Quilt ADD in therapy

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Colorado, United States
Other than my family, the passion of my life is quilting. An eclectic, I love a wide variety of styles and techniques encompassing both machine and hand work. I am a longarm quilter who can work for you. I enjoy any style, from pantographs to all-over to full custom, ranging from traditional to modern. I love bringing vintage tops to life and am willing to work with a challenging quilt top. Instagram: lyncc_quilts

Sunday, November 25, 2012

2012 Christmas Quilt Show - Scoot, Santa!


I love these virtual quilt shows! Thank you to Michele at Quilting Tutorials for hosting the 2012 Christmas Quilt Show.
The link-up is open until Nov. 30, so if you have a Christmas or Winter quilt to share, why not join in?  :D



 I'm super excited that I finished "Scoot, Santa!" in time to share it.




Making this quilt was a special treat from pre-conception to finish. It was a naughty thing to do, because I'm supposed to be strictly working on UFOs. But I was shopping on Etsy one day for a sweater for our Siamese and when I saw the Santa on scooter fabric, I just about died. You see, everything "scooter" makes me think of my aunt with a big smile. So there was no way I could pass up that yard of fabric, and this became my November NewFO.




So, I gave myself hard-fast rules:  1. It *had* to be sewn into a quilt in time for this year's Christmas; 2. I had to use *only* other fabrics from my stash; 3. I must break a quilting rule - if I was going to be naughty, I needed to get my "rebel" on in full!



Two weeks ago I came up with a concept, and had a most successful dig through the stash.  The execution went off without much of a hitch - I just had a momentary pause when I saw my original road strips laid out and hated how overpowering they were. After sleeping on it, I realized I just needed to trim back the yellow. I couldn't bear to let go of the roads - Santa needed them. Plus, the shape was reminiscent of Santa's buckle.




The broken rule? You see how I put the background greens on the diagonal? Well, I didn't feel like piecing strips to make them long enough, and I sure didn't feel like cutting wide strips on the bias, so I cut them long-wise on grain and sewed them so that the edges of the quilt were all bias. This would really upset some of my older-generation quilt mentors, as it poses several potential problems - stretching as the quilt is pulled on, warping as you're working on it. . .  But I figured it was a smaller lap quilt, so I'd give it a whirl. This is only 48" x 54".




Because of all that bias, I used a ton of pins to baste it - spacing within 3 inches.




For the most part, I did horizontal lines about an inch apart, using my walking foot. Between all those pins, the good amount of quilting, and a heavier-than-usual backing of fine-wale corduroy, I had no problems at all with rippling, and it is very sturdy! 3 strands of gray floss worked perfectly for the hand-quilted  lane lines.




*Love* that backing. It's a gorgeous claret red. Nice and heavy/comfy for a New England or Colorado-mountain home.



The Santas were placed so that their scooters were on the level of the roads, and I did a simple free-motion meander with loops and snowflakes (yes, it was a tad challenging with that corduroy).



And I even had the perfect gold-on-black fabric for the binding~!  I succeeded in all three rules - everything I needed for this project came from stash - all support fabrics, the backing, the batting, and even all the threads.

The best part of all: There was enough of everything to make a twin so we can keep one here in Colorado~! I only needed to splice some batting together.  :D




So now that you've let me share my "Scoot, Santa" before it flies away to its new home, why not go on over to the Christmas Quilt Show and take a look at the many other wonderful projects people are sharing?  :D

~*~*~*~

I'm also linking this up as my finish report for this week's Friday and this month's NewFO:


Thanks to these great hosts for superb inspirational link-ups! You should check these places out for more cool projects folks have finished. :D

*
Link A Finish Friday at Richard's
*

NewFO2012

47 comments:

  1. How creative! This s the second quilt I've seen with corduroy backing. I'd love to see it in person.

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  2. I wouldn't have thought of using corduroy. Very nice.

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  3. You ended up with a great looking quilt there! and love the quilting you did on it.

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  4. Love the quilt AND your story, thanks for sharing!

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  5. The yellow is effective - love how the inset blocks look like Christmas windows! I never thought of using corduroy - interest. I wonder once you wash it - will the different weight on the back than the front make a difference.

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  6. Love this and how fun you made yourself one! That fabric is absolutely too cute. Happy memories of being on the back of my big brother's scooter! Thanks for sharing and have a great day

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  7. I have a closet full of quilts I made that I couldn't give away. I like the idea of making a twin quilt to send away. Good job with the Designing. The story makes it even better.

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  8. Such fun fabric - great find! Love how you quilted it to keep the feeling of the 'road'.

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  9. Very creative design. And I'm going to shamelessly steal your idea of using red corduroy...

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  10. Good for you for accomplishing your own challenge. I love that scooter fabric and the binding fabric is perfect.

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  11. Such a great quilt, love love the scooters! Great job with the quilting!

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  12. que bella quilt¡¡¡ diferente a las quilts navideñas que siempre veo. me encantaron las telas del scooter, muy modernas. I simply love your christmas quilt¡¡¡¡

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  13. Your scoot is precious! I'm sure the recipients will get a lot of mileage out of it, lol. Sorry coulfn't resist. Jane

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  14. That scooter fabric is wonderful and I love the way you used it. The quilt is fun and the quilting looks perfect. Thanks.

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  15. What a wonderful quilt! I love the Santa on a Scooter and that you've made him roads to drive on! They say 'rules are made to be broken'... :)

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  16. Love that fabric - I've never seen it before. Thanks for sharing your process :)

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  17. I too love the fabric...such a fun quilt!

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  18. I loved what you did with this. I own one of the green fabrics too, but haven't done anything with it as yet.

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  19. Yay! for breaking the rules Lynn. Fabulous quilts.

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  20. Scoot Santa is adorable...well done!

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  21. Great finish! Saw you over at the 2012 show

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  22. What fun fabric. I like the way you have used it in your quilt. It looks great.

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  23. LOVE that scooter fabric. It looks wonderful.

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  24. Lovin the scooter fabric! So fun!

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  25. How cute is that? You are so creative.

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  26. I don't pay much attention to bias unless it's really cheap (thin) fabric. I just try to be careful when smoothing or stretching. Thanks for sharing! Now go back to those UFOs :)

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  27. Wow, your Scoot Santa quilt is awesome. Great design!

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  28. I love your creative quilt! And, I'm a new follower because I've got my hands full dealing with my own UFO collection. ;-D

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  29. Whoop whoop!! What a fabulous quilt - and how lucky that it has a twin!!!

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  30. Great quilt and really neat fabric , great job !,

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  31. LOVE THIS-SO CREATIVE!

    msstitcher1948@yahoo.com

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  32. Ooh, that scooter fabric is awesome! Well done on combining it with your stash, Lynette!

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  33. Great quilt. What an interesting and fun back.

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  34. Great quilt. I love your original design. When you allow yoourself only to work from stash it is OK to occasionaly buy something if you are going to go home and use it right away to make and finish something. That's my rule anyway.

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  35. What a Hoot! Love the backing too!

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  36. very nice,well done.xx

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  37. How fun! Love the scooter fabric, and your execution of it makes perfect sense to me. Very nicely done!

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  38. I love what you did with this! I have some of this fabric and I have made a quilt top using the Santas and his helpers as the center pieces on a Double Irish Chain quilt. I haven't photographed it yet, but if I get it quilted before Christmas I will definitely blog about it.

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