The Excitement of a New Project

Since I have almost finished the baby quilt, it is time for a new project. Here's what I chose:

Two years ago, I bought this pattern at a yard sale - an enthusiastic quilter had passed away and the family was liquidating her stash. My, she had a quilt shop worth of fabric, precuts, patterns, and sewing machines!  I like simple but effective designs, and this appealed to me.

You're supposed to make this from a jelly roll or two. I had purchased one jelly roll a few years ago in some pretty fall colors. I didn't know what I was planning to do with it - so I'm using it for this project. I picked up 3 yards of Kona cotton in "Bone" (a cream color) for the background and I started cutting. I have enough jelly roll fabric for the Twin size.

It's a log-cabin-like block done in two styles. They call it block "A" and block "B" as shown:

Block A	Block B

The fabric color and style is a bit "country" for me, but as I said, I liked the colors.

Every project teaches me something. This one is no exception, even though I've only made a handful of blocks so far.

I like to press my seams to one side. The trend for modern quilters is to press the seams open - I don't know why - I guess it makes the seams flatter.  Trying to sew open a 1/4" seam is tedious. When I was sewing some of the blocks together, the seam allowance on one seam was pushed apart by my feed dogs. OK, I thought, what the heck. I'll just press it open. Then I went on my merry way building the rest of the block, pressing my seam allowances to the side.

Don't do that. It resulted in an inconsistent block width, and the block looked "off."

Lesson - be consistent in how you press your seam allowances within your block, at least. Probably the whole quilt.

I don't know if I'll undo those blocks, toss them, of just leave them. It's not so bad that it will ruin the whole quilt. I have to think about it - if it bothers me enough, I'll have to get rid of them.

Quilt For Baby

This darling little quilt is nearly done. I posted pictures of some of the blocks on March 19 and since then I set them as shown and recently completed the quilting.

The colored blocks are simple string pieced squares on a muslin foundation, made from strips cut from a purchased scrap grab bag. I bought them while I was staying in Virginia at the Cottonwood Quilt Shop. I really liked the colors and patterns and whimsical designs.

I like kid prints. I admit it. I like cute.

I quickly ran out of long strips so I had to get creative. I didn't really want to buy any more fabric beyond the scrap pack because at the time, I was staying at Dad's house temporarily. I didn't want more stuff to have to pack and bring home.

I like a creative challenge. First, I bought a small pack of solid fat quarters - I needed them for the other projects I was making with the scraps. Then I looked around the house for fabric. None.  I found the backing fabric also at Cottonwood (deep discount - on sale!!) and I used a few strips of it in the blocks. I used some of the muslin I had picked up from a Joann's remnant bin. Finally, there was some fabric ribbon and I sewed some strips of grosgrain ribbon in.

When I got home, I made a few more blocks to make enough for this top. If Mom and baby are really clever, they will find fabrics from Mom's bed quilt made 10 years earlier and Mom's brother's baby quilt, made 11 years earlier.

Quilting Pattern

Deciding the quilting pattern is always a challenge. Quilting is fun, but marking the quilt for quilting is not fun. What can I do that doesn't require marking?

This design is featured on several Denyse Schmidt quilts.

Honestly, this pattern is a little tricky. You think the loops need to be opposing, but they do not - they are offset from one another. Once you realize that, it gets easier and the nice crosshatch pattern between the loops emerges. I must have started this design and taken it out at least 5 times, and that's after I filled several pages practicing with pencil and paper.

 

That was fun. The last step remains - binding. Should be done in a few days.

String Piecing

I have a bunch of strips and scraps left over. The natural fit is....string pieced blocks!  Looks like baby will get a quilt, also.  Or, at least, that's my good intention.

Simple diagonal foundation pieced blocks, nine inches square. I want the finished block to be 8 inches square, so I have a little wiggle room to square the blocks up.

I'm throwing in some strips of solids from the fat quarter pack I purchased at JoAnn.

The foundation is a 9-inch square of muslin. I had found the muslin at JoAnn in the remnant bin, and purchased it because I figured I needed at least one piece of scrap fabric for testing out the machine and the stitches.  I found a good use for it!

I don't have rotary cutting supplies here at my parents' house and I really don't want to buy a whole set. (It's bad enough I bought a machine just for the 6 weeks I'm here!) The foundation squares were cut with a cardboard template. I used Dad's right angle from his carpentry supplies and drew the shape on the the top of a shirt box. Then I cut it out. To make the muslin squares, I traced each square on the fabric with a pencil and cut it out by hand. The remnant was super wide, and I could draw 16 squares on it.

I'm not sure how many blocks I'll get from the scraps. The number will determine the setting for the quilt top. If I get all 16, I'm thinking a 7x4 block straight setting with 4 rows of blocks alternating with 3 rows of white.

These blocks are crazy fun to make! And, they don't have to be precise, another bonus!

A Little Whimsy

Whimsy is the Moda fabric line I used in this quilt top. It is from a few years ago, not easy to find these days. I discovered the layer cake precut set at a garage sale a little over a year ago. It's a children's print, really, and since I don't have kids, I didn't know what I'd do with it. But I was drawn to the soft colors, the delightful collection of images and words, the rick-rack design and the dainty check pattern on some of the fabrics squares....oh, I don't know, I just liked it.

The pattern is from a book called Quilt Boutique, by Suzanne McNeill. The pattern is simply called 10 Minute Blocks Quilt. The blocks do go together quickly.

This quilt will be a silent auction quilt for a fundraiser at my church in September. I'm really going to have to put my nose to the grindstone to get it done on time.

Here's a block close up. You can see the child-friendly words on the square with the circles if you zoom in on it. It's quaint - all kinds of everyday things a child might know. The other shot is my attempt to be an "art photographer." Ha ha ha ha ha!

The sandwich is pin-basted and the quilting plan is nearly finalized (in my mind). Then the quilting work begins!

Cheap & Easy Way to Hang a Quilt

It's Christmas and you want to hang up your special Christmas wall hangings and quilts, but darn it! The quilt doesn't have a hanging sleeve and it's such a pain to drill into the wall, put up a rod, yadda yadda yadda. Here's a clever way to hang your quilt quickly and easily without wall damage and without damaging your quilt.

Hanging is achieved using 3-M Command Strip hooks and office binder clips.  Each hook cannot hold very much weight, but all together, they distribute the weight and can hold up something as big as a quilt.

1. Figure out where you will want to hang your quilt.
2. Figure out how many hooks and clips you'll need. You want the clip every 6 to 8 inches. The hooks look better if they are roughly evenly distributed across the quilt.  You want to use a good number of them because it will keep the floppy fabric straight.
3. Get your level out and lightly mark a straight line. You could just make small marks where the hooks will go.
4. Clean the areas and affix the hooks to the wall per the directions on the package. Make sure you line them up with your marked line the same way on each one (e.g. match up the top of the hook backing with the line, etc).
   
   
   

   
   
5. After the waiting period (usually an hour), hook your binder clips to the hooks.
   
   
   

   
   
6. Hold your quilt up to the wall, and clip go down the line one by one attaching the clips.
• You should hold most of the weight while you're hanging it - one or two hooks will probably not be able to hold the whole thing, and it will tear off the wall (potentially damaging your wall!)
• If your quilt is large, you might want to have someone help you with this step.
   
7. You can adjust the hooks where they clip onto the quilt to make it straight.

When you're ready to take it down, remember not to let only one or two hooks hold the weight of the quilt, and remove the Command hooks according to package directions to avoid damaging your wall.

Even cheaper - you can use pushpins instead of the Command hooks. They will leave a small hole in the wall, of course.

I borrowed this idea from a gift shop in North Carolina, back when I lived there. It is a nice technique for apartments, where you may not be able to drill into a wall.