Blog tags

I want to make the blog more reader-friendly, and I realized that tags are a good way to do this.  I’ve gone through all of my posts and added tags based on various themes. I’ll tag this post with all of them so you can more easily find anything you’re interested in, and my goal is to be more conscientious about tagging in the future.

In the course of doing all my tags, I realized that I posted twice about the Storm at Sea runner I made my parents, once in 2011 and again last December during my Advent posts.  Perhaps if I’d had a better tagging system I would have remembered that I’d done it before!  It was fun to go back and look at the old posts – I’d forgotten what some of the blocks were called and I had to read the posts to see which quilt I was writing about.  Most of my pre-blog quilts are on here, although I know of at least four that aren’t.  Perhaps those will be fodder for Advent 2014!

The tags fall into several categories: block type, type of item if it’s not a quilt, language if I was quilting in something other than English, etc.   The blocks I have thus far are as follows:

Drunkard’s Path – Storm at Sea – Hunter’s Star – Lone Star – hexagons – pinwheels – Steps to the Altar – Rail Fence -Windowpane – Log Cabin – “Elegance” fan block – Korean patchwork – Amish Square – Bow Tie block

If you happen to notice that I have the wrong name for a block or if there’s another name for it, please let me know!  In one case – the wedding quilt I made for my friend N last year – I’m not sure if there is a name for this kind of quilt.  (https://habibihomemade.wordpress.com/2013/07/16/wedding-quilt-for-n-and-a-part-i/)  If there is a name, please share it with me.

I made a tag for doll quilts, since I make so many of them, and if I used a particular block I tagged that as well.  I may have missed some, so leave a comment if you notice that a block went untagged.

Tags for non-quilts include, in no particular order: pot holders; kitchen/household; holiday; decor; pillows; napkins; clothing; ornaments; aprons.

I’d forgotten how many pillows I’d made, for example.  Kitchen/household covers pot holders, napkins, and aprons; aprons fall under clothing, too.  Decor includes pillows, runners, and wall hangings, but runners and wall hangings don’t have separate tags.  Holiday includes ornaments and stockings, the latter of which also don’t have a separate tag.  If you think it would be helpful for me to make a runners tag or a wall hangings tag or a stockings tag, let me know.  If you see anything I haven’t tagged that you think I should – a quilting design or a specific stitch or whatever – just leave me a comment.

Hopefully this way my blog will be much easier to navigate.  I like to read other quilters’ blogs and I’ve learned not just from what other people are making but from how they’re blogging about it.  Tagging struck me as a relatively easy way to be more accessible.  This is for you, so feel free to give me your input.  If you want a “wedding” tag or a “birthday” tag or some other category that you think would be useful, I want to know about it.

Enjoy!

Wedding quilt

We are extremely overdue for a post – about two months overdue.   We’ll try to get back on schedule at some point, but in the meantime here’s a post about a wedding quilt I made for my friend C.

I used a fan pattern – if it looks familiar, it’s because I used it to make a birthday present for Spry a few months ago.  I used blue and white Hungarian prints.  The prints are traditional but the pattern is modern and I think it came out with the right blend of pretty, classy, and modern.   To me, it matches C’s aesthetic.  (Hopefully she agrees!)

Pictures below:

Partial fans

Completed fans

Another shot of a completed fan

I arranged the fan patches, of which there were five, interspersed with other diamonds.

I used an outline of the fan pattern for my quilting on the diamonds.  Here’s the pattern laid out on one of the squares.  I used white thread to do the quilting.  Here’s a close up below, if you can see it:

The finished quilt

Spry’s birthday present

This is the birthday present I made for Spry.  It was rather belated, as is this post.  (I believe I finished the project around her birthday but then I didn’t see her for weeks afterward.)

I used the “Elegance” pattern created by Kay M. Capps Cross and printed in “Sensational and Small Quilts.”   The original design is in black and white prints with pops of pink.  I went a completely different direction.  I used pinks and yellows, with a touch of blue.  I was sort of aiming for Spry’s wedding color pattern (ish).  For the back I used a panel from part of a fabric collection that I’d also used in the front.  I can’t remember the name of the fabric collection – something about cherry blossoms.

I quilted on both sides of the seam attaching the outer border to the inner border using pink thread.  I also used pink thread to quilt each fan section.  I quilted along the inside edge of each piece.  Pictures below: