make me a quilt

Allow me to acquaintmyself!

noreply@blogger.com (Bethany (Make Me A Quilt)) — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 12:03:00 +0000

Hey guys! Welcome to my day on the hop, hosted by the lovely Beth from Plum and June. Tessa, from The Sewing Chick, is also featured today, so click over there too!

I want to thank Beth for putting this hop together - I think most of my followers are fellow hoppers! So many of you may already know me, but for those of you who don't...

My name is Bethany, I'm 30, and I live in Michigan with my fiance and our two cats. I work full time as an industrial designer. If I'm not quilting, I'm probably reading, gardening or hanging out with my fiance. I am a total introvert, so sewing is a good hobby for me... :)

I've been sewing for a couple years, and quilting for about a year. I'm still learning with every quilt I make, but I think I'm slowly getting better. Lately I haven't had ~~as much~~ any time to sew, because I'm gettting married very soon - September 15th! I/we put all of the planning off until June, if that gives you a little insight to my personality. ;) Needless to say, we are scrambling to nail down all the details, and sewing has taken a back seat!

Blog hopper topics

Quilting tips: Pfsshh! I have none. Fail. :) I will tell you something that has made my life easier though. I keep a funnel and a large container of water in my craft room so I can fill my iron up on the fly and not have to walk all the way to the bathroom! Laziness or masterful planning skills.. take your pick. ;)

Blogging tips: I haven't been blogging long enough to give out tips, but something that I've noticed is that you will get as much out of your blog as you put into it. Taking the extra time to email someone or comment on their blog builds relationships (and gains followers!).

Favorite fabric: My favorite fabrics in my stash have come from thrift and antique stores. I love having something unique!
Favorite craft book: When I first learned how to sew, I had a lot of fun with the book, One Yard Wonders. When I first learned to quilt, The Practical Guide to Patchwork was my go-to reference! (Big surprise there, huh?!)

Favorite book: No way can I pick one! I LOVE reading. My favorite genres are science fiction and young adult. Some favorites (of all genres) include.. The Knife of Never Letting Go (Patrick Ness, 3 book series), The Book Thief (MarKus Zusak), Gone With the Wind, 1984, and of course, Harry Potter.

Favorite children's book: Hmm, I remember reading a lot of Boxcar Children, Babysitter's Club, Road Dahl, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, Sideways Stories from Wayside High, off the top of my head!
Favorite quilting tool: Recently I discovered this little bar that attaches to my walking foot to help me sew parallel lines - I never knew what it was for! But if I really had to pick a favorite quilting tool, it would be my free motion foot, because I love fmq. :)
Favorite music to listen to while quilting: My favorite type of music is electronic, and I think you could consider it a "hobby" or at least a passion. My first CD was FatboySlim's Better Living Through Chemistry (1996) and ever since then I've been addicted to the crazy sounds of techno. I love going to concerts and festivals (like the Detroit Electronic Music Festival) and listening to my very talented friend create live mixes. I always feel embarrassed admitting it because it's kind of weird, but what can I say. :P

If I'm not listening to music I have Harry Potter audiobooks on, or podcasts. I listen to a wide variety of podcasts, including many on quilting!

Favorite TV show while hand stitching: So many! Favorites of all time include Felicity (oh Ben, swoon!), Road To Avonlea (probably a lot of my Canadian readers know of this one!), Downton Abbey, and if I'm feeling lazy I'll throw on HGTV. :) I just finished watching the "Battlestar Galactica" series and I really liked it. I've got to choose a new show to watch now, maybe Dr. Who!

Binding - by hand or by machine?: Always by machine, unless it's a gift.
If I'd only known - what you wish you knew about blogging before you started your blog: Before I was blogging, I was reading a lot of blogs, so I can't really say anything surprised me, aside from how friendly everyone is.

Tute time! (heh)
I have a confession to make. :/ I really rushed this project, and it shows. If I had time I would make a second one, with all the improvements, but until September 15th free time is sparse. (And if anyone is wondering, my sister isn't getting her birthday quilt in time! LOL)

I wanted to make a travel makeup case, similar to an expensive one I saw in a gift shop this summer, by a designer well known for her colorful prints and quilted texture.

Oh my grossness, that binding is an atrocity.

Here are my disclaimers before I get to the ~~step-by-step instructions~~ guidelines:

I used 9" zippers, but that is the only measurement I knew of while I was making this.
There is no way to close it. #embarrassing I just didn't get that far. My plan is to eventually sew a tie to the bottom of the bag so that when it's closed I slip the tie through the loop and knot it.
I used pre-packaged binding from JoAnns. I said it, and it's true. :-O

Here we go..

1. Cut a front piece of fabric, a back piece of fabric, and the batting piece for the middle. I started with slightly larger than 9" (for the 9" zippers), and about 22ish inches long. Baste and quilt as desired.

2. Trim it down to 9" wide by 20" long.

3. Optional. Trace a round object onto two of the corners and cut them out.

4. Optional. Sew a little hook to the short end with the rounded corners, if you think it will come in handy for hanging it up or using this loop as part of the system that will keep this shut.
(Other options to keep the case shut would be buttons, velcro, snaps, another zipper, etc...)

5. This is where it gets a bit murky.. You will need to cut two rectangular pieces of fabric to sew to the zipper, for each pocket you want. I went with two pockets, so I did this twice. The finished pocket dimension is 6" by 9". Fold the fabric over on the top and bottom edges and sew it directly to the main, quilted piece of fabric.

6. This is possibly the worst picture I've ever put on my blog. :P If you'd like to have an area for makeup brushes, you'll need a back piece of fabric and a front piece of fabric. I also included a "flap" to keep the brushes from falling out.

When you have the zippered pockets sewn in, and the brush holder area pinned in, you just have to bind the edges all around, which fix everything in place. Hopefully if you are actually using this tutorial it wasn't completely useless! :D

I leave you with my very pooped looking cat.

Thank you for visiting! And thanks again to Beth!

WIP Wednesday: Chained 5 Patch, Thrifty Treasures

noreply@blogger.com (Bethany (Make Me A Quilt)) — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 00:42:00 +0000

Hey quilters, I have a little bit of progress to share for WIP Wednesday. I managed to sew up a couple blocks for my 5 patch quilt (I need to think up a new name!). They really are fast blocks, which goes to show how much time I've put towards quilting this week with only 3 new blocks to show. And one of them isn't even completely sewn, lol - that's a hardcore "work in progress" picture for ya!

As for that white space.. it looks so awful, I can't stand it! HMMMMMM! Did I not learn my lesson on the wonky square rings? Didn't I say I don't really care for white space? I'm rolling my eyes at myself right now and trying to remember that I'm always questioning myself until the entire project is finished. Maybe some colorful hand quilting will spruce up those white areas?

I went thrifting again last week.. I found only one new piece of fabric for my vintagy themed stack. I thought it appropriate to throw a picture in here because this fabric stack really is a work in progress! I could always go to etsy and purchase some vintage fat quarter packs, but it's so much more fun to go on the treasure hunt yourself.

I am hoping nobody saw the look on my face when I spotted this pretty yellow pillowcase! I was overly excited, I might have snatched it off the rack a little too fast, as if somebody was trying to beat me to it!

I found this other one two weeks ago, but it doesn't really go with my color scheme so I'm just tucking it away in the stash. I love how a pillowcase costs 99 cents and ends up yielding between a half and full yard of fabric! Sweet.

Thanks for popping by! :D I'm off to design some custom labels for the wine bottles for my wedding (labels nobody will notice and will end up in the trash.) My mom is pretty much forcing me. Okay, she's not forcing me at all LOL, she just seemed really excited about it and thought it would be cute - I felt too bad about saying no! :P

Dresden quilt finished!

noreply@blogger.com (Bethany (Make Me A Quilt)) — Sun, 26 Aug 2012 22:16:00 +0000

Finally - a finish! Is this really the first finish I've had since June (wonky square rings)? Sadly, yes! I think summer is just a busy time. After my wedding in September, it's game on, a bonanza of quilty finishes. So I say now! :P

Here's the scoop on my Dresden quilt...

The idea began June 5.
The instructions on how I constructed this quilt were posted on June 11.
The progress was featured in a couple WIP posts throughout June and July.
That's 2.5 months in total! I didn't pay it nearly enough attention this summer, but it's done now and just in time for the contest deadline. :)
I'm entering it in the "innovative" category!

Quilt Summary..

Fabric: Poetica, by Pat Bravo, and some Kona solids.
Size: 53" x 72"

The design is based off of an 18 degree triangle template. I used the EZ Dresden ruler to cut wedges from a ginormous (54"x54") log cabin block. I arranged the wedges randomly in 8" rows, using a gray Kona solid as the background.

I did straight line quilting that echos the 18 degree triangle on the back of the quilt. The binding is machine sewn.

I love back! The triangle makes me so happy, and the light purple is such a great contrast to the dark gray on the front. I don't mind exclaiming over how much I love the back, because, to be honest - the front sort of didn't turn out as great as I had imagined! It's sooo dark. Too dark! I think I can live with it though. :)

Lots and lots and lots of pics! I'm really happy about this quilt, but it's future is yet to be determined. This one might be a gifter.

I hope everyone had a great weekend, and really, a great summer - hard to believe it's almost over!

Chained 5 Patch Block

noreply@blogger.com (Bethany (Make Me A Quilt)) — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 13:38:00 +0000

I could fill a really long post with a smorgasbord of things that have been going on life-wise lately! Quilting-wise, eh, not so much. It's been a bit slow around here, but I did get a new 1/4" piecing foot and two new quilting books, so that's... somethin... :P

I got the new quilting foot because the old one I had seemed like it wasn't made very well and the guide shook quite a bit, making it not perfectly accurate. It also liked to fold back my fabric, instead of letting it feed through smoothly. The new foot works much better, which will be really helpful in making this quilt for my sister's birthday! (She doesn't read my blog. :) )

Chained 5 Patch, from the Quilter's Cache

March 6 2001 Marcia Hohn

I found the block, and tutorial on the Quilter's Cache. I had a lot of fun time going through their collection! I would suggest using their tutorial for this block (duh, lol - I hope this post doesn't come off as a tutorial of a tutorial), as it was pretty easy to follow, but I thought showing you guys photographs might be helpful while going though it. Their tutorial has some computer/graphic images, and text, but for me real photographs are always a big plus! So here we go!

Cutting
Color 1:

Color 2:

Color 3:

Color 4: (Eventually you will cut this 18" strip into smaller pieces.)

Sewing
Step 1: Sew the following blocks together, and then slice it in half.

Step 2: Now sew these blocks together, and slice it in half.

Step 3: Sew these blocks together, slice again!

Step 4: Cut your 18" strip into the following sizes:

Step 5: Now you only have a few pieces left - sew them together as shown below on the left. Grab your pieces from step 3 and sew them together with the strip below. The resulting block will need two white (color 4) 2.5"x5" pieces sewn to the top and bottom.

Arrange your strips as shown in the block layout and you're done! Hopefully that made sense and was easy to follow - like I said, I just wanted to show you guys photos of what I did. I'm not the greatest at explaining things, so I'd definitely refer to the original tutorial. :)

Umm, yea - so I'm a nerd (aren't we all? I mean, c'mon, we have quilting blogs, hehe), and a bit obsessive about making sure this quilt will look really nice for my sister, so I laid out a section of it in photoshop. (Hey, I gotta do something on my lunch break!) I wanted to be sure I was going to like the colors/arrangement. It's not completely accurate, but it helped me make the decision to use brown as the "anchor" color.

I need to make six blocks a week to finish it in time for her birthday! I think I can, I think I can!!

Well guys, I've got a lot of crap going on for the next 3-4 weeks - lots of travel and wedding prep! I sort of saved everything until the last minute, that's just how I be. I'm going to try to squeeze in sewing time wherever I can to take my mind off veils, music selections, decorations, portapotty's (we are so classy) and all that craziness. Thanks for stickin with me while I'm a bit blog-absent! :D

PS AQS in Grand Rapids this weekend! I'm going on Saturday!! Is anyone going?

PSS EZ Dresden deadline is a week away! All I have left is the binding! :) :) Double smileys.

Story behind the name and a birthday quilt

noreply@blogger.com (Bethany (Make Me A Quilt)) — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 12:10:00 +0000

It's been a very busy week for me! I've spent almost every night this week researching and shopping for a new car. I'm really excited about finally making a purchase, but it doesn't make for a very interesting story, so I'll just summarize by saying that I haven't been doing much sewing!

Okay, how about a mini-story that is quilting related? Like, how I came about choosing my blog name. When I made my first quilt and everyone in my family found out, all of a sudden I was hearing a lot of, "Make me a quilt!" And that's pretty much it. :)

One person that wants a quilt that I haven't gotten around to yet is my sister. I've been putting it off because I want her quilt to be perfect... Her birthday is coming up in September, and maybe it's crazy to take on a new project with a month left until my wedding, but I'm going for it!

I LOVE this set of fabric, I mean.. I really love it. I have been staring at it for a week, folding and stacking the fabrics, thinking about what I want to do with them. I can't take credit for how well these colors go together - ahhh, I totally stole this color scheme from Rachel, (Stitched in Color), who put together an awesome "blogger bundle" called "Berry Picking" for Pink Castle Fabrics. Go buy the bundle because it's perfect! :D

I would have bought this bundle, but I had to stop myself... I decided to look through my stash and see if I had anything that would work, and then use the gift certificate I won to purchase additional fabrics to complete the set as best I could. I still might snap up that Berry Bundle - I just need to cool my jets on the ol fabric budget for a minute!

Now I know why everyone loves Flea Market Fancy so much.. the fabric is even prettier in person, and I'm sure I'll be buying some more of the brown in the future, it's gorgeous!

So back to the quilt I'm going to make from these fabrics. My sister is a more "traditional" type of person. She really likes vintage stuff and "old-fashioned" decor. I don't think she'd like anything wonky or really modern. The colors in this fabric set might even be a little too bright for her taste, but I've picked out a really cute block pattern that has a "classic"/traditional look to it that I think she'll like.

In my next post I'll show you the block and a step-by-step on how to make it. Here's a preview!

Thanks for stopping by! :)

WIP Wednesday: Guest hosting on Freshly Pieced!

noreply@blogger.com (Bethany (Make Me A Quilt)) — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 01:09:00 +0000

Hey guys! I'm guest hosting over on Lee's blog, Freshly Pieced! Come check it out! :D

Thrift store scores: Fabric, Batting

noreply@blogger.com (Bethany (Make Me A Quilt)) — Sun, 05 Aug 2012 00:49:00 +0000

Once upon a time I was a thrift store snob. I thought the stores smelled so bad I never wanted to set foot in them, let alone wear a strangers worn out clothes. The smell still makes me gag and feel like I need a shower, but a few years ago I smartened up and realized you can find some really nice stuff in there! At times I've found clothes with the tags still on from upscale retailers, score!

I don't make it out to thrift stores often enough, but when I do I usually find some at least one interesting piece of fabric I could use for quilting. A lot of the fabric from this quilt was thrifted. The salvation army near me has a rack dedicated to fabric, so I always check there first. Then I move onto the bed linens area and look for pillowcases and sheets. If I have extra time I'll check out the crafts section, and sometimes even scan some of the clothing itself. Mens dress shirts, womens skirts and kids clothing can sometimes turn up a treasure, but I try to be really picky in those areas. Well, I try to be really picky in general, because otherwise I would probably end up with a massive tower of sheets that would never get turned into quilts!

Yesterday this pillowcase caught my eye...

Not a show stopper, but the colors were saturated and paired with the right fabrics it could work. I thought the orange and yellow could be played up. Bonus, it felt like cotton, not a blend.

Then I found a huge yellow pillowcase with a vintage-y floral print, also cotton. I also found a queen sized yellow sheet that will work great as a backing material.

When I get this stuff home, I wash it right away and "prep" it by cutting off all the seams. If it sits in my closet as a pillowcase or a sheet, or whatever it started out as, I won't want to sew with it later.

I pulled some fabric out of my stash to see how it would look. I'm not sure brown and yellow alone would cut it for me, so I'm going to just tuck these finds into the stash and keep looking every so often at the thrift store for some potential matches.

Possible color scheme..

Another really neat find - this craft-sized batting package, brand new. The original price was pulled off, but I found it here on amazon for $16.99 - I bought it for $1.50. Hopefully I like it! Has anyone tried using a bamboo blend?

In other news, I finished a quilt top and am very close to finishing a second quilt top - OHMYGOSH. More on that next week!

WIP Wednesday: Giant Retro Patchwork Flower

noreply@blogger.com (Bethany (Make Me A Quilt)) — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 00:01:00 +0000

Hey guys! Bit of a slow week quilting-wise - we are really ramping up our wedding planning now that it's a month and a half away. If you knew how much I still have left to do you'd think I was insane. I just happen to think relaxing with a book in the sun, quilting, watching hours of Battlestar Galactica#nerdalert, and gardening are more fun ways to spend my time than choosing napkin colors and centerpieces!

(I'm finally getting around to reading "Insurgent", by Veronica Roth, if anyone is curious. I've also just finished an amazing book called "Below Stairs", by Margaret Powell. The true life story of a kitchen maid born in the early 1900's. It reads like a funny grandmother is telling you stories about the good old days. If you like Downton Abbey, you would really love this one!)

Many of you showed support for my starting yet another project, thank you. :) I started sewing up the patchwork quilt I was dying to get going on, and out of the blue an idea fell into my head to use The Sometimes Crafters "Retro Flowers" pattern, but huge. (It should end up being slightly larger than throw sized, about 70" square.)

I had to draft it out and blow it up, and print out a large template. If I had thought this through, I'd have realized that it would have been better to make this block out of four pieces, as in the pattern, but I thought I'd save some time and just sew one big curve around the whole thing.

It did work, but I think it resulted in more wrinkles than were necessary. (I've since ironed it out and it looks much better than these initial photos, and the wrinkles that are left will probably just blend in like usual after the quilting process.) Now I have to decide if I should keep going with this method, or do it the right way for the rest of the blocks. (Always a learning experience!)

And here is an approiximation of how it might look finished, through the magic of photoshop!

So that's in on the quilting front. I've been getting outside a lot more lately, now that the weather has become more bearable. We have so many neat things growing this year! I've made some chamomile (second photo below) tea and it's wonderful. Some of our corn (a special, decorative variety) is over nine feet tall right now! We have peppers, tomatoes, potatoes, bush beans, onions, carrots, peas, and hopefully soon the cucumbers and watermelon will be ready.

And just to get even more off topic...a cat. :)

I am linking this post to Freshly Pieced, though as usual I am late to the game and have a pitiful showing this week! Lol. Thank you for coming by! :)

Giveaway Winner!

noreply@blogger.com (Bethany (Make Me A Quilt)) — Sun, 29 Jul 2012 14:39:00 +0000

Lucky number 15! Congratulations to Ginette! Email has been sent. Thank you all for entering - it was really exciting to read through all the comments. Some of the answers were pretty funny, and I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who keeps a seam ripper with me at all times, lol! You guys are awesome. :)

WIP Wednesday: EZ Dresden, Mario, Patchwork

noreply@blogger.com (Bethany (Make Me A Quilt)) — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 01:35:00 +0000

I spent the weekend with family at my mom's lake house - I had a homemade birthday cake with a certain dreaded number of candles - ugh, just take a look...

I have been telling people for the longest time that I was a year younger than I actually am, to delay the dreaded three-oh, but I can't escape it any longer! The duping is over! I am not exactly sure what is going on, because I feel like I just graduated college. I suspect trickery.

I have made an embarassing amount of progress this week. My EZ Dresden (above) was my biggest accomplishment - it's almost done! I just need to sew three more rows. I am hoping to be done with it very soon, I know exactly how I'm going to quilt it.

I finished my Mario block. It was a LOT easier to work with a smaller section, much more manageable. This time I used a piece of damp muslin to lay overtop of the blocks while I ironed. It worked beautifully. Another improvement I made was ironing the seams open!

It wasn't exactly fun, but it made sewing the block a lot easier. Speaking of ironing.. this is my new iron! I love it! My fiance gave me a few presents today (he is spreading them out over the week, yay!) and one of them was the iron I really wanted. It's very small and lightweight, but it irons wonderfully and it's much easier to get into little areas to press open seams.

Mr. Mario isn't 100% accurate, you can see where some of the seams got a little wonky.. and his foot is sorta messed up.. lol. But when you are looking at it as a whole the mistakes sort of blend in and you don't notice them. I think the next block will turn out better. I can tell I'm going to be behind on this quilt a long!

Okay, I need help guys! Help as in sewing management therapy. LOL. I have a strong urge to sew a patchwork quilt. I am repressing it, because I have so many WIPs that need attention, but this stack is very tempting! I cut these out while I was making a charm pack to give away - check it out! If you already have, thank you for entering! :) First giveaway - so exciting!

I am linking up with WIP Wednesdays, hosted at Lee's blog, Freshly Pieced! Thanks for stopping by! :)

My first giveaway: Scrappy Charm Pack

noreply@blogger.com (Bethany (Make Me A Quilt)) — Sat, 21 Jul 2012 15:59:00 +0000

I'm celebrating! I've been blogging for two months, and it has been So. Much. Fun. Seriously, I feel like I slipped right into this quilting community so naturally - thanks to you guys! Quilting bloggers are so welcoming. :) I sort of feel like I "know" some of you - I love being able to joke around in the emails and on twitter. It's fun having a common passion with such a great group of people! You guys are so great. Warm fuzzies for everyone!

If you are new to my blog - hello and welcome! To get ya started, check out the top links, About Me, Finished Projects, or maybe my latest Work In Progress Wednesday, where we share our current projects.

On to the prize. I cut a charm pack out of some of my favorite fabrics in my stash. There is some designer stuff in there - Moda, Michael Miller, the Ric Rac Rabbits, the Crabtastic Newsprint, as well as some Kona solids. There is also some JoAnn's/Hobby Lobby type fabrics, but I promise they are all soft and wonderful, otherwise I wouldn't put them in this prize.

I think they would be a great start to a scrappy patchwork quilt - I actually cut some for myself while I was at it. :)

The Rules

Be a follower. :) Then leave me a comment (or two, for two chances to win).

Chances to win:
Chance 1. Leave a comment listing one thing you might find in a sewing basket or traveling sewing bag. It's okay if there are repeat answers, be as creative or non-creative as you like. :)
Chance 2. Tweet or facebook about this and let me know ya did! Something like.. "Giveaway @makemeaquilt - scrappy charm pack up for grabs! http://makemeaquilt.blogspot.com/2012/07/my-first-giveaway-scrappy-charm-pack.html"

The giveaway will remain open until Saturday, July 28th, 8pm Eastern time (my birthday!). One winner will be chosen at random and announced shortly after the deadline. If you are not sure if you are a "no-reply" blogger or not, leave your email address in the comment so I can contact you!

Giveaway is open to anyone! Good luck! :)

WIP Wednesday

noreply@blogger.com (Bethany (Make Me A Quilt)) — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 00:43:00 +0000

I am always late to WIP Wednesdays! What the heck. Anyway, I've made some progress, not a lot.. and I sure won't make any this weekend - going out of town! It's my birthday next week, so I'm going to see my family and float around on the lake and stuff. :)

I am having the most fun ever making these "half log cabin" blocks. They are fast, they are so bright and colorful - I just love them. I decided to go with the purple, grey, aqua, orange color scheme. Six blocks out of twenty four done.

"I'm a cat, so I gotta walk all over this."

Next up - Mario! I wrote a post on this yesterday. I better finish this block!

No progress on Dresden, or my Liberty of London wall hanging. Sad popsicle.

Linking up to Freshly Pieced!

1st Mario Block & The Discovery of Starch

noreply@blogger.com (Bethany (Make Me A Quilt)) — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 00:49:00 +0000

Summer is a hard season for sewing. There is so much more going on with family and friends, so much more temptation to be outside enjoying the sunshine that is such a rarity in Michigan after October. A lot of my weekends are reserved for having people staying with us, or for traveling to visit family. This is a wonderful thing, I just wish I felt like I have made more progress this month!

Another wish of mine would be for some rain. In the city I live in, we haven't had rain since May. Okay, we got 1/2" of rain in June, but that is nothing! And no rain so far in July. Temps are soaring into the 90's on a regular basis. My grass is dead, my plants are thirsty - come on rain! It'd sure give me a good excuse to spend a large chunk of time in the sewing room. ;)

Last night I started working on my Mario quilt! My fiance and I are big time Mario fans - it's the only game we play on the Wii together. Making this quilt is something I've been really excited about. After making the first block, I'm a little.. worried. Here is how the process of making my first Mario block went down. If you aren't participating, it might not be that interesting, but you might skip down to the part about "cutting the squares", where I talk about starch!

(Wow, this turned out to be a long post!)

Supplies
I bought most of my fabric supplies online, but I didn't pick up the fat quarter pieces, because I knew I was going to get this big package of Kona layer cake sized solids in the mail, from a swap I participated in. This is such a treat! I just want to stare and sort and re-sort these babies. So pretty. :) I was thinking I'd be able to pull some of these to make up for the fat quarters I didn't buy.

I couldn't find the wash out stabilizer that Angela recommended for using with this quilt a long. I ended up buying the lightest weight Pellon fusible they had at JoAnn's. This is supposed to make sewing these tiny 1.5" square blocks together a breeze. Unfortunately I didn't have that experience, which I'll talk about more further down the post. I am really worried that this quilt is going to be... Very heavy. And very stiff. Hmm!

If this quilt gets finished, I am toying with the idea of using something besides batting for the center, to cut down on the weight. Flannel? Has anyone tried using an alternative to batting, and what was your experience? By the time this quilt is finished, it will be winter, but I don't want to get smothered by video game characters in my sleep! Lol.

Cutting the fabric into squares
1.5" squares need to be very accurate. I recently heard someone say they use starch every time they quilt, to get a very crisp, flat fabric when ironing, and to stiffen it up for accuracy when cutting and sewing. I figured this would be the best time to try it out, because of the tiny pieces I'll be using, so I picked up a can at JoAnn's.

I cut small sections (like 9 or 12 inches wide) off my yardage, so I wasn't cutting 1.5" strips off a 3 yard stretch of fabric. I would lay the small section out on the floor and spray it down with starch, holding the can about 6" - 8" from the fabric. I didn't soak it, I just did a light, even spray. I don't know what starch will do to the carpet, but I don't really care about mine personally, as it's already somewhat trashed as a result of being in the sewing/craft room!

I would flip the fabric over and iron the other side that I didn't spray. I don't know if it matters, it just made me a little nervous to press an iron onto the wet side. It probably doesn't matter. Press the iron down, but try not to "push" the fabric around, because the starch will stiffen the fabric into a stretched position. Just press.

Cutting was definitely easier with this starched fabric! I was really impressed. I plan on continuing to use the starch for this quilt, I think it really helped with the accuracy of my block cutting. But boy, it took a LONG time to cut these squares! And cutting is my least favorite part of quilting. I just may take a day to cut a LOT of the squares out all at once so I can just get it over with. :P

Layout out the squares
This was the fun part, though it took a lot longer than I thought it would. Make sure to double check your work, because it's easy to place the wrong square down - I did it half a dozen times! I only ended up laying out as many blocks that would fit on the width of interfacing I had.

I drew a grid onto the stabilizer this time, but I might not do it again. If you draw one straight line down the center, and then one perpendicular line across the width, you'll have your start lines and you can work from the center out. Everything should keep square if you get the first blocks right.Though I'm not sure I should be giving this advice, as you can see the white gaps between the blocks above!

Fusing the squares to the stabilizer
Ugh. This was.. almost disastrous. I've used interfacing before, but not in this way, with all these tiny pieces. I should have followed the directions more carefully.

The directions say to get another large piece of fabric wet and lay it on top of your work. I didn't do that because I was afraid it would mess up the squares and move them out of place. I now actually think it might help keep them in place, but I could be wrong.

I just took a spray bottle and dampened my squares. Whoops! This made the squares curl up on the edges - all my hard work was compromised! I had to be extremely careful with the iron to flatten out the squares without shifting them.. it was really hard. And it didn't turn out "perfect", but it was pretty close to perfect. But I wanted it to be perfect. You know how that goes - it's our hobby, we want to get better at it, we want to be proud of what we are doing. The little gaps between the squares drove me crazy. But it's okay. What's that saying? Keep calm and quilt on...

Sewing the rows
Halleluiah! Finally, an easy step. Right? Not so much. For the first round of sewing, yes, it's easy. The interfacing wants to fold along the rows, so just fold, sew, repeat.

Shave just enough of the seam allowance off to separate the interfacing and you are ready to sew the other direction.

The other direction turned out to be SO HARD! My sewing machine did NOT like sewing through all those layers of fabric and more fabric and interfacing and more interfacing. I needed my walking foot, but as that doesn't have the 1/4" edge on it to make sure my seam allowance is accurate, I couldn't really use it. The result was that my rows got really wobbly!

Finished block

I am disappointed. I can't use this interfacing again, that's just not going to happen. It's too hard to sew through everything on my machine with enough accuracy to make me satisfied. And the block is very stiff. It takes a long time to put this block together, so to end up with wobbly rows and a block that is so heavy - I need to make some changes.

I'm going to try to sew the next block with NO interfacing. It might be really difficult. I'm going to stay positive! I want a finished quilt that has straight rows and doesn't weight 30 pounds, so I think this is the solution. The wash out interfacing is an option, but I'd have to find it (which is apparently kind of difficult) and it's expensive. So it's probably not really an option.

Another possible outcome is that these blocks might turn into throw pillows. Sigh.. On the bright side, I'll have a huge stash of solids! All that un-used blue. Lots of possibilities!

Thank you to anyone who is actually still reading this, I didn't mean for it to turn into such a book! I don't know if I would even read a post this long, so I don't blame you if you just skimmed through to look at the pictures!! :D

Another big thank you to Angela, from Cut To Pieces, for organizing this quilt-a-long. It really is an amazing quilt. :)

P.S. We've been watering our garden like crazy because of the drought - just look at this little watermelon! Oh my gosh it's so cute!!!

What is better than a little watermelon? A BABY watermelon! Ahhh!! Things in miniature are always adorable.

New Fabric, New Quilt

noreply@blogger.com (Bethany (Make Me A Quilt)) — Sun, 15 Jul 2012 21:41:00 +0000

I received a very large box of fabric this past Thursday - ahh!! Exciting! I think you all know the feeling. :) I wanted to start working with it right away, but we had visitors stay with us over the weekend, so I didn't get to do anything until today. It was so hard to wait!! Lol.

I have quite a few WIPs going on right now, so I didn't really need to start anything new.. but the lure of new fabrics sucked me in! I sewed some improvisationalish blocks today. My plan was that I knew I wanted to use the new fabric, and I wanted it to be a rectangular "half log cabin". I'm sure this block exists, and has a real name, but I don't know what it is, so I'm going with half a log cabin. I sewed four blocks, without measuring the strips. The only thing I know for sure is that I'll have 24 blocks measuring 12"x16", to make a quilt that is 64"x72".

I started to realize that I accidentally created a color scheme that I really liked! The first two blocks shown above have purple, orange, grey and an aqua color.

I can't decide if I should go for a scrappy look, and use all the fabrics, including my stash - or go with a dedicated color scheme. I pulled some fabrics and I think they look really good together, but I really love the scrappy look as well!

Decisions, decisions.. :)

Paper Piecing Update

noreply@blogger.com (Bethany (Make Me A Quilt)) — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 00:05:00 +0000

A quick post today - just wanted to share an update on how my paper piecing is going. I made two more animals this week - a goat/ram and a swan. These two didn't turn out as great as last week's squirrel and pig, but I think it's because I didn't choose the best fabrics this time around, especially on the swan. Luckily I have some new fabrics coming tomorrow (yay!), and a Kona swap due back to me very soon - 64 layer cake sized colors! Double yay! So I can keep chugging along with plenty of prints and solids to choose from.

Here is the link to the pdf file of this goat/ram. As always, if you noticed anything wrong with the pattern, don't hesitate to let me know! :)

Swan link. Eeps, that yellow is so see through! I think it'll be okay with a nice, light batting behind it. My yellow stash is so very sadly low, so I had to go with this big print. Umm... I might re-do this block. I'm so hard on myself, I gotta stop! :P

From last week, here is the pig pattern.

And of course, the squirrel.

In other news, I'm really close to finishing my EZ Dresden top, and am starting my Mario quilt! Angela from Cut to Pieces has posted the first block from the quilt-a-long. I'm about to cut - really excited!!

Told ya it'd be a quick post! ;) Happy Wednesday, the work week's half over!

Sewing Room Tour

noreply@blogger.com (Bethany (Make Me A Quilt)) — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 23:15:00 +0000

This past weekend I couldn't take it anymore! My sewing room was a disaster. Embarrassingly messy. I had plans to work on my Dresden quilt but I couldn't even make enough space on the table to cut properly, so I knew it was time. Sigh.. It took much too long, but I'm happy I did it!

I give you the tour! My sewing room doesn't really have much personality, and it's kinda ghetto, but I love that it's just my space. I feel really lucky that I have a whole (tiny!) room to myself to work in and make a complete mess of every so often. :)

I want to post this as a "before" tour. I'm challenging myself to make this space more beautiful, but I'm giving myself some time.. there are quite a few things I'd like to do, but I wouldn't want those things to get in the way of my sewing time, lol!

I have a big "L" shaped desk that my fiance and I put together using cheap lumber from Lowe's and some MDF. It took us two hours to build the work station, and it was probably about $40. Sturdy as heck too, that stuff is heavy!

It's nice to have a big window for light and the view of the plants and things in the yard - it's really pretty when it rains. The ledge that goes around the room is so handy! Yes, it get's cluttered, but I just call it convenient storage.

My sister gave me this awesome photo frame a while ago (above, on the left), it's sitting on the ledge with the default picture still in it! Ahh. I'm the worst, lol.

Nice big area for cutting and ironing...

This bookcase is my work in progress station. Each project has it's own little cubby.

Here's the inside of the closet - I'll just show you the half that is sewing related. The other side is a bit shameful, lol, but I promise it isn't a graveyard of old sewing projects! Just extra storage for stuff I should probably throw away.

I've always kept my stash in these hanging shoe dividers, but only this past weekend did it have any sort of order. I used Jeni's tutorials for folding and organizing ideas. I love how everything looks so pretty now!

Scraps sorted into drawers by color.

Sewing room goals:

Sand, paint and seal the ghetto tables white (at least the legs, maybe not the tops)
Add a curtain to the underside of the tables to hide the storage and cords
Add a window dressing
Put a picture in the frame my sister bought me!
Hang and frame the giant mirror
Cover my dirty ass ironing board, it's repulsive!
Decorate the walls a little
Clean out the rest of the closet

There ya have it, my favorite room in the house. As a reward for my efforts, I decided my stash is much too small and needs to be stocked! I spluuuurrged and bought 26 half yards of fabric in "stash builder" colors and patterns. Fabric.com has some great basic stuff on sale - I have 13 yards total and it was only $69! I can't tell you how excited I am for this big box to arrive!

Happy Monday everyone, thanks for stoppin by! :D

I'm linking up with PinkChalkStudios "Where I Sew" series - there are a lot of really great looking looking studios out there! Wow! Go checkem out. :)

WIP Wednesday [new fabric and wall hanging woes]

noreply@blogger.com (Bethany (Make Me A Quilt)) — Wed, 04 Jul 2012 21:27:00 +0000

Happy 4th guys!

Random: Does anyone remember Legally Blonde 2? Kind of a terrible movie, but there is a scene where Paulette says to Elle, "You look like the Fourth of July! Makes me want a hot dog real bad." LOL, it cracks me up. :P

WIP #1: Mario Quilt Along

Have you heard about the Super Mario Brothers quilt-a-long, hosted by Angela of Cut To Pieces? I'm so excited about this one - I think it's going to be the coolest quilt ever. A shipment of some of the fabrics arrived yesterday - woo hoo! Go check out the plans - it hasn't started yet. I'll warn you though, you need a LOT of fabric. I feel so bad about all the whining I've been doing over at the Flickr group, about the cost of all this fabric, lol! What can I say, I'm cheap! :P

In all seriousness, Angela put together a fantastic looking pattern, and even got the Fat Quarter Shop to hook us up with a discount code. I ended up going with Kona fabric, from Fabric.com, because the price couldn't be beat, but I'll be ordering the specially curated fat quarter pack from FQS.

WIP #2: Liberty of London Wall Hanging

Urghh. That's what I have to say about this one. Ughhhrrr!

I have a big blank space on the wall above my tv, between the two side bookcases. I wanted to make a simple wall hanging to go there and showcase my Liberty prints. This is what I came up with - I'm not happy with it. Somehow it just seems really bland, and the prints don't pop at all. I should have noticed this while I was making it, but I missed it. I'm hoping I can save it with great quilting and an interesting binding.

WIP # 3: EZ Dresden

Remember this guy? Yea, it's been a while. I haven't made much progress. Maybe I'll bust through it this weekend. Maybe... :)

WIP # 4: Paper pieced animals

I started this Sunday and I'm having a ton of fun with it. It's all I want to work on! I learned how to paper piece and found out I really like it. I created some templates if anyone would like to make their own. So far I have a squirrel and a pig. I'll be doing two blocks a week for eight weeks, so there is more to come.

So that is what has been going on over here, hopefully you guys are having a nice holiday! I don't have any plans for today, just a nice relaxing day of... relaxing. :)

Linking up with Lee, from Freshly Pieced. Jess, from SewCraftyJess, is hosting today. Thanks for stopping by!

Paper Piecing with a Squirrel

noreply@blogger.com (Bethany (Make Me A Quilt)) — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 23:38:00 +0000

Yesterday, Beth from Plum and June, mentioned in her June wrap up post that she wanted to try paper piecing. I left her a comment saying that I had also been wanting to try this for a while now - and she suggested we make a pact to both try it this month. I said, sure, why not? Then I got really curious and started googling tutorials and trying to figure out how to do it. Sometimes you just need someone to give you a little push. Thank you, Beth! :)

A few weeks ago I started thinking about tangrams. During one of my first industrial design classes freshman year, we were given an exercise that involved tangrams. So what's a tangram? Straight from wikipedia:

"A tangram is a dissection puzzle consisting of seven flat shapes, called tans, which are put together to form shapes. The objective of the puzzle is to form a specific shape (given only an outline or silhouette) using all seven pieces, which may not overlap. It was originally invented in China at some unknown point in history, and then carried over to Europe by trading ships in the early 19th century. It became very popular in Europe for a time then, and then again during World War I. It is one of the most popular dissection puzzles in the world."

The reason this came to my mind regarding quilting is that you can depict thousands of objects using just these basic geometric shapes - shapes that would be easy to sew together!

I thought using the shapes in the tangram would be the perfect way to explore paper piecing. I decided to use the theme of animals. There are lots of examples of tangram animals out there to choose from. (But hold up for a second - those two words next to each other are impossible to think or say without mashing them together - "tangranimals", so that's what they are now, lol.) Here are just a few of the ones I found:

My goal is to piece two blocks per week, to end up with a quilt that has sixteen total blocks. I will be posting every week on my progress, along with the templates I design for the blocks if you feel so inclined to make some animals yourself! :) It would make a great baby/kids quilt!

First things first - if you've never paper pieced before, here are some GREAT tutorials and tips that really helped me figure this all out. I would do a tutorial myself, but I promise it wouldn't be as good as these ones:

This video, from The Crafty Gemini, explains paper piecing with a really simple, basic block. It's really easy to follow.
This video, from Karen Johnson, of Connecting Threads, shows a more complicated block and offers up more advanced tips.
Here is a great blog post, from Fresh Lemon Quilts.
This article, by Janet Wickell, on About.com, has a great list of general tips to reference when paper piecing.

Here are my own personal tips:

Sew with a shortened stitch length - I went with 1.2
Use really big, over-sized pieces of fabric! Don't skimp out, because wasting fabric isn't as bad as using the seam ripper
GO SLOW - you don't want to have to use a seam ripper on those tiny little stitches. It'll probably happen though. It took me FOUR tries, starting over from scratch, to make this block!
Before you stitch a seam, pretend it's already been sewn and fold it over along the pretend seam line. Does everything look right? Or did you almost just sew the piece on backwards? It's easy to do! :P
If you ever make your own paper piecing design, remember that whatever you sew will be a mirror image of the template you are using!

Okay, so you got it right? On to Block One!

I should mention that these blocks won't be true tangrams, because I had to modify the outlines of the shapes in order to make this work for paper piecing. In paper piecing, it's very important to have a plan, and to sew things in a specific order, otherwise you might end up at an intersection of seams that just won't work!

I broke this block up into four smaller blocks - it's the only way I could figure out how to make it work, and I think it makes it easy because each block only has a few pieces. The final block will be just under 6" square. I added borders to make my finished block 10" square.

Download the pdf of this block here.

Step one: Figure out how to paper piece (LOL, do ya like that?)
Step two: Download the pdf of this block here. Print out the template at 100% scale (ie do not scale or fit to page)
Step three: Cut the blocks out - just be sure to leave some white space around each block
Step four: Paper piece each block individually, starting with 1 and following the numbers in order
Step five: Trim the blocks down - leave 1/4" around the entire block
Step six: Sew blocks A and B together
Step seven: Sew blocks C and D together
Step eight: Sew the two sections you just made together to create the final block
Optional: Sew a border of pretty fabric around your finished block!

That sounds like a lot of steps, but once you "get it", (and like I said, it took me four times!) it should go pretty quick. I hope it went well for ya! :)

A little disclaimer: This is my very first time paper piecing. My plans might not be perfect, and there may be easier ways to do things. If you see something that's wrong or have a suggestion - please let me know! I'd love to hear from you!

From now on I will post two blocks in each post, but I don't want to overwhelm you guys today - this post is long enough as it is! lol! I'll be back later this week with Block Two: Pig! At least, it's supposed to be a pig - it's a little ambiguous. Hehe. :P

Thanks for sticking with me for such a LOOOONG post! :D Hope you had a great Monday!

Linked to Fabric Tuesdays!

June Wrap-Up

noreply@blogger.com (Bethany (Make Me A Quilt)) — Sun, 01 Jul 2012 14:04:00 +0000

"Wait.. today is July?? What the?" ... is what I thought when I woke up this morning and saw "Fresh Sewing Day July" posted over at Lily's Quilts.

So I went through my blog to see what I accomplished this past month. There wasn't much! A quilt, a potholder, and a place mat - which was actually finished May 31st so forgive me for cheating a little. ;)

Even so, I feel pretty impressed with myself for having a whole entire quilt finished. I've been clicking around to some of the peeps that have already linked up and WOW, holy cow! So many of you have gotten so much done, it's pretty unbelievable. Guess I'm just slow, heh. :P

On the subject of "where the heck did June go", I started thinking about what else happened in June...

My future sister-in-law and her boyfriend stayed with us for a week
My family threw a big party for my mom to celebrate her retirement
My fiance finished summer I and started summer II (classes for his (2nd!) masters)
We chose a caterer and are pretty close to signing a photographers contract
I made up our save-the-dates and sent them out
We watched all of season 2 of workaholics
The garden was finalized and it's poppin
I read "Gone" by Michael Grant
Fiance built shelves and put a door on a closet that's been empty since we moved in

Exciting stuff people. I'm sure there are other things that happened, but I haven't finished my coffee yet, so that's as good as it's gonna get!

I'm also going to sneak in to the small blog meet up. I have exactly 50 followers (woo hoo for that!), so I'm right on the border. Glad to meet you!

Wonky Square Rings Quilt Complete!

noreply@blogger.com (Bethany (Make Me A Quilt)) — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 23:54:00 +0000

Wonky Square Rings is complete! HIP HOP HOORAY! :D * confetti * (Picture onslaught ahead!)

I should call this my “learning” quilt. I feel like what I've learned while making this quilt is worth more than the finished product itself!

This quilt started as a way to save some money, because the fabrics I started with for this were from a quilt top I purchased for a few dollars in an antique store.

The block design came out of a need to sew, to sew anything, to just sit down at my machine and put fabrics together with thread. Eventually all of the blocks were completed and the top was finished.

In this post I talked about how I realized I didn't like all that white (the finished product may have changed my mind - I'm on the fence now!). I talked about not buying cheap fabrics just because what I really wanted was out of stock. If you read through the comments section, you'll see I got some great feedback from you guys! Thank you! That was some of the best feedback I've gotten from a blog post. Really cool! :)

You might have noticed that I went ahead and did the quilting like I had planned – straight lines with turns intersecting each other. I love quilting this way. My brain really took to this method fast – I thought it was much easier than stippling/meandering. My brain gets really confused when I stipple – I feel like a crazy person! My hands go one way and my brain wants to go another. With this straight line intersecting method I knew exactly where to go, no weird miscommunication going on in my body, lol.

The biggest tip I have for someone who wants to give this quilting method a shot is to slow down, actually almost stop, when you come to a turning point. At first this will seem awkward, but after a while (5 or 10 minutes) it comes naturally, you just do it and barely even think about it.

By the way, anyone want to take a guess at how many calories quilting burns?? I don't know the answer, but judging by the way I felt it's significant! I was getting sweaty in areas that shouldn't have been getting sweaty, LOL. Yikes..

I had my doubts about this quilt until the quilting was done and the binding was on. I think those two things really made the quilt come together. But I think I say that with every quilt I make!

One more thing I learned? Make my quilts bigger!! I keep thinking 50”-60” is enough, but it's not. I really like to lay on the couch and have lots of quilt on me and my fiance. :)

Speaking of my fiance... we went for a cruise down to Lake Michigan – it's about a 10 minute drive from our home. He stopped and held my quilt for the photos and then we kept going until we got to this little tiny beach at the end of the road...

And we watched the sunset. :) (Yes, this is a terrible sunset picture, but you get the idea, hehe.)

Thank you guys so much for all your input along the way - it's always interesting to hear what tips you guys have and the encouragement makes the process so much fun. :)

I'm going to link up with Canoe Ridge Creations for Sew Modern Monday.Thank you for coming over!

WIP Wednesday, Quilt Top Complete!

noreply@blogger.com (Bethany (Make Me A Quilt)) — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 12:10:00 +0000

WIP #1: Party time! Checkit. It's a finished quilt top! Man, that feels good. :)

Here are some things I learned while making this quilt.

1. I don't like white backgrounds as much as I thought. Something about all the white space bothers me. I think that's why I like patchwork so much, it fills in all the space with color! I wish I could go back and use a greige (gray/brown) color instead. I think it would warm up the quilt, and make me feel better about snuggling under it with a glass of red wine. (This is a very important and practical consideration!)

2. I really wish I had used a "design wall". I laid the blocks out for this quilt on the floor, and I thought they looked good. When I see the quilt held up I realize some of the blocks would have looked better in a different orientation. I think you might get a better (or at least different) perspective viewing the quilt on a wall, because you can look at it as a whole, straight on. I have the room for a design wall, I guess I better get to work!

3. Buy good fabric. I bought a cheaper kind of white fabric than usual (I usually get the Kaufmann stuff from JoAnn's, but they were out so I just grabbed something). If you look closely (below), the fabric puckers along the seams with white fabric. :( I didn't experience the puckering with the prints, or any other time I've sewn, so I can only assume it's the cheap fabric?? The only other thing I can think of is that I really need a new iron. My iron is really large and heavy, and doesn't work very well without steam. But if I do use steam it steams like craaaazy. That might have caused the cheaper (thinner) fabric to wrinkle like that. Anyone have any suggestions for a new iron?

4. Learn how to use my friggin DSLR camera already. I bought it, I kind of know how to use it, but my pictures are always really blurry and I have to fix them in editing. Not good. I have a Canon Rebel Xsi. If anyone has any tips on photographing quilts with that guy, (ie settings) I'd love to listen! :D

5. (Phew, I sure learned a lot on this one!) I need to figure out a better way to photograph my quilts. I don't always have someone to hold them up for me, so I am going to do some brainstorming on how I could hang them.

Now I just have to decide how to quilt it. I have an idea, I just have to figure out how to do it! I am having trouble finding an example of it, or a tutorial. I've seen it on one (or more) of the really big modern quilting blogs. It looks like this:

It's just random lines with turns that cross each other. I'm thinking I'll just have to do some practicing. Has anyone tried something like this?

WIP #2: EZ Dresden Challenge
Not much progress on this one. I'll be tackling the rest of this guy in the upcoming week.

WIP #3: What's next? I am thinking I am going to need to make a quilt using 100% of what is in my stash. My quilting "budget" has taken a little bit of a hit lately! But ya never know.. :P

I'm linking up to Freshly Pieced, hosted this week by Amy, from Sukie, Don't You Know Who I am? I'll be stoppin in to as many blogs as I can to see what you are up to! Thanks for stopping by! :)

An entire post on.. wait for it... a hotpad! :P

noreply@blogger.com (Bethany (Make Me A Quilt)) — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 00:41:00 +0000

Over the weekend, I made tremendous progress on my wonky square rings quilt. I'm really excited to say that I've finished the top! Woo hoo! :D It feels really great to have the top done, but for now I thought I'd share a small project that just sort of happened when I took a break from the quilt top.

Random, I don't use pincushions - I just toss all my pins in trays!

I started to think that I might run out of the red and blue pieces I cut out of the quilt top from the antique shop. While my fiance and I were out running a couple errands, we stopped at my local quilt shop and I picked up a charm pack that had lots of reds and blues. Amazingly, that's all I left with. Go self restraint, go!

I cut most of the charm pack up for my quilt top, and when I was done I had a pile of the most adorable little square scraps! Tiny little things, but so freakin cute I had to do something with them. What is it with things in miniature that is so irresistable?

I didn't really have a plan, I just started making little nine patches. They weren't exact squares, so my patchwork isn't perfect, but since I was just messing around I didn't really care. And now I have a hot pad!

There wasn't enough scraps to make a matching set, but whatever, it was just a fun little project. I got the chance to piece, quilt and hand bind all in a little over an hour! :) Kinda like a mini-mini quilt.

So yea, not the most exciting post ever, but later this week I'll share the quilt top I finished. Maybe I'll even have a finished quilt! :-O !! Lol, maybe..

I'm going to link this post up with Megan, at Canoe Ridge Creations, for Sew Modern Monday - I feel like since it's my first time linking up I should have started with a bang, but nonetheless - here I am! :P If you are stopping by from the linkup - hi! It's nice to meet you!

Thanks everyone for stopping by! :)

Fabric delivery from overseas.. :D

noreply@blogger.com (Bethany (Make Me A Quilt)) — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 20:35:00 +0000

Still no time to sew! My house guests are currently occupied, so I thought I'd sneak some eye candy in for ya. I went ahead and bought some Liberty! I feel like a total nerd trying to like, fit in with cool kids, because there is so much hype about this fabric. I had been lusting after it for a long time, and after I saw what Ashley (from Film in the Fridge, one of my fav's) did with hers, and seeing some other cute stuff around the web lately, I knew I had to buy some myself. I'm so glad I did! I absolutely adore it, I stare at it, I think about it at work, dream about it at night - okay I'm getting carried away. Now I really do sound like a nerd!

I purchased the fabric through, Pick Click Sew, which I recommend. The fabric shipped on a Wednesday and arrived Monday - so fast for overseas! And it was affordable, about $20 shipped, and if I had to estimate I have about 2/3 to 3/4 of a yard total. Very small pieces though! I am going to have to think about my quilt design for a while so as best to use all the fabric. I've also put a rule on myself that I can't sew anything with this until my wonky squares quilt, and Dresden Challenge quilts are done! :-O !!!

I've been doing my best to visit your blogs when I can sneak some time in! Sounds like everyone around my house is ready to be social now, so off I go. Happy quilting! :)

Hey house guests, mind if I do some sewing?

noreply@blogger.com (Bethany (Make Me A Quilt)) — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 23:36:00 +0000

Not a lot to report this week. We have had company from out of town staying with us, so I haven't had very much time to sew at all. Last night we all drank frozen margaritas and play board games. One of the categories I got during a game of "Outburst Jr." was, "things you would find in a sewing basket" - can you believe I only got 7 out of 10?! How could I forget "pincushion"? Lol - that was pretty fun.

I managed to get one strip of my Dresden quilt done. With the exception of the pointy pieces, it was easier than I thought it would be to piece together. Sewing the points is tricky, because you want to have a 1/4" of gray after the tip, to account for the seam. It's really hard to make it exactly 1/4" - I am going to have to settle for being okay with imperfections in this quilt!

Here is how I made the strip. I cut a 9" wide section of the Kona Coal. I laid one of the blocks down (face up), being careful that the bottoms and tops of the fabrics lined up straight. Then I traced a line along one of the edges.

I flipped the block over and used the line I drew as a guide to sew along.

Finally, I trimmed along the seam and pressed it open. I'll probably end up with quite a bit of scrap of the gray - at least it's a color I'm sure I'll find good use for!

So that's it! :) I'm a bit late for the WIP Wednesday linky with Lee @ Freshly Pieced, and I'm not sure I'll have time to visit very many blogs tonight, so I'm gonna skip out this week. I have plans tomorrow night and Friday night with our guests, but I'll have my freedom back Saturday, so maybe I'll make some good progress over the weekend! Hope you guys are having a great week so far. :)

Dresden Progress

noreply@blogger.com (Bethany (Make Me A Quilt)) — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 12:25:00 +0000

My mom finished her 37 year career last month, and is now happily retired. :) Over the weekend my fiance and I drove to the other side of Michigan - where my sister, brother and all of our extended family threw her a big surprise celebration party Friday night - it was a blast! I danced my pants off and ate tons of cake. When we got home, my Dresden template and "Quilting Modern" book were waiting for me in the mail! So I was able to make some progress on the Dresden Challenge quilt I've been planning.

I thought I'd show you guys how I'm going about making this one, because it's a little more complicated than the patchwork stuff I've been doing.

The first thing I did was make a giant log cabin block - 54" square. Another option would be to sew 54" strips together until you get a 54" square block. You could use any size, it really doesn't matter - but probably 36" at a minimum.

Using the Dresden template, this is what the cutting lines look like laid out on the block.

I started drawing the cutting lines (with a washable pencil) by locating the exact center of the block. I drew a little dot, and then I put the Dresden template down on the block, along with a straight edge. The first time you lay the Dresden template down, you want the bottom of the template to be parallel to the sewing lines. The template doesn't have a pointy end, which I didn't know when I planned out this quilt. It will still work, but you have to fuss around a little to get the template and straight edge in the correct location.

I worked my way around the block, until I had all 20 wedges drawn in. I needed to use the straight edge to continue the lines down from the template, since it isn't long enough to trace all the way to the edge of the block.

The next step is the fun part - cutting out all the wedges. My cutting mat isn't nearly big enough to use a straight edge and rotary cutter, so I used my shears to carefully cut along the lines I drew.

Eventually I had 20 wedges.

After they were all cut, I had to make them all the same size. I found the first wedge I drew (the one parallel to the sewing lines) and laid that down with 4 other wedges under it. First I cut the scrap off of the other wedges, so all 5 wedges were the same size. Then, I divided the length of the wedge by three. This ended up being 9".

I repeated this step until all of the wedges were trimmed and cut into thirds. And that is where I ended up, with three stacks of pieces like this:

I think it's going to be tricky to sew the pointy pieces and keep the sharp point, hopefully that will work out okay. I feel like the pointy triangles might be a little too skinny, but we'll see.

I don't think these wedges are all that impressive until you lay them out on the Kona Coal. I love how the gray makes everything pop! The next step will be sewing the grey fabric onto the pieces to create rows. First I might want to tidy up my sewing room... LOL. It's pretty yikes.

I hope you all had an awesome weekend. Thanks for stopping by! :)