Tutorials

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Puzzle Ball!


It's a Puzzle Ball! 




I received this book as a Christmas gift a couple years ago, and it is definitely a gift that keeps on giving!  I've made several of these puzzle balls as baby gifts as well as a few other projects in this book.  It has a lot of super cute ideas in it.  The puzzle ball looks like a complicated project, but once you piece a couple of the sections, its actually pretty easy.  And once you get all the sections pieced on the sewing machine, the rest of it can be finished on the couch covered up in a blanket in front of the TV. 

Saturday, December 18, 2010

Friday Night Sew In


I decided to make a few Christmas gifts.  I would post a pic of them all done, but they are already wrapped up and under the tree.  This block is called Christmas Star from Quilt Blocks Galore.  If you havent found this site yet, bookmark it right now.  It is awesome!  There are a bagillion block ideas for any skill level.  I think I might try to crank out a couple more of these mini-quilts before Christmas officially hits.


I did change the look of my blog a little bit.  Hope you like it!

Saturday, December 11, 2010

Pieced Scrap Border quilt, an insane project, and a blizzard



Here is my pieced borders quilt top.  I used (gasp!) an old white sheet.  Its the first time I've used a sheet in a quilt. 


Then my mom pulls out this quilt that she started 30 plus years ago, when she was still single.  Seem similar??  Kinda weird!!

Except her version makes mine look pretty simplified.  Each side of the hexagon has to be lined up and sewn individually.  Thats pretty much the reason why this project is still unfinished.  (And mine is NOT!  ha ha.)  The fabrics are scraps from jackets, dresses, and various things she had made.  She also used a white sheet.  This is authentic vintage fabric people!  :) 


She's had all the pieces cut out and ready to go.  I helped by sewing in 3 hexagons and then I'd had enough.  She has made it a goal to add 1 hexagon a day in the hopes to finish it in a year!  Good luck Mom--We are going to hold you to it!



And this is what it looks like outside today.  This picture actually does not do justice to the howling wind and swirling blinding snow going on out there.  We are currently under a blizzard warning. 

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

UFO Extravaganza!

Over Thanksgiving weekend my mom, sister and I had a UFO Extravaganza!  We got so much done that we had to arrange this photo.  We tallied up over 20 projects that we worked on.  Some were almost done when we brought them, others were both started and finished (like the quilt top on the left and the sweatpants), and then a few were just started and not quite finished (like the paper dolls- we ran out of fusible web).  We're pretty proud of ourselves nonetheless. 

Notice my pieced square border top is done!  *on the right*  I'll post a better picture once I get one taken of it during the daylight; which means this weekend.  These short days are getting old in a hurry. 

Friday, December 3, 2010

I'm Still Here!


I'm still catching up from my 6 day Thanksgiving weekend which was jam-packed full of sewing.  More on that later.  This is a baby quilt made by my Sister. 


It's pretty rad for a baby quilt.

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Another Baby Quilt...



...this time in blues.



Once again I quilted something different in each block.  I also washed and let it lay flat to dry.  I usually don't do this before I gift a quilt away, but this time I did.  I like the fresh, clean and crisp look of it before it gets all wrinkled and crinkled. 






The back is flannel.  I inherited some binding scraps and this red piece was the perfect length-not only did did I not have to sew another strip on, but I didnt even have to trim it at all!  How crazy is that?

Monday, November 15, 2010

A quilt in progress...


This weekend I was motivated enough to start a new sewing project.  I've been wanting to make this quilt tutorial from Red Pepper Quilts for a while and once I started piecing 1.5" strips, I could not stop. 




Boom.
42 Blocks.
Done.



And I still have plenty of pieces left over.  The plan is to use these up in a border. 

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Heritage Squares


This quilt was made by my fiercely quilty family for a cousin's wedding.  It is super scrappy!  We actually made this in a weekend sewing extravaganza, but we each came with a handful of blocks already pieced plus some ready to assemble- so we might have cheated a little bit.  OK- Actually even with the "cheating" we just barely got all the blocks made and laid out onto the floor by the time everyone had to leave.  But then I spent the next couple weeks tweaking the layout; shuffling a block around here and there, looking at it without glasses or contacts, in the light, in the dark, squinting really hard, looking from the corner of my eye, from close up, and from a distance to try and get the lights in the center, darks in the 2 opposite corners, and then the mediums in the opposing corners.  It took some time and effort but I think the resulting effect was well worth it.


Looking at these pictures now, I still see some blocks that perhaps should have been switched around.  But it got kinda tricky because we had duplicates of some of the pieced blocks, and some of the spacer squares were repeats too, so making sure that no 2 fabrics were next to each other got challenging after a while. 



For the quilting I did wiggle-waggle-loop-loop-loop, and repeat.  I stayed in the dark parts and left the little light squares unquilted which resulted in a somewhat trapuntoed effect. 

To give you an idea of the scale- the spacer blocks were 5 inch squares and the littler white squares are 3/4 inch squared finished.  This Heritage Squares pattern was featured in the Sept./Oct. 2005 Quiltmaker magazine.  I really love how it turned out- as did the bride and groom.  I kinda want to make another one now.  :)

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Constructive Criticism



This is my entry for the Blogger's Quilt Festival

I bought a jelly roll of Kaffe Fassett fabrics and then had a hard time figuring out what to do with it.  Flipping through a Connecting Threads catalog I came across this pattern called Sweet Nothings.  I was going to order the pattern when Mom says "Oh, You can just figure it out and make your own pattern".  yeah, what kind of quilter am I when I cant even make my own pattern?!  So I drew it out and made this.  There were 50 different fabric strips and each strip made 2 blocks.  There was 1 duplicate block that was extra.  I quilted swirls all over and stayed up late sewing the binding on so that I could enter it into the county fair.  I stayed to hear the judges comments, which was... humbling.  She could tell that I did the binding in a hurry because my corners were not very crisp and neat.  But i did manage to get a blue ribbon!  And I made a point to learn how to make better binding corners from then on.  :)

Monday, November 1, 2010

For Sewing on the Road


I've been wanting to make a little sewing kit to hold all those little supplies to make it a lot easier to take projects along with me.  I nabbed these Kaffe Fassett fabrics at the AQS show a couple weeks ago with this project in mind.  It was a difficult task finding the right button.  My selection is a bit limited and green one was the perfect color, bit it just was not big enough.  So I stacked it on top of a bigger one.  Then I realized that I would have to stitch it on INSIDE the little pocket...


A little tricky.  I used Rae's pleated pocket tutorial.  The left side features a bit of ceiling fan chain to use to thread a spool of thread or bobbin onto. 


And everything gets snapped in with a couple flaps of felt and some sew-on snaps.  I wouldnt play hacky-sack with it, but I don't think anything is going to fall out with the normal tossing about.  Unfolded it measures 5.5 by 12 inches.