Thursday, August 18, 2016

Granny Square Quilt


I made this quilt top a couple of years ago. I kept seeing this pattern pop up on flicker and found the original pattern here. I fell in love with the scrappy feeling of the quilt. I have a passion for scrappy quilts, you should not ever have to go buy 1/2 a yard of 10 different materials to make a quilt. I come from a family of seamstress so there was always scrap material around. 

I made the quilt top and actually forgot about it till one of my cats jumped up on the shelf and down toppled all my unfinished quilt tops. I pulled out the top and started to look for fabric to complete the back. I had a long piece of this lovely light purple that I wanted to use but I also wanted a little color...something simple but that still had a snap of color. I played around with different colors on my design wall and came up with a nice backing. I think the solid strip of turquoise and the red added a nice break in to the eye.
I had taken a class on the long arm machine at Modern Domestic last year, but just in case you missed that post...a quick recap...when I went to do my 2 hours of studio time I broke the machine...an $18,000 machine. A piece of thread broke in the bobbin and they were unable to get it out, the machine froze and they had to pull it all apart. This is the finished quilt that broke the machine. Needless to say I was a little shy to go back for fear that they would never let me use the machine again. 


SO this year for my birthday I signed up for another class to use the long arm machine at Modern Domestic, This time the class was 2 days, 3 hours each day. There were only 3 of us in the class and we each got turns playing with the machine after learning a design. I liked the wave pattern and the loopy pattern, I had done squares inside squares on all the quilts tops I had done so far.  After you take the class you get 2 hours of studio time. 



I finally went on August 11th, 2 hours of sewing on the machine and no problems....well one small one...I put the needle through my finger and broke the needle, but I did not break the machine. I also quilted part of the batting to the back of the quilt. The batting clung to the back of the quilt and when I attempted to roll the quilt on the arms it would not move. That is when I realized I had quilted some of the batting to the back. Oh well, now that I have done it I know what to watch out for when rolling and unrolling the quilt sandwich on the machine. 




I really like the look of this quilt, it's all puffy from the machine quilting and the loopy pattern that I used was a nice contrast to the granny square pattern. I really liked making this pattern I think I will try it again but make it much more scrappy.