All posts by Brooklyn Quilting Co.

Five + Ten

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Let me introduce you to the quilt that made my head spin and almost broke me.  Between the quilt math, the pattern, and the layout, this one had me mentally exhausted.  That said, I think it turned out great. LOL

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There are many parts of this quilt making process that could have been easier, but I had a limited amount of fabric and was trying to stretch it as far as I could.  Had I had more wiggle room with the fabric it wouldn’t have been so difficult, but I needed every last inch of my fat quarters so I had to get every measurement and every cut right.  Pressure!

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In the end, I did have to add in some Ruby + Bee solids to get enough blocks, but I kind of like the unexpected solids here and there. It makes it not so perfect and I sometimes like my quilts that way.

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The main fabric in this quilt is Denyse Schmidt’s Five + Ten collection.  I love the bright colors and how they pop against the white background.  The colors also look great against this mural I found in Castle Rock, Colorado.  I took this picture when I was there visiting my brother over Christmas.

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The pattern is Irish Chain-like, but not quite. The blocks were very labor intensive, which also made it a hard quilt to finish.  I will say this quilt was reminder to push myself to make something hard.  I can do hard things!  Don’t get me wrong, sometimes I want a quick and easy quilt to make, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but there’s also value in challenging yourself to try something new or get through something hard.

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Now that this quilt top is done, I’m setting it aside for a while before I finish it.  While the challenge of it was a good exercise in patience, my brain needs a break from it.  Let’s check back on this quilt top in a few months.

Valentina

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Since it’s Valentine’s Day, I think it’s a good day to post a red quilt and name it Valentina!

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I can’t take credit for these blocks.  They were gifted to me from someone whose mother made them probably in the 60s or 70s.  She has since passed, and I was happy to accept them and make them into a quilt.

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I love the blocks, but they had no seam allowance and sewing them together would cut off the points.  I posted about the blocks and the seam allowance issue on Instagram and a follower suggested using red sashing to help hide the red points being cut off.  I loved that idea so that’s what I did.

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In addition to the blocks having no seam allowance, they also weren’t even close to being square.  I didn’t want to trim them and cause more issues.  So, just like people, sometimes you have to accept them and love them for what they are.  And that’s what I did.  I embraced the wonkiness.

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If you look closely, you will see that one of the red fabrics has a little yellow floral print.  I thought I would pull from that and add the yellow squares to the sashing for a little something extra.

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I love this quilt and the best part is how fast it came together.  Amazing how that happens when you don’t actually make the blocks yourself lol.  Stay tuned for the finished version.

Blue Gingham – Finished

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I’m squeezing in one more blog post in January.  This quilt has been finished for a while, but sharing it has been on hold until I gifted it to my brother for Christmas.  Now that the gift has been given, here it is!

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I wanted something simple and classic for my brother, and gingham fits the bill.

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This quilt features Art Gallery’s Pure Solids.  Not only do they feel great, but they also sew and quilt beautifully.

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FYI the colors are Night Sea, Crystalline and Snow.

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For the back, I used Your Heart Serenity from Art Gallery.  When I selected it I did something I don’t normally do, which is choose the fabric backing without first seeing if it matched the front.  It does not match.  The color is slightly different from Pure Solids Crystalline, the color I was hoping to match.  That said, it’s close enough.

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All in all I think it turned out great.

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You really can’t go wrong with a gingham quilt, IMO.  See you next month!

Rafter – Finished

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My first quilt share of 2022!  I had planned on getting this up last week but it was a little busy around here. Coco, my puppy, was spayed last week and it’s been a rough few days taking care of her.  Poor baby.  She has so much energy and is used to getting two walks a day, so having to take it easy with little activity so she can heal has been very difficult for both of us.  She’s on the mend and fingers crossed her cone can come off at the end of the week.

But back to the quilt.

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I think it’s fitting that I share this quilt given that it has Tula Pink Fairy Dust fabric in purple, which also happens to be very similar to the Pantone Color of the Year, Very Peri. Who knew I was on trend when I first made this quilt in 2020!

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Besides the Tula Pink fabric, all of the other fabric in this quilt is scrap fabric.

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As you can see, I put this together in rainbow color order.  I swear by putting random scraps together in color order and then they’ll all work.  Whether you have grass greens, olive greens, or hunter greens, if you group all of your colors together and put them in a rainbow they always seem to look good.

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The back of this quilt is a vintage sheet.

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It was a fitted sheet, and if you’ve ever taken the elastic out of a fitted sheet you know the top and bottom of the sheet is a little misshaped from the elastic.  It wasn’t quite large enough for the quilt so I had to add the pink.  I had a small piece of floral sheet left so I added that but I had to use the pink to make it work.

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That’s a wrap for this quilt and my first blog post of 2022.

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Here’s to a great year ahead and many days of quilting.

Sawtooth Star Christmas Pillows

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Earlier this year someone that I work with gave me a box of random fabric, unfinished quilt blocks, and sewing items that belonged to her mother who passed away years ago.  She thought I might be able to do something with the stuff, and I have!

In that box of goodies was a panel of four embroidered Merry Christmases.

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Kind of random, and I’m not sure exactly what their original intent was, but I had an idea.  I thought I would use them to make into Christmas pillows.

Ta-da!

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I decided to make a Sawtooth Star pattern.  I used an edited version of Diary of a Quilter’s pattern.  I had to adjust it to account for the embroidered “Merry Christmas” part.  She offers 10 different sizes and I did 16” pillows.

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I had two pillow inserts so I made two blocks, both using Heather Ross’ Sugerplum fabric.  I think they turned out really cute.

I quilted batting to both the front of each block and I did attach batting to the back fabric as well. The green pillow got a green back…

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And the pink pillow got a pink back…

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You could add a zipper to these pillows so that the covers are removable, but I didn’t have one so I simply hand-sewed them shut.

So there’s my little holiday pillow project.  I’m sending one of these pillows to the woman who gave me the embroidered Merry Christmases – I thought she would appreciate that since her mother did the embroidery. The other pillow will be a gift for someone else!

I still have two embroidered Merry Christmases left so maybe next year I’ll make two more pillows. Merry Christmas!

Jewel Box – Finished

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Today’s post is a short one, but I wanted to document that I did finish this quilt!

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I talk in more detail about it in my original blog post that you can read about here.  To recap, the blocks in this quilt are all made from scraps.  They come from my large stash of Denyse Schmidt fabric that I’ve hardly made a dent in.

This quilt is very large, which wasn’t my original intent, but I realized I had a great quilt back already – a vintage bed sheet – so I made the top larger to utilize the majority of the vintage sheet.

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I love this sheet.  It has orange and yellow flowers that, with the white background, is a nice contrast to the black front of the quilt.

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You can’t see the quilting in these pictures, but I hand quilted flowers in all of the black squares. I really like how it turned out and it’s kind of a nod to the flowers in the quilt backing.  I’ll have to take a close up picture of the quilting and post it to my Instagram later, so watch for it there.

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That’s a wrap on this quilt. Have a great week, and follow me on Insta for a look at everything I’m working on!

Winter Walk – Finished

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This Winter Walk quilt – named for the Winter Walk fabric by Denyse Schmidt – has quickly become one of my favorites.

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I love the fabric (obviously) and love the block design, which was inspired by a vintage quilt I saw a few years ago.

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The blocks in this quilt were easy to put together, but the sashing was triiicky.  I love the look, but there may have been some choice words muttered while I was putting it together.

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The angles and the position of the blocks with the sashing was challenging, to say the least.  (Please don’t ask me how I did it because I don’t know, LOL.  I was basically winging it and figuring it out as I went.)

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The back of this quilt is a scrappy collection of Denyse Schmidt fabric and a piece of fabric from a vintage bedsheet.  I thought it went well with the Denyse fabric and has the same vibe.

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When I was cutting the fabric for the back, I wasn’t concerned about it being perfect straight.  Same thing when I was sewing the back; I made the seams slightly wavy or at an angle.  I liked the perfectly imperfect look it gives and I think it complements the scrappy, pieced back.

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This quilt has now been moved to the “finished” pile and I think it might find a spot on my couch for this winter.  It’s a lap quilt size and will be perfect.

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Thanks for reading!

Washington Depot – Finished

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I’m squeezing in one last blog post before the end of the month with this finished Washington Depot quilt – made with Denyse Schmidt’s Washington Depot fabric.  I love the quilt, I love the fabric, and I’m pretty fond of the location I took this picture.

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These pictures were actually taken last summer (sometimes I’m slow to post finish projects) at Lake Okoboji when I was visiting my parents.  Lake Okoboji is in Northwest Iowa and is lots of fun in the summer.  I’ve spent many summers on the lake, and I’m hoping to make one last visit to my parents and take an end-of-season boat ride.  We’ll see if that happens.

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But back to the quilt.

In my original blog post about this quilt, I wrote how this block was inspired by a vintage quilt I ran across.  I’m not sure if the block has a name, but it’s pretty easy and a good one to work on slowly, like if you want to do a block a night.

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It’s also a good block for a scrappy quilt.  I obviously didn’t make a scrappy quilt with this one, but I did have to mix in some solids to be able to finish my blocks.  I ran out of Washington Depot fabric but I think it was a happy accident. I like the addition of the solids and think it helps break up the monotony a bit.

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The backing for this quilt is some of my favorite.  At the end of 2020 Joann Fabrics introduced a Friends collection, and as a huge Friends fan of course I had to get some.  It worked perfectly as a quilt back and complemented the Washington Depot Fabric.

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And with that, that’s a wrap for this quilt and for August.

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Fall is my favorite time of year so I’m looking forward to the next few months.  Here’s to crisp air, pumpkin flavored everything, and Fall quilt pics.

This Old House

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Oh hey.  I managed to get a blog post written while taking care of a new puppy.  (Note: If you follow me on Instagram, you will know that I got a puppy two weeks ago.  She’s amazing, but as you can imagine, she demands a huge amount of time right now.)

Anyway, I did take some quilt photos before she arrived so here we go.

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This quilt is all scraps.  I dug deep in my stash and pulled together some very old pieces of fabric I’ve had forever – like 20 years in some cases – along with some newer scraps leftover from the Wildflower quilt, and tried to make something out of all of them.  This quilt leans more traditional – from the fabric to the colors to the pattern – but I kind of like it.  It reminds me of a quilt you would find in an old house.

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The block is so easy and a good way to use scraps.  You can make your blocks as uniform or as scrappy as you like.

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Since this quilt is so scrappy, to add some uniformity and pull it all together, I added the red and mustard yellow sashing between the blocks.  I also added a double border with a narrow strip of red fabric and the red and beige stripe. (It’s hard to see that it’s a stripe in these photos.)  I normally don’t do borders but I thought this quilt could use them.

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Do you see how the red fabric extends into the outer border at the corners?  That’s because I was so short on fabric I needed those extra inches from the red fabric to make it work!  I actually find it pretty satisfying when I can use every last inch of fabric.

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I already know what fabrics I’m going to piece together for the back of this quilt, so this one might come together in the not so distant future.  That is if I can find the time when I’m not chasing my puppy Coco around!

I Like You – Finished

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This quilt is what you could call, more is more.  There’s a lot of color, there’s a lot of pattern, and there’s just a lot going on. But sometimes in life you have to go all-in, and that’s what I did.

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The fabric in this quilt is Heather Ross’s Far Far Away II collection plus some Marcia Derse solids mixed in.

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When I was thinking about how I wanted to use the fabric, I debated sticking with one color scheme or only a handful or fabrics from the collection.  But I wanted to use them all in one place (or quilt) and the result is an explosion of color.

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I think this pattern would also look good with a more subtle or simple color/fabric selection, but the way it is now, it’s so colorful and happy I can’t not like it.

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The back of this quilt is much more toned down than the front.  I used an old – not vintage – but older white bedsheet with purple dots for the back.  It’s a perfect complement to the very busy, action-packed front.

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This quilt is for color-lovers everywhere who don’t hold back.  Cheers!