Carlene Foster's Gallery : Fussy Cuts

Sampling sampler quilts completed

Carlene Foster — Sun, 10 Feb 2013 23:04:25 GMT

This is how I finished the blocks into a completed quilt top. You would think I shouls be finished with these fabrics by now, right? I found another 4 yards of the wild rose in the house after I had ordered 3 more yards (that brought the total to 15 yards purchased outside the original finishing set for the original wildflower rose BOM. And, I find myself with a bunch of the other fabrics left as well. Might be a lap quilt or more left in this batch....we are beyond bonus. Now we are into the "challenge phase" of how to use up this fabric.

Table runner

Carlene Foster — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 19:04:30 GMT

A few scraps, a simple pattern.......a table runner. This was an easy project, and I'm saving the pattern for later use. Quilter's World ran the pattern in the February 2011 mag under the title "White Fare Table Runner and Place Mats". From concept through quilting, this project takes less than half a day. I absolutely love it!

Modern Christmas table runner

Carlene Foster — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 18:56:04 GMT

A few scraps, a simple pattern.....you have a table runner for the holidays. This was totally a "leftover" project, which used up every useable inch of this fabric that was leftover from 2 other planned table runners.

Antebellum Ladies

Carlene Foster — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 12:22:09 GMT

What do you do with those preprinted panels that call to you from the fabric store? There were 12 ladies on a sheet, the challenge was what to do with them. 9 patch blocks on fabrics coordinating with the ladies dresses, wide rick rack to mimick the rick rack surrounding each of the ladies on the panel, and a lot of microstippling.

Classmate

Carlene Foster — Sun, 02 Dec 2012 16:14:22 GMT

The quilt shop owner uses me to do some of her display/samples at different times. This was the last project she gave me, right before Thanksgiving. I have made a total of 3 of them so far, in different colorways and finishes. I used polytex fuseable stiffener on the inner lining piece and a piece of fusible fleece on the outer piece, while the pattern calls for Soft and Stable. If I were going to use this as a carrier for an electronic device (finishes at 7 x 12), I would use the Soft and Stable. However, I don't own any of those e-readers or Ipads to worry about that kind of protection. The pattern calls for 1/2 yard of print, 1/2 yard of lining and 1/2 yard of contrast. The contrast could be done with a fat quarter if you make your binding strips 2 inches instead of 2 1/2. If you want the pattern, it is called "Classmate" and it can be obtained from atkinsondesigns.com.

Let it Snow!

Carlene Foster — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 23:01:40 GMT

Coordinating batiks make for a quick quilt.

Bellingham

Carlene Foster — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 14:07:37 GMT

The center of this quilt is from a pattern produced by ToadUSew, called Bellingham. It was a nice lap quilt, but I needed a queen size version for my parents. So, I added another border with the 4 corner star blocks made from the same fabric and added another layer of radiating arms. Then, I framed the entire thing in more of the cream colored fabric. I just love the little gold details in Robert Kaufmann's fabric line, so this was a "Have to" quilt for me. It is quilted by using a preprinted Benartex backing, most commonly referenced as "Easy Line".

Kolidescope

Carlene Foster — Sat, 10 Nov 2012 13:58:37 GMT

Sometimes, ya just gotta do one of these. This one reminded me of the old stained glass wndows. Fun, fast and it looks a lot more complicated than it really was.

Sophia: Jinny Beyer kit

Carlene Foster — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 19:46:03 GMT

I bought this on one of Fons and Porters' kit sales. The picture online was nice, but the actual fabrics were striking. This is the Sophia design, done in the topaz colorway. This will be a favorite for a long time.

Pentagon prototype

Carlene Foster — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 18:23:27 GMT

This wasn't a pattern, per se. The stars were made with a specialty ruler called "Jewel Box Gems 5 and 10". I had bought the wide border fabric a few years ago at Hancocks when it was on sale (of course), so there was no chance of getting more. I had enough of the wide border fabric to fussy cut the spokes on the stars, and then found out there was enough left to do a border around the outside. The pink fabric around the stars was the only piece I had leftover from another series of fabrics, also not a current line. It was my limiting factor, as there was only enough of it to do 6 of these pentagon shaped medallions. The blue......controversial choice, but I was tired of the muted colors and didn't have a green that would match the swirls in the border fabric, so I went with the turquoise. The connecting wedges......eek.... I didn't have any more of the pink fabric and I didn't have anything that would match any of the rest except the turquoise, which I had already had some resistance to. So, I went to the quilt shop, took the pieces, explained what I wanted to do. The owner majored in engineering when she was in college, so she figured out the angles for me and we picked the dark pink fabric from her inventory. It took me about 4 months to get the courage to decide to complete this endeavor. My first task was to find my Squedge ruler, which is the 18 degree one, because I needed a 36 degree angle. Freezer paper template was made, I was in business. Lucky for me, there was enough of the dark pink to bind the quilt when it was done, too. That is how this quilt came to be. All because I wanted to (1) use up some fabric that was already in my stash and (2) to finally use one of those specialty rulers that I "just had to have". This is the first quilt I have hand quilted in a few years now. Pentagon.....probably would fit a double bed, but I'm thinking it would drape better off a single bed. I could see this pattern done with red stars, white insets and an entirely navy blue background, blending the wedges into the background pieces.

Deb's Flower Garden

Carlene Foster — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 15:07:07 GMT

This was a kit quilt that I absolutely had to have. Each of the red flower petals is a different fabric. The fabric itself had a lot of depth to it, so I kind of thought this was just a bit of overkill. I liked the use of the split border fabric. I guess I could say that the way the stem greenery was constructed reminded me of a Pam Bono design. I was glad when I finally just powered through to finish this one, as I got distracted away from the tedium after I had most of the cutting and individual components completed. This is a pattern that I am not thinking of returning to for quite some time.

New twist on an old design

Carlene Foster — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 14:28:19 GMT

I saw this pattern in a quilting magazine (I'm thinking Quilters World), made up in country blues and paisley and flowers. I liked the pattern, but didn't have all of those wonderful fabrics to work with. I used a retro 70's hippy flower power kind of fabric to fussy cut the large and small flowers, then a variety of red/black prints that I had purchased in a bundle at Hancock's. When my older son saw the flowers on the design wall with the black sashing, he was determined that the finished product would be his. He thought the reds/blacks had an oriental feel, so that was his calling. :) Another son who sleeps in Mom's hug all night long. :)

Timeless Treasures Tonga Batik

Carlene Foster — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 14:16:51 GMT

This was a BOM project that only lasted 9 months. When I brought home the fabric for the first block, my younger son said......hmmmmmmmmmmmm, I kind of like that. So, I took him to the quilt shop to see the finished product and he calimed the whole project as his. The finishing kit on ths quilt consists of 200 flying geese blocks. If any of you are familiar with Timeless Treasures, the method is to over-size the blocks and then trim them all to the correct size after they are sewn. What this meant was handling 200 flying geese 3 times each before they went into the quilt itself. I think the journey was worth the trip every time I see my son wrapped up in his "super hug" from Mom. :)

Giant Dahlia Quilt in Christmas fabrics

Carlene Foster — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 14:34:38 GMT

On Thanksgiving morning, before the turkey went in the oven and the other cooking/cleaning chores of the day began, I got this "bug" about my Christmas fabric that was just waiting for me to do something with it. By the end of the day, I had all of the main splines made and about 1/4 of them put together. By the end of the weekend, the dahlia was complete and the first border was in place. Then, I realized why I don't see many of these around anymore....that outer border is a bear! It took more time to cut and sew the outer border than the entire dahlia piece.....Here it is, with the outer border attached. Just need one more border to call it "complete"....something cheery and festive to square it into something I can quilt and bind.