Blocks From the Past: Week 24

It's my turn on the Blocks From the Past Quilt Along again!  Check out my previous post HERE.  Check out the schedule and intro post HERE.

We are getting close to the end!  Only a few more weeks to go!

This week I am in charge of the Lemoyne Star block (page 55), the Oak Leaves block (page 84), and the Crossed Canoes (page 92).  Just like last time, I made each block twice so that I could try two different methods for each block.

First up is the Lemoyne Star:

This block is made using set in seams (y-seams) - yikes!  I was a little nervous, but excited to try a new technique.  Of course, for my first attempt, I just jumped right in and followed the limited instructions in my book.  But the pieces are just so darn tiny!  After awhile my block was looking so horrible that I had to scrap it.  And then I went to the internet for some more in-depth tutorials.  :)

I found a set of AMAZING video tutorials featuring Edyta Sitar on the Fat Quarter Shop Youtube page HERE and HERE.   Seriously - I learned a ton from these videos.  The block came out super flat and my center points came out perfectly!  Of course, my block somehow still ended up too small, so I had to add a little bit to the top and side...

For my second version of the block I decided to try paper piecing.  I found a free pattern HERE, which I sized down to six inches and it worked GREAT!  The points didn't turn out quite as wonderfully, but the block ended up the perfect size - yay!


Block #2 is the Oak Leaves.  It's an applique block and I knew I wasn't going to try needle-turn applique again.  Fortunately, I know lots of different applique methods, so I was still able to try two new ones on this block.  :)

For the first block, I simply applied Heat N Bond to the back of my fabric and fused it onto the background.  Then I stitched around the raw edges using a fun veriegated thread and a fancy stitch on my machine.

For the second block, I followed THIS tutorial to make my block using reverse applique.

The last block for this week is Crossed Canoes.  It's a paper pieced block.  Normally I'm a huge fan of freezer paper piecing (tutorial HERE).  But for this one, I decided to go the normal route with normal paper since the pieces are so tiny.

Now, I've done paper piecing a fair amount of times (check out my Storm at Sea quilt HERE), but this one was a little different.  It took some real practice in precision to get the little sections to line up correctly.  You can probably tell which sections I completed first...

For my second version, I decided to throw caution to the wind a completely reverse my solids and prints.  I like it, but I'm not really sure where it's going to fit with all the rest of my blocks.  :D

Now I just need to make a few more filler blocks and decide how to pu them together!  This quilt-along has really been a good challenge for me.  I'm learning (or rather, realizing that I need to learn) a lot about piecing tiny units, and about contrast.  Usually the biggest issue I have with my blocks is that the prints get lost in the tiny pieces and I end up with a block that reads all muddled together.  Hopefully I figure it out soon! 

Thanks for stopping by!

Baby Stuff

The past few months around here have been all about baby!

Meet Baby Noah.  He arrived on April 28th and he's the sweetest baby. 

And in case anyone was wondering, having one baby at a time is WAY easier than having two. ;)  Of course, I love my twins and I wouldn't trade them for anything (well, most of the time - wink, wink).

Before Noah arrived, there were a few other baby things happening around here.
First of all, the sweet ladies in my Do.Good Stitches Charity Bee all got together and made me this super awesome plus quilt!  I had NO IDEA they were doing it and I am so touched!  And the quilting on this one is so cool.

And THEN a bunch of local guild friends got together and made me this log cabin quilt!   Once again, I was totally surprised and floored by the awesome gift.  Aren't quilty friends the best?  Noah is definitely spoiled.  :)

But before even any of that, I had a burst of creative baby-stuff-making (for some women, "nesting" means "clean all the things."  For me, it's "sew all the things").  I cleared out my shop quite a bit so that I could take a few months off Etsy orders to focus on baby and it has left me with some glorious free sewing time.  It's been so nice making whatever I want to make lately, without having to finish priority projects first.

So I made Noah a few new bibs/burp cloths, and a onesie.

And then I couldn't stop myself and I made a whole slew more to add to my shop.  :)  Bibs are so fun and easy to make.  I love adding little bits of quilting to mine for added character. 

Up until a few weeks before Noah was born, I was watching my friend's little girl twice a week.  We really loved having Adele with us and miss her so much already.  She turned one right around the time we stopped taking care of her, so I made her this fun quiet book.  I've been wanting to try a book that is more appropriate for really little kids - everything is fully attached so that there are no choking hazards for little ones.  There are also lots of different textures and things for little fingers to play with.  And since I can't seem to make anything without following some sort of theme, I went with colors again (and shapes, actually.  I just realized you can't see it in any of these pictures, but every page has a different shape hiding behind the felt square flaps).  I was so excited to give this to sweet little Adele!

Noah is already a month old and I can hardly believe it!  I'm already back in the swing of sewing as much as I can - hopefully I'll have some awesome quilty things to show you soon!  Thanks for visiting!

P.S. The bibs and quiet book just happened to be part of my Finish Along Goals (#2 and #12 - original list HERE).  Wahoo!

Linking up:

Baby #3 Car Seat Cover

SO baby #3 will be here in two weeks or less!  And even though I already have two boy car seat covers, I really wanted boy #3 to have a new one.  I guess I got a little tired of the first two.  So, against my husband's better judgement, I made a new one.  :)  Isn't that what you would do?

First I went through some of my yardage and found one piece that I wanted to use, but wasn't sold on any of my other pieces for the other side.  So I decided to use some of my beloved Mixed Bag layer cake to piece together the top!  I cut the layer cake in half because I'm planning to turn the other half into charm squares for a puff quilt.  Then I mocked up a whole bunch of design ideas in Excel and posted them on IG for my IG friends to weigh in.  Unfortunately, there wasn't really a clear winner - everybody seemed to like a different design.  SO I let Jaxson and Bronx be the tie breaker and this is the design I ended up with (tutorial over at Happy Quilting):

 

Then I mostly followed THIS tutorial to make a car seat with a slit in the front.  What do you guys think?  Do you like your car seat covers with the slit or without it?  I'm hoping that I don't regret making it this way - I think it will be nice to be able to quickly peek at my baby to see if he's awake or asleep.

 I love the Rick Rack edges, and the big buttons on the handles.  :)

For the other side of this totally reversible car seat cover, I went with this traffic signs print.  If you know my family at all, you know this is perfect for us - Hubby is a Transportation Engineer.   

Now I think we are ready for baby to get here!  Hopefully we won't have to wait too much longer!

I finished early this month!  This was my goal for April's ALYOF link up (I was #111).  Linking up HERE:


This was also goal #1 for the Quarter 2 Finish Along (original list here).  Linking up HERE:

Goal Setting (Quarter 2)

It's time to set new goal (er, roll over old goals) for Quarter 2 of the Finish Along!

This should be an interesting quarter.  I'm due to have a baby in three weeks or less, and I really have no idea how having a third child is going to affect my productivity.  Also, last quarter there were lots of changes to my sewing priorities from the start of the quarter to the end.  Korina's quilt never even made it onto my original goal list because Garrett didn't propose until just after the list was made!  Anyway, the list has evolved a little bit.  I know I won't get all of these done this quarter, but here are the sewing projects I've got in mind at the moment:

1.  Car Seat Cover.  This one is actually almost done.  And a good thing it is, too!  Did I mention we are three weeks away from meeting our new little guy?

Here's a quick IG photo of my progress.  I didn't want to buy yardage when I had cute precuts on hand, so I pieced the top...

To keep things simple for myself, the car seat cover is going to be my April goal for ALYOF.  
Edit:  Finished!  Posted HERE.

2.  Lots of baby bibs.  For my little guy, and for the shop.  I've got some cute jungle fabric set aside to make a bunch of boy bibs, and a layer cake of this cute line to make some girl bibs:

Edit:  Finished!  Posted HERE.

3.  Blocks from the Past Quilt-Along.  This one ends in June.  I'd like to have a quilt top finished in time, but we'll have to see...


4.  King Diamond Ripple Quilt.  This is the one I plan to make for our bed someday.  It's my "back-burner" project, but I'm really looking forward to spending some quality time with it!

5. Giggles Puff Quilt.  This one just needs backing and binding!

Edit:  Finished!  Posted HERE.

6.  One more puff quilt.  I've closed my shop to all pre-orders while I'm on "maternity leave" and I'm hoping that will open up a little time to make some more "pre-made" items for my shop.  I've been dying to make another puff quilt for awhile and I've got tons of charm packs saved up.  I might start with this one:



7.  Do.Good Stitches May Quilt.  I'm in charge of blocks again for May, which means I should have received them all sometime in June and might have time to finish the quilt before the quarter is over.  I have a fun plan for this one!

8.  Clamshell Pillow.  I wanted to make roughly one pillow per month and the next one on my list is a spring themed clamshell pillow.  Again, we'll see...
Edit:  Finished!  Posted HERE.

9-11.  More Rummy Mat samples for my shop.

12-?.  More Quiet book samples for my shop.

Edit:  Finished one book!  Posted HERE.

I know this is a pretty comprehensive list, but I had to put them all there so I wouldn't forget anything!  I better go get to work!





Linking Up:

Finished: Korina's Radio Way Wedding Quilt!

It's finished and I love it! 

I present to you:  Korina's Radio Way Wedding Quilt (don't knock the creative title, okay?) I finished it (quite literally) just in time for her bridal shower.  I wanted to give it to her then rather than at the wedding for purely selfish reasons.  :)  I loved seeing her reaction and having her tell me it looks "just like the picture" and that "the colors are perfect."  WHEW!

It's a large Queen/small King.  That's me and my brother attempting to hold it up.

Here's the story.  As soon as my sister-in-laws fiance (finally) proposed, I was super excited to get started right away on her wedding quilt.  I love a good excuse to make a big new quilt!
So I sent her a link to my (rather extensive) pinterest boards and she chose a few designs that she liked.  Luckily for me, she seemed drawn to the more simple but modern designs.  I went for this design by Julie Herman called "Radio Way" - genius pattern by the way.   She said she wanted something with light green and black, but no yellows.  And that she trusted my instincts (Wahoo!). 
SO.  I just so happens that I had an old Joann's jelly roll in my stash with lots of lime green, aqua, and gray.  From there I found a bundle of the gorgeous Up Parasol line in greens/aquas and paired it with another jelly roll (from Etsy) in blacks and whites.  I also threw in a few extra Amy Butler prints from my LQS (they were on sale!!)  I even found a jelly roll with a white tone-on-tone print to use for the sashing.  I really love the colors in this quilt.
And it worked up SUPER fast!  I'm pretty sure (nope, I'm positive) that the quilting took longer than the piecing.  I LOVE working with precuts!

 
For the back, I used up some leftover yardage I had on hand, plus my three extra blocks.  I love being able to use every bit of fabric with no waste.  :)  Oh yeah, the solid is a sheet from Walmart.  I couldn't bring myself to buy 8 yards of quilting fabric.  I also couldn't bring myself to buy a king sheet just so that I could avoid piecing a back.  Pieced backs aren't really that fun for me to make, but I LOVE the end result!

For the quilting, I knew I wanted something slightly custom (no overall meandering here!), but simple.  In the end I was inspired to do some Angela Walters inspired "curved" dot-to-dot quilting mixed with a little bit of Leah Day sashing designs.   It took a lot of time, and made my wrist sore (have I mentioned yet that this quilt is a small KING size?), and I had TONS of tension issues (who says Aurifil is the best thread out there?  Cuz it sure broke a lot for me) but I really love how it turned out.  Even though those long curved lines are mostly pretty wonky.  Ah well.  Do you want to know the secret to quilting a King sized quilt on your home machine?  Excellent basting and stitching in the ditch around all the blocks before you do any FMQ.  My quilt is virtually free of puckers!  YAY!

You can see the quilting really well on the back of the quilt, which is awesome:

Here's a close up:

And a shot of the front:

I also remembered to add a label!  I kept it simple, but this time I used my printer, rather than my own handwriting.  :)  The label was actually a big hit once one of the girls discovered it at Korina's bridal shower.  Everyone thought it was so sweet that their wedding date was on the back.  I guess it's all in the simple things!

A big thanks to a bunch of my guild friends for helping me choose this binding!  It's from the Reunion line by Sweetwater.  It was just the right shade of gray and I love the little pops of green and blue.  I cut it on the bias, of course - because it looks amazing that way.  :)  And it's hand sewn to the back, of course.  I was sitting on the couch binding it minutes before I left for the shower...

And there you have it!  Now.  Who's getting married next?

Quilt stats:

Started: January 2015

Finished: March 28, 2015

Fabrics: Fabric Central "Delicate" collection (from Joanns), Up Parasol (chartreuse colorway), a few Amy Butler prints, various black and white prints

Batting:  Pellon 80/20 Cotton/Polyester (prewashed for shrinkage)

Finished size: Approx. 100" x 100"

Recipient: Korina and Garrett

Methods used:  Strip Piecing, Free Motion Quilting (on my home machine)

Binding: Reunion by Sweetwater.  Cut on the bias, machine stitched to the front, hand stitched to the back

Total time to make: Approximately 40 hours