Michelle's Romantic Tangle

This is one of those patterns I saw in a magazine and thought I could do. There was something with plastic templates that I can't quite remember... I think it was a trick to get out of cutting actual triangles. Back then that was appealing, but today I'd just pull out the Easy Angle and skip all of the extra steps and trimming.

I dug into my scrap bags and used all sorts of wild prints for this one. There was more than one moment of panic where I was sure that it wouldn't all pull together.


At 70x82", it's one of the biggest projects I've quilted on my Janome.  The backing was a thrift store sheet, but it was too narrow so I wound up adding strips from the matching pillowcases. The pieced border is from a floral shirt I found in the Goodwill bins and the binding is some extra that a friend of my mom's was throwing away because she'd made way too much for her own quilt.


I doubt that I'd make those same fabric choices today. Or a quilt with patches this large.

Whims and Fancies is hosting a Trunk Full of Quilts blog hop. I'm a bit late to the party, but I couldn't resist showing off some of the quilts that I'm still swooning over, even years after making them...


Nancy's Mysterious Quilt is still my favorite. I've got a tote that I made from the extra fabric and carry it just about every time I leave the house to run errands.


The twin log cabin quilts came to be because I was helping a friend follow the Quilt in a Day log cabin pattern over the phone. She had the book, I had the book, and after looking at the instructions and explaining them to her so many times, I decided I might as well make my own. Except I was going to use 1 1/2" strips and as many different lights and darks as I could find in my stash. On December 7th, I decided that I wanted to make my grandmother a log cabin quilt for Christmas and that I wasn't going to give up my own. I managed to finish both tops and get hers quilted by Christmas Eve. My own top got quilted a couple of years later.


I had so much fun with those log cabin blocks that I made a Courthouse Steps quilt, which got revamped later as Moab or Sedona?


My husband had to work on my 38th birthday, so I pulled out a white sheet, cut a bunch of dark blue scraps and started making myself a quilt. Including the batting, thread, and thrift store sheet I used as backing, I made the whole quilt for less than thirty bucks. Which makes me happy. I know that I can keep quilting even when money is tight.


For Grandma's Donuts, I followed a pattern from an old magazine and made a cereal box template to cut the wedges.


Leif's Snails, which I finished back in 2009. This is one of those rare quilts that I bought brand new coordinating fabric for. Looking at it now, I think it looks hard... but at the time I plunged into the project without even thinking about it. How does that even begin to make sense?

Most of my quilts are scrappy - the more fabrics the better.


For this postage stamp quilt, I cut 2 1/2 squares of every drab and brown fabric in my stash.


For Cheddar Bow Ties I used every fun little print I could find in my scrap bags.

A few years back I realized that I was making more quilts than me and mine could ever use, so I started making baby quilts for a couple of local organizations. It's been the perfect solution. I can play with just about any color combination or pattern that catches my fancy and, if I really truly love it, I can always make a bigger quilt later for myself.


I've got new favorites, but they're not finished yet. The Nail Polish Quilt and my challenging scrap quilts would all be here if  they were finished.

There's a stomach bug in the house, so I kept the kids home from church today and pulled out the quilt I didn't get to work on Saturday night. My tentative deadline for the show and tell quilts turned out to be two weeks off, so I only have three more days left to see how much I can get done.

Earlier this week, I spent a late night transforming the rail fence quilt from 225 loose blocks to an assembled quilt top. It took forever, but the results were worth it.



If I pushed myself over the next three days, I thought I could also have get the log cabin quilt done and ready to show off. Five blocks a day was do-able, even if it didn't sound fun.

So this morning I plugged in the sewing machine and the iron and lost myself in the whir of the sewing machine and the zip of the rotary cutter and the growing combinations of narrow scraps. By dinner time, I had finished all of the blocks I needed for the entire quilt. And a couple more, because I've decided to make another one just like it for a Christmas gift.



I wish I could do that every time I quilt, losing track of how many pieces I've put together already and how many more there are to go and how many more hours that's going to take.... It felt so good to just sew. Now and then I'd break to play with the kids, or fix a snack, or refill my diet Coke, and I'd realize I was well past my goal for the day. Then I'd decide to do a few more strips. It was fun. I may do more later, after the kids are in bed.

I absolutely can't wait until April to quilt this on the longarm. I'm not sure I have the nerve to try freemotion quilting it on my machine, but I've got such a perfect image of the quilting design I want to use, and I know the perfect backing is out there somewhere. I've just got to do some shopping.