Past and Present

Goals for 2014 - Review

• 3 twin quilts for 2 more nieces and a nephew.  These were due in February, March & April for birthdays, rather than Christmas.  DONE! But the nephew's quilt wasn't completed until Christmas. And I also made a 4th for another niece and a queen-sized quilt for my cousin.

• I want to make some of the fabric baskets from Sunday Morning Quilts. First, I need to organize my scraps.  Wish I had some of those baskets completed already to put them in. :) One slab created, but need another to make a basket.

• Make a couple of charity quilts for little ones. No progress on this yet :(
• Learn how to make a zippered pouch.  I've bookmarked some great-looking ones I've seen on other blogs. Made several Noodlehead Open Wide pouches and a boxy one, too!

• I read in someone's blog that they always cut a couple of 5" charms and 2.5" mini charms from most or all of their fabric as they go.  That's a great idea in order to build up stock for scrappy quilts, so Im going to try to get into that habit, too. This may have been more ambitious than I can realistically keep up with.

Goals for 2015

• Birthday crowns for the twins' 4th birthday in April.
• Complete some charity quilts.
• Complete the fabric basket that's already in-progress.
• Make something for me! Maybe a slab quilt from Sunday Morning Quilts.
• Try some new techniques on smaller-scale projects.
• Non-sewing related - purge my house of things I don't need anymore. Besides fabric, there's not a lot of stuff I want or really need.  This will be a long-term project.

What projects do you have planned for this year?

Linked to Crazy Mom Quilts and Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Two Additional Christmas Finishes

I completed quilts for another niece and nephew just in time for Christmas.  Roxi and Aidan are siblings and I wanted to do their quilts at the same time.

Aidan is nearly 10, so I didn't want to use any cartoon-y fabric that he would outgrow.  It took months to accumulate multiple prints that would work.  I just did simple 6 1/2" strips of varying lengths (6.5, 13 and 26").

I used excel to plot my layout of the seven different fabrics.

I found a great Day of the Dead skulls print, as well as a flame print. I also bought several yards at an end-of-bolt sale of Black Cross Hatch from the Stella Blvd. Puppy Park collection. That fabric made up the majority of the back.

The right edge was off in some places after I pieced the top. I may have cut one of the long strips shorter than I meant to.  After I quilted it together, I measured 72" from the left in multiple spots and connected those marks so I could trim it even before binding.

Here's a closer look at the fabrics:

Here's the back:

I just stitched in the ditch for this one and used the Cross Hatch fabric for the binding.  

My nephew was shocked to find out this was handmade just for him.

Roxi's quilt was my third Yellow Brick Road. She likes pink, purple and blue, so I collected new fabrics as to not repeat from the other two I made last year.  I did re-use one purple print, as it was also used in Roxi's birthday crown and I wanted that connection.

This one went together more quickly now that I'm familiar with the pattern.

A closer look at some of the fabric:

I also did pretty well with the machine binding on this one. The purple batik looked great and I loved that Hello Kitty chevron!

Always something to be learned from a project, but mostly I get so much enjoyment from making something the kids in our family will cherish for years to come!

Linked to Crazy Mom Quilts and Confessions of a Fabric Addict.

Big Christmas Finish

I haven't posted since July as I've been working on three quilts for Christmas presents. One was a surprise for my cousin and her husband. Usually when working on the kids' quilts, I'd be sending her fabric selection and progress shots.  This time I had to work extra-hard to not slip and say anything.

The pattern is Hip 2 Be Square.  I saw it in my LQS a couple of years ago and bought it, vowing I would make it some time.  What I didn't realize at the time was this was written for a full-size quilt and had no other size options.  I needed to MacGyver this pattern into a queen.  I consulted the helpful ladies at Gina's Bernina on how I might be able to accomplish this.  We decided on expanding the number of fabrics utilized instead of just increasing the amount of fabric for the original number of prints on the pattern.

The feature fabric is a Robert Kaufman Totally Tropical sea turtle print I found online.  My cousin loves sea turtles and we got to see them during a trip to Mexico in 2013.

I used excel to draw out columns & rows to make it the desired size.  The original size is outlined in bold.  I also color-coded the five blocks and did a dry run at their order.

In laying out the 12 1/2-inch squares, I realized some of them were wonky.  Off so much in some places that I wouldn't have 1/4" or close to that for a seam allowance.  

It took some time and there wasn't much help on the internet, so I'm talking about this in the hopes it may help someone else in a similar situation.  I did multiple searches and finally found someone who admitted she trimmed down squares to make it work.  The easiest way I could think to accomplish this was to go to a glass shop and get a 12-inch square piece of plexiglass.  I drew diagonal lines and horizontal and vertical mid-point lines so I could center the various styles of squares. It worked!

First I went with seven columns and eight rows of the trimmed squares.  I placed it on my guest bed to see how it looked.  I wasn't quite happy with the drop on the sides, as I remembered she had a taller mattress.  I stewed on that for a couple of weeks while working on another project, and ultimately added an eighth column before piecing the back and taking it to the long arm quilter. There was a 4 1/2-inch border of smaller squares, but I opted not to add them.

I think it turned out well, considering it was my first queen and the wonky block problem.   It was the only non-rainy day before Christmas and it was very cold, so these pics were taken very quickly.

Here's a closer look at the different blocks and fabrics:

Debbie at Smoky Mountain Quilts performed magic with her long arm and also did the binding.  I believe the pattern is called Calm Water or it's something close to it.  Debbie used a variegated blue-green thread that worked very well on the quilt.

My cousin was very surprised when she opened up her present.  I know this quilt has a great home!

Linking up to Finish It Fridays at Crazy Mom Quilts and Confessions of a Fabric Addict Can I Get a Whoop Whoop?

Two More Zippered Pouches

I made a couple more of the Noodlehead Open Wide Zippered Pouches this week.

For one of them, I used the leftover squares from my niece's quilt, ripping out a fabric I didn't like for this purpose, re-sewing, cutting to make some of the shapes smaller and sewing back together to get fabric in the size I needed.  I only had to cut a strip of one fabric to add to what I had in order to make the panels large enough.  

Then I cut some batting and quilted the panels with vertical lines using a Mettler green variegated thread.  This made sewing the zipper in a bit more challenging because of the bulk, but it worked out.

The other pouch uses a purple print from another niece's birthday crown.

For both linings I used some Hello Kitty fabric.  And both used the YKK zippers I bought from Zipit.

I feel like I'm getting better at sewing zippers and I'm getting faster at putting these together.  I want to make a box-style case for myself to replace a makeup bag that is falling apart.  I'm thinking quilted outside for sturdiness and vinyl or oilcloth for this inside.

I've never sewn vinyl or oilcloth - does anyone have any tips on working with that material?


Linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts and Confessions of a Fabric Addict.

Back in the Saddle Again!

As I was finishing my niece's quilt back in early April, my Bernina 750QE locked up while I was cleaning the thread catcher and was giving me this weird screen whenever I restarted the machine.  After taking it to my dealer, they consulted with Bernina USA, who wanted to see it in person, so my beloved Bernie went to Chicago.  Nearly 2 months later, and apparently waiting for a part to come over on a boat from Switzerland, Bernie returned home!

Besides taking my last Mastery Class on a loaner machine, I hadn't sewn since I finished the quilt in early April.  I decided a small project would be good to get my feet wet on, so I made my first zippered pouch!  I used the popular Noodlehead tutorial and some scraps from Sophie's quilt.  It took me a few hours, and I was nervous about the zipper, but I did a very respectable job on it.

Now I feel an addiction coming on.  I have lots of scraps and just ordered some colorful zippers from Zipit on Etsy.


I just wanted to mention that Massdrop has a deal on Liberty fat quarter bundles in the next few days.  I learned about Massdrop a couple of months ago from another blog and had just missed a Liberty fabric bundle offering.  I signed up for the site and even voted for some potential offerings and a couple of days ago I received an email that they had Liberty bundles (2 different options of 10 fat quarters).  The price starts at $85.99, but will drop more if they get 20 or 30 people to commit to the buy.  Currently, they just need 9 more to hit the lowest price of $78.99.  You can upgrade to half-yards, too.  They also have an offering for six various neutral spools of Aurifil that now has enough commitments to get the lowest price of $45.99.  I'm waffling on that one as I've bought quite a bit of fabric lately for a quilt project, but it looks like that one is a good deal, too.  These offerings are for a limited number of days, so I wanted to share this info with others who might be interested.

What summer projects do you have planned?  I want to make some more zippered pouches and try the fabric baskets from Sunday Morning Quilts.

Linking up on Finish It Up Friday on Crazy Mom Quilts and Confessions of a Fabric Addict's Whoop Whoop Friday.

Teyla's Quilt

My second twin-sized quilt is completed!  And on time! Woo-hoo!

It's another Yellow Brick Road, but done in greens & blues, for my niece Teyla's 8th birthday.  I found a lot of the fabric from Intown Quilters in Decatur GA.  Some also came from my local store, Gina's and a couple came from my stash.

The sun was pretty harsh for my finished images.  Maybe this in-progress shot shows some of the fabric in better detail.

The back is pieced from 3 different prints, I found the Hello Kitty fabric online and the other two came from Gina's. Teyla likes Hello Kitty, peace signs and purple, too.

Things went faster the second time around.  I'm still working on my machine binding skills, but I only had to slip stitch a couple of missed areas.

 

Something happened to my Bernina 750QE when I had finished quilting.  As I was cleaning a stuck thread from the thread catcher, it locked up.  It went to a weird screen that's not in the book and I only found one reference to it online, but couldn't get to the related post on a FB page.  After hard booting and unplugging attempts failed, I took Bernie into my local shop and stumped them, too, so Bernina USA wants to see it.  Gina's loaned me one of their classroom 550 machines and I was able to finish the binding over 2 weeknights and have it ready for Teyla's birthday!

The 550 (above) is a very nice, solid machine, but I'm really glad I splurged on the 750.  I like having the extra harp space.  I'm also so used to the thread cutter.

I'm taking a break from quilts for a bit and when my machine comes back, I want to do a couple small projects mentioned my Jan 10th blog.

What are you looking forward to working on this spring/summer?

Posted on Finish It Friday:

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