Pixel Michigan Quilt

Final Stats

Name: Pixel Michigan

Dimensions: 108"x96"

Pieces: Front - about 346 (my pattern says 346, but I think I combine some of the pieces)

Pattern: My own, inspired by All Roads Lead to Austin by Dana Michaelson

Technique: Patchwork

Materials: 100% Quilting Cottons - Kona Pacific and many prints from my stash

Quilting: Long-armed by Heather S. of Quilts Actually

 

This journey began a while back when I almost simultaneously saw the All Roads Lead to Austin quilt by Dana Michaelson online and took a free Craftsy class about turning pixelated pictures into quilt patterns. Armed with this, I found a county map of Michigan, where both my husband and I grew up, and got to work in Excel. The spreadsheet is amazing, not only does it tell me how many patches of each color and size I need, but it also calculates your yardage for front and back. And resizes everything when you change the size of the smallest square unit. It took a really long time to set up, but it was so worth it. And the Craftsy class made it really easy to follow along. I dug out my Kona color card and decided that I wanted Kona Pacific as the background color. Luckily I got just enough to cut all of the background pieces.

 

Since I had intended the quilt for my husband, I checked with him to make sure a bit of pink in his quilt wasn't going to freak him out. Luckily he said no, so that gave me an extra color to play with for the counties. I elected to do light blues/aquas but not dark blues because it would have melded too much with the background. I pulled out pretty much every single fabric I had in my stash and organized them by colors that were as similar as possible. Then I went county by county, determined how many different pieces I needed and chose a stack with enough fabric choices. Each of the finished blocks is 12" (12.5" unfinished). I started with the Upper Peninsula and worked my way down.

 

Mid Atlantic Mod 2014 ended with a finished quilt top. I had even contacted two long-arm quilters to get estimates for their suggested way of quilting this beast, since there was no way I was getting this through my machine, much less have a place to baste it. I finally settled on Heather S. of Quilts Actually. And then the quilt sat and sat and sat, because I got pregnant and during the first trimester everything except napping just seemed like too much work. I did finalize with Heather exactly what I wanted for the quilting, down to which thread I thought might look best. And yet nothing spurred me on to cutting the backing fabric and sewing it together. At one point I even contemplated sending Heather the backing fabric and having her put it together.

 

Finally I got an email from Heather that spurred me into action. She was moving and I had until the beginning of May to send her the quilt if I wanted it back by the end of May. Or I'd have to wait until July when she was hoping to be set up again in her new place. So I finally did it, I dug out the blue Bicycle Path and the Bears fabric I had purchased for the back, cut it into 3 yard sections and sewed them together. I didn't even both to iron the seams flat, just stuffed everything in a box and sent it off. Now, I usually hate the basting and quilting process, so quilting by check was incredibly liberating. Heather and I made some adjustments to thread color and then she was off. I got the quilt back in early June, as promised and I couldn't have been happier.

 

She had quilted waves and fish in the water portions and trees with the occasional deer and bear in the land portions. I had also asked her to put a star over Grand Rapids, where we both grew up, and a bear over Traverse City/Sleeping Bear dunes where we had our honeymoon. She interpreted this to mean the Bears logo, which made neither my husband nor myself in the least unhappy.

 

When the quilt came back, all I had to do was trim it, make and sew on the binding. I decided to go with a scrappy binding in "Crayola box order" (i.e. White, Yellow, Orange, Red, Pink, Purple, Blue, Light Green, Dark Green, Brown, Grey, Black) and used only fabrics that I'd used on the front of the quilt. I finished the binding the day after I got it back and elected to machine bind it, because I so wasn't going to hand sew binding on a quilt that size! It even made it onto our bed that very night, after I finally presented my hubby with his very belated birthday/Christmas/birthday present.

 

 

And here are a few more pictures from a little photo shoot I did:

 

I'm Alive!

I can't believe I haven't posted anything in two months. I promise, I'm still alive. Just super busy. I started back to work last Wednesday and before that I was trying to cram as much sewing and baby time as possible into every minute. So I've got lots of stuff to share and don't even know where to start. Well, baby pictures are always good.

Let's see, the Hexie quilt has been set aside. I've sewn together about 12 out of 25 rows, but wasn't even close to finishing it in time for the wedding. So, since I have a ton of other things I need to get done with upcoming deadlines, I figured I'd set that aside and work on other stuff. I have 3 of these panels stitched together.

Then I decided that I should join the DCMQG Bee. Lynne had the first month and I'm queen bee for the second. Here are the blocks I made for her:

She wanted aqua and purple wonky stars with low volume backgrounds. I think I did alright, although aqua is one of those colors that completely frustrates me.

And here is the block I chose for my month. I made two test blocks and they were way more fun than I thought they would be since I don't usually do scrappy improv:

They will become a baby quilt for my nephew Jackson, who is due in August. That's the great thing about having two siblings who are 15 months and 3 years younger, we all end up with babies at roughly the same time (the same year). In this case, three boys who have already been dubbed the Three Musketeers.

Next up we have a whale baby quilt, using the Preppy the Whale pattern from Elizabeth Hartman. I bought the pattern and it made the quilty math so much easier because I had actual measurements for each piece to base it off of, not just eyeballing a design. First I blew up the whale times two, then I chopped the pattern into 4" (finished) sections. There was much scribbling on scrap paper before I was satisfied and I'm happy to say that it worked out.

I also pieced a back, basted, quilted and started making binding for it. But ended up stuck because I didn't have enough red solid to make the binding and the red and white striped binding I had leftover from another quilt also isn't enough. Unfortunately, since we're on a super tight budget until I get paid again, I have been unable to buy more. Hopefully it will get done soon though and I can write a post just about that quilt, because I think it's turning out fabulously! It's for the son of our friends, Kevin and Jess.

I also basted the braille alphabet quilt for the son of a coworker.

I'm extremely happy to say that I received the Pixel Michigan quilt back from the longarmer and didn't waste any time making scrappy binding for it and finishing it off. It's been hanging out on our bed since I presented it to my husband for his long overdue birthday, Christmas, birthday present. Here is a sneak peek, as I'll be making an entire post for that finish as well. It more than deserves it.

I am once again working on the wedding quilt for my brother-in-law and his fiancée. I'm making a Scrappy Swoon quilt, just a bit bigger than the original, so it fits a queen sized bed. Here's where I am with that, I just have to sew this layer together and onto the center and then have one more layer to go:

Although I think the greenish blues really stand out, the purple and the black blend together a little more than I would have liked. You can barely see that the center is supposed to be a star and not an X. But I like it anyway.

I've also done some work on the Layer Cake Sampler QAL and have paired one Sunnyside print with one white solid and drawn the lines on the back. I've even sewn up several of the pairs, cut some apart, and even managed to finish my first block:

I quite like how this first one turned out, we'll see what happens with the rest.

I've also put in some work on my cross-stitch pieces, but mainly on the piece I started most recently. Forest by Satsuma Street. It is coming together much faster than I thought possible, although I haven't had a chance recently to work on it.

I'm making it to go along with the baby quilt for my nephew. My sister-in-law said that she had a pillow that needed a cover, so that's the plan. Not sure how I'm going to "frame" it, but I'm thinking maybe a scrappy border to match the quilt for the front and then an envelope back that doesn't require a zipper.

Phew, that was a longer post than anticipated, but I really have been quite busy. And that's not including the guild meetings and the Denyse Schmidt lecture I attended. Maybe I'll post something about those some other time.

Sewing and Mothering

So my biggest project is of course my little man currently. He's just over a month old now, my how the time flies.

Because everyone needs some baby pics in their life. :)

However, I've gotten a bit of time here and there to get into my craft room and I also made it to the DCMQG March meeting while my hubby stayed home with the little man.

So here's what I've been working on:

Cutting the grey, coral, green, blue, and blue-green fabrics for my sister's wedding quilt.

Here's my stacks so far. The corals are completely done and I have a decent stack, but that's only supposed to be an accent color. My greys are barely started and I'm about halfway through the blues, greens, and blue-greens and I already have rather large stacks of those (greys are another accent color, and the rest are supposed to make up the majority of the king sized quilt). I've been cutting 4.5" strips and then sub-cutting into these half hexies, two of each fabric.

The other thing I've been working on from my list of UFO's is the Modified Bento Box quilt for my mother.

I already have about 18 blocks from the Stash Bee and I'm making another 7 to make 25. I have all of the strips cut for the blocks, now I just need to finish putting them together. These are the centers with the first frame done. I tried to keep the insides omni-directional, so I can chop the blocks apart if I still feel like it. I'm also trying to decide how big I want to make the quilt and if I'll need some sashing in between the blocks.

I have the backing made for the Michigan pixel quilt and have followed up with my long-armer to see if she's even still interested. She is and so I need to print out the invoice and send the quilt to her so she can get started. Maybe once my hubby goes back to work, I'll load the little man in the stroller and make a trip to the post office.

And then there is the quilt for the little man. I finally decided on the book quilt from Patchwork Please! I've even made the first two blocks for it at the guild meeting.

I'm trying to make all of the "covers" mean something, so here we have Coyote from Native American oral legends and a dragon to symbolize the wealth of dragon/fantasy books I plan to read to him. I'm also finally cutting in my Oakshott cottons for the backgrounds. Well, eight of the 12 fat eighths I bought a while ago. I'm doing two of each color. I already have all of the print fabrics and cover fabrics picked out and matched with the Oakshott backgrounds. I'm making all the spines and corners black to keep things consistent. Sashing and borders are still up in the air. These blocks are only 8.5" square, so I think they'll need something.

I also finally finished trimming the HSTs for my first block of the Layer Cake Quilt Along for my Sunnyside Kate Spain quilt and started sewing the block together. I've got one seam to go, so no picture yet.

Time Spent Crafting

It feels like I'm getting my mojo back a bit. It could also be that I'm finally starting to fight 10 years of conditioning. Here's the deal, my husband has been working in the restaurant industry for as long as we've been together, 10 years. In that time, we either did the long distance thing and barely saw each other, or were living together but working opposite schedules. So what little time we did have together, I felt this strong urge to at least be near him even if we weren't actively doing something together. Then about eight months ago, my husband broke his hand, he couldn't go back to cooking until it was healed and was out of work for two months. During that time he decided that he wanted to change careers because he actually liked spending time with me and so he spent the next few months trying to find something. Unfortunately that hasn't worked out, but the conditioning of 10 years was still there. So between being pregnant, having lost some of my quilting mojo, and that, it's been really hard for me to tear myself away and spend some alone time in my sewing room.

I also recently celebrated my 30th birthday (Valentine's Day) and on my birthday I always do what I want to do. That included sleeping in, cross-stitching in bed, having my husband cook me German pancakes for brunch, going to the grocery store to grab fruit and some other things I wanted, including a fruit tart, ordering Thai food for dinner, and watching something on Netflix in bed at the end of the day, I also decided to spend time in my craft room. I did and it was quite productive. I finished the top of the braille alphabet quilt.

I also cut fabric and put together one of the three blocks for the November queen bee and got the other two blocks to the trimming down stage.

Not wanting to lose momentum, I've been spending a bit of time each day since then in my craft room and have finished the other two bee blocks.

Made a scrappy improv block for the guild.

And actually got the back of the Michigan quilt put together. I even emailed the long-armer to make sure she was still willing to quilt that beast for me, since it had been almost a year since we started talking about the quilting.

We actually got a snow day today, so my three day weekend became a four day weekend, so I managed to get the memory quilt blocks done for the Bright Modern Baby Quilt and kept working on my leader and ender project.

I realized that I'm woefully behind on my memory quilt blocks and need to make myself a list of blocks I still need to make and then actually find the fabrics I used in my scrap bin or stash. I've got the fabrics laid out for the Braille Alphabet Quilt memory blocks, so I may work on those next.

Michigan Quilt - Blocks done

I finished all of the blocks for the Michigan quilt. Cutting happened Friday and Saturday, sewing of the remaining blocks on Saturday and Sunday. I don't have enough floor space to lay them all out together, so I just laid out the Lower Peninsula. Here are the separate photos.

 Upper Peninsula

Lower Peninsula

There you go. I didn't repeat a single fabric, and only bought the background solid. Everything else is from my existing stash. Just in case anyone is wondering, my husband and I grew up in Kent county, which is that long green county (second column, second and third blocks from the bottom, the one with the topography squiggles - bottom and the compasses - top).

If you're from Michigan, can you figure out which one is your county?

Linking up with Anything Goes Monday on Stitch by Stitch.

Michigan Quilt

Having a three day (and thanks to the snow day, four day) weekend was good, since I've been pretty busy with things outside of the house. I did finally get some sewing in yesterday evening and managed to finish up the UP for the Michigan quilt (for all you non-Michiganders, that's the Upper Peninsula). I haven't quite written out the colors and amounts needed for the Lower Peninsula, but I have started, so maybe I can put a dent in that today.

So far it's nothing serious, but they say that we might get 4-6 inches today and then another 1-3 overnight. Oh right, and here's my picture of the Michigan quilt.

Background is Kona Pacific and the rest is from my stash. I am trying to match the base tones of the fabrics, and so far I feel like I've been relatively successful. After all, you can more or less see where the counties are. As this will be for my husband, there are some very appropriate chef-y prints in there, including an artichoke and a panel with chefs cooking pasta and seafood. Also things appropriate for the UP, like birch trees, pine trees, and snowflakes. I love having I Spy moments in my quilts. My biggest worry is going to be basting (will there be enough room in my living room) and quilting (how to get this thing through my machine and how to quilt it). These two issues make me think that I might actually try and rent a long-armer (would need to do a class first though) or send it out to someone. Either way, I don't think it's going to be done in time for his birthday on Feb. 6.

Farmer's Wife and Michigan Quilt

Got home from work and was exhausted. But I thought I'd put in a solid hour or two of sewing. Instead I put in four. I got the third column of the Michigan quilt done. This was fairly easy to accomplish since the bottom 4 blocks are solid background and were already cut. But the other four required choosing and cutting of fabric and then sewing.

The purple has more contrast, but my flash didn't quite reach there and it gets fairly dark on my craft room floor at night. Good thing I have task lighting over my cutting table otherwise I'd never get anything done. I'm quite happy about the fussy cut artichoke that I pulled out of my scrap bin since my hubby is a chef.

I also printed out templates for the Farmer's Wife quilt and then ended up just measuring out the pieces with my ruler for the first block.

Here is the completed Block #4

Theoretically I should have put the darkest brown in the middle, but it's fine like this too.

Progress and Another Bee Block

I decided to make a block for the queen bee from Hive 6 of the Stash Bee, because I felt inspired by her block. It also allowed me to pull out my 2" squares from my scrap bin, which I haven't touched since I cut them.

January Block for Hive 6, based on this tutorial.

I also made progress on the pixelated Michigan quilt for my husband. I had finished cutting all the background "water" fabric (Kona Pacific) a couple days ago, as well as the reds for western most county in the Upper Peninsula. I am trying to keep the background colors more or less the same, so it reads as one county. The first two columns are done, because the bottom six squares are all water.

I also ordered the backing fabric today, so we'll see if I might be able to get the top done in time for our next guild meeting. I really need a larger space to baste my quilt than on my living room floor because this one promises to be huge. I'm a little scared about the quilting, because I'm 99% certain that straight line, or even "wavy" quilting won't work on this one.