Jungle Fever!

When I had visited Jackie last we went to the store and picked up fabric for a quilt.  I initially had thought that I would have it done in no time.  Yea that is never how it works.

I finished it literally on the way to meet her, Dallas, and the cutie for dinner.  No joke.  Jon drove us there.

This is what I was working with.  Jackie loved the color changing thread.

I am really glad I bought the super huge (well not the hugest) cutting mat.  It made it so much easier to cut the fabric.

Of course it all starts with cutting the fabric.  This is always the hardest part for me.  I have to make sure that I am cutting it the right way and will end up with the right amount  and right size squares.

Speaking of making sure everything ends up right... I had to draw myself a picture to make sure that I would end up with enough squares.

Don't laugh because I ended up with the perfect amount of squares.

My first roadblock became which way to have the zebra stripes facing... I had to ask Jon's opinion and it only verified what I already knew.  Non-Crazy stripes was the way to go.

Getting them all pinned up was super easy since Jon helped!

The sewing was standard straight lines.  Gotta love it.  In a pile they look all the more impressive don't you think?

Jon helped me line the backing up against the front of the quilt.  I made sure to cut away the excess.

To get the back fabric all lined up I rolled up the front fabric with the lining and unrolled it out onto the backing fabric.  It worked like a charm.  It got all pinned up and was ready for quilting!

I have a hard time making decisions, can you tell that already?  Jackie and I had decided on a color scheme in the store.  Did I write it down to remember it later?  Of course not!  It had come time to sew in the quilting and I couldn't remember for the life of me which way we decided to go.  I had to call my mom after sending her pictures to get her opinion.  And what did we end up with?

The yellow on the front and the green on the back.  I think it turned out very nicely.

The drama came in when I realized that my machine did not have the thread tension set correctly when I had already sewn almost all of the quilting lines.  I freaked out and started seam ripping a bunch of the quilting out thinking I could do it again.

Yea that didn't work.  After ripping and re-sewing three lines worth I realized my old machine was screwed.  I decided to give up and be good with how it was.  Because I didn't want to add anymore multi-colored thread to this pile.

I have no pictures of pinning and sewing the bias tape, so darn, you get to see the final reveal now.

I loved it.  And Jackie loved it too.  I can't wait for Caleb to use it.

Now I just have to get both of my machines to the Dr.s and I can get back to sewing with machines that work properly!

My First Embroidery Experience

While I was on vacation last week I stayed at my cousins.  While she was helping me get sheets and stuff for bed she asked which blankets I wanted to use.  I immediately recognized one of them.  It was a quilt that I helped make!

A long time ago my Aunt (who happens to be my cousins mom) decided a perfect gift for our Memere would be to make her a quilt.  It wouldn't be any ordinary quilt.  Each piece would have a personalized rectangle by each of the kids, spouses, and grand kids.

Before I folded the blanket up to put it away I snapped a quick shot of my square.

My first embroidery project ever!!!

I was dumb and didn't take a picture of the whole thing to show you how creative and beautiful it is.  Sleeping with it made me feel a little closer to my Memere again.  How we all love her and miss her so much.

If my cousin gets back to me with a photo of the whole thing I will add it. :)

EDIT!!!!  Melanie got back to me and sent me a photo!

 

Second Quilt!

In taking off of work for a few days last week I was able to finish my second baby quilt.  It is very similar to the one I already finished just with a few little changes.

First change was that I made all of the stripes go in the same direction.

Second change was that when I quilted it, I used brown thread on the bobbin and blue thread on the top thread.  That makes the back look so much different without seeing the quilting.  You are still able to see the quilting on the top since the blue thread shows up over the browns.

Third change was that I figured out how to make the bias tape look much more finished.

The fourth change was that I only used blue thread to sew on the bias tape.  I also only sewed the bias tape twice.  Once very close to the edge and once more in the middle. I still have to figure out how to avoid making the bias tape shift when sewing it.  It seems to pull and then the bias tape looks wrinkly.  I don't like that.

But on to the reveal!

 The blue thread I think looks so pretty against the bubble fabric.

The back.  You can't even tell if there is any quilting on the back and I think I really like it that way.

Here is the bias tape.  I found that if I folded the edge over and then pinned it.  It made the switch from one bias tape to another less noticeable.  I still have to work on that to make sure that it looks its best but I am proud of what I did.

And I only ran out of bobbin thread once!  And I knew it was going to happen but it happened about 8 inches before I was ready.

I calculated about how long it took me to make this one (without accounting for cutting the squares because they were already cut) and it took me about three and a half hours.  Not too bad I would say. :)

What I learned from sewing my first quilt

In creating my first quilt I learned many new things… a lot of which were just dumb mistakes in my part, but I will know better for next time!  So today I will share with you the very important things I learned.

1.  When deciding how much fabric to purchase, make sure to account for ALL of the fabrics you are thinking of using.

                I thought I was soooo smart when I was in JoAnn’s buying the fabric for the quilts.  I had decided I wanted to make a 6x6 quilt with each square being 6”x6”.  So I did some mental (and written… and calculatored) math and figured out that I needed about a yard and a quarter of fabric.  I made sure to add in the seam allowance (I guessed about ½” on each side to I would need each square to be 7”x7” before any sewing).  I was right about that part… however, I completely failed to realize that I needed a yard and a half (hey I wanted a little leeway) TOTAL between the two fabrics I wanted to use.  I bought fabric for (in my mind) two quilts, a boy one and a girl one.  Well I really ended up with (according to my new calculations) enough fabric to make at least 2 to 3 of each the boy and girl quilts.  That is a LOT of extra fabric.

2.  When deciding (and making sure you have enough fabric) how big to make the squares make sure to take into account how many other fabrics you will be using.

                Yes.  This was the moment I realized I had bought that super huge amount of fabric that I didn’t actually need.  I measured and was sad because I didn’t buy “enough” of the fabric to make the 7”x7” squares that I wanted.  So I decided I would be okay with a 6”x5” square and I started using my fabulously new cutting mat.  Shortly after the bf walked by and asked why I was cutting them at 6” when it should have been 7”.  I explained my dilemma and he slowly (not because he is dumb but because he didn’t want me to get mad at him) mentioned how I had the other set of fabric.  And Ta Da!! My ah ha moment.  So I now have a nice little pile of 6”x7” squares that I can not use for these quilts.

3.  When deciding how to cut the squares for a quilt, really think about how many you have to cut out.

                As I mentioned above I bought a self-healing cutting mat from JoAnn’s.  I watched Ellie use one when she made the bf’s quilt and I was hooked.  I am so glad I bought one too because even using the cutting mat it took FOREVER to cut out 3 yards of fabric (remember I over bought what I needed by a yard and a half.  So I suggest deciding if you want to cut out all of your fabric with scissors or use a coupon and buy the mat… I vote mat!

4.  When sewing the rows of fabric together be very careful to line up the pattern correctly when pinning.

So here are my rows of fabric laying in the order they should be sewn in (I was going for the stripes to go opposite of the row before).

Well somehow in pinning them I got two of them mixed up and ended up with this:

So I sewed the two double rows together that were correct, seam ripped the wrong one, and pinned it onto the now 4 row piece.  Well, I was not very happy with myself when I realized after sewing them on that I pinned them wrong again!

After more seam ripping and very careful pinning I finally managed to get the rows right.

5.  When sewing the quilted lines make sure not to run out of bobbin thread.

                So I was about half way through sewing the quilted lines when I realized that I ran out of bobbin thread.  So I had to restart the thread and it ended up not looking so nice.  But that was the only time I ran out of thread because I made sure to completely fill the bobbin.

6.  When sewing bias tape find a good way to end one piece and start a new one.

                I have yet to figure out how to fix this problem, but I have some ideas.  I will make sure to do some experimenting when I sew my next quilt.

Thanks for reading!

Bias Tape Sewing Tutorial

With my recently completely quilt I have learned a new skill, sewing bias tape onto a quilt!  I had watched my friend Ellie sew it onto my bf's T-shirt quilt so I kinda had an idea of how it would work.

When it finally came time to sew the bias tape on I kinda freaked out.  I was so close to having the quilt done and now I was not sure I could made the tape look good enough (yes I am a bit of a perfectionist).

I started by laying the quilt out and slowly pinning the tape.  Once I arrived at a corner I worried again.  I tried to remember exactly what Ellie had done.

I lined up the two sides and prepared to pin.

I made sure to pin all of the way though all of the fabric without pulling or making a ripple in the fabrics.  That part was a little tough.

Then comes the tricky part... folding around the corner.  Hold the fabric tightly at the corner and slowing fold down and open the bias tape.

The bias tape will have some extra fabric, don't worry about that yet.  Make sure to line up the bias tape along the second side.

Now. Fold over the extra fabric (facing either side, it is your choice).

Carefully pin the second side so that all of the fabric is caught in the pin.  I did not pin the folded part, when I sewed it I just made sure to hold it flat as it went through the machine.

Here is an example of the completed corner all sewn up.  I decided to sew the bias tape three times (twice in brown and once in blue).  Some people like to sew it up only once, very close to the inside of the bias tape to hide it as much as possible.

Next I have to figure out how to make the crossover from one stripe of bias tape to the next look seamless.

Hope you're having a great day!!

Quilt Complete!

It is finished!!!  I sewed up the rest of the border last night.  I couldn't believe how cute it was!

I now know some little tricks on what to do and not do next time.  Hopefully I will be able to make the next one faster.  I might even have someone who already wants to buy it. :)

I am sorry for the not so great quality but all I had on my was my iphone.

The front is the blue bubbles and line pattern and the back is the brown with the blue pattern.

I can't wait to sew up my next one!!