opal owl lap quilt - done

After sitting around without binding for a few weeks, my opal owl lap quilt finally got the finishing treatment yesterday. It's definitely the most colorful thing I've made yet, and I have to admit I like it more than I thought I would. I think there will be more playing-with-color in my future.

opal owl lap quilt - in progress

My sister and niece are visiting, and a random craft inspiration hit us last night to whip up a quick lap quilt for another relative. We raided the stash and ended up using a few prints from Tina Givens' Opal Owl collection. Here are the blocks, laid out for the next step...

Just after taking the picture, we sewed them together. And of course NOW, looking at the picture, I really want to change the layout of the squares. Laying out the squares always makes me crazy. They are just never right... anyone else have that issue?

Far Far Away II baby quilt

My latest baby quilt creation is my favorite yet! This one is was done with Far Far Away II by Heather Ross, with Tangerine and Baby Blue Kona Solids to sash, bind and back.

I started off making 12 wonky nine patch blocks and thinking I'd just sash and stagger them in a standard way. But once I put sashing on a few of the blocks, I realized how much I loved them all lined up. So I went with it. In retrospect, I would do the sashing in long strips instead of short block sized strips, but I'm not much for ripping out and resewing when I can get away with being lazy.

For the back I just did a fussy cut of the owl & the pussycat scene with a tangerine frame. And for the quilting, I did a free motion rectangular meander. Many thanks to Oh, Fransson for the wonky block and quilting inspiration!






PS. It looks like there's plenty of Far Far Away II left at Hawthorne Threads (one of my fav online shops) if you want to stock up!

Megumi Sakakibara Free-Motion Quilt - Done!

Okay, this has actually been done for a while but I'm a slacker about posting. I decided to vary the binding just for fun, and to add a little extra excitement since I made the back so boring (all white).

The light makes the colors kind of hard to see, but I'm guessing you get the drift.

Free-Motion Quilting!

I swallowed my fear and dove in for some free-motion quilting on my latest baby quilt... and I think it came out pretty damn well. Hopefully the squiggly lines make up for the fact that I got lazy and just backed it with a solid kona snow.

Next up, binding!

Megumi Sakakibara Baby Quilt

While pulling out fabric for yet another baby quilt, I found a stash of awesome Megumi Sakakibara prints, perfect for a baby girl's blanket. I was thinking that I'd do something simple just to bang this quilt out in a relatively quick time, so I cut out a bunch of 5" squares and sashed them with some Heather Bailey Nicey Jane "Hop Dot" in cream.

Now I'm starting to think it's a little too.. something. Busy, maybe? I dunno that I'm crazy about the sashing choice, but I don't hate it, so this is how it's gonna be.

The colors aren't showing up great on these pics, but I think you get the drift. And yeah, my squares aren't lining up great, but whatever. I doubt baby girl will care. :P

Now, should I back it in something cuddly and minky? Or just regular quilting cotton, so it's better for throwing on the floor and letting a wee one roll around on it?

For the record, you can find a lot of this fabric at superbuzzy or fabricworm.

Owl Quilt: DONE!

Duh-du-du-dun! It's finished!

I'm not actually planning on it staying on the bed like this, but it was the best way to see the whole thing:

the owl quilt and forays into mid-arm quilting

I got the new sewing machine just in time to help finish up the top and back for Alex's owl quilt. And, since it IS a freaking large quilt, I decided there's no time like the present to learn how to use the quilt table. After many stops, starts, thread breakage, loops, and what-the-hell-is-going-on-here moments, I finally quilted the top. Granted, it kind of looks like shit, but hey... it's my first try! There are a number of spots on the back that are particularly terrible -- wads of looped up bobbin thread and other such horrors. But, Alex being the "who cares" kinda guy he is, and me being too lazy to hand fix it all (at least right now), I think for now it's going to stay this way. It's my ode to learning. :)

The front:

The back: (witness my shame)

All trimmed up and ready for binding!

New sewing machine!

You'll see me quilting a lot more in the coming months, because I got a sweet new sewing machine. It's a Janome 1600p that I managed to snatch up on craigslist, along with a Little Gracie II quilt frame (that barely fits in my house). I'm heading for the big(ger) leagues!

Now if only I can figure out how to properly use them...

The machine:

The beast:

a 70's inspired log cabin quilt for Alex

My next big project is a curl-up-on-the-couch quilt for Alex. Wintery nights usually find him wrapped in a giant Sesame Street blanket that is nearing the end of its life... my aim is to replace it.

A while back I came across some owl fabric that he really liked, so this has become the inspiration. The colors are all 70's yucky (or not, if that's your thing, as it is Alex's): browns, oranges, red and cream.

Here are the blocks all set out on the floor as I figured out the layout:



I am going to sash them with a creamy solid, so it won't be THAT dark.

Last night I finished squaring them off. One of the great things about having a drummer around is how many giant flat drumhead boxes there are around that I can use to make big 14.5" square templates! This was my evening last night:



And here's a closeup of the stack waiting to be squared up. Love those owls!



My goal is to get the quilt top done before xmas, and the quilt itself done by the new year! Here's to dreaming big!

3rd baby quilt down, 3 more to go!

I finally finished the charm squares quilt and handed it off to the new parents to be. They have assured me that they will do their best to see if it can become "THE BLANKET" for their kid. That's really my ultimate goal with all of these.

I forgot to take a final pic of it, so I snapped one as I was on my way out the door to give it to them. Look how cute it is all tied up with an extra strip of binding!

Charm Squares Baby Quilt II -- In Progress!

Last night I started the quilting on my latest project -- another version of Elizabeth Hartman's Charm Squares Baby Quilt for yet another pregnant friend.

Here's the top, with lots of excess batting poking out around the edges:



I'm going for the same straight line quilting that I did last time, as you can see here...



And speaking of last time, I think I probably never posted pictures of the last quilt since I was afraid Karen & Luke would see it before I had a chance to give it to them.





Hopefully the one I'm working on now will turn out as well. I'm planning on binding it in yellow, which I think will be super cute! I would love to try some free motion quilting but I just don't quite have enough faith in my crappy Shark sewing machine. For now, though, the straight lines are working for me.

I also did one quilt between these two that I forgot to take any pictures of before giving it away! That one was from Elizabeth Hartman's Nine Patch Lattice Quilt pattern. Can you tell I like her stuff? She writes a fantastic blog called Oh, Fransson and just came out with this delicious looking quilting book (it's on my xmas list!):

fabric, fabric, and more fabric!

I have become positively addicted to fabric. Buying fabric, browsing fabric, mulling over ways to use fabric... it's becoming an actual problem. Fortunately I have about a thousand ideas of quilts, bags, pillows and other miscellaneous projects that I can make to use up my ever growing stash. Let's take a look at a few of the collections that I've been obsessed with recently (very little of which I have managed to procure)...

Castle Peeps by Lizzy House for Andover (Castles and folks in medieval garb? How could I resist?) 

All of the Birch Organic collections. After all, they are cute AND organic. Such as... 

I'll just list off a few more, I think the images will speak for themselves...

Into the Woods by Sharyn Sowell for Clothworks

Spring 2010 by Etsuko Furuya for Echino

Heather Ross on Spoonflower

Metro Kitchen for Robert Kaufman

Jelly Roll Quilt Along: Block 2

Here's block 2 from the Jelly Roll Quilt Along. Doesn't really, uh, "go" with block 1 very well, but maybe once I have them all together, it will make sense. Here's hoping!

A Big Block Quilt

Since I am notorious for starting a project and never finishing it, I decided to take a preemptive strike against this tendancy and make my first quilting project a "quick" one. I bought an interesting layer cake (Twiggy by Sanae for Moda), cut most of the squares into triangle halves, and layed them out to create this marvelously simple pattern (modeled after a quilt I saw online somewhere).

A few days ago I finished piecing all of it together, and last night I added a "natural" color border. I'm not sure it's actually square, but I think it's pretty close!

Next up is piecing the backing fabric (basic brown) and making the quilt sandwich. I have some medium loft batting waiting in the wings, I only hope it is the right size. One of the pitfalls of not using a pattern and being too hasty to actually plan it out is that I don't even know what finished size I am looking at here. If I recall correctly from cutting the border last night, I believe it's around 75" square.... so, queen-ish I guess?

After that it's on to the actual quilting, of which I am terrified! I only have a wee little shark sewing machine from Target, I am pretty sure I don't have the patience to do it by hand, and taking it to someone else to quilt seems like a cop out... what's a girl to do? If anyone has any tips, please please please give em up!

Anyway, I think this is going to be my summer picnic/lay-in-the-sun-and-snooze blanket and that vision is spurring me on. Wish me luck!

Jelly Roll Quilt Along

In the spirit of actually learning something about quilting and not fizzling out before I even really begin, I have decided to join in on a Jelly Roll Quilt Along sponsored by Moose on the Porch Quilts. I'm using a jelly roll* of Frolic by Sandy Gervais for Moda that I procured on ebay, and managed to conquer the first block on Wednesday night. Here it is, though I swear the colors look better in real life...

*For the record, a jelly roll is a whole collection of fabric (so they all somewhat go together) that is cut into 2.5"x44" strips and then rolled up into a little "jelly roll" bundle. Thus, you get a big selection of fabrics without having to buy tons of yardage. You can also buy "charm packs" (5"x5"), honey buns (1.5" x 44"), layer cakes (10"x10"), turnovers (6" right triangles) and probably more bundles that I don't know about. Anyway, these little bundles are too cute to resist, and my collecting nature is kicking in BIG TIME. Ebay and Etsy are my worst enemies right now.

my first quilt blocks

Last week I randomly decided that I wanted to try my hand at quilting, and last night I made my first two quilt blocks! I know they're nothing fancy for a REAL quilter, but I'm feeling like they are pretty snazzy for a beginner.