Ombre Chevron Cutting Recap

A while back, Karen had left a comment asking if I could show how I did the cutting for the ombre chevron quilt I made during Sew Fine Fabric's Sew Along.

Better late than never (where did the first two-thirds of May go?!?!), here it is.

I don't have any of the fabric left to demo on, so I'll show you what I did using the photos I have from the project.

 So you've got your (hopefully less wrinkled than mine) ombre dot fabric, still folded in half, with selvedges together. I cut 6" strips, similar to the orange lines on the photo below. (The actual tutorial calls for 7", but I chose 6" instead.)

Starting by the selvedges, I cut each strip into 6" squares. If you look at the squares in this photo, you'll see there are a lot more with very few dots. That's okay--you'll have some extras if you're going for a look like mine.

Then I sorted the cut squares into three piles:
1. Squares cut from near the selvedges of each strip, which were my "darks" (or very dotted).
2. Squares cut from the middle of each strip, which were my "mediums." If you look in the photo above, my "mediums" came from both the 2nd and 3rd rows.
3. Squares cut from the upper section of each strip, which were my "lights" with very few dots.

Like I mentioned, you'll end up with more of the lights and mediums than darks--it's just the nature of the fabric design. Which is why my finished quilt only has two dark chevron rows and 2.5 each of the light and medium chevron rows.

Karen (and anyone else, I hope that helps!) Let me know if you have additional questions.

Friday Ombre Dot Finish!

My chevron ombre dot quilt from the Sew Fine Fabric Sew-Along is done!

 And I'm really happy with it!

Thank you so much to everyone who left a comment with their thoughts on the quilting. I took Lisa's (and parts of several others') idea of doing the "full" (i.e. straight line quilting every 1/4" - 1/2") quilting on the lightest fabric. And then I went two steps farther. I quilted two evenly spaced lines in the darkest fabric and just one center line in the medium fabric. You can see the detail below.

If I'd wanted to be more orderly, I would have done the two lines in the medium fabric and the single line in the dark fabric, but I thought of that AFTER I'd zigzagged a few rows and I didn't feel strongly enough about it to do some ripping! 

 I really love the how the quilting texture shows up on both front and back here. 

A shot of the front and back. My choices today for photography were glaring sunlight (not going to complain...it's finally getting warm-ish!) or dark shade. Neither ideal, so you get some of each.

And just for fun, the roll shot, so you can really appreciate the orange with the blue. 

I'm linking up with Confessions of a Fabric Addict's Can I get a whoop whoop Friday, Crazy Mom Quilts' Finish it up Friday and the Flickr group for Sew Fine Fabric. 

WIP Wednesday: Zig Zaggin'

I love small quilts! They sew together quickly and you feel so accomplished. I spent some time today assembling my ombre dot quilt to make some progress for WIP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced. 

(I went with the chevon layout--thanks for all the opinions, everyone!)

Then, since went so fast, I started quilting. 

So far I've simply quilted parallel lines 1/2" past the zig zag seams. 

What do you think? Leave it as is, or continue quilting zig zag lines? I'm undecided at the moment.

Love this orange on the back! 

Looking forward to finishing this!

If you want to make one too, check out the Sew Along over at Sew Fine Fabric. 

WIP Wednesday Ombre Dot Chevron Update

At the end of last week, I was in full-on shower prep mode, getting ready for my sister-in-law's baby shower (so fun!), and then switched back to sewing mode yesterday.

I completed all of the HSTs I needed for the Ombre Chevron Sew Along that I blogged about last week. Hooray! That is definitely mindless sewing.

I'll be honest, as I was finishing them up yesterday and started laying them out, I really didn't think the chevron look was going to work with the dots. I put it away and went to bed, figuring I'd try again in the morning.

Fresh day, fresh perspective.

I just needed to be a bit more deliberate in my placement. 

Even so, I tried a couple other lay out options as well.

The angled shade:

 The pinwheel:

I still think I like the chevron best, but I do like the angled shade as well. What do you think?
Next up: Choosing a lay out, assembling the top, and getting ready to quilt it!
You can find out more about the Sew Along, hosted over at Sew Fine Fabric, here.

And I can't resist leaving you with a few photos from the baby shower.

I made the cupcakes--these were the third batch. I just wasn't happy with the flavor/texture of the first two. I'm a bit neurotic, I know. These, and the buttercream frosting (made with 4 sticks of butter!!), were delicious!

Washcloth puppy dogs, inspired by Pinterest, were table decorations

Chocolate-covered oreos decorated as puppy dogs (are you seeing a theme here?) as favors.

Blue punch! Yum!

Probably stating the obvious here, but she's having a boy and the shower's theme was puppy dogs! 

We are so excited to welcome this little one into the family! And yes, there is a quilt in this baby's future. He's due to arrive at the end of April. I'm still hunting for the perfect fabric. I need to find it soon!

Linking up with Freshly Pieced's WIP Wednesday.

WIP Wednesday: Ombre Chevrons!

With my Emerald Challenge quilt done, the only "must-do" I have on my list between now and March 31st is my Lovely Year of Finishes quilt. So when I came across a quick and simple sew along using Sew Caroline's chevron tutorial over at the Sew Fine Fabric blog, I couldn't resist! Making a chevron quilt is continuously on my "someday soon" list. While I don't know that I'll end up using a chevron design for this project, it was enough to attract my attention.

I chose these two fabric combinations as options from Sew Fine Fabric:

Green ombre from V & Co. and a gray/white stripe for backing/binding

Aqua dot ombre from V & Co. and an orange circle print for backing/binding

I love the solid ombre look of the green, but I was also curious how the quilt might look in a dot ombre, so I'm trying the dots first.  So far, I have my squares cut (super easy!)

And sorted into "darks" (lots of dots), "mediums" (some dots) and "light" (few dots)

Just for fun, I positioned some squares into half-square triangles to see how the dots might look. I think it'll work--it'll just be even less contrast than the ombre--but I won't really know until I get started sewing! After my experimentation with my emerald quilt last week, I'm feeling quite daring! :)

Time to get piecing these HSTs so I'm ready for week 3 of the sew along--layout and assembly! 

What do you think? Will the dots work? 

If you want to play along, check out the sew along here. 

p.s. Linking up with WIP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced.