Uncategorized – Finley Fabric

Paper Sun Quilt Pattern

The Paper Sun quilt pattern is now available, you can purchase it in my Etsy shop here!!

The pattern comes in five different sizes and is a fun and versatile design. The pattern calls for four fabrics plus a background, it looks great in solids or prints!

This version is made from Pure Solids by Art Gallery Fabrics, the colors used were Dried Roses, Blossomed, Spruce, Parisian Blue, and Linen White. The quilting was completed by Jamie at Quilt Drop, LLC using the Feathered Unfurled quilting design.

I also made a baby quilt using some scraps of Cotton + Steel and Birch Fabrics that I had in my stash, I just love the soft look of this one.

I also had an incredible group of pattern testers on this quilt, all of their quilts are beautiful, and they chose great fabrics.

Sue @SueViny has me dreaming of summer and warmer weather, it looks like she wrapped up the sun in her quilt!

Justine @greatheronhandmade used Ruby Star Society and made this incredible baby quilt, I absolutely love the pink and orange together!!

Michelle @mlsmith325 used green and greys (and accidentally made a Seattle Seahawks quilt) for this stunning version. She also not only made the quilt top, but quilted and bound it in less than two weeks!!

Courtney @Courtcrafts82 used the Scarlet and Sage collection to make this red and green version for a Christmas present, she also used minky on the back to make it super snuggly!

Nadia @Sleepylittledarlings made a scrappy Christmas version using the Winterberry fabric line, this looks like another snuggly one!

Gwen @Gosewing81 made this adorable baby quilt and used an animal print as the background fabric, I’m sure this one will be loved for a long time!

Sue @susanquiltinator used Rifle Paper fabric and it’s so beautiful, I can’t wait to see this one all quilted up!

Ashley @oeiboymomquilts quilt is stunning with different shades of green, her color placement is spot on!

Jamie @quiltdrop used a dark blue fabric for her background and it’s fabulous. I’m looking forward to seeing what quilting design she chooses, she always comes up with the perfect one.

Jennifer @jenn_tries_to_quilt made this baby version, those shades of blue and purple are the perfect color combination!

Tracey @ttabes80 made another gorgeous quilt and the pops of orange look so good, I love it!

I am so thankful for all of these amazing pattern tester, they did an amazing job and I couldn’t have done it without them!

Sweet Leaf Quilt – Pattern Release

I’m so excited to release my latest pattern – The Sweet Leaf Quilt! You can find the pattern in my Finely Fabric Etsy Shop.

I used Kona Cotton solids by Robert Kaufman, the colors used are Paprika, Terra Cotta, Baby Pink, Ice Frappe, Blue, Prairie Sky, Malibu, and White. The quilting was completed by Jamie at Quilt Drop, LLC using the Baptist Fans quilting design.

The Sweet Leaf quilt comes in five different sizes and two different layouts – it can be made scrappy or into a rainbow version using seven different colors.

I used the Fruity fabric line by Maja Faber for Paintbrush Studios. The quilting was completed by Jamie at Quilt Drop, LLC using the Dew Drops quilting design by Patricia E. Ritter.

The scrappy version is precut friendly – the baby and throw size can be made with fat quarters and the large throw can be made with a layer cake! I love using precuts for quilts because you can get a lot of different prints that all coordinate with each other.

This quilt pattern wouldn’t be what it is without the help of my amazing pattern testers. Below are the quilts that they made, I love how different each one looks!!

Ashley @oeiboymomquilts made this gorgeous quilt using the Alma line from Ruby Star Society, she even has two more versions in the works!

Nadia @Sleepylittledarlings made this stunning version, blue and whites are always a winner!

Angela @spicyredhead is all ready for the holiday with this cute Christmas version, just look at the polka dot sashing!

Gwen @gosewing81 used a black background with green batiks which makes for an absolutely amazing quilt top!

Anne @batiksbythebay also used black sashing with blue batiks and it looks just like stained glass, I can’t stop staring at it.

Lisa @ljbulas made a beautiful rainbow version using one of my favorite fabric lines, Redux by Giucy Giuce.

Jamie @quiltdrop is a super quilter. She has already quilted and bound her quilt top, and she also quilted all three of my quilts.

Julie @jwestin1959 also made a super festive Christmas quilt, her fabric is so much fun!

Tracey @ttabes80 made the cutest Sweet Leaf quilt, her fabric selection has eyelashes, lipstick, and stripes!

Sue @suehamilton7 is super speedy and has her quilt all quilted and bound, and she did those amazing waves all with her walking foot!

Jen @jenn_tries _to_quilt used a dark sashing and it looks so good, I just love a quilt in the snow picture!

Sue @quiltsue_ was the first one to complete a finished top, and then she made another rainbow one. I love both of her versions!!

Sue @Susnquiltinator took on the biggest challenge and made a King sized quilt, she used Alma fabric by Ruby Star Society and the dark backing looks so good.

Denise @dmking52512 created a super fun layout on her version, those oranges really pop!

Petra @craftyquiltymom made an adorable and bright baby quilt!

Lindsey @quiltschmidt used a peachy background color and it looks dreamy!

Looking Glass Quilt Pattern Release

I’m so excited to release my first quilt pattern – The Looking Glass Quilt! You can find the pattern in my Finley Fabric Etsy Shop.

The Looking Glass quilt can be made with a layer cake, fat eighth bundle, or fat quarter bundle. I love using precuts for quilts because you can get a lot of different prints that all coordinate with each other. When I was designing the quilt I wanted something specifically for fat eighths. Though they can sometimes be difficult to use they are one of my favorite precut sizes. After making my first Looking Glass quilt I then realized that I could easily use 10” squares and have even more of a color variation within the blocks.

This quilt is also beginner friendly, it is made up of one block using three different prints each. The blocks are laid out to have a mirrored window effect. The quilt pattern has several diagrams to help you piece and layout the blocks properly.

The Looking Glass quilt comes in SIX different sizes!! The quilt pattern includes the following sizes: crib, lap, throw, large throw, twin and queen.

I used a fat eighth bundle of Kate Spain’s Longitude Batiks collection for the quilt with the white background. The background fabric is Kona Cotton in Snow. The quilting was completed by Emilee Hathaway @emileehathaway.

I used a layer cake of Alison Glass’s Diving Board collection for the quilt with the black background. The background fabric is Grunge in Iron by BasicGrey for Moda Fabrics. The quilting was completed by Sew Let’s Quilt It in Dallas, TX.

Polaroid Quilt

My Polariod quilt top is done and it was such a fun finish!!

I joined the Polaroid Greeting Swap 3 this summer, hosted by Johanna Weidner on Instagram, and received a lot of great blocks. This was the third time that she’s hosted the Polaroid Greeting Swap but it was my first time participating.

The swap divided everyone into teams of 12 and you were responsible for making two Polariod blocks for each of your team members, a lot of people were nice enough to send a few extras also. I received some wonderful fussy cut blocks and was also lucky enough to join several side swaps with people on other teams! I made a lot of extra blocks to keep for myself and when the swap was done I ended up with about 90 Polaroids total.

In order to make the fussy cutting a little easier I made myself a template out of stock paper. I cut a 2.5” square and then cut out the center leaving a quarter-inch frame. I was able to place this on my fabric before I cut it to make sure that each print was centered. Once I had the template where I wanted, I laid my ruler on top and cut the 2.5 inch square.

I knew I wanted to make a quilt with all of my blocks and I loved the shadow effect I’ve seen on other projects. Johanna has a blog post for how to make the Polaroid blocks and also how to add the shading effect. http://polaroidgreetingswap.blogspot.com/.

I decided that Grunge by Moda would make a good background fabric, I wanted something bright but simple that would also match all the different colors in the blocks. I ended up choosing the Grunge Basics New Cabana as the color.

After playing with a few possible layouts I decided to make simple square blocks with the Polaroids angled in different directions, I wanted it to resemble a messy photo album. For each block I cut 2 background strips measuring 2.5” x 3.5” for the sides and 2 strips measuring 2.5” x 7″ for the top and bottom. I used a little over 4 yards in order to make the border on 110 blocks (I ended making even more blocks after the swap so I could get the quilt to have a layout of 10 x 11).

Once I had the borders sewn on I divided the blocks into 3 even stacks. I then cut down all of the finished blocks to 6.5” squares with one stack angled to the left, one angled to the right, and one stack centered. I didn’t measure the “centered” blocks perfectly, some still had a slight angle one way or the other and some had thicker borders on one side, I didn’t want it be too symmetrical.

When I had all of the blocks cut down to 6.5” squares I started sewing blocks together randomly, I only had a few duplicate or similar prints so it was pretty easy to sew without planning! I ended up with 10 blocks per row, and 11 rows total.

I found the perfect fabric for the backing – black and white vintage cameras!! I love this backing so much since it fits the theme but helps neutralize all of the different colors on the front.

I can’t wait for the quilting to be completed, this has probably been the most fun quilt I’ve made yet!! I really hope there is another swap next year, I’d love to participate again!

Baby Quilts…Part One!

Hey Everyone! It’s been awhile since my last post. My husband and I have taken a few small trips this spring and we all know the backlog that creates when returning back to real life. But for the first time in years I don’t have to count a baby quilt as one of those pending items!

Over the last ten years I can’t remember a time when there wasn’t at least one baby quilt in progress, often times more. Unfortunately, I don’t have pictures of some of the earlier ones but I’m getting better at documenting my quilts.

The first of many baby quilts that I made was in 2009 for my sister-in-law’s first child. This is one of the few baby quilts that was actually a “baby” size. I used the Hanky Panky pattern by Darlene Zimmerman and Rachel Shelburne and my mother-in-law picked out the fabric. Both my SIL and her husband met at Texas A&M so the corner stones of this quilt has the Aggie logo.

For her second son she helped design the pattern and also asked for a larger quilt that he could continue to use as he got older. This was the start of making lap-size and larger baby quilts and I’ve made the larger quilts for almost everyone since. This was the first quilt that I ever appliqued and I naively chose the argyle print for the lettering. I love the pattern and fabric but the appliqued block was definitely a learning process for me.

In 2013 I made a quilt for my best friend using the Lucky Square pattern by Sew Crafty Jess. She and her husband are big travelers and were engaged at Versailles, I used a map of Paris on the back and color patterns to match the baby room on the front. It’s a fun and colorful quilt.

The quilt for my sister-in-law’s third son was really enjoyable to make. The pattern was quick and easy and I used a lot of bright colors, some were from my stash and others were random fat quarters that I picked up at my local quilt shop. The quilt pattern is Off Track by Cluck Cluck Sew and measures at 58” x 63”. I also used a fun backing material on this one, it is a Viking’s travel map from Timeless Treasure.

In 2016 I finally had the opportunity to make a baby girl quilt and had a lot of fun picking out the fabric. My SIL found this adorable deer fabric from Hawthorne Threads and chose the Hopscotch pattern from Thimble Blossoms. This quilt turned out to be one of my favorite quilts I’ve made; the pattern is stunning and the fabric line is gorgeous. This was also the second quilt that I’ve ever taken to a long-arm quilter and have never looked back. The basting and quilting process has always been a chore for me and I love that I can just drop a quilt off and have beautiful patterns quilted. For this quilt I chose a quilt pattern that had ladybugs, dragonflies, and flowers.

2017 was a really busy year with four baby quilts made, I’ll save those for Part Two!!

Christmas Pillows

I’m so excited that I finally finished my Christmas pillows this year! Every year I have big plans to decorate and make things for the holiday but I always run out of time.

I started these pillows last year with the remnants of two jelly rolls that I had, Robert Kaufman’s Holiday Flourish Silver and Winter’s Grandeur 3. Since I like for everything to match I wanted to make similar patterns from each fabric line and needed some simple patterns that I could make with the 2 ½” strips. I decided to make two pillows from each fabric set, one using a Dresden Plate pattern and the other with squares creating a patchwork pillow.

The Winter’s Grandeur pillows came together easily, that jelly roll had a lot of colors and prints and I also had the majority of the roll leftover. For the patchwork pillow I cut 64 – 2 ½” squares and just started chain piecing them in a random fashion, I made eight strips with 8 squares each. Once the pillow top was sewn together I decided to quilt the pillow using my standard grid quilting.

I always use a thin, cheap muslin for the back of my quilted pillow tops. Since it will be on the inside of the pillow and never seen I don’t want to use any of the good stuff! To make the grid quilting pattern I just line my walking foot up with the seam of each strip and sew a straight line, you could always sew with a curved stich or a zigzag to add some variation to the pillow. I find this method to be a quick and easy way to quilt.

I’ve always loved the Dresden Plate quick block but had never made one before. I have the Easy Dresden Tool by Darlene Zimmerman and just followed the directions from the ruler. I took ten different prints from the jelly roll and made two wedges from each print. Since I have a need for everything to be symmetrical I laid these out in the same pattern before I started sewing them together. Luckily, I was able to find a red and gold print fabric from my stash that was big enough to use as the middle circle!

The silver Holiday Flourish material was a little harder for me to figure out. I only had about half the jelly roll left and there wasn’t as much variation in the colors and prints. I decided a scrappy patchwork may not work since there were so many silver and white prints so I decided to use a Bargello pattern and alternate the silver and white with every other strip. I also quilted it using the same grid method. I really liked the way this one turned out.

When I made the Dresden Plate from this fabric I had the same issue, you need twenty wedges but the math didn’t seem to work with only three main colors – silver, red, and black. I didn’t have much of the black material left so decided to just go with red and silver for this one, alternating every other piece. I also had a cute red and silver print in my stash and was able to fussy cut a star to be the center print. I didn’t quilt either of the Dresden Plates since the straight line method wouldn’t have worked and I’m not very good at free motion – I need a lot more practice in that area!

I actually had a hard time deciding on the background material for this pillow, it was between the black and silver print.

I really liked the black print since it made the block stand out more but was worried it wasn’t very festive. The silver definitely has more of a Christmas feel to it but I thought it blended the block too much. I ended up posting a poll on Instagram, it was a close call but the silver won by 2 votes. In the end I was glad I chose the silver since it fits in better with the gold background on the other pillow. Thanks for everyone that voted, I really appreciate the input!

I finished all four pillows with a simple envelope backing and standard binding. I’m absolutely in love with all of them and have them displayed on my entry table. I’m glad that I finally finished a Christmas project with enough time to enjoy them before the holiday!

The Finley Quilt

When I first signed up for Instagram I had a tough time thinking of a good name, I wanted something clever but didn’t want to use my own name. Turns out I couldn’t think of anything clever so I decided to go with the old standby and used my dog’s name, Finley.

I adopted Finley in 2004 from Operation Kindness. I wasn’t sure if I really wanted a dog at that time since I had a small apartment and worked a lot. My sister and I were walking around the kennels when she noticed this little white fluffball shivering in the back of his cage, he was the only one not barking and trying to get our attention. As soon as we took him out I realized that he was the one! The best guess at the time was that he was about 1 ½ years old and a Bichon/Maltese mix. That means the youngest he could possibly be now is ~14 years old! 🙁

Finley is a very spoiled dog – he gets homemade dog food, has his own stairs so he can jump on the bed, and even has his own quilt. He goes to the groomer every five weeks and they send him home with a different seasonal bandana around his neck. I started saving all his bandanas and made 42 nine patch quilt blocks. Since the bandanas had a wide array of colors and themes I used a grey sashing to separate the blocks.

I also decided to try applique for the first time and added his name to the top of the quilt. I knew this quilt would be washed a lot and wanted to see how a rough edge applique would hold up over the years. The quilt is almost ten years old now and it still looks ok, there are a few loose threads but I like the overall look. The quilt currently lays by the window in the sewing room. He will usually nap on it and look out the window but he also likes to ‘help’ when I’m in the middle of piecing or arranging a layout.

Before I figured out how to design the quilt top I had started buying random dog prints and ended up using that for the backing of the quilt, it is a pieced top with paw prints, bones, and dogs on it. I had never used a pieced backing before and wanted it to be as symmetrical as possible, I put the dog print in the middle and then alternated the paw prints and bones in the corners of the quilt.

When it comes to quilting I can only do straight lines (that is, until I get a long arm…some day!) I used my walking foot and lined the edge of the foot up with the seams of the nine-patches. The pattern created a nice grid quilting which I continued into the borders. Since this was my first time appliquéing I wasn’t sure if I could quilt over his name or not, I ended up using the walking foot to quilt around the letters. I still don’t know if you can quilt over applique, I’ve only done it a few times since and haven’t completed those quilts. Anyone have some advice for quilting an applique quilt?

In the end, I really love how Finley’s quilt turned out! I think Finley likes it too but he usually ends up trying to get in the middle of my current project instead of using the nice quilt I made especially for him!