Blogger's Quilt Festival: The Fandango Quilt

Hi!  Welcome to any newcomers visiting for the Bloggers Quilt Festival!

This is my entry this fall:

I call it my Fandango quilt.  Because I made it with Kate Spain's Fandango fabric.  I'm super awesome at naming quilts. 

I made this for my in-laws who are amazing people.  I wanted to make them something special for their anniversary.  I searched and searched for the perfect fabric and I love what I ended up with!  This quilt is on their bed right now (it's a BIG one) and it matches their bedroom perfectly!

Sorry about the funky pictures.  That's what happens when you finish the quilt hours before you plan to deliver it...  Don't we all do that now and then?

I quilted this quilt using a modified quilt-as-you-go method.  Basically, I broke the quilt down into 5 sections, quilted them, and then attached the sections by machine on the front and by hand on the back.

I love that I was able to quilt such a big quilt with such freedom!  I chose to quilt swirls in all of the frame boxes.  For the full boxes, I echoed the design of the fabric.  I think the back of this quilt looks so cool! 

The binding is scrappy, using leftover fabrics from the front.  I pieced four extra blocks into the back, with the rest of my light solid and some darker solid. 

This quilt was a ton of work, but I loved every minute of it!  It took a long time to complete, but I knew my in-laws would appreciate it.  And they did!  They sent me a super nice thank you card the day after they received it.

Quilt stats:

Finished size:  91" x 76"

Quilted by: ME!

Techniques used:  Regular piecing, modified QAYG quilting, bound by machine

Best Categories:  Bed Quilt, Home Machine Quilted Quilt

Festival #: 248

Now go check out all the other fantastic entries!

Sneak Peak: Baby Boy Quilt Tops

I've been itching to make a couple of baby quilts lately.  Well, it just so happens that a really good friend of mine is having twin boys!  Wahoo!  So while my husband was in  Chicago/South Bend for some sight seeing/football last weekend, I spent my nights and naptimes working on a couple of quilt tops.

I have them finished, but I have no idea if the recipient reads this blog or not, so I only am going to share a couple of sneak peaks.

I am all ready to baste, quilt, and bind.  These are going to be super cute! 

Stocking Advent Calendar

About a year and a half ago I snatched up this "Ready Set Snow" charm pack (on sale!) by Me and My Sisters (I pretty much love all their fabric) with the intention to make some kind of Christmas advent calendar out of it.

I searched and searched looking for a cute idea and finally found THIS tutorial and decided it would be perfect!

And here I am, over a year later, with a finished (if not somewhat nontraditional) "advent calendar."  I ironed every single piece to freezer paper to make the cutting easier, and I used No Sew Heat and Bond  to attach the numbers (I even printed the numbers onto the Heat and Bond paper so I didn't have to trace anything).   I figured if I was going to make 24, I might as well take lots of shortcuts.  :)  There was lots of handwork (cutting and turning things inside out) done in front of the TV with the Hubby watching football and such.  I think that's why it went so quickly.  I could work on it pretty much anytime.  Even though I had to do each step 24 times.

I used ric rac and baby clothes pins for hanging.  Aren't they cute?

Now I just need to figure out what to put in them and where to hang them!  I'm so excited to have them ready early for Christmas this year.  Last year I was so busy having two babies around Christmas time, so I plan to make up for all the lack of Christmasy things this time around!  :)

Busy Busy Busy

Wow.  I have a lot of little finishes lately.  Back when I was teaching, it would have taken me months to do the same amount of sewing related things I've done in the past two weeks.  And I have two babies.  Am I doing something wrong?

I suppose most of these projects are fairly small.

I made this super cute block:

I've been looking for some kind of block of the month that I could use as interchangable decorations each month.  I'm a little late in the game, but I found this Hello Sun quilt along and I kind of love it.  I've also been looking for a good excuse to try this method of applique.  Maybe I will make all the blocks into a quilt someday.  And it was fast.  Once I made my panel of yellow, the whole thing came together pretty quickly.  Thank heavens for Heat and Bond. :)

I printed THIS little subway art to go with it.  I've got the other 11 stashed away for future use too.  SO easy.  I love it.

I also finished my growth charts.  You can see more of those HERE.

Then I started working on my stocking advent calendar thinking I would just work on it here and there over the next month or so.  Whoops.  I FINISHED it!  I still need to take some pictures and write a post about it though (maybe tomorrow?).  It's super cute.  I think I finished it so fast because there was lots of handwork to it - LOTS of cutting and turning fabric inside out and stuff.  I could do that in the evenings while I watched TV or football with the Hubby.  Thank heavens for Freezer Paper. :)

 

AND I made two blocks for my Storm at Sea quilt.  These were test blocks to check my cutting measurements and learn how to do freezer paper piecing.  I think I've about got the hang of it.  They take a little while to make, but they are fun and should keep me busy for awhile.

Linking up:

Twin Growth Charts

Here they are!  My quilted growth charts are finished.
Read more about them HERE and HERE.

I'm liking applique more and more these days.  I sewed the letters and numbers on (after quilting) using a blanket stitch.   I really like how they turned out. 

However, this is what happens when you have a baby underfoot (Bronx) who discovers the pedal before you can stop him...

Here is a shot of the back.  Some of the strip pieces have special meaning, although I'm sure I'm the only one who will ever care.  There is fabric from Daddy's stocking, their car seat covers, the first quilt I ever made, and even some from the shirt Daddy wore in our engagement pictures that has long since ceased to fit. :)

Of course, I had to copy my original inspiration and get a couple shots with babies in them.  I just couldn't help it.  This is Bronx in his pirate shirt (the back says "I've got a loaded booty").  

Now here's a crazy story for ya.  When I first went to write their heights on the charts (I started with just birth and six months, for now) using a permanent marker - I MESSED UP!  I thought I was writing on Jaxson's chart, but I was writing on Bronx's and I wrote the very first measurement in the WRONG SPOT.  I was actually kind of devastated and started searching the internet in a panic to see if there was a way to get it off.  I thought about just sewing a strip of white fabric over the top, but then decided to try rubbing alcohol, which seemed to get the best results according to the internet.  So I locked myself in the bathroom and went through almost an entire roll of paper towels and WAY more rubbing alcohol than was probably needed.  After lots of attempts and even some soaking, I finally just threw it in the washer.  The permanent marker faded, but definitely did NOT come out.  So I finally gave up and left the writing where it was and drew a tiny arrow to the spot where it should have been.  Now it looks like Bronx and Jaxson were the same height when they were born (which is not true, Bronx was 3.5 inches longer).  And Bronx's growth chart has a more wrinkled, washed look to it (and is slightly shrunk), while Jaxson's is still fresh and flat.  Oh well.  You really can't tell in the pictures, can you?

The lines on the chart are supposed to be exactly one inch apart, but they aren't perfect, so it looks like the chart is lying... :)  As the numbers get higher, the measurements are more accurate, but the bottom is a few inches off.  That's okay.  I don't intend to use these for measuring!

Overall, I LOVE them!  This was a fun project and it's fun to finally have something cute hanging in their room!

EDIT:  Would you like one of these for yourself?  Check out my listing on Etsy to order your own custom made growth chart!  Click HERE.

Edited again, 6/13/14:  Linking up with Fort Worth Fabric Studio's "Oh Sew Baby" series.  Check it out!

WIP: Growth Charts and Some Fabric Selecting

I finished quilting my growth charts!  I want the applique to stand out from the quilting, so I am going to add the letters and numbers last.  This is what I've got so far (times two):

Here are the backs.  I just pieced together some random leftover fabric.  Even though probably no one will ever see the backs.  :D

I quilted them with straight lines one inch apart.  I still don't have a walking foot, so I've resigned to always having wrinkles and pulls from using my regular foot to do straight line quilting.  I tell myself that it looks cool and that I did it that way on purpose - I was vigilant about making sure I changed directions with each line.  Does anyone know where to find a walking foot that fits a Bernina Activa that isn't FREAKING EXPENSIVE?!?!

We've been watching a lot of football lately, so I decided to sew the binding on by hand during games.  I've got the first one finished, now onto the second one!

I have all the applique pieces fused and cut.  The numbers will run along the skinny side, marking each foot.

And the names will run along the fat side.  I haven't decided yet if I am going to do something about the holes that are supposed to be in the Os and As and such.

ALSO.  It's almost time to get started on the stocking advent calendar I am planning to make.  I got out the fabric today and sorted it, just for fun:

I also pulled out this fabric.  I want to make some kind of skirt out of it, but I don't really know how to go about it.  Any suggestions?

I decided to go with this design for my Storm at Sea quilt.  Except some of the white spaces will be more grayish, cuz I don't have enough white.  And I'm going to add orange. :)   I'm SUPER excited to get going on this one!

And there you have it!  I actually have more than one work in progress today - even though I generally tend to only work on one project at a time.

Linking up!

Look who did some applique!

Applique has always made me a bit nervous.  I've tried it a couple of times (see HERE and HERE), but haven't been fully impressed with the results.
But then I got myself some fusible interfacing (I think that's what it is...) and realized that was the one rule of applique that I should NOT have broken.  My latest project turned out much better than my previous ones!

See, the Hubby and I are both BYU alumni and avid BYU football (and soccer, and basketball, and volleyball) fans.  I've been keeping my eyes peeled for some cute BYU attire for my boys, but to be honest - everything I have found is so. freaking. expensive.
So I took the plunge and decided to make my own (3 onesies for 6 dollars?  Okay).  I must admit, I was pretty nervous about sewing onto knit fabric, since I've never done that before, but I used that interfacing and everything came out great!

I printed my design (copied from Google Images) on freezer paper and then fused the interfacing to the blue part.  I sewed the background down using a zigzag stitch, partly because I wanted it good and stuck, and partly because I didn't want to worry about cutting seam allowance in my interfacing.  For the Y, I just used a regular straight stitch (slightly shorter than normal).  I'm hoping the edges get a tiny bit ruffly in the wash.  I was impressed with how easy this project was!  I'll have to make another set when they get bigger...

The boys are going to wear them tomorrow for our big game against Utah.  Go Cougars!!!