Enjoying Some Outside Time

Last weekend the family and I drive down to LA for a wedding.  The entire drive took about 6 hours with a few stops along the way.  One of the times we stopped at a patch of grass to enjoy some nice snacks and the boys got to run around a bit.  Guess which quilt I had in the trunk of the car?

Here's a glimpse of the quilt being used:

That's me enjoying a nice warm California day.  My younger son, Silas, is enjoying some juice while watching his older brother run around the grass.  I guess the little guy wasn't a fan of grass - he stayed on top of the quilt the whole time.

Does that white and blue print look familiar?  It's the Extended Checked quilt!



This quilt started with no owner in mind, then it was used as a quilt for my younger son.  But now, it is our picnic quilt apparently.  Every time we plan on a picnic or any activity that involves sitting on the ground, we just bring this quilt along.  It's a great size for the whole family without being overly big and cumbersome.  The completed quilt is about 53"x77".

Here's both of the boys on it - having some fun brother time.

There was a lot of crawling, walking, drooling, and rolling around on the blanket.  

I think the colors goes great with the green grass:

 A closeup of the quilt on the grass.

At first I thought the slight damp of the grass would soak through the blanket but the blanket held up very well.  I couldn't even feel any moisture or blades of glass through the blanket.  So far I have washed it 4 times and it is now in the trunk of my Prius again ready for another outing.

Extended Checked (White & Blue) is Complete!

The simple design of two different colored rectangles, checkered is quilting, binded, washed and dried and ready for use.  Here's a picture of it on my son's bed.

Laying peacefully on my younger son's son-to-be bed (he's still in a crib :)).

The whole quilt consisted of 4 different fabrics: 2 for the front, 1 different one for the backing (as well as a little from the fabrics on the front) and binding.  I wanted to keep this quilt simple to show off the blue fabric that I like so much.  Speaking of which, here's a close-up of the blue fabric.


I really liked the way the white fabric went with the blue fabric - it had just enough design to not be plain, but not too much to distract.  Notice for the binding I used a dark green fabric with geometric floral designs.  It contrasted with the quilt top enough to add as a obvious border, but matched enough to - again - not to distract.

The overall results of the quilt - simple but elegant.



A look at the quilt top:

It was rainy and dreary so I couldn't go outside or get good lighting inside the home.  So when there was a little spray of sunlight I had my husband hold up the quilt for me to take a few quick snaps with the camera.

A look at the quilt back:

This picture didn't turn out as well.  Unfortunately, the little spray of sunlight through the room was gone by the time I got around to back of the quilt.  In case you can't make it out, the back was all white except for a strip of a color using the fabrics from the front.  Noticed that I changed the design a little on the back - mainly 'cause I ran out of that beautiful blue fabric.


Another thing that was not planned during the design stage of the quilt was how the quilting was going to look.  I thought about a free motion pattern, but decided against it because I didn't want to make the quilt look too busy - I wanted to maintain that simple look in the quilt.  So, I went with a straight line, straight stitch across the width of the quilt.  Each line is about 1.5" apart.

I stitched in the ditch first on every seam across the width.  However, I didn't really like the straight stitch really much,  so for the stitching that were not 'in the ditch' I decided to give it a slightly 'pulled' look - creating a little texture and definition on the quilt.  The results were quite obvious in this picture with the lighting:


This lighting totally exaggerated the crinkles from the quilting.  In person the crinkles are not quilt as exaggerated and is pretty subtle.

 I really like the look of this quilt.  It accomplished the feel I was going for - simple but elegant.  I think I'm going to keep this quilt and give it to my younger son because I was - and still am - clueless on the quilt I should make him.  Something that he could grow into.  Actually, I think this will be a great quilt for him.

Another one COMPLETED! :)

Doesn't it look pretty all folded up? :P

 Quilt Info:
Extended Checkered (1-Blue & White)
Front: 100% Cotton Print Fabrics
Batting: Warm & Natural 100% cotton
Backing: White Broadcloth 100% cotton
Completed Dimension: ~53"x77"
Quilting Method: Machine, Straight Stitch - Straight lines ~1.5" apart
Binding: Machine Sew to Front and Hand Sew to Back

Extended Checkered Has Started

One of my Spring goals is to complete this Extended Checkered quilt. It's a basic rectangle blocked quilt top using two different colors in the center and binding. I don't have anyone in mind for this quilt either.  But I really wanted to use the blue print fabric I had.  I didn't have much of it, a little over a yard, and the print was very nice.  I wanted to create simple that would showcase the fabric.

The quilt top design:

Keeping it simple to showcase the fabrics.  

The quilt backing.  I used a white Muslim 100% cotton fabric for the majority of the backing.  I used a little bit of the quilt front fabric for the backing.

Keeping the back of the quilt simple also.  I ran out of the blue fabric so I tried to use what was left of it for the back - not much left :).

I pieced together the quilt top and bottom a couple of days ago.  It is all ironed and ready for the basting.  I used Warm & Natural 100% cotton batting.  The quilt is about 53"x73" so I had to clear out my entire living room floor to make room.  Lay the batting on flat on the floor - enough for the quilt top and then some.  Then put the quilt top on top of the batting and SMOOTH SMOOTH SMOOTH.  Make sure you smooth from the middle out to all the edges.  This takes a bit of time, but it's a very important step. 

Pictures is the smoothing process.  As you could see here, it's not enough to just put the quilt top on the batting.  If you don't take the time to smooth out this process, you're going to have a lot of tugging during the quilting process.  As you could see here there's still a lot of bumps to smooth out.

Once again I'm out of time for my projects.  This is a good stopping point because the smoothed out batting and quilting top needs to be rolled up anyways.  It'll be rolled up and ready to put the quilt backing on next time I have time to work on this - again I need to clear out my living room floor again :).