This is the old post for back-to-front binding. This tutorial has been updated and can be found HERE!
Monthly Archives: February 2011
Work in Progress #6
This has been a busy week! Thanks to a winter storm keeping us indoors and grandparents playing with my son, I’ve been able to finish up a couple of projects.
I made these cute pillows for Spring! More on them HERE.
I finished my Project Modern Challenge 2 quilt. More on that HERE.
I assembled the large hexagon for the quilt I’m making with my pal. I still need to turn it into a rectangle. I’m going to post how we assembled our quilt-tops in the very near future. Unfortunately I think I’m going to set this hexagon aside for a while so that I can crank out two baby blankets I want to make. Baby #2 is just about 5 weeks away (egads!) so I need to prioritize.
But I’m making good progress on one of my quilts for baby. It’s going to look like this:
More on that soon.
Thanks for stopping by and be sure to check out all of the other great works in progress over at freshly pieced!
Filed under Challenges, Quilting
Whirlwind Romance
Well I’ve thought it over, and it seems silly to withhold pictures of my recently completed quilt. This is “Whirlwind Romance” – my entry for the Project Modern Challenge 2 – Monochromatic Challenge.
In the spirit of romance, I designed a quilt filled with passion. A crashing wave, created by inserting strips into rectangles of varying shades of red fabric.
I quilted using a free motion loop-de-loop following the curve of the wave.
A simple back.
Hope you enjoy! It was fun to make something completely different. At times I’ve been deeply in love with this quilt, and other times completely ambivalent. It’s been a “Whirlwind Romance!” Regardless, I’m really happy I took the challenge. I definitely learned a couple of new things, as I do with every quilt.
Filed under Challenges, Quilting
Lucky Me!
I’m so thankful to be such a lucky gal. I’ve got a wonderful husband, an incredible toddler, a healthy baby on the way (6 more weeks to go – yikes!), a good job that allows me to work from home, great family, friends, and a house.
Lucky me! And that’s the name of this pillow that is one of my two entries into the Great SMS Pillow Contest! (My other is the V-shaped Marca-Relli pillow):
Click CONTINUE READING or scroll down to see more pictures, as well as photos of its mate, links to the pattern, and some tips on assembly.
Filed under Challenges, Quilting, Techniques
Take your needle, my child
Take your needle, my child, and work at your pattern; it will come out a rose by and by. Life is life that; one stitch at a time taken patiently, and the pattern will come out all right, like embroidery.
~ Oliver Wendell Holmes
Filed under Inspiration
Work in Progress #5
I hope everyone had a wonderful Valentine’s Day. I’ve really been enjoying the pillows I made for the holiday, (check ‘em out HERE and HERE) but am looking forward to changing things up. That’s why quilting pillow covers is so fantastic: I get to change the whole feel of my living room with just a couple of slip-covers!
So here is the start of my St. Patrick’s Day pillow project (wrinkly!):
These pillows are inspired by these Ferris Wheel pillows from twin fibers. They are going to be two different pillows, turned-edge appliqued onto the faux linen background I’ve been using. I’ll post how that goes when I figure it all out.
I’ve also been working on my strips for the 6th Times The Charm quilts my friend and I are collaborating on.
All the strips are assembled, waiting to be pressed and sewn together into a giant rectangle. We’re using a different assembly method than described in Handmade Beginnings. After we assemble our quilt tops I’ll tell you all how we did it, just in case we come across any bugs. Want to see what it will look like in the end? Here and here and here are some pictures of similar quilts.
And finally I’ve made tremendous progress on my Project Modern Challenge 2 quilt. I machine quilted the blanket this weekend (read about that experience HERE), and am now working on the binding. I guess I’m going to wait to post more about this quilt until after the contest submission deadline (end of March). I feel sort of silly feeling like anyone would be tempted to copy my work, but that seems to be the popular precaution other bloggers are taking so maybe it’s the smart thing to do.
Thanks for stopping by, and don’t forget to check out all the other WIPs posted over at freshly pieced.
Filed under Challenges, Quilting
Batiks – Lessons in Free Motion Quilting
I don’t see a lot of modern quilts being made with batik fabrics (patterned, dyed fabric where parts of the fabric not intended to be dyed are covered with removable wax). It’s too bad because they are crazy beautiful. Take a look at just a couple from Robert Kaufman’s line of artisan batiks:
Anyway – I love batiks. I incorporated a couple of batik fabrics in my Project Modern Challenge 2 quilt, and I’m so happy to tell you that I machine quilted it this weekend.
Everything was going great until it wasn’t. Randomly I’d reach a region in my quilt where I’d skip a billion stitches, over and over again. Why?! Then all of a sudden I realized what was the matter. My machine hated this one batik fabric! (I actually yelled “he hates these cans!” during my eureka moment).
BLERG! One thing I did NOT know about batiks is that they sometimes get sad when you machine quilt them. The fabrics are incredibly tightly woven. If you use a regular universal needle, chances are you may experience skipped stitches, especially when free-motion quilting. The needle is too dull/big and it’s being forced to break the batik threads rather than scootch them aside for quilting. I have not had this experience on previous projects, but boy was there one batik fabric that gave me the business this weekend.
Instead of stopping everything and researching the problem, I first practiced avoidance and quilted around the evil fabric. Then when it could no longer be postponed I went back to the region, set my needle, and absolutely floored it – reducing the stitch length dramatically until the area was reasonably quilted. It looks fine.
Now that it’s done and everything looks good, I’ve taken a couple of deep breaths and researched the matter. So, if you are ever experiencing trouble free-motion quilting on batik fabrics (and your machine is clean and you’ve tried re-threading your bobbin and monkeying with your tension) the Internet says that these tricks might help:
1. Use a brand-new top-stitching grade needle.
2. Use Sewer’s Aid on your thread.
3. Lift up your feed dogs (gasp!), but continue free-motioning.
Also – always pre-wash batiks. I pre-washed all of my fabrics, but it wasn’t enough to help with this one particular swatch. That being said, if I hadn’t pre-washed all of them maybe I would have experienced even MORE trouble!
I hope that helps someone out there who was smart enough to stop what they were doing and research solutions before resorting to aggressive guerilla quilting tactics… although they did work fine for me in the end ; P
Filed under Challenges, Quilting, Techniques
WIP Wednesday #4
Yay for accomplishments!
First of all, I finished my Marca-Relli pillows for my sister in law.
And entered the “V” one into the Blogger’s Pillow Party. I’m thinking I’ll also have it be one of my hopefully two entries into the Sew Mama Sew contest. I know they’re a little different, but I really like their bold graphicness. Graphicocity…
Speaking of weird different quilting projects, I’ve also made the backing for my Project Modern Challenge 2 quilt (previewed here). I’m excited to start quilting it because I think that’s when it will really come together. I’m also excited because I also made the backing big enough that I can roll it over the front instead of make binding. QUESTION: Do you have a bias-tape maker and do you like using it? I am curious, and I do super duper hate making bias tape.
Also, last week I mentioned that my friend and I are going to make two of the same quilts together. We’re making the Sixth Times the Charm Crib Quilt from Handmade Beginnings. It was so funny checking out my Google Reader this morning because Rachel just posted about making this quilt and using an alternative piecing method. My friend was totally on the same wavelength! After looking at how much scrappy “waste” (seems like a harsh word but I can’t think of a better one) is created using the method from the book, my pal had her engineer husband create a new piecing method. It’s even different from the one concocted by Rachel. Hopefully I can scan his drawings in soon and post them so anyone who’s interested can give this baby a whirl along with us. But anyway, here’s my pile of fabrics for my portion of the quilts:
Here’s a little grid of our color palate (I’ve got a couple more berry colored fabrics on the way):
Cute, right? I’m super excited!
Besides these on-going projects, I have a couple on my to-do list:
- Baby Quilt for baby-to-be
- Clover pillows for St. Patrick’s Day / Spring decorating
- Nursing cover using this tutorial and this fabric
- Value quilt using bright colors
Head on over to Freshly Pieced to see what everyone else has going on!
Filed under Challenges
Marca-Relli Pillows
I finished the pillows I made for my dear sister-in-law:
I really like them a lot! They are quilting cottons in the blocks, bordered with a homespun-cotton that has the appearance of a linen/burlap crossbreed. I quilted with one simple echo line approximately 1/4 of an inch inside each color region.
And just so you get the whole picture, here are my inspiration pictures: artwork by Marca-Relli:
I originally intended to do invisible zippers with these guys, but I am just too pregnant stupid right now to even follow this incredibly clear tutorial. So I just went with what I knew and cranked out an envelope enclosure out of doubled-over black fabric.
Do you have a favorite? I think I like the “V” one the best. In fact, it’s my submission to this month’s Blogger’s Pillow Party! Maybe even one of my two entries to the Sew Mama Sew contest!
Filed under Crafts, Inspiration, Quilting
The Great SMS Pillow Contest!
Sew, Mama, Sew is throwing a pillow contest! I really love all the attention the sewing blogosphere is bestowing upon pillows. They are such wonderful projects that allow you to experiment with designs without dedicating your time and resources to an entire quilt. They are also a simple solution for creating an entirely new look in your home!
Anyway click on this button for the full details:
The basic information is this:
- Pillows must be created between Feb 1 – Feb 23
- You can submit two pillows.
And while we’re talking about pillows, don’t forget to keep checking out the awesome projects being linked up at the Bloggers Pillow Party! Here were the top 9 chosen for January, and the announcement for the winner!
Filed under Challenges
