Quilt for #2

The fabric has been purchased, and I have a design sketched out in my head for #2's quilt. I decided to make a quilt for #2 first, because #1 has received many hand-made things whereas #2 has not. I don't dare make clothes or pajamas for #2 because he has very particular preferences at the moment.

All fabrics are Robert Kaufman (purchased at Fabric Depot). From left to right, the first three are Caleb Gray Studio's "Groove," the fourth is Vera's Garden, and the fifth and final is "New Traditions."

The second windmill baby quilt is done!

The second windmill quilt is finished and has been packed off for its intended recipient (who is due to arrive any day now). I think I already wrote about the details of this quilt in a previous post. The only piece of information to add is that the free-motion quilting was done with yellow, 100% cotton thread.

Here is a close up of the border and quilting.

I bound the quilt with the same Monaluna for Robert Kaufman fabric as I used for the border. The mitered corners turned out very nicely. As with the previous quilt, the border was firts machine-sewed on and then hand-stitched on the back with invisible stitches.

Next up for quilting is the zigzag quilt. This might be my favorite one yet...

Last Month's FOs and WIPs

I had a busy month as you can see.

First, I finished the quilt for Baby Bea. I quilted it using a taupe cotton thread, because I wanted to be able to see the quilting without it overpowering the block design. Anyhow, the quilting was not perfect, but for my first attempt, I was rather pleased with the results. The funny thing was that free-motion quilting was addictive. I found myself thinking about it all the time and just itching to get back to my machine to do more.


The backing and binding is Kona cotton. The binding is machine attached on the front and then hand-stitched using a blind stitch in the back. I have to say I was tickled with how well the mitered corners turned out. Once finished, I washed the quilt and the quilting looked so much better -- everything sort of poofed out.

The second project was my own Birdie Sling. I used about one yard each of fabric from Amy Butler's Lotus line for the main bag and contrast handles. I have a lot of left over fat quarters, though.



Here's my new label, too.


My current project is a zig-zag baby quilt using a charm pack from Moda's Botony line. My first attempt was less than pleasing. I just could not get all the points aligned. So I ripped out everything I had pieced, and started over by first trueing up each square to 4 1/2 inches. It was painstaking, but helped immensely in achieving mostly aligned triangle tips.



The final project is another windmill baby quilt, this time for some friends' as yet unnamed baby boy. I need to pin it (which I will do next time the kitchen floor is sparkly clean), then quilt and bind, hopefully all before June.

You can see this time my corners are much better. The green, yellow, and red polka dots are from Amy Butler's Belle line. The red and white polka dots are by Monaluna for Robert Kaufman, and the solid yellow is again Kona cotton.

So far, so good -- my first foray into free motion quilting

I am so pleased with myself right now! Here is my test piece for free motion quilting:





The first image is of the front side, the second image is of the back side of the piece. Theoretically, there aren't supposed to be any sharp points or crossed lines, but hey, this was my first attempt.

There are quite a few good resources out there about free motion quilting. I actually checked out a book from the public library about machine quilting. I can't for the life of me remember the title or author, but it was pretty good. Elizabeth Hartman's blog, Oh Fransson at ohfransson.com, also has a very good tutorial on quilt-making basics, including making a quilt sandwich (discussed below) and free motion quilting.

I am glad to know that one does not need a fancy sewing machine to do this. I have a basic electric Necchi Royal Series that I bought on e-bay that did the job wonderfully. Without going into too much detail (which you can read at ohfransson.com), the technique requires use of a darning foot and dropping the feed dogs on your sewing machine. This allows the work to be moved from side to side, as well as up and down, because there is no tension or foot on the work itself holding it in place. This means that the work never needs to be turned. The trick, I think, is to keep a steady rhythm so that your stitch length is somewhat even. I know there are fancier sewing machines out there that have functions that will regulate the stitch length for you, but unless you look closely, I don't think my test piece was too bad. Like anything, I'm sure it will require some practice.

Other thoughts, the literature I read indicated that free motion quilting requires a slightly higher tension, but I did not adjust the tension on my machine any, and the back did not come out too loopy. Also, I guess it takes quite a bit of thread, and 100% cotton is recommended, so it's off to the fabric store for me to buy more thread.

Which leads me to this: the quilt for Baby Bea is sandwiched and ready to be quilted.



Making the quilt sandwich was not quite as tedious as I thought it would be. The process requires that the backing be cut about 4 inches bigger than the quilt top, and the batting just slightly smaller than the backing. The backing is then stretched slightly (or pulled taut, I guess) and taped down to the floor. The batting and quilt top are then laid on top and smoothed out.

You then pin the quilt with safety pins at regular intervals (I read that the space between each pin should be no bigger than the width of your closed fist). Anyhow, I used these little bent safety pins, which made the process a lot easier. One last thought, make sure you use a surface that can take a little beating, because the safety pins will scratch softer surfaces as you have to make sure you are pinning all the layers. I had to wait until Tuesday to do my pinning, because that is the day when the kitchen floor is cleanest!

Second time around

OK, I made more napkins, this time using the Martha Stewart technique and with a bigger hem. They turned out MUCH better. The fabric is Anna Marie Horner's Dance Party.

Napkins with Mitered Corners

I'm making some napkins for a housewarming coming up in April and thought I would experiment with some techniques for mitering the corners. Here's one that I learned from a Singer technique book. I'm not completely happy with the result. As you can see from the last two pictures, there is a slight gap at the corner that is driving me crazy. It is probably be user error and that I need to practice my technique.

There's an alternate technique, I think, that I saw on Martha Stewart once. I'll try that on the next one, but in the interim, here is the first technique.

BTW, the fabric is from Amy Butler's Belle collection. I had only one yard, which was enough for four 16-inch napkins.

Step 1 - press 1/4-inch from the raw edge:

Step 2 - turn raw edge so that right sides of fabric meets, sew across corner on wrong side of fabric:

Step 3 - turn, you might need a turning tool to make sure the corners are crisp:


It should like this on the reverse side.

Step 4 - clip across seam line and fold over another 1/4-inch for seam.

Step 5 - The finished product:

Nancy Bush's Lichen Ribbed Socks

I started these socks almost a year ago, last May 2009, when I was attending a convention in Lincoln City, OR. There is a little yarn store there, I forget the name of it, that had quite a good selection of yarns. I bought one skein of this Nestucca Bay washable sock wool. I started the first pair that weekend, and the second pair about two and a half weeks ago. Now they're finally done!!

The pattern is a basic 3 knit x 1 purl repeat from Nancy Bush's Knitting Vintage Socks, called Lichen Ribbed Sock. It uses a Welsh heel and a Star of Three Points toe, both of which were quite simple. The most aggravating part of making these socks was actually the ebony Lantern Moon double-pointed needles I bought at the same time to start the project. The needles were very nice to work with, but I broke three of them, the last one when I was three rows from finishing the toe. The needles were pricey ($25), and now I don't have a complete set anymore. Ugh.

BTW, the sock blockers are a purchase from last summer's Sock Summit at the Convention Center in Portland.