My Long Hiatus …

I have so much to post about but life has totally gotten in the way lately.  Time to try to catch you guys up to speed with my life and my sewing!

Remember the colorful solids I was playing with a while back?  I mixed and matched between designers a bit so the set had Kaffe Fassett Shot Cottons, Pepper Cory’s Peppered Cottons, and Andover’s Textured Cottons all included.  Last time I checked in, I had sewn them all up into a bunch of HST and hourglass blocks.

Well, those blocks turned in to not one but two different quilt tops!

I had to get them both quilted up and bound really quickly too because they were for something really important.  Everything was happening so fast that I wasn’t even able to get photos of one of them outdoors!  My kitchen floor around midnight had to do!

I really love the look of the black and white striped binding!

Now what was the rush you ask?  Well – these baby quilts were used to announce to both my mom and my husband’s mom that they are going to be grandmas!  That’s right – I’m pregnant and we’ll be having our first child (a baby girl) in June!

I couldn’t wait to tell them so both quilts were finished and gifted within a week of me and my husband learning the news ourselves!  Both of our moms loved their quilts and started crying as they read the label on the back!

“Grandma’s First Quilt”
Quilt Stats:
Size: 42″ x 42″
Pattern: HSTs or Hourglass blocks
Type of Quilting: Straight line on my home machine
Date Finished: October 2014

So that is why I haven’t been posting as much lately.  Pregnancy fatigue and getting ready to grow our family has been stealing a lot of my time and, while I’ve still fit some sewing in, I haven’t found time to actually post about.  But hopefully I can get back on track here soon!

Colorful Fabrics for a New Project

Despite the fact that I’ve got a couple of WIPs that I really need to finish, I’ve recently gotten started on a new project.  I’m working on two different baby quilts now that are going to be a matching set.

On a recent trip to my LQS, I bought a variety of cotton solids in a rainbow of colors.  I mixed and matched between designers a bit so the set has Kaffe Fassett Shot Cottons, Pepper Cory’s Peppered Cottons, and Andover’s Textured Cottons all included.

I tried to find fabrics that would pretty true to the “standard” colors of the rainbow.  I was basically envisioning opening an 8-count box of crayons and trying to match what the colorful crayons would look like.

Since I’m pairing these colorful solids with Kona white for the background, my LQS recommended that I pre-wash everything.  They said my colorful solids would shrink at a different rate than the background.  So I bought some pinking shears and embarked on my first pre-washing ever.  And I’m going to be honest, I’m not a fan of having to pre-wash.  Between trimming with the pinking shears and cutting off the frayed edges after washing, you lose a good bit of fabric.  And it takes a lot more work!

But I finally got everything pre-washed and re-ironed and could actually start cutting into it.  I cut out 120 squares (1/2 colored and 1/2 white) so that I can make 60 half square triangles and 60 hourglass blocks.

I know everyone seems to rave about shot cottons but so far I’m not a huge fan of working with these colorful fabrics.  I’ve had a lot more issues with fraying as I cut than I’ve ever had before with Kona solids.  I tried starching the fabrics and that didn’t seem to help either (if anything, it might have been worse after starching).  But I did successfully get everything cut!

And now I’ve been doing a ton of chain piecing and sewing everything together.  Luckily, both HST and hourglass blocks make for easy chain-piecing.  I love how all the colors look all stacked together!

I can’t wait to start getting everything laid out and see these quilts come together!

Finished Bungalow Quilt Top

Well this post is a long time coming.  Not because it took me long to sew together the quilt top (it actually went together pretty quickly).  But it was over a week after I finished the quilt before I could even take any photos!  A combination of rainy weather and a couple of late days at work where it was already dark when I got home and all of a sudden more than a week had passed.  So without further ado, here is my finished Bungalow quilt top!

This quilt was made using the Easy Bricks Quilt pattern from Moda Bake Shop and I really like how the pattern allowed the larger prints from Joel Dewberry’s Bungalow line to shine.

I haven’t worked a whole lot with precuts and I noticed when working with this layer cake that the 10″ by 10″ squares seemed to not be the right size.  I cut them in half (I measured 5 inches in from the left side) but when I paired them up with the 5″ precut white charm squares, many of the layer cake strips were too narrow.

Luckily this pattern was pretty forgiving and with a lot of glue basting to match seams and easing of the fabric, I was able to make my seams line up well enough.  But I was a little annoyed about the inaccuracy.  Has anyone else noticed this with precuts before?

I love the colors in this quilt.  There are some great jewel tones and really saturated prints!  I stressed a little bit trying to get the colors and prints balanced and I think I ended up doing pretty good!

I’ve bought some yardage from the line for the backing and am going to do a little piecing for it but hopefully I’ll be able to get this quilted up soon!

I can’t wait to finally have a quilt I get to keep!

A Quilt for Me!

So far, every quilt that I have made has been a gift for someone else.  Don’t get me wrong, I love giving away these quilts and it makes me happy to see others enjoying them.  But I’d also love to have a piece of my hobby and hard work for myself.  So I decided it is time to make a quilt for me!

I was really drawn to Joel Dewberry’s Bungalow line and I bought a layer cake of it a while back but had never done anything with it.  There are a lot of big, bold prints in this line so I really didn’t want to cut it up too much as I didn’t want to lose the designs in small piecing.

I found this Easy Bricks Quilt pattern from Moda Bake Shop which really fit the bill and looked like it would go together quickly.  So I sliced the entire layer cake in half and got started.  I love how the stack of fabrics looked together!

Then I proceeded to do lots of chain piecing and pressed open all of my seams (which honestly took a lot longer to do 84 times than I expected!)

But I’ve already been able to get the entire quilt top laid out!  I’ve been making a few tweaks here and there since this late night photo to try to make sure the colors and patterns are balanced but I think it’s almost ready to start sewing up!

Is there anyone else like me who has been negligent in actually making a quilt for themselves?

Finished Quilt – Earning Your Cross

I’m so excited to share with you my biggest quilt finish to date!  This quilt finished at a full-sized 80″ by 88″ and I sewed and quilting the entire thing on my little domestic machine!

“Earning Your Cross”
Quilt Stats:
Size: 80″ x 88″
Pattern: Arithmetic by Jeni Baker
Type of Quilting: Straight line on my home machine
Date Finished: June 2014

This quilt took a lot longer than anticipated to finish but I’m so proud of the end result.  Some of you may remember from when I first posted about this quilt back in December that this quilt was a gift to my little brother to commemorate him achieving his dream job, earning his Ski Patrol cross and becoming a full-fledged member of the Ski Patrol at Snowbird resort in Utah!

I love the fabrics I chose for this quilt!  The colors are just so bright and they really pop.  And I was really happy to see the the red still stands out within the quilt (since the Ski Patrol members are denoted by their red ski coats).  I also used a wide 108″ fabric for the backing for the first time and it was so nice to not have to piece anything together and have seams across the back of the quilt.

I quilted this quilt with both vertical and horizontal straight lines on either side of all of the seams.  I think it helps the crosses (pluses) to stand out.  And the stitching on the back looks really neat!  I used a red variegated thread so you can really see it against the gray backing!  This quilt was a lot of bulk to support and fit through my small domestic machine but I found that rolling the quilt in from either side allowed me to fit everything through more easily and I could adjust the two rolls as I moved along the quilt top.

I love the label I made for this quilt too!  I actually appliqued a miniature cross onto the label which is just a little something extra compared to what I’ve done previously.  And the bias striped binding was a great finishing touch!

I actually finished this quilt top back in February and started quilting it then too (note the date on my label above).  But after quilting 6 very wonky lines with uneven stitches and folds of my backing fabric caught in the quilting stitches, I was crying at my sewing machine about how I was ruining the quilt and my husband (rightfully!) told me I needed to step away from it for awhile and regroup.

I ended up staying away from it for longer than planned as I got caught up in other projects.  But once I figured out a better system for supporting the weight and bulk of the large quilt, the quilting became much easier and I was able to finish it without any further issues or tears!  That said, the quilting alone still took me at least 16 or 18 hours!  I did rip out 4 out of those 6 original lines of quilting and fixed them too!

I finished this quilt late Friday night which was just in time because my husband and I were going up to Indiana for the weekend for a couple of family events.  My brother was going to be home from Utah too so I was actually able to surprise him with his (long-overdue) quilt in person!

I could tell he really liked it and he even ditched the hotel comforter to cuddle up underneath his new quilt instead!  I can’t wait for him to send me pictures of the quilt on his full-sized bed out in Utah!

Looks like a happy little brother to me!  (And a proud big sister behind the camera!)

Finished Quilt – Boy Crazy

I hope everyone had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend!  I hope you guys were able to spend some quality time with family and friends (we had a big party at our swim and tennis club) while still remembering the reason we are able to enjoy this extra day off work.  Thank you and god bless to those who made the ultimate sacrifice for our country!

Earlier this weekend, I finished quilting and binding my Jelly Roll Jam baby quilt.  And it is a good thing too because the little guy I was making it for made his appearance earlier today!

“Boy Crazy”
Quilt Stats:
Size: 40″ x 40″
Pattern: Jelly Roll Jam by Fat Quarter Shop
Type of Quilting: Spiral on my home machine
Fabric Line(s) Used: Boy Crazy by Riley Blake
Date Finished: May 2014

This was my first time attempting to do spiral quilting.  I did everything on my home machine and was pleasantly surprised with how well it went!  And I LOVE the effect this quilting leaves!  So don’t be intimidated by the spiral – they are definitely worth the effort and aren’t nearly as complicated as I anticipated!

A big thank you to those of you who weighed in on the border/no border debate.  As you can see, I decided to go with a border but I did stray from the gray/white I was thinking and went with Kona Khaki!  The warmer tones in the khaki looked so much better alongside the quilt top compared to the cooler grays and whites.

I tried something new with this quilt that I always hear mixed reviews about in the quilting world.  When I was sewing down my binding (I finished it by machine), I used a different color thread in my bobbin than on my spool!

I knew I wanted to use the same teal thread from my quilting on my spool so that it would blend into the binding fabric, but the bobbin thread was going to be making a straight line down the edge of my khaki border and I felt the teal would stand out too much (especially with the spiral quilting).  So I used a tan thread in my bobbin to blend with the Kona khaki and I’m happy to report that I didn’t have any issues with the different colors poking through onto the opposite side.  I guess I must have my tension set really well!

I also love how this label turns out and I think it is my favorite I have made so far.  As you can see from this picture, the teal thread I used for quilting blended almost perfectly into the quilt back!

Now let’s get real for a second here.  I know the blogging world likes to present these “perfect” finished projects when we share our creations (heck – I’m guilty of this too!) but sometimes I think it is nice to see that our quilts don’t have to be “perfect” for them to look great.

While it is true what I said above that spiral quilting wasn’t nearly as hard as I expected, my spiral still isn’t perfect.

See those wonky lines and little points coming off of what is supposed to be a smooth continuous curve?  If you looked really closely, there are plenty of little mistakes like this throughout my quilting.  But they don’t change to overall effect of the spiral (you’d NEVER notice them when taking in the quilt as a whole) nor do they hurt the actual construction and durability of the quilt.

In my opinion, it is these little imperfections that really show that something is handmade.  Nothing we make by hand is ever going to be “perfect” (ie mistake free), but it is the time and effort and love that we put into a creation that really makes it perfect.

I hope no one ever feels like their work isn’t “good enough” because it doesn’t seem as “perfect” as the final projects presented by others.  Embrace the imperfections because they are what make each of our projects special!

Overall, I am really happy with the quilt and it is a great pattern for something you want to come together quickly but still have a lot of visual interest.

I can’t wait to meet my friend’s new little bundle of joy and to give him his present!

Jelly Roll Jam Quilt Top

It was really gross and rainy outside yesterday evening – the perfect kind of weather to stay inside and sew!  And since the rain meant I couldn’t mow the lawn, I had plenty of time to finish piecing the top for my Jelly Roll Jam quilt!

After I’d sewn all the strips together, I used glue basting for the rest of the piecing to try to make sure all of my seams were matched up nicely.  Glue basting is probably my new favorite technique and I’d say it worked pretty well here.

My only concern with this quilt top is its size.  It is only about 36″ square currently which just feels a little small.  But then again, it is supposed to be a baby quilt.

I was thinking about adding a solid border around the outside (maybe 2.5″ – 3″ wide).  It would probably be a white or gray so that the colors from the jelly roll still pop and are allowed to shine.

What do you think about a border for this quilt top?

Jelly Roll Jam Quilt

Man – It has been a crazy last week and I feel like I’ve hardly spent any time on my sewing machine!  Between my tennis team and my husband’s tennis team both playing in playoffs last weekend, to losing my grandma early this week and going out of town for my sister-in-law’s PA school graduation this weekend, time has just flown by!

I did manage to put a little bit of time in getting started on a new baby quilt though!  I mentioned back when I started on the Baby’s First ABCs quilt that I had bought a jelly roll of Riley Blake’s Boy Crazy line but didn’t have time to put that quilt together in time for her baby shower.  Well that same friend is due this month so I wanted to turn that jelly roll into a Jelly Roll Jam Quilt using the Fat Quarter Shop’s free pattern!

Don’t jelly rolls look so fun all rolled up?  🙂

I chose a couple of prints from the Boy Crazy line to feature as the backing and the binding.  The backing is the Boy Crazy Main print in teal and the binding is the Boy Crazy Circles in teal.

I was able to divide the 2.5″ strips into three groups and get each group sewn together.  I tried to evenly balance the colors from each group and I was able to use every print in the line except for the coordinating solids.

Hopefully I can spend some more time at my sewing machine this week so I can have this quilt ready to go as a welcome home present for her new little boy (whenever he decides to make his appearance!)!

Born to Quilt – Finished Mini

I finished my Born to Quilt mini quilt for Windham Fabrics this weekend.  I loved getting to play with their new fabric line, “Born to Quilt”, and I was also stretched outside my comfort zone with both a new color palette and some new techniques!

But you guys haven’t even seen the finished top yet!  Last time I shared this project, I only had the center section with the fussy cut quilting phrases.

I had a lot of fun making the corners and probably over stressed what square blocks to use in them.  I really wanted something that could include a fussy cut sewing machine from one of the other prints in the line.  At the suggestion of some of my readers, I decided to go more modern instead of the traditional route I’d been thinking and I really like how they turned out!

  

After finishing the top, I felt like there was too much white space down the middle of the quilt.  So I decided to use some embroidery floss to add a bit of color and decorative stitching by hand around each fussy cut saying.  Then I got everything basted together and ready to quilt!

And soon I had my first finished mini quilt!

“Born to Quilt” Mini
Quilt Stats:
Size: 18″ x 18″
Pattern: None.  This quilt was my own design.
Type of Quilting: Straight Line on my home machine with some decorative hand stitching
Fabric Line(s) Used: “Born to Quilt” by Another Point of View for Windham Fabrics
Date Finished: April 2014

I primarily did stitch in the ditch quilting with a little bit of straight line quilting in the string pieced triangles.  And the bright green backing fabric they provided is a fun pop of color compared to the primarily black and white front.

  

I love how the binding looks too!  The black and white stripe is a perfect binding print!  And I finished attaching the binding to the quilt back by hand too – a first for me!

Here a detail shot of the hand stitched embroidery.  I matched the DMC Perle cotton to the text of each phrase.  I think it gives a nice extra touch of color and was something I’d never tried before.  I’ll be honest, I found sitting on my couch and hand stitching made for a very relaxing evening.  I’ll have to do it more often!

For such a sewing themed quilt, I had to take a picture of it with my sewing machine.  Although it isn’t what I made, I think this fabric line would be great for use in a sewing machine cover.  So fun!

  

I’m so excited that my mini quilt will be displayed in Windham Fabrics’ booth at Quilt Market this spring!  If anyone is attending Quilt Market, I’d love it if you could take a picture of the booth (and my quilt) for me!

Progress on Born to Quilt

I was able to cut into my bundle of Born to Quilt fabrics this weekend and start working on my mini quilt for the Windham Fabrics booth at Quilt Market.

First I jumped right in to fussy cutting the fun text print.  I wish I’d taken a picture of just the fussy cut phrases but I was so excited about making my plan work that I jumped immediately into all the quilt math to figure out how much spacing I could put between each phrase to stay within my 18″ by 18″ size requirement.  I decided to have the phrases run in a diagonal stripe across the quilt and quickly had them sewn together and trimmed down to size.

As I mentioned last post, I really wanted to use the striped print for my binding but when I actually did my calculations, I wasn’t sent enough of that print to bind the whole mini quilt.  I decided I’d intermix some of the black chalkboard fabric with the stripes to give me enough length.  I alternated sections and put together my binding so it will be ready to go.

Now I just have to make the corner triangle to complete my 18″ by 18″ square.  Yay for lots of quilt math!  I’ve decided to make these corner triangle out of a square quilt block and two smaller triangles, like this:

The square blocks are going to have to finish at 5.5″ so they will be pretty small.  I think I’m just going to do some scrappy stripes using multiple prints from the collection for the side triangles.  So the full corner will look something like this:

I don’t know what blocks I should use for the square though.  I’m thinking I’ll do a different block for each corner.  Any recommendations? What is your favorite block (that would hopefully translate well to such a small size)?