Daughter loves pinks and warm colours for decorating, but she actually asked for any bright colours this time so I added some turquoise and blues to set the pinks and reds and oranges off.
As I played with the pieces, some were replaced and new ones were added to the mix to get balance and interest. Using scissors I cut off all weird edges to make the pieces easily sew able, arranged them into sections on a piece of felt

and started sewing them together, adding pieces, ironing and cleaning up edges as I moved on.
It was not quite big or square enough so I added strips of fabric to three of the sides and the centre block was done.
I have worked a lot with appliqué lately, so it was fun just piecing stuff together!