Monthly Archives: March 2011

March 23, 2011 · 5:53 pm

Blogger’s Pillow Party – March

Here is my entry for the March Blogger’s Pillow Party!:

I made these pillows in February and blogged about them originally here. I wanted to make different pillows to enter in the contest this month, but it just hasn’t happened. So, regular readers, please excuse this redundant post.

I was inspired by THIS POST at twin fibers of her Ferris Wheel pillows. She used the pattern available HERE by Q is for Quilter, and so did I! I asked the ladies at Twin Fibers if they’d mind me making these pillows and entering them into some competitions, and they were kind enough to say, “Go for it!” Yay!! Always best to ask…

Here’s a close-up. I did the hand-quilting with 3 strings on embroidery thread in a simple running stitch:

And I made it a friend:

For some tips on how to make these, check out the original post!

2 Comments

Filed under Challenges, Crafts, Quilting

· 5:31 pm

Party Time Quilt

Here’s a detailed look at another HST quilt I finished recently.

I was inspired by this quilt by Kaffe Fasset:

And I drew this:

And then I whipped it up!:

I call this quilt, “Party Time, Excellent!” There are at least two blocks that are flipped the wrong way, I discovered while quilting. If this quilt is a party, then these two blocks are your drunk friends who are apparently going to spend the night on your couch.

Detail on the quilting:

You can’t tell from this picture, and it’s not even that obvious in the actual quilt, but the bright red fabric is this really cute print from Eric Carle showing the Brown Bear animals. Many of the other fabrics are by Marcia Ders.

Here’s the back:

And some detail:

I’ve got this one packed and ready to go in my hospital bag for birth. Should be sometime in the next two weeks (I hope!).

2 Comments

Filed under Inspiration, Quilting

· 1:11 pm

Work in Progress #9

It’s time for another WIP Wednesday hosted by freshly pieced!

My biggest WIP is finishing up this pregnancy, but I have managed to finish a quilt:

Work in Progress #8

I had to miss out on last week, due to everyone in my family getting an end-of-winter cold. But I’ve made up for it all this week with many accomplishments! Here we go, linking up with freshly pieced!

The biggest thing I’ve got “in progress” is my Party Time Excellent quilt. It’s loaded up into ol’ Kenny and I hope to make a big dent in the quilting tomorrow. I really want to get this one done before the baby comes so that I can take it with me to the hospital. It was nice birthing Lloyd under my husband’s old freebie fleece blanket from his work, but a handmade quilt by-me for-me would be sweeter : )

The other “in progress” I’ve got is a my first ever mug rug! I’m so happy to have joined the brand-new Ann Arbor Modern Quilt Guild. I’m sad that I won’t be able to attend the next couple of meetings and get-togethers, but I want to remain active in the group remotely. For the next meeting we were supposed to engage in a mug rug swap, so I’m hoping to make one and mail it to a fellow member so that at least I can gift my buddies a little something.

Those are my main WIPs, but let me take a moment to share two completed projects!

My Henry Quilt is done (more on that HERE):

And I made myself a little nursing cover (using this tutorial, although I made mine smaller):

Yay for not having to show my boobs to elderly family members and the community in general!

That’s all I’ve got. Thanks for stopping by and please check out the other WIPs!

10 Comments

Filed under Challenges, Crafts, Quilting

March 15, 2011 · 2:02 pm

Nice Cans!

My quilting life has improved dramatically thanks to the purchase of these two beautiful cans:

: Niagara Spray Startch

: 505 Basting Spray

Why had I never used spray starch before?! When I was ironing out the quilt-top for Baby Henry’s quilt I noticed that some of the older fabrics I had used were stretching a little bit as I pressed. I had pre-washed everything, but sometimes cheapo and old fabrics stretch – thems the breaks. I had heard that spraying starch after ironing would help stabilize the quilt-top and make my life easier. Boy, did it! Another benefit is that I had this quilt-top draped over the back of a door for over 10 days, waiting to have a backing made and become a quilt-sandwich. It stayed crisp and pressed for that entire time!

By the time I was ready to baste Henry’s quilt I had read THIS WONDERFUL HOW-TO by Film in the Fridge extolling the benefits of 505 basting spray. For a long time I had heard spray-basters wonder: what the heck are pin-basters doing?! Now I am one of those spray-basters! NO MORE PINS FOR ME.

Pin-basting sucks, and I suck at it. I have never NOT stretched my fabric too far while attempting to create a perfect flat sandwich and I ALWAYS have to readjust my basting at least 10 times before finishing quilting a blanket. I’ve had great success in my short machine-quilting life, but not for lack of elbow grease and curse words during the basting and re-basting processes.

You guys – what would have taken me seriously close to 90 minutes (not including the time to clean the kitchen floor properly and move the furniture around in there so I have enough room) and a LOT of swearing, not to mention sore knees and lower back took me MAYBE only 20 MINUTES from absolute “hey-maybe-I-should-baste” start to finish.

Read the tutorial for a guide on how to do it. The only other note I have to offer is in regards to spray-off. Elizabeth does not put anything under her batting because she has a room with a carpet she doesn’t care about (and she’s never noticed the carpet being sticky or affected by the spray). I am not lucky enough to have such a room, so I laid a large fleece blanket I have down on my carpet, and then put the batting on top of it. I then ironed my batting so it was super flat. Then I placed my quilt-top on top of the batting and ironed the top. I let the quilt cool-down (the can of 505 says the fumes are flammable enough times to make me a little paranoid), and then I started the spraying process as Elizabeth describes. After I was done basting my quilt, I throw my fleece blanket in the wash! No worries about sticky carpets – just in case.

I’ve only used the spray baste on baby quilts. I’ve read people who regularly make queen-size quilts that the spray basting still holds up perfectly for larger blankets. I know I will definitely be trying it as a first-resort on all future quilting projects I have planned!

One last note: although I haven’t read of any problems about starch or spray baste gumming needles, I have heard some people be concerned about giving sprayed blankets to babies. Simple: just wash your blankets before gifting them! The sprays are both water-soluble.

4 Comments

Filed under Techniques

· 1:51 pm

HSTs for Henry

After seeing THESE THREE GORGEOUS quilts, I knew I wanted to make some HSTs for my baby-boy-to-be, Henry.

So I picked out some fabrics (the beige in the middle got kicked out and some others got added in):

Made a little coloring page:

I Used THIS TUTORIAL for curved edges and bias-tape binding and made this quilt:

And here’s the back:

With a love note from Mommy:

Cat kept the quilt warm while I made the binding:

Baby’s just 2 or 3 weeks away (here’s hoping)!

4 Comments

Filed under Quilting

March 5, 2011 · 1:21 pm

Charlie Sheen Cross-Stitch

Remember Baby Irene’s Quilt? Here’s a picture of the little dear chilling out on her blanket:

And here she is (a bit older) wearing a unicorn costume I made her:

Anyway – it’s Baby Irene’s Dad’s Birthday soon, and we’re celebrating this weekend! To top his gift off, I found these great cross-stitch patterns over at Subversive Cross-Stitch quoting the now infamous Charlie Sheen. Daddy Irene is obsessed with these quotes, and he is also obsessed with brains, so I whipped up this embroidery hoop for him to hang behind his glorious wooden bar in his den:

Wise words….. ; )

2 Comments

Filed under Crafts

March 4, 2011 · 7:25 pm

HST Coloring Pages

Hello everybody! I’m currently working on two HST (Half-Square Triangle) Quilts and am loving it! They come together fast and there are so many possibilities for design. Anyway, part of my planning has been to sketch-out my layouts and color them in. I don’t follow my drawings completely during assembly, but it’s a nice test to see if my fabric color choices are going to jive and to give me an idea for how many pieces of each color fabric I’m going to need.

So if you’d like to use any of these coloring pages to plan your own HST quilts, feel free! They’re not perfect, but if you want them, just click on any of the images below and you should be able to drag them onto your desktop or left-click “save as” them onto your computer. Let me know if you have any problems! If you post your colorings on your blog, please don’t crop-out the little “howtobejenna” tag I’ve included on the drawings. Other than that, these are yours! Thanks!

Work in Progress #7

Yay, it’s Wednesday! Time for me to take a step back and evaluate all the sewing projects I have in the queue, and to get inspired by everyone else linking up over at freshly pieced!

I finished a quilt-top (it’s folded over – sorry I am in a little bit of a fluster today!):

The gray, white, and yellow fabric peeking out behind the quilt is for a nursing cover I need make for myself. I bought the boning and the d-rings so I can follow this tutorial.

And I am currently in progress sewing HSTs (half-square triangles again!) for another quilt top that will look something like this: