A Wedding Quilt for Sara

When my sister got engaged almost two years ago, planning a wedding quilt was high on my list of to-dos. I thought about making her a bed-sized quilt, but somehow that seemed almost too personal. How could I pick out her bedroom set colors? I guess I could have just consulted her, but I wanted it to be a surprise and I wasn’t willing to spend HOURS (years for me and my procrastinating) slaving on something that could wind up in a linen closet all sad and alone.




Also, all the ladies in my family tend to be drawn to some more outlandish designs and colors and that didn’t seem appropriate for their first set of bedding. So, I decided to go completely wild with color and pattern and make a smaller throw quilt. Of course, I went to one of the masters of quilting herself for this String Quilt Tutorial.

Timeline

I see bloggers churn out a queen-sized quilt in a weekend and I’m in perma-awe of those rockstars. I don’t know if it’s my limited attention span or what, but every quilt I’ve made (save for the girls’ quilts) has taken me in upwards of a year to complete. Most of that time, the quilt has spent tucked away somewhere in pieces. Out of sight, of mind. But not this time. This time I was going to be one of those superstars. Instead of being the flakey sewer with big ideas and last minute execution, I was planning ahead!

Before Sara’s shower, I kicked my sewing into overdrive and slowly but surely my little pile of blocks grew. I was actually starting to believe I would have a finished quilt all wrapped up and nestled in her pile of gifts. She would be surprised! She would twirl around and wrap herself up in her new, warm quilt! It was really happening!



Fastforward a bit to when I could count the hours I had to pack myself, the girls, the dog, finish the shower prep, etc. And you didn’t actually think the only thing on my to-do list was this quilt, right? Part of the decorations included a clothes line and of course all of its adornments needed to be homemade (the bar always starts high). I sewed oven mitts and a flirty little apron (these I actually got done in advance. Like a week early. A record.). No strings were clipped, but they were finished otherwise.

I sewed eleventy billion buttons to a fabric covered canvas that formed the shape of an “E,” her new last name initial. I made my favorite carrot cake recipe from scratch. I made cake pops.



My dream was quickly slipping through my finger tips. Like anyone would do, I lowered the bar. I would finish the quilt without the binding. Yes, she would barely know the difference!

But, once you lower the bar it’s SO easy to just keep lowering it. The quilt without a binding quickly became just the quilt top. Patience and time were running thin. But, I was SO close. Just as I sat down to my sewing machine to seam the blocks together, a terrible thing happened. My sewing machine jammed. JAMMED. Probably doesn’t seem like a big deal, but when you have your day allocated to the minute it’s kind of a big deal. With mental breakdown imminent, rather than taking ten (oh so critical!) minutes to pick out the lint, I gave up. My blocks were exactly that… blocks. Not even sewn together.


Happy Bride-to-Be Sara with her “E” frame and Stapled Quilt top in the background

Still, I brought my little pile to New Jersey for the shower with no clear plan of attack. Wrap them up in a box with a promise to sew them together? Surely that was better than nothing. Someone, maybe me, had the idea to STAPLE them together and use the stapled quilt top as a decoration. I was desperate, so I gave it a try. Turns out… it kind of worked. And Sara loved her staple quilt top. And loved the finished quilt, which she received….nearly a year later… even more! Win!

Some commentary:

- I started with a rough palette of reds and greens and yellows and eggplants, but you’ll see I only followed that loosely at best.
- Each square had a 1 inch strip of Kona Snow running down the center
- This was my first dabble into paper piecing
- Paper piecing is sort of amazing, though I got sick of dulling needles
- Somehow mixing all sorts of colors and patterns works.
- Fabrics are pulled from my stash and other leftovers from years of projects, but are from the usual players… Kona solids, Amy Butler, Anna Maria Horner, Alexander Henry, etc.
- Squares are 11x11
-Finished Quilt is 6 blocks x 4 blocks

Prepping for the Little Chicklet

The past couple weeks, months even, I've been crafting away so that when the new baby decides to make her appearance (due date's tomorrow, yet no sign of baby) she'll be greeted into the world with a healthy bounty of handmade goodies.

Sixth Time's a Charm Quilt



While I know babies don't use quilts on their cribs (Alice still doesn't use more than a muslin blanket and she's approaching two!), I can't imagine not making a quilt for the little baby chicklet.

When I made Alice's quilt, I conformed to the overall color scheme for her room. This time, I let myself loose with colors. I figure the chicklet will most often use the quilt during tummy time or any time she's on the floor and I don't want her covered in dog hair and what baby doesn't love bright, fun patterns during playtime? So, I settled on some fabrics from Michael Miller's Hedgehog and the Big E collections and some coordinating Kona Cottons.



In line with my recent AMH obsession, I opted for a quilt pattern in her most recent book, Handmade Beginnings. LOVE this book! Shocking, right?



Love the pattern, although I have to admit my one pain point was wasting so much fabric. I'm not sure it's possible to avoid doing so, but I now have a stack of pieced fabric leftover. Of course, I could make the scraps into other smaller projects, but more likely they'll just sit collecting dust amongst the rest of my fabric stash. If I had to go back, I would still make the quilt so I guess I have no place to complain.

Fabric: A mix of Michael Miller's Hedgehog and the Big E, Kona Cotton in Lime, Ash, and Plumberry.
Pattern: Sixth Time's a Charm found in Handmade Beginnings by Anna Maria Horner.

Polka Dot Mobile

When I saw this tutorial, I knew this would be the little chicklet's mobile. I loved the unlimited possibilities for color and fabrics and the chance to incorporate some beading techniques. And of course, spraypaint. Who doesn't love spraypaint?



I tried to keep to a somewhat limited color palette of magenta, sky blue, olive green, gold, red and cream and used fabric scraps from Heather Ross, Amy Butler, Michael Miller, Alexander Henry, and Anna Maria Horner. And the spray paint is "hot pink" although not at all what I'd consider hot pink. More of a bubble gum pink. Not only was this project a great way to use up scraps that I thought would sit in my scrap bin until I eventually pitched them in a freak cleaning spree, but it was also a fun archive of previous sewing projects. Like a look down memory lane.





Many more baby things in progress or recently completed! Hopefully, I'll have time to blog about them before the baby arrives. Otherwise, all bets are off and I'll see you in 2011. Kidding. Sort of.

Museum Tunic

I’ve been obsessed with all things AMH these days.  Pretty much anything that pops up on her site, I have to make.  So, when I saw this dress on her website a few months back, it wasn’t long before I had some Little Folks Dobby in my cart.  I’d been eyeing this particular fabric, but didn’t pull the trigger because I couldn’t think of a pattern worthy of the fabric. 

I did end up modifying the pattern a bit to make it more wearable for me.  I don’t own a slip and knowing me, it would take me a year before I actually bought one.  To remedy that, I lined the dress with some straw lining material.  In a perfect world, I would have lined it with some coordinating solid voile, but that’s a little rich for my budget, so I opted for some regular ol’ lining material from Joann. 

I also shirred the waistline instead of zig-zag stitching elastic just because I thought it would be easier. 

Lining and Shirring

I didn’t intend to wear this dress while pregnant, but surprisingly enough it fits – even at nearly 38 weeks pregnant!  I’m not sure it’s all that flattering as maternity wear, but really what’s flattering on a pregnant woman two weeks shy of her due date? 

Of course when I was modeling it for J and informed him the dress was more for after the baby arrives, he asked a bit sheepishly “how big do you plan on being after the baby was born.”  I couldn’t help but laugh.  Like I’m hoping to staying 30 pounds heavier! I had to explain that part of the beauty of this dress is its flowy nature.

Because the dress only requires 1.5 panels of the fabric but I had to purchase all 2 panels, I used the leftover ½ panel for a little scarf (still to be photographed). 

Pattern:  Museum Tunic

Fabric: 2 panels Little Folks Dobby, Anna Maria Horner and <2 yards Generic Lining Material

Cuddly Blanket

First of all - Happy Birthday, Mom!   Hope you enjoy your special day!

It’s rare that I can receive fabric and cut into it within a day or so of receiving it.  I like to gaze it from afar, pet it, imagine all the good times we’ll have – you know, normal stuff.  Not this fabric.  I couldn’t wait to slice into it and make it into something.  It helps when you have the perfect project in mind.  In this case, Anna Maria Horner’s swaddling blankets.  My one concern about jumping in – I didn’t prewash my fabrics and I have little experience working with either flannel or voile so I’m unsure of the shrink factor.  

Working with the flannel and voile is like working with butter and um, melted butter?  Both so decadent, both so perfect to have cuddle your baby’s perfectly soft newborn skin.  As proof, when I opened the package Alice quickly snatched a piece of the voile and proceeded to wrap herself up in it.  It appears I’ll be making a version for older sis, too.  

I followed Anna Maria’s directions on her site – my favorite kind of directions – quick and to the point.  I’ve made other similar blankets with multiple-page tutorials and they take me forever because if directions are provided, I’m compelled to follow along, step by step. 

The project flew by until I suddenly stalled out on the binding.  Voile is some slippery stuff, my friends.  If I can give you any advice, pin, then pin even more, and then pin even more.  Your blanket should look like an acupuncture patient.  And then pin some more.  Seam ripping through voile is not pretty and you want to avoid it at all costs. 

The finished project – I had to use every ounce of self-restraint to fold up the blanket and not bring it to bed with me last night.  So soft, so light and airy.  It’s like mousse in blanket form.  Luckily, I bought enough fabric to make two.  I think they will be getting lots of use. 

Of course, when I showed J he had to bring up the one fact that I was trying to shove into the back of my brain. That while, yes, the blanket is lovely and soft, it will inevitably get covered in spit up, pee, etc.  Well, if my child is going to poop on something, I guess I’d prefer it to be soft? 

I also made a couple bibs, loosely following this pattern from sewshesews.wordpress.com.  I eliminated the batting and used a piece of terrycloth for the backing.  Great pattern – easy to follow and Jaime’s created so many inspiring versions!

Two projects down, manymanymany more to go!

A Timeline for a Quilt

February 2009 – buy fabric.

February to Summer – pet fabric, envision gorgeous quilts, remain paralyzed in fear of cutting beautiful fabrics.  Scour flickr for quilt inspiration.

Summer – Select quilt pattern.  Engineer how to make quilt.  Cut bazillions upon bazillions of little triangles. Get sick of cutting.

Fall to Winter – Forget about quilt.

Spring – remember fabric half cut for quilt.  Dig out pieces.  Remember plan.  Finish cutting other bazillion triangles.  Start piecing.  Interest in other projects surpasses interest in quilt. 

June/July – In fit of motivation, finish piecing quilt. 

July – Momentum continues! Quilt top finished, sandwiched, bound, and quilted. 

Now the real question is how do all you flickrites manage to post freshly finished quilts on a weekly (or less!) basis? 

Pattern:  No real pattern. I found a couple photos of kaleidoscope quilts on flickr and fell in love.  I bought a 45 degree triangle quilting template, but halfway through the project ordered a kaleidoscope-specific template.  

Notes: 

We had some guests over while I was finishing up the quilt top and someone gave me what I consider the ultimate compliment – “wow, this looks like something you’d find in anthropologie!”

I really wanted to play with hot pink as an accent color, but knew there would be no chance J would be cool with a hot pink bedspread, even in miniscule amounts.  So, I went with red.  I still would prefer hot pink, but I’m digging the red.

Overall, I’m in love with the quilt.  I had some moments of doubt during its construction – things like whether or not the gray was dark enough, whether the colors would achieve the look I was striving for, whether my imprecise piecing would be evident, etc.—but now that it’s done, I love it. 

I’m usually drawn to the boldest prints and colors in each fabric collection, which are gorgeous on their own, but often too distracting in quilts. I forced myself made a strong effort to choose some small-scale prints and introduce a level of simplicity with the quilt.  Hence, all the 45 degree triangles are the same print in each block.  I think employing some restraint worked out.   

Fabrics:

A mix of:

Anna Maria Horner’s Good Folks

Amy Butler’s Lotus 

Heather Bailey’s Pop Garden

Kona Ash

With this out of the way, I can work on some little projects for the little chicklet, set to arrive in 8 short weeks!

Quilting:

Because this is a queen-sized quilt, I kept things simple.  I stitched a line on either side of each block seam and then through the center of the block, both vertically and horizontally. 

My new crafty digs

When I got pregnant with Alice, we converted our office/craft room into her room.  My sewing machine and piles of associated sewing / craft stuff was relegated to the guest room and closet.  While picking up a sewing machine and carrying it downstairs to the dining room doesn’t seem like that overwhelming a task, I dread it and will knit a sweater or bake ten pies before I carry the machine down a flight of stairs.



























Of course when I do drag the machine downstairs, I take over the dining room and often spill into the kitchen, much to the chagrin of my clean-freak husband.  And of course since Alice was born and we have another on the way, there are eleventy billion cute little baby projects that I must sew.  During my maternity leave, I spent hours sewing during Alice’s marathon newborn naps, the sewing machine humming along while she slept peacefully in her little swing.  Sewing these days requires much more planning and usually only takes place during the hours between Alice’s bedtime and my bedtime, which these days aren’t too far apart.  The occasional times I motivate to drag out my sewing machine, I try and sew everything sewy floating around in my brain so I can avoid carting all my materials back and forth.  Mostly I sew all small projects for Alice.   

Now that we have another baby on the way, Alice will move into the more spacious guest room, the new baby into Alice’s room, and my ever-growing stash of craft supplies will again be relocated.  Instead of the dragging out my sewing machine every time I want to sew, l’ve been bargaining with J on what’s an appropriate place.  Setting up a sewing area in the living room?  Not okay with him.  Plopping my sewing machine on a cardboard box in our leaky basement?  Not cool with me.  We’re working through it and eventually I’ll get my way we’ll make a perfectly amicable compromise with which both of us can live.  As a bit of an interim solution, I set up camp in our 3-season porch.  I don’t know why I didn’t think of this sooner.  Not only do I get to sew semi-outside, I’m far enough from view that my sewing stuff doesn’t take over the house.  And even on the hottest of days, a little breeze through all the windows and a ceiling fan make everything tolerable, if not enjoyable. 

I’m still working out where I’m going to store everything once I’m officially kicked out of the guest room and my stash moves into the basement (where all the scary things live!) and where my sewing area will move once it gets too cold to sew outside.  Which, in New England is in like a month and a half!

Those of you with tight spaces – how do you handle it?  Do you have a sewing nook or do you set up and break down every time you sew?  Or worse, do you just not sew?

Laptop Sleeve Tutorial

I’ve spent the last year picking up those foam laptop sleeves and inevitably putting them back down because I knew I could make something just as functional and infinitely more fun. Of course, that year saw my laptop getting tossed in and out of my weekender, me fearing that I would damage it, but the worry never reaching the point where I actually did anything to remedy the situation.

Until this week.



Of course, I didn’t have the foresight to photograph the process, but hopefully my instructions will provide enough direction should you decide to make one for yourself. And I have a feeling I’ll be making more of these in the future.

You'll need:
-Home Dec Weight Fabric - You'll need enough yardage to make the pieces described below. For my netbook, a fat quarter was just enough fabric. I used an Echino fabric from a couple seasons back.
-Batting - I used fusible fleece. 1/4 yard.
-Lining - I used Michael Miller's Organic Cotton Fleece leftover from a blanket I made Alice. Any flannel or soft fabric will work fine.
-Velcro



I dug out some favorite home-dec weight fabric for the exterior and some super soft cotton fleece for the lining. I went so far as to buy a yard of high-density foam to serve as the middle layer, but aborted that plan before I even pulled out my scissors. Instead, I opted for some fusible fleece.

Step 1 – Measure your laptop and determine how to cut fabric.
Front & Back Panels = (L+H+1) x (W+H+1). Cut two each of exterior fabric, lining fabric, and batting.
Flap = (L + 1) x (H + 1). Cut one of exterior fabric, lining, and batting.

Step 2 – If using fusible batting, iron to lining fabric.

Step 3 – Create flap.
-Sew one long strip of Velcro (scratchy side) on long side of lining fabric, one or two inches from the bottom. You can do this step before ironing on the batting, too.
-Pin fabric and lining right-sides together. Sew all sides, except top, together. Turn right-side out. Press. Top stitch around three sewn sides. Set aside.

Step 4 - Sew flap to exterior fabric.
-At unfinished edge, center and pin flap to long edge of exterior back panel. Sew. Keep in mind, flap will be a couple inches shorter than exterior panel.

Step 5 - Sew velcro to exterior front fabric.
- Cut two 3 or 4 inch strips of velcro (soft side). Pin, perpendicular from the top of the fabric, a couple inches from each side and an inch or two from top of fabric.
- Sew in place.



Step 6 - Attach exterior panels.
- With right sides together and velcro matching up, pin and sew the two short sides of the exterior panels. Do not sew top or bottom. Turn right-side out.

Step 7 - Attach lining panels.
- With right sides together, pin and sew the two short sides of the exterior panels. Do not sew top or bottom.

Step 8 - Sew strap
- Take a strip of fabric at least a couple inches wide by at least 8 or 10 inches long. Fold in half, right sides together. Sew along long edge only. Turn right side out. Press. Top stitch along each edge. I usually add a few extra top stitching lines for some added flair.

Step 9 - Sew lining to exterior
- Place interior inside of lining. Match up seams. Right sides should be facing each other.
- Pin along top. Along the side seam of your choice, fold your strap in half, raw edges together, to make a loop. Loop side down, tuck the strap in between the lining and exterior layers. The two raw edges of your strap should match up with the raw edges of your lining and exterior. Sew. A walking foot is helpful to sew through all the layers.
- Turn right side out. Pull lining so it is hanging outside of exterior. Pin and sew along bottom seam. A serger makes a nice, clean seam. If you don't have a serger, a zig-zag stitch and trim will do the trick.
- Tuck lining back in. Top stitch along top seam.

Step 10 - Admire finished product.

Let me know if anything doesn't make sense.  Sewing is kind of an iterative process for me, it's difficult for me to remember all the steps unless I keep track as I go along.  I should remember that for next time, huh?