Category Archives: Quilting

Eva’s stocking (or the first thing I’ve sewn since we moved)

DSC_0016

 

Until Christmas Eve I hadn’t done any sewing since we moved.  Then we were arranging stockings and realized that for a third year Eva would have to use one of the Smartwool socks from my drawer for her stocking.  Spontaneous crafting is the best kind!  I rummaged through my scraps, made some pinwheels and voila!  A stocking!  (OK, it may not have been that instantaneous.  It took a couple of hours of procrastinating wrapping presents.  Spontaneous crafting while procrastinating other things that need attention is a particular specialty of mine.)

“Eva, hold your stocking so I can take a picture of you with it.”

DSC_0012 That didn’t quite work out how I wanted it to.

DSC_0010You get the idea, though, right?  It is pink and girly for my pink girly girl.

 

the rainbow wheel

rainbow wheel

When we put up all of my new school room shelves I decided I needed rainbow quilts in the wall space above the desks since my books are arranged in color order.  What I had in mind for one side was this quilt from Purl.  I drew up a pattern to fit my wall and raided my scrap bin.  My mom also sent me a box of her scraps and I bought a few more.

warm

This is my first time piecing curves, so it’s far from perfect.  My seam allowances on my rainbow ended up a smudge less than 1/4″, so my top came out a bit ripply.  I could have ripped it apart and started over, I guess, but I’m more into getting things done  than I am into perfection.  I just made good use of my iron and quilted concentric circles to remedy the waviness.

rainbow wheel

I like it on my wall.  It is bright and cheery.

rainbow quilt in the school room

Who knows when I’ll get to making something to hang above the other desk…

diamond baby quilt

diamond quilt

I pieced diamonds!  I made this little quilt for a friend’s new baby girl.  I found all the fabrics for the top in my stash, then designed from there.  I had a lot of fun doing something new and love how it turned out.

baby quilt back

I had to buy fabric for the back and binding, though, so I tried a new quilt store.  Snappy Quilts was full to the brim with my favorite designs, and I came out with some Joel Dewberry fabrics that went with my top perfectly.  It was expensive, though.  It seemed all of their fabric was closer to $12/ yard than the $9 or $10 I’m used to.

up close

Of course, I quilted it in swirls.

Anyone have some tips on photographing quilts?  I’d love some advice because I’m just not thrilled about my quilt photos lately…

triangles, elephants, and bicylces

I hosted a baby shower this weekend and in typical fashion did not take a single photo of my clean house, my mini cheesecakes and homemade braided challah bread, or the cute flower arrangements scattered about– but I did snap a few of the quilt I made before it wasn’t mine any more.

triangle baby quilt

It’s a fun little quilt.  If you’re interested, here’s how I made it:

I bought 6 quarter yard cuts (not fat quarters, but 9″ x 44″ pieces).  I cut each of those into two  4 1/2″ x 44″ strips.  Then I used the 60 degree mark on my ruler to cut one of each of those strips into a bunch of equilateral triangles.  I pieced the triangles into 5 strips.  I cut 4 of the remaining 4 1/2″ strips to be 39″ long with 60 degree angles at each end, figured out what order I wanted all the stripes to be in, and sewed them together.  I ended up with a fun zig-zaggy edge and used the last two 4 1/2″ strips of fabric I had left to make binding out of.  The back took about a yard of fabric.

Easy peasy, right?  The trick is getting the hang of overlapping the corners of your triangles right so that when you press them flat they line up.  I should take a picture of how to do that sometime, because as I’m searching the internet I’m not finding anything helpful to link to.

ziggy edge

zig zaggy binding

It was a great excuse to venture over to the new Fancy Tiger location.  I wish it didn’t take me so long to drive over there.

Then again, it’s probably a good thing it’s not too close.