Another finish

That makes two full sized quilts and two baby quilts this year.   Wow.  That's a lot of bobbin winding right there.

I snapped some pictures earlier this week and need to post them here too.







The good news is I learned a bunch of new FMQ patterns. It's certainly getting easier.
     

Binding is attached

Now just to turn and stitch it down.

For the record, the binding on this was a mess.  I keep changing my dimensions and seam allowances with each quilt I make so I never remember what I did on previous quilts.  This resulted in not enough fabric for the binding so I dove into my stash to find a suitable replacement.  I reallllly didn't want to try to go back to the store and find the same fabric again.  Think, needle in a haystack kind of store.  I pulled some other pretty fabric in blue and light green as well and I asked the quilt owner what she wanted.  To borrow words from my friend T, she threw me a curve ball by selecting two blue fabrics instead of the other pinks I had out for her to choose from.  

Second snafu.  It was late and I was tired and sick and I just slapped dashed through attaching the binding last night.  From Oh Fransson, she uses 3/8 inch seam allowance and I did the same thinking my strips were bigger than hers anyway.  I would have plenty of binding to turn and stitch down.  Turns out I was totally wrong.  Not even close.  So today I took off the binding and reattached it using a generous 1/4 inch seam.  Much better!

So for the record cut strips for your binding 3 inches wide and use a full 1/4 inch seam to attach.

Quit top done

H was right.  I ran out of thread before I got the quilting finished so I had a night off and bought some more thread.

So the top is done now and tonight's goal = cutting and sewing on the binding.  C is over the moon excited to be sleeping with her quilt by the weekend so I better make it happen!

I'll get pictures this weekend and hopefully posted soon after that. 

May your bobbin be always full

I got some good sewing time in this weekend, a whole bobbin full.  It was full when I started and I stopped when it ran out again.  I know I did a lot of sewing but man, it didn't look like it.

Converging Corners blocks

Here are the two blocks I made for my friend T in our twin's group quilting bee.

I cannot wait to get this one washed

Here's a shot of the back. It's about half quilted now.

II got the sewing machine out Sunday and got a lot done during quiet time.

Life happens

And when life happens, things are left behind.  Almost.

Since last I blogged, I've made two blocks for a sewing bee, 6 more blocks of my own for M man and lots more quilting in the disappearing 9 patch for C.  I'm happy to report that I'm well over half done with quilting and it's a good thing too.  C has been begging me to do sewing each night for the last few nights.  She really wants me to finish her quilt.

Quilting in September

With kiddos starting school, our normal routines have been thrown out the window and I've been trying to play catch up for quite some time now.  I let my friend borrow my machine while I was in a lull and she had some projects she needed to complete while her machine was acting up.

I had a deadline for a project due September 20th so I knocked that one out first.  I tried my hand at applique, the freezer paper method.  I'm still not a big of it but it might be something I'd be willing to practice some more with.  I'll be posting my block and hopefully a peek at the finished project later.  

Then I was able to squeak out two more blocks for M's quilt as well.  These are the blocks I sent out to my multiple mom quilt bee group.  I have 14 12 inch blocks completed now.  I need 35, still a ways to go. 

I'm using this block from Fresh Lemon Quilts with three shades of grey and one bright teal as the solids and then a bunch of fabrics from Annela Hoey, A Walk in the Woods  and Little Apples.

I got some more quilting done for C's quilt and I'm having a great time.  I'm mixing a bunch of different quilting designs and I'm having a lot of fun.  If I had to guess, I'd say I'm maybe 1/3 of the way done maybe.

Next up, making two blocks for this month's MoM quilt bee based on this quilt, Converging Corners at Film in the Fridge.

I've got some holidays gifts that I'll be working on as well.  No updates on those until after the holidays. 

Working

No picture today but I've got two nights of quilting under my belt and I think I'm going to like the results.

Quilting in straight lines is pretty hard.  To add to the difficulty, I'm tring to free motion quilt it (not use the feed dogs to continuously feed the quilt through my machine).  My stitches aren't all the same length and the lines aren't straight.  I'm embracing it though.  A wonky quilt calls for wonky quilting, right?

And one more

Another one from the big camera. Here's the back of C's quilt.

Yay, finished pictures

I know I could tweak these photos a little more, the color is a little cooler than it is in real life but I'll still post them anyway.

Back pieced

I was going to work on some more hand quilting last night but C was upset I wasn't working on her quilt.  Alrighty then.

I don't have enough batting for her quilt (good thing there's a sale at Jo-Ann) so I worked on piecing the back.  I could have just used the backing joined together since I had enough but I wanted to use the scraps I had from the top though.  I kept the large pieces leftover from the Amy Butler fabrics she picked out and I added smaller scraps to them to fill in the spaces.  I got the back pieced and pressed while watching the Olympics last night and I'll get the batting tonight.  The plan for tonight, making the sandwich maybe and contemplating the quilting a little more.  A trip to the thread store might have to wait until this weekend after my race, we'll see.

C's top is done

And in record time. It felt great to get back to sewing after being on vacation.

Finished

Binding it tonight.

And just like that, done quilting

Two very good nights, lots of stopping due to empty bobbins but I think I've finally got the hang of this FMQ thing. I finished P's quilting last night, I even wrote her name in the corner. Tonight it's trimming and sewing on the binding. I'll add an iPod picture tonight hopefully. Next up, laying out C's blocks and sewing the top together.

So far behind

I know I haven't blogged in a while.  It's because I haven't sewn in a while.

I do have something to share today though.

From a display at my local fabric store.

I kinda want to find a project for it.

Selvages

Thought I had forgotten about sewing?

Nah, I just have 237 other things on my plate right now. I'm now two weeks overdue in getting fabric out to my MoM quilt bee. Here's just a snipet. This is a quilt for M man but it will be a while before I can get to quilting it.

And some finished shots

I took advantage the nice afternoon last Friday and shot the pictures outside.  I didn't have to worry about a flash and white balance and all that stuff.  My assistant had kid duty and dinner duty inside and I quickly snapped pictures before the baby shower the following day.




 Hi painter's tape!

 



I can't tell you what a difference just one washing means to a finished quilt. The batting shrinks just a tiny bit after washing and it creates the rippling that I love.

   

And the back, a solid piece of the bike print from Michael Miller's line. This was the print that finally sold me on using this collection.

Binding

I had it in mind to pick out a medium grey Kona solid for my binding but then I saw this beauty.




 I loved it.

 

 Work close up

 

 And a little bit bigger

And I'll let you in on a little secret.  The trick to keeping all the lines straight, blue painter's tape.  Worked like a charm.

How to piece trapezoids

Some nitty gritty details on how I pieced the top If this quilt were made of squares or triangles, it would be easy. Put right sides together, line up the edges and sew a 1/4 inch seam. These trapezoids need some extra love though. Let me welcome you to row number 11
 

Here's how the blocks should look at you've sewn them together, the top and bottom aligned so it makes a straight line

 

If you put the right sides together and line up the edge, you'd do something like this

 

I've exaggerated the seam to make a point. After you sew these pieces together and fold it flat again, you don't get a straight line. Look at the top and bottom here.

 

The trick here is to overlap the seams using a 1/4 inch rule (and please forgive the picture, it should be turned to the right 90 degrees to match up with the previous picture). You'll want your needle to line up where the two fabrics intersect just inside the 1/4 inch rule mark.

 

Here's a picture after finger pressing the seam open*

 

 And then flipped over to show the front

 

Repeat with the rest of the traps to finish your rows, then join the rows together and you've got yourself a quilt top.

 *By default, I press my seams open on 98% of my projects but I've come to learn that sometimes it's not always the best. When making pinwheels, if you press them in one direction then cut a few threads around the middle, you can get them to lay flat in a swirl in the center (check out this post from P.S. I Quilt for pictures).
In the case of this quilt, it would have been much easier to press the seams in opposite directions. When you join the rows together, the seams fit together like a zipper with each fold butting up next to it's neighbor.

In progress

Once I got all the trapezoids cut up, I let H organize them into a pattern.  This is where I knew I would over think it (group all the lights together, try to do stripes or yellow and grey, random or some other pattern) so I let H lay out his pattern and I was allowed 6 switches if I didn't like it.  I only used 4 and then left it.



Then I joined all the rows together
 

Here's where we started thinking seriously about what I was going to quilt
 

All done

 

 Then with the edges trimmed off

 

 And sandwiched

 

The first of many

I've gotten one picture edited and uploaded and I'll have some in progress ones as well. For the time being though, here's a picture of the finished Cookie Dough quilt.

   

It washed up sooooo nicely. Soft and ready for cuddling, though not anytime soon. Cookie Dough needs a few more weeks to bake.

Quilting is done!

I finished up the quilting last night and today it's binding fabric time.  Hoping to get it done in the next 2 days so I can wash and dry it and take some final pictures before the baby shower. 

Look for some pictures next week.

The details

My MIL and I picked 8 fabrics from the Michael Miller Citron Grey line, 1/2 yard each.

I cut 7 squares from each fabric

7 1/2 X 7 1/2 inches

Then cut them in half diagonally

From that cut, I measured 4 inches on either side and cut off the tips to make trapezoids.  

Here's one of the paper templates I used to map out size of the finished quilt and shape of the trapezoids.  I have no idea what the actual finished dimensions are going to be though.  That guess of 41 X 55 inches, is just that.  A guess.  

I'll have the details on how I pieced it in a few more weeks.  Mama Cookie Dough stalks my blogs so I'm going to keep it a secret until her baby shower in a few more weeks.  Hi D!

Some work in progress

Got some pics off the real camera and got them edited as well.
And my work space

Men at work

Thanks Bijou for the post title.

So the fabric for Cookie Dough is all cut up.  Strips into squares, then triangles, then trapezoids, done!  When I asked H if he felt like arranging blocks last night, his eyes lit up.  I tend to over think this stage.  I had about 4 ways I wanted to lay out the pieces to see what the pattern looked like.  Instead, I let H do his magic and I reserved the right to switch a few pieces after he was done.  In the end I was allowed 6 pairs of traded fabric.  I only used 4 of them.  Pictures to come later.

New batch of fabric

Yay! New fabric.

It's now all washed and pressed and void of any selvages.

This the the beginning of the quilt for another niece/nephew nicknamed Cookie Dough.  These are all fabrics from the Robert Kaufman Citron Gray line.

See that bottom bike fabric?  Daddy Cookie, Mama Cookie and Grandma Cookie are all avid bikers (so are other aunts, uncles and cousins) so that fabric is going to be used on the top and as backing.

And the pattern?
*Deep breath*
Really stretching my quilting muscles here but I'm trying this trapezoid pattern from The Quilt Engineer.  I've consulted with my quilt buddy Tiff and engineer / quilting dude uncle, and I think I know how to piece it.  More to come soon.

Replica quilt

 My mom and dad have had this quilt for a while.*

It's probably from the 1880's.
 
It's beautifully pieced, sometimes with teeny tiny scraps hand stitched together to make a larger piece of fabric (you know, gotta use those scraps) and perfectly hand quilted.
 
 My mom and I realized that we wanted to preserve the quilt from further wear and tear as the quilt on her guest room bed so we decided to remake the quilt in similar colors and similar design. I'll admit, it was tough to pick out beige, tan and brown fabric but I think we did a good job.
The quilt has more reds and pinks than what's showing in this picture too.  This is the best I could do on the fly with the iPod and no quilt-holding assistant.

We pieced it and had it quilted by a local quilter.
I loved making this quilt.  It was a great experience in preserving a piece of my family history.

*I'll update with the exact family relation later. My family history is a little fuzzy and I have to connect with the family historian.