Potluck Project Bag

I struggled with the placement of these fabrics. Some I adore and others are just fillers. It wouldn't be the best use of my precuts to only pull out the ones I love, not when I'm just working with 2 1/2" squares to begin with. So I fussed and fussed some more and got them all pieced into two panels.

That was the hard part. Sewing a zippered project bag is easy, even if I succumb the influence of Lier over at Ikat Bag and line it properly. And quilt the outside because if I'm playing with the fabric that's too good to cut, I should do things right. I'll like the finished bag more if it has some substance and holds its shape.

After all of that careful fabric placement and choosing the best thrifted zipper to match the yellows, can you see what I did? (Hint -- look at where the zipper is and which direction the prints are facing.) I didn't see the problem until I had the entire bag assembled and I wasn't about to rip out every seam to redo it. I keep hearing that we're not supposed to point out our mistakes, but if I can save one of you from sewing directional prints the wrong direction, I'm happy to share my embarrassment.

Vintage Blackboard Quilt

I'm not usually a fan of anything that's too school-ish, especially not flashcards, but it was love at first sight when I saw this novelty print. For years it sat in my "too good to cut" stash. I used a little bit for a bag that didn't turn out at all well, then a bigger piece for a rice bag. Seeing the way it looks when I cut it for the rice bag made me decide that the busy novelty print would be great as a wide border.

But a wide border for what? I couldn't decide until I saw an Irish Chain quilt that someone had made with a black background. That made me think of chalkboards...and then I found this fabric in my stash. It was intended for a different project, but with its dusty black color and the paler flecks it was the perfect background. That other project will have to use something else. 

I didn't write down the measurements I used, but the nine patch blocks seem to measure 1 3/4" and the finished quilt is 16" x 21"ish.   don't measure tiny blocks after you quilt them - it's not even remotely accurate.  

I'm loving this little quilt so much that it's currently hanging over my sewing machine in the space that Strawberry Fields had been in since 2011. I'm always pinning little blocks up there and I figure this one is better suited to be a sort-of bulliten board. 

Going back to the picture at the top of the post, the bell belonged to Great Aunt Molly, who taught at a girls' boarding school.  I'm told that she used it in her classroom. The Bobbsey Twins books are from the library bookstore where I scored a huge stack of them for fifty cents a piece. I was never a big fan of that series, but I couldn't leave them behind...not at that price. And once Grandma saw them and told me those were the ones she'd read as a girl, there was no way I was going to part with them!

This post is linked to Crazy Mom Quilts

A Purse Fit for the Big Top

Four days before we were due to leave for Arizona I decided that I absolutely positively had to have a new bag for the trip. I like the purse I've been carrying  for the past couple of years, but I can't hike with it and I hate leaving it in the car and I won't go two weeks without some kind of purse.

On our last two trips, I carried my wallet and  camera in the Nancy Drew bag. It worked, but I don't like having my wallet in an open top bag. Even though I know it's not likely to fall out on its own (it's hard enough to dig from the bottom when I need it),  I still wished I had a zipper.

What I really needed was a lightweight bag, about the size of my red purse, with a strap long enough to wear across my chest. So I made one.

The first battle was to choose fabric. I knew I wasn't going to have time to include every detail I wanted or to learn new tricks, so the fabric I'd already chosen for my dream purse was out. I did some digging and some thinking and wound up using the one fabric I'd absolutely ruled out as a potential tote bag.

I measured the existing red purse and added a couple of inches on each side to make up for boxing the bottom (see -- I learn from my mistakes!) Then I made myself a zippered pouch and boxed the corners a bit. There are some elements I love and some that didn't turn out quite right (especially the way the zipper lays) but overall it's not bad for a couple of hours of work.

After living with it for two weeks, I'm absolutely in love with this circus print. It got soaked completely through at Montezuma's Castle and covered with cinders on the Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad and still did everything I needed it to do. The strap is wide enough not to dig into my shoulder too much, even after a couple of extra water bottles put an end to my "keep it as light as possible" strategy. I can tie a knot to shorten it for hanging on a chair back.

Not bad for a spur of the moment project that I made up on the fly!

This post is linked to  Crazy Mom Quilts, Busy Hands Quilts 

Not Quite...

I'd decided that best way to show off the rest of that novelty print I used for the rice bag would be to use it as a wide border on a simple little quilt. I was thinking  "chalkboard" and wanted black to be the dominant color, then I saw an Irish Chain quilt with a black background and decided that I wanted that.

Now the center is pieced and I'm not so sure.  It's not a bad little quilt, but it might not be the best choice for this project.

If I had more of this mottled black print to play with, it would be an easier decision to make.

This post is linked to Patchwork Times. 

{Let's Make Baby Quilts!} Week 36

When I first started making the baby quilts, I'd put together a top and then search my  stash for fabric. Although I'd read over and over that the top and back of a quilt don't have to go together, I couldn't just give in and back them with whatever I had available. The combination had to make some kind of sense.

The more of these little quilts I make, the more I see the top and backing and binding as part of a whole. Instead of getting  more relaxed about the combinations, I think I'm getting pickier. Some fabrics will go with just about any scrappy combination, but others aren't that easy.

Lately, I've been picking out backings and then making tops to go with them. And It's been a whole lot of fun. I enjoy the challenge and I'm happier with the results.

This week I finished Fergus. (Teenage daughter tells me that that name is completely cheating...but she didn't have any butter options to offer.)

 

Sid

 

Marilyn

 

Let's Make Baby Quilts Linky Party Rules:
Link directly to your post or specific Flickr photo. Your post can be about a baby quilt that's finished, or in progress, or you can be writing about what you have planned, but it's got to be about baby quilts. While we're still gathering steam, you're welcome to link to baby quilt posts that aren't brand new, but please don't submit the same post or picture more than once. I'd love it if you linked back to my site, either with a text link or the Let's Make Baby Quilts! button.

Meet Marilyn!

Unless I'm working up a submission for someone else, I rarely draw out my quilts in advance. I start with an idea in my head and sometimes I get what I'm picturing and sometimes it comes out a little different.

With Marilyn, I made so many changes along the way that I didn't know for sure what I was getting until the top was assembled.

The quilt started out as a plan to use up a yard of flannel with perfume bottles and roses and hand mirrors that I'd originally bought to make pajama pants for my little girl.

My go-to plan for using up great backing fabric is to make a simple Irish Chain, and that's what I thought I was going to do for this quilt.  I have a huge hunk of this blue print that I can't for the life of me remember buying...it must be from one of those Craigslist deals a few months back. Wherever it came from, I like the way the swirls look with the backing fabric.

Then I started thinking of names. The girliest-girl name I could come up with...one that conjured up atomizers and hand mirrors and fancy lipstick tubes.

Marilyn.

And from there, I decided I wanted facets, so what about alternating snowball blocks with the nine patches that would form the chain? And what about setting them on point? With more blue for the setting triangles around the outer edges?

This post is linked to I Gotta Try That, Sew Much Ado, Finish it Up Friday, Can I get a Whoop Whoop?, Get Crafting Friday, Pinworthy Projects, and Freedom Fridays, Wonderful at Home, and Hooking Up With HOH, Inspired Friday.

Any guesses?

It's amazing how even a little bit of a break can help you regroup. I spent Saturday at the river with the kids and Sunday morning, before heading back down to the river to meet up with another mom, I pulled fabric and cut squares and assembled this little baby quilt top.

 

Doesn't look much like my usual quilts, does it?

 

My original plan was to do nine patch blocks with sashing, then I decided to go for a postage stamp layout. That wide green border is going to change soon -- anyone want to guess which new toy I'm getting ready to play with?

To see what other quilters are working on, click over to Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times.

Meet Sid!

 

When we're on road trips through long stretches of desert, I dream up quilts in my head.  The whole process makes me a little bit crazy, because it's hard to keep track of the math and decide where I might have tucked that piece of fabric that might or might not work with that other piece of fabric that I could vaguely remember finding in one of the scrap bags a couple of years ago. But it is entertaining.

 

On our last trip, I decided to try a two-color (or do I count the background, which makes it three-color?) version of Priscilla.  I made my head hurt a bit trying to figure out whether or not the fabric placement would actually work in real life, and how many strips of green and blue I'd need to cut.  

 

 

It turned out, once I had actual quilt blocks to look at, that the color placement is easy. There are an even number of squares, so you sew them in pairs of blue and green, then sew one to the edge of the pinwheel section with the green on the left and one on the opposite edge with the green to the right.

Then you do the same thing with the remaining edges. And the blocks all fit together just the way they did in my imagination.

 

 

Now the big mystery is why I had a yard of fabric with monkeys on flaming skateboards. I'm sure I didn't buy this stuff as yardage (although I do admit to buying the robot dinosaurs and the ugly King Kong fabric, which were both really cheap.) It did go well with the front of the quilt, though. And now it's used up except for a few leftover inches that I'll hack up into baby quilt squares.

You can find the full instructions for Priscilla here. For this version, I used six blue width of fabric strips and six green width of fabric strips and had a few squares of each left over.

I'll be linking up to Finish it Up Friday, Can I get a Whoop Whoop?, and Freedom Fridays, and House of Hepworths, and The Dedicated House.

They do look kinda like stars!

Every year, I intend to go out and pick strawberries. Something always comes up to stop me, even if it's the realization that picking berries with all of the kids in tow might be more of a challenge than I'm willing to deal with. A friend called with an offer of cheap strawberries, delivered straight to my door.

 

Doesn't that sound like a great plan?

 

While I was rinsing and hulling them for the freezer, I was hit by the idea that they really do look like green and red stars.  I made up the pattern for Strawberry Stars in December, when real berries were a vague memory. I thought they looked like stars, but wasn't sure anyone else would agree with me.

 

 

Floating in the bowl of rinse water, they absolutely looked like stars! If I'd had real berries to look at when I was designing the quilt, I might've made those center squares green...but I like the way the original quilt came out. It shows off the red prints better.

Over the past couple of days, I've cut up something like fifteen pounds of berries for the freezer, and made seven pints of strawberry jam. I'm just in love with the color red right now, wondering if I've got enough scraps left over from other projects to experiment with a larger version of this block and make a baby quilt.  

 

 

Of course now that I'm up to my ears in strawberries, I ran out to buy blueberries to make Jo's pie recipe.

You can find the free pattern for Strawberry Stars here on my blog.   I'm linking up to Rednesday at Cottage Sweet Cottage, More the Merrier Monday, Sumo's Sweet Stuff,  and Monday Funday.

those itty bitty scraps that might or might not be worth saving...

Quilters are always talking about whether or not it's worth saving scraps and what size scraps are too small to save. After cutting the pieces for my latest Bake Shop quilt, I was left with the middles of the Jelly Roll strips. (Not ends, because I fold them in half before cutting them.)

 

 

The bits measure anywhere from 1 - 2" wide, are all exactly 2 1/2" high, and have straight edges already. And they're all from the same fabric collection. It would be a shame not to do something with them, right?

I sewed them along the 2 1/2" edge, then sewed three rows together to make the front of my mug rug. Then I used the extra row I'd made for the back, framed with pieces I cut from an unused Jelly Roll strip.

The rest of the Jelly Roll strip went for the binding. I thin that might be my least favorite part of the piece. I don't like the way it looks where it folds around the back. I think I need to look at some different methods for finishing mug rugs.

 

This post is linked to to Finish it Up Friday, Can I get a Whoop Whoop?, and Freedom Fridays,

I thought I was going to have to use some bad words

When I cut the borders for the turtle quilt, my focus was on whether or not I had enough light blue sheet for the inner border and for the 240 squares that I needed for the snowball blocks. I decided to go with the narrowest strips I thought would work -- 2" wide.

I wasn't thinking about how I was going to mange the corners....not until I was lying awake at 2am and realized that if I'd cut those stupid inner borders 2 1/2" wide I could have snowball blocks around the entire outer edge and not worry about putting plain blue blocks in the corners.

It's the same exact math I used for the borders of Madder Snowballs -- so why couldn't I remember it until after I'd cut the strips?

The turtles distracted me. They finish at 14" and I was trying to figure out how to make snowballs that would go evenly into that....and the whole thing was starting to sound like that math problem where the two trains leave different cities at different times and meet at some point you're supposed to determine. I never did learn how to do that problem.....

And I didn't need to do all of those mental contortions. There are four turtles in each row.  If I make 4" snowballs, fourteen of them will fit alongside the four 14" turtles. Easy-peasy -- as long as you remember how to make the borders fit!

Luckily, there was enough sheet to recut the inner borders and it all should go together now. 

the air is wild with leaves...

The leaves here haven't started changing yet -- the ones shown here have been slowly decaying on the hood of my husband's old truck since last Fall. 

For my Leafs Me Happy block, I wanted to combine piecing and embroidery. Coming up with the text was the hard part - everything I thought up myself was just too lame.. Then I stumbled across this absolutely perfect quote by Humbert Wolfe:

Listen! 
The wind is rising, and the air is wild with leaves,
We have had out summer evenings, now for October Eves! 

The fabric choices were easy. I raided some background fabric from Hocuspocusville, which should be fine since I bought plenty of extra for the pieced center. The fabric for the leaves came from another kitted up project. I doubt I'll miss an inch or two when I finally get started on that one.

Piecing the leaves, which finish at 3", was the easy part. I used my die cutter to cut the 1" finished half square triangles. I'd love that cutter even if all it did was triangles -- those pre-cut dog ears make things so much less fiddly! The 1 1/2" squares, I cut with my rotary cutter.

Once I had my leaves together, I needed to start my embroidery. For days, I tried to figure out how to scatter the leaves around the words. Nothing seemed quite right until I decided to just run them down left hand side.

My handwriting is legible but unattractive, not something I wanted to display on my quilt block. I did some searching online and found all kinds of resources for creating printable worksheets (maybe I can use those with the kids later), but nothing that would make my text pretty enough to embroider over.

Then it finally dawned on me. Microsoft Works came installed on the computer...it might have some fonts I could use... Freestyle Script turned out to be just what I was looking for. I figured out how large my embroidery could be, then printed out the words in the largest font available and traced it onto my background fabric.

Then there was the math and cutting the embroidery so my 10 1/2" block didn't come out too large or too small. My strip of leaves finished at 3" wide, leaving 7" for the embroidery...I measured the words, I figured out how much blank fabric to leave at top and bottom so it would be centered, held my breath until the block was assembled...and I got it right!

Don't forget to visit today's other participants --

Mrs. Pickles Garden, Gingersnaps Quilts, Petite Design Co, A Passion for Applique, Annie Oak Designs, Cherry's Prairie Primitives, krislovesfabric,  Scrapbook-ChickADoodle  You can find the entire schedule in the sidebar at Cherry Blossoms Quilting Studio.

treasure chest snap bag tutorial

Quinn asked me to sew a bag to put his little stuff in and I wanted to make something a little more involved than two squares and a draw string... and I had a new Sizzix die that I bought at an estate sale a couple of weeks ago...

It was a bag to hold his little treasures, so why not make it a treasure chest? And I didn't want to fiddle with a zipper, so why not make it a snap bag?



Supplies --

12 2x9" strips of brown fabric
1 scrap yellow fabric for lock
1 scrap dark solid brown or black fabric for keyhole
20x10" fabric for lining
20x10" piece of batting
fusible web
2 7 1/2" long pieces of metal measuring tape


To make the lock, I used the Sizzix Styled Labels die. This is the first time I've used a magnetic die. The shape inside the blades is open, and there are smaller magnetic dies that you can position in that space.

(That's where I made my mistake -- even though it very clearly says on the front of the packaging that the keyholes are included, I missed it. Instead of making Quinn wait until I got a second die, I cut the keyholes by hand.)



The Sizzix works a little differently than the AccuQuilt cutters. There are two cutting mats. One goes on the bottom, then the die, then the fabric, then the second mat.



I backed my yellow fabric with fusible web and ran it through the machine. Then I backed a small piece of solid fabric with fusible web and cut the keyhole. Fuse the keyhole to the yellow piece. If you don't have the die, a rectangle of yellow fabric would work, or you can find clip art of a similar shape and cut it by hand.



Sew the twelve 2x9" strips of fabric together along the long edges to form a panel. The first strip on either end will be folded under to create the casing, so don't use your favorite fabric in that position. The lock will go on the fourth strip from one end, so make sure the strips there are dark enough to make it stand out.

Once your panel is pieced (this would be a great way to use up some brown strings, or you could use a solid piece of fabric), layer it with the batting and lining and quilt as desired. I used a quilting pattern that I hoped would resemble wood grain.

Trim sides and ends. I zig-zagged around the edges to make the inner seams a little more finished looking and keep the little Lego guys' hands from getting caught on fraying fabric.



Cut two pieces of metal measuring tape, each one 7 1/2" long, an inch shorter than the width of the fabric panel. Because this bag is for a little boy, I decided to completely encase the metal pieces in scrap batting instead of just taping the sharp ends. You'll want the rounded out side of the measuring tape facing the inside of the bag -- I marked my batting on the right side so I didn't get confused when I put the tape into the bag.





Fold the strip at the end of each panel down towards the lining of the bag and sew along the edge to create the casing for your measuring tape pieces. Slide one piece of measuring tape into each casing.



Fold the bag in half, right sides together and sew along each side from the bottom fold up along the open edge of the casing. Be careful not to sew through that metal measuring tape -- my machine didn't like it very much! Turn right side out.



If you want to make your own bag, come back Saturday for the Quilter's Blog Hop. I'll be giving one of my readers the die cut fabric shape for the lock (you get to cut your own keyhole) and a set of brown strips identical to the ones I used in Quinn's bag, along with the batting and lining they'll need to make their own.

This post is linked to Create and Share at Trendy Treehouse, The Mommy Club at Crystal and Co., Too Cute Tuesday at Funky Polka Dot Giraffe, Handmade Tuesday at Ladybug Blessings, Tuesday Tutorials at the Kutz Corner, and Elm Street Quilts.

a little quilt for my fractured dolls

A couple of weeks ago, I posted about my search for a set of Tim Holtz Fractured Dolls, which I wanted to buy and make quilts for.

My order came, and Sunday night I made them a little quilt.



These dolls are teeny-tiny. The larger one is only about three inches tall. I wanted a quilt with "real" pieced blocks, as small as I could make them. These nine-patches finish at 1 1/2" square. And the top only took three left over Jelly Roll strips -- one dark and two matching light prints.

Want to make your own?



From one light strip, cut four 1 x 14" strips. From one dark strip, cut five 1 x 14" strips. From the second light strip, cut twelve 2" squares. (If you're working with yardage or scraps instead of precut 2 1/2" strips, just cut it into the 1" and 2" strips that these instructions call for.)



Sew the 1" strips into the three sets shown and carefully press open. The pieced strips should measure 2" wide. Cut each strip set into thirteen 1" sections.



Assemble those sections into thirteen nine patch blocks. If your cutting and piecing are completely accurate, the unfinished blocks should measure exactly 2" square. A lot of mine didn't, but I'm making a quilt for a broken plastic doll, so I just concentrated on making my points match as best I could and it came out fine.



Lay out the blocks on a scrap of batting to keep them organized while you assemble the top.



Press the top well, then cut a piece of backing fabric the same size as your top, which should measure 8" square. I didn't want to mess with binding on something this tiny (it's a quilt for broken dolls, not a mug rug!), so I "birthed" the doll quilt.

Lay the top face up, then the backing face down, then a piece of thin white flannel. Sew around the whole sandwich 1/4" from the edge, leaving a 2-3" opening for turning. You can find more details about birthing a baby (or doll) quilt at Sunshower Quilts.



To keep the quilting from overwhelming the nine patch blocks, I quilted diagonal lines across the setting squares. Once I decide whether or not this is the quilt for my fractured dolls, I plan on attaching them to the quilt.



I wish I could find some of the real thing, but I'm too practical to spend what they're asking on ebay.... I think...

This post is linked to to Try it out Tuesday at Jo's Country Junction.

scrappy spools

I've been wanting to make this spool quilt forever. The pattern I intended to follow was for larger blocks, but after sewing along with Jo's Quilt Square Quilt Along for the past few months, I'm really loving these itty bitty quilts. About the same time I found my inspiration for this quilt, my best friend made one with the same exact construction and different color placement. Her blocks were 12" square and she had nothing but trouble with it. I think that's part of the reason I took so long to start my own.

Somewhere along the line, I realized that I could use the Companion Angle ruler and try a block with some of the 1 1/2" strips from my log cabin box.



I sewed two strips together and pressed them, then cut them into quarter square triangles. I never knew I needed a Companion Angle until I bought it for Orca Bay. Now I'm finding all sorts of things to do with it!



You wind up with four triangles...



And sew them together to make a spool.



Using the 1 1/2" strips made a 4" finished block, which is larger than I wanted, because I'm a bit nuts that way, so I tried it again with 1" strips. That gave me a 2" finished block. I suppose I could have read the numbers printed right there on the ruler and figured that out without the first test block, but what's the fun in that?



Now I'm debating how many blocks I want to make. A 16x24" quilt sounds nice, but that would take scary lot of cute little blocks.... To see more design walls, head over to Patchwork Times.