Celtic Knot 2015

I know this is a little late, but I finally got the pictures from my phone onto my laptop, making it easier to do this.

This is my Celtic Knot made for my dear friends the Carpenters (Scott and Michelle).

I started it in December 2014 and finally finished it 2 weeks after their wedding in June 2015.  It was supposed to be a wall hanging.  Yeah it was almost queen size when done...

The quilt was made with 13 - 17" squares and 2" sashing.

I started off by cutting the 13 squares to 19".  Using Philomena Durcan's book on Celtic knots and a water soluble pen I traced the knots onto the fabric.  Then I made the bias tape.  Yards and yards and yards of bias tape.
***Tip to keep it under control I wrapped the bias tape around an empty soda bottle like thread around a spool***

The quilt made for Scott's son

Using fabric left over from the quilt I made when Scott's son was born I colored the inside of the knots. Okay I cut the fabric into the shapes and sewed it down.
Starting on the inside of the outlines I sewed the bias tape down.

Once it was all sewn on the inside edge, it was time to sew the outside edge down.
Most took about 16 hours to sew.


After they were all finished I cut them down to 15 1/2" and made the sashing strips.  I felt they needed more so I took Michelle's favorite colors and did a simple 4-patch for the posts (corners of the sashing).

For the backing I wanted it to be both Scott and Michelle.  Scott's family is Irish and Michelle's German, so I took the colors of the flags and did strips down the back.

After basting it was time to start the quilting.  Using my handy dandy water soluble pen again I marked a ribbon type design in the sashing.   
I grabbed the most awesome straight line marking tool (masking tape) and marked off a grid around each block to quilt.  I outlined each knot on both the inside and outside with quilting.  Yes it was a lot of quilting, but I was not done yet.
For the blank edge blocks I designed my own knots to quilt.  Yes it took hours, days, months and years (not really years) to finish the quilt with all that quilting, but I think it was worth it.
But more importantly the Carpenters think it was worth it.
Sorry the only picture I have of their quilt's label has my cousin's label in it too.

Let's Go Wild!

It's very nerve racking when you get hired to make a quilt.  It's one thing when it is a stranger hiring you, but when it's a friend of 20 years, EEK!!!  That's what happened to me in October of 2013.  My friend Jeff really liked my work and decided he NEEDED one of them.  As a male he didn't want anything girly and he is a huge Kentucky Wildcats fan so I wanted to do a blue and white quilt for him.

Finding quilt ideas is sometimes fun, other times I hate it.  His quilt took forever to figure out.  Do I want to do a chain quilt for basketball? Or a star quilt for winning?  What about a classic blue and white 9 patch?  Oh I know!  I'll do a basketball court!!!  Okay not a real basketball court, but kinda close...

On Pintrest I found a quilt that if you squint you can see basketball courts.  I clicked on the link and it's only pictures of said quilt... So there I was with my handy graph paper, my dandy pencil and my wonderful box of 64 crayons drawing lines and coloring them in until I came up with my design.  I snapped a quick picture and sent off to Jeff in Oklahoma (did I mention this quilt was being made for a good friend that moved from Nevada to Oklahoma 15 years ago?) he loved it.

Luckily since I had drawn out the pattern on graph paper it was so easy to figure out the material needed and the best part was I could use fat quarters!!!  When there are 16 different blues and whites that all need to compliment each other for a quilt fat quarters are a blessing!  I picked out 9 whites/light blues and 7 dark blues and cut and piled them all. I ended up with lots of extra parts because I wanted it all random... So each "FQ" was cut into 22- 2.5"*2.5"; 9-2"*4.5"; 10-2.5"*6" (the top row in the picture can be cut into 2-2.5*2.5 and either 2--2.5*6 or 2-2*4.5 or one each of the 6 and 4.5).


Since I wanted that part to be 100% random I put ALL 2"*4.5" pieces into a paper bag.  I sewed a light 2.5*2.5 to a dark 2.5*2.5 (you need 2 of those color combos for a block).  Then came the fun part  reach into the bag and pull out a 2*4.5 (no putting it back or accidentally dropping it) and sew it between your light/dark combos.  When you have finished this step you will have lots of 4.5"*6" sets.

To the top of each set sew a 2.5*6 of the same fabric as the 2.5*2.5.  Do the same to bottom. You'll end up with how ever many you need of the 8.5"*6 finished block.  Since I was making a throw I used 63 blocks (7 columns and 9 rows).

Now put ALL the blocks back in the bag and pull out 2 at a time.  Match up a light top with a dark top and sew together.  Continue doing that until you have 9 rows of 7.  Sew the rows together.  I added a thin 1.5" border to the quilt just because in the hand quilting it makes it more stable and the seams less likely to unravel.  Once you are done with the top go ahead and baste and quilt.  For the quilting I did straight lines in each block from corner to corner.  I of course added a nameplate on the back and called it good.  The Henry family loved it and used it during the final four this year.

My cat loves laying on my unfinished quilts...

I used left over scraps for the binding.

Mitered corners are the best.