blog : carolyn friedlander

Meet, Kept–my newest fabric collection.

By carolyn friedlander on October 23, 2020 in fabric, Featured on Home, loving, my patterns, patterns | Comments: 18

Meet kept–my newest fabric collection for Robert Kaufman.

I have a new fabric collection, and it is called Kept. This is a small, 12-piece group that has a mellow feel and the ability to go with the flow.

The designs themselves are inspired by collections of things that I have kept. These are things like shapes found in studio stuff, patterns I come across in my daily life and design ideas that roll around in my head. The mix of textures and shape goes from hand drawn and linear to bold and geometric.

kept fabric and kept coordinates . carolyn friedlander

As is usual with a new collection comes a brand-new group of coordinates to go along with it. I love bringing in coordinates that can broaden the character and expand on the possibilities of any collection. These can go alongside Kept or inspire a starting point all their own.

kept fabric and coordinates . carolyn friedlander

I’ve made a variety of projects using my Kept collection and the coordinates to celebrate just some of the creative possibilities. I don’t know about you, but while spending so much time at home during a challenging year I’ve found great comfort in sewing and all of the levels of creativity that it offers. From embracing color, to working with different fabrics, to indulging in projects big and small, practical and comforting–sewing is a very good thing for us to embrace right now.

kept fabric projects . carolyn friedlander

I’ll be sharing more about each of the projects in the coming weeks. If you’d like to see an overview of all of them now, check out this new video that I put together. And let me know what you think!

I made most of the projects above with the big exception of the AMAZING quilted coat and tote. They were made by Brittney Frey (using the Sapporo Coat pattern and Sylvie Tote pattern), and they are just dreamy.

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Colorful Quilts for my Niece

By carolyn friedlander on October 9, 2020 in fabric, weekend projects | Comments: 19

This summer I made a couple of colorful quilts for my niece. It was a treat for both of us.

Colorful Quilts for my niece . carolyn friedlander

To start, I picked up a couple of adorable mini charm packs from Bunny’s at QuiltCon back in February. (That feels like a million years ago!) Together the packs make up a full rainbow of color, and I knew at the time they’d be perfect for her–and me. I love all of the cute Japanese prints and the range of color feels so happy too.

Quilt Tops

To me, one mini quilt wasn’t enough, and so I made matching quilts–a big one for her and the mini for her dolls. I made the mini first from the 2 mini charm packs from Bunny’s with 2 1/2″ squares added in from my stash (my 2 1/2″ square stash!). It’s a simple, checkerboard layout with the stash pieces going between the Japanese prints. The lighter colors set them off nicely.

For the big quilt, I wanted a similar-but-larger match, and so I sized up by using 5″ squares. Unfortunately I didn’t have a perfect rainbow pre-cut pack to work with, but I created my own by diving into my stash. I sought out colorful prints with clever motifs that I hoped she’d enjoy discovering and perusing over time. There’s nothing better than an i-spy quilt, and I definitely had a great time revisiting all of these lovely fabrics.

Like in the mini version, I alternated in with some of my own lighter prints–mostly repurposed from my scrap piles.

Sewing

There’s nothing better than sewing through a stack of color, plus it was fun seeing all of the great prints as I sewed. I pressed all of the seams open, with a seam wheel first, and then with the iron. I think this makes things much easier.

Quilting!

Hand quilting has been my personal vacation/spa treatment/zen in recent months. I’ve really been loving it. For these quilts I wanted to hand quilt them to make them super soft, but also to use a colorful array of thick threads to stand out.

I changed my thread colors often to mimic the color changes across the quilt. The effect is really nice.

I didn’t mark these quilts, and so the lines are more freeform. I stitched from corner to corner, with some definite wobble here and there, but I like the personal touch.

Label

As I mentioned recently, I’ve been trying to be better with adding labels to my quilts. It was pretty easy to do here, because I had an extra square from the big quilt. I re-purposed it for the label, and then made a matching mini for the other quilt.

My niece loves her quilts, which of course makes me very happy.

Pattern: None–just 5″ squares for the big quilt, 2 1/2″ squares for the little quilt.

Fabrics: Mini quilt is made from 2 mini charm packs from Bunnys (I don’t see a listing, but you can probably ask via email) plus my own fabric. Larger quilt is made from my stash with fabrics by Melody Miller, Alexia Abegg, Rifle, Aneela Hoey, UPPERCASE, Denyse Schmidt, Jeni Baker, Charley Harper, Rashida Coleman-Hale, Lizzy House, Ed Emberley, Leah Duncan, Robert Kaufman, and several others.

Hand Quilting: Here’s a link to my favorite tools.

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Hunt QAL #14 ALL DONE!

By carolyn friedlander on September 25, 2020 in Featured on Home, my patterns, Quilt Along | Comments: 8

Hunt QAL #14. ALL DONE! My Hunt Quilt Along quilt is done, photographed and on my bed–a quilty miracle for sure.

hunt quilt along quilt . carolyn friedlander

Binding

With the binding, I was unsure of which direction to go for pretty much the entire time. After much auditioning, here is what I came up with.

An easy rule of thumb when you can’t decide on one binding is to go with all of them! This meant three fabrics in my case. I love that this satisfies all urges, and I think a scrappy binding suits many quilts nicely, especially this one. These choices are from Collection CF, Jetty and a Robert Kaufman gingham that might look black in the photo but is actually dark green. I love any gingham or grid in a binding, and the metallic adds just the right amount of sparkle.

scrappy binding in collection CF, Jetty and gingham

Hand Quilting

I don’t know what my favorite part about this quilt is, but the hand quilting is definitely up there. For a bed quilt it is massively cozy, and from a design standpoint I like how the high contrast thread stands out when you look at it.

The overall rows of straight lines in different directions is a pleasing contrast to the circular motifs.

Scrappy Backing

The backing is super scrappy, which you can see better in this post. Just like choosing multiple fabrics for the binding, scrappy backings are just as appealing. The snippet below is another Robert Kaufman gingham. It’s really soft, which is a great backing quality.

I’ve always considered this a two-sided quilt. I should get some shots of the other side too, but I’ll leave that for another day.

The fabrics for the blocks are scrappy, but the quilting thread is consistent throughout. I think this ties things together nicely.

The hand quilting makes it soft and cozy, and I’m really happy to have it finished.

Quilt Label!

Oh, one more thing! There’s a label! I’ve been way better lately at making and attaching labels to my quilts. I make a label (this one is definitely fancier than the usual ones I make) when making or attaching the binding. This way it’s ready to add after hand-stitching the binding. My labels include my name, the project name, project dates, contact info (if the quilt will be traveling), and the type of batting used. I’ve been all over the place with batting lately, and this helps me keep track.