Whoops - WIP Wednesday

I skipped last week. Bad blogger! I just basically forgot to get pictures of everything - I spent all my time sewing, until late in the evenings, and well.. then it was Wednesday and I had no photos!

So this week's a double progress week ;)

On Ogee:
All of my curved blocks are finally pieced, and paired. I still need to create the 4 patch blocks with the curves, resize my center squares, and complete the top... but the curved blocks are progress nonetheless. :)

On M&W D9P:
This one's actually done. I got in this mega fast mode, finished up the blocks, assembled the top, made a fun little pocket to attach (can you see it?!), basted it, quilted it, and bound it... in about two days.

Look! A little doggie poking out of the pocket!


On Swoon:
I promised good photos, and it's been raining a lot lately, but I finally got 'em!



And the back:


I'm so excited to send these two quilts off to their new owners!

Okay, so that's a few finishes, time for an actual WIP, eh?

Haunted House:
I went balls to the wall here and finally basted this sucker. Who wants to guess how much basting spray is on my dining room floor? While I was at it, I snagged a pic of the pieced backing. See the Eerie Alley hearses in the upper left corner of the back? Those are from my grandma. I try to incorporate at least one piece of fabric from her in all of my personal quilts. :)


And while I'm at it, a shot of my basting helper. He's finally learned to just stay on the very outside edge and watch. Could be a result of flailing limbs and odd screeches that came his way every time he tried to step on a quilt in progress.... but I'm not sayin' for sure.


(Why yes, that is a chewed up corner of the baseboard, thanks for noticing! We can thank one of the above's puppy cohorts for that. It wasn't him, though.)

and on the Halloween front, I finished up my table runner! It's reversible - I created Christmas snowball blocks for the reverse and bound in a green that coordinates with both sides - so now I only have to store one runner, but I'm prepped for both holidays! Also, be on the lookout for a bloggy adventure in Halloween crafting soon. I'm pairing up with the Fabric Donkey. We're working on details, but leaning towards some serious crafting fun come September!

I had a few mini projects that occurred this week, too... Including this ugly doll recreation. I've had a smidge of crafting ADD.

Linking up to Lee, as usual!

 

Bustin' my hump on Hump Day (aka WIP Wednesday)

So last week was a bust as far as sewing went. I pushed myself so hard to finish mom's quilt that when it was done so was I. I ended up with nothing to show! I am very happy to report that mom loved her quilt though, which made me very happy :)

This week I've really been on the ball. Signing myself up for three quilt alongs all at once, one of them being a very labor intensive one and the fact that I decided to make two of them queen size quilts instead of lap size, made me really get in the mood for some sewing. 

So here we go with my really long list....

String quilt

All of my blocks are finally pieced. I swore to myself that I would never make another string quilt again after I got done. What a tedious process! I love the results though.

I have some of them sewn into actual 4 patch blocks. I put them away for now because it's a good project to take to the stitch and bitch and I have one on Friday to attend. 

Bee blocks

I actually have 2 out of 3 of my monthly bee blocks done already!

Cassey requested a string block, which made me say Ugh at first. Maybe if I hadn't just got done with all of mine. I really loved playing with her color palette though. 

Marci requested a spiderweb block. These girls are out to torture me with the strings this month! I think I set myself up by complaining about my own string quilt :P I actually enjoyed it though. I've never made one of these before.

After putting these blocks together I have to say, these girls are clever. Why didn't I send my string blocks out for other people to put together? They had the right idea! LOL

Farmer's Wife QA

The poor farmer is feeling somewhat neglected. I've only made the two blocks so far. Other than that it's been just sitting.

I'm itching to do more but wanted to get caught up on the quilt alongs that have a closer deadline and my bee blocks first. 

Kaleidoscope QA

I'm about 1/4 done with piecing my triangles onto my kites. I'm making a queen size for this one because I realized the denim one I was making (that I tried to make for the Naked Bed Challenge and seriously failed with) will be too hot for these summer temps. I'll make this our summer quilt and hopefully finish the denim one in time for winter. 

I should be caught up in time for the next post.

Double Wedding Ring QA

I'm probably going to fall a little behind on this one. I need to print off the templates and am trying to figure out if it will be cheaper to use my own ink and paper or if I should go run copies at the library or Staples. I'm making this one a queen as well and need to print 114 copies of the template (it's paper pieced). I also still need to order my solid so I can cut that.

I do however have my prints cut into 2.5"x3.5" rectangles so I do have something done. 

My own bee blocks

My blocks are starting to trickle in and I am totally loving them!! I haven't done a mosaic for my Christmas Bee blocks because there are only a few posted, but this is what I have of my Little Faces quilt so far. 

 1. 12 Month Bee Block 1 for Julie, 2. 12 Month Bee Block 2 for Julie, 3. Bee - June 2011, 4. 12 month Bee block- Julie, 5. Julie's 2nd block, 6. Julie's little Asian girl, 7. 12 Month Quilting Bee - June Block, 8. Twelve Month Quilting Bee- June Block for Julie, 9. house block for Julie #2, 10. house block for Julie #1, 11. Second block for Julie!, 12. Block for Julie!, 13. 12 month bee block- Julie, 14. 12 month Bee block- Julie


Aren't they the cutest?!


Some of the ladies very graciously offered to make more than one block for me so I am still waiting on a few more. I'm loving what I have so far though.

Any ideas on what I should do to finish this up? I was thinking it needs something between the blocks, but I'm not so sure. I also had an idea of a piano key border. I'm afraid it's going to be really big though, these blocks should finish about 15" (I'm doing a 4x5 layout) so I have to be careful with what I add so that it doesn't get too big. I guess it wouldn't hurt to have a twin size quilt though. 

Projects on Hold

Ogee Quilt Along-I'm still trying to decide what I want to do for the backing. I need to order fabric for it and my budget has been stretched tight this last month.

Strawberry Lemonade snowball quilt

Strawberry Lemonade ritzy cracker quilt

Lollipop bento box quilt

Dill Blossoms hexagon quilt

I vow to finish these, and soon! I'm going to force myself to figure out backings and work them into my budget. If I had the fabric I would probably work on them! Well, and basting spray, better add that to the list too.

Cruisin' With Riley Blake Designs:Contest

Okay, I'm not really one to post about giveaways, contests and the like... and we typically won't make you post about our giveaways for an entry. But this contest... whoo-wheee!!!

I'm a huge Riley Blake fan. My Haunted House Quilt is comprised of mostly Riley Blake's Boo To You collection - probably my favorite Halloween collection to date.

I learned this morning that they're hosting a contest, and it's currently in the quilt phase. OMGEEE! That means I need to get my butt a-moving on my haunted house quilt to enter, right? I'm kicking all folks out of my house tonight to baste. They're either getting locked in their respective bedrooms or sent to the park, because I need to move my couch to baste, lol.

The prizes on this one are pretty cool. The grand prize for each category is a rad beach cruiser, and the overall grand prize is a cruise. What?! Is it bad that I'm hoping for second prize just for all the fabric? Haha.

Check out the deets here:

Easier Basting!

I was over perusing the Fabric Donkey site this weekend, searching for some steals (with my empty wallet), and poked into her Donkey's World section. Y'all know she keeps a regular blog up there, as well as her deals?

So she posted an alternative basting tutorial. Intriguing... anything to save my back and hours of shifting fabrics and poking myself with pins and inhaling chemicals, right?

(image borrowed from Fabric Donkey)

I can't even fully describe it, but it involves boards that mean you can baste a big ol' quilt on a dining room table, a smidge at a time, without having things shift around... I might be in love. I need to find myself some big ol' boards for my Haunted House quilt!

And looking through the tutorial.. you could totally use this method even if you still want to pin or spray baste. She uses thread, but I'll probably still use the spray because I'm relatively hooked.

Go check it out!

It's Fresh Sewing Day!

I keep meaning to link up to Fresh Sewing Day at Lily's Quilts every month, but the first of each month just passes me on by without a second glance.

I'd love to say that I actually remembered this month, but the fact of the matter is I stayed up late sewing and happened to check my reader before going to bed and saw her post. 

So here it is, 3:15 am, and I'm typing this post. I'm either a glutton for punishment or this just happens to be my only quiet time, when the hubster and kids are all asleep!

So what am I showing off? Well, since this month's Fresh Sewing Day is a special Farmer's Wife Quilt Along edition, I reckon I'll show off my blocks. But, I've only made two. Yeah, I'm a little bit behind, but that's ok!

I've decided to start with blocks 1 and 2 and just follow along in order. Although #3 is a basket and has an applique handle, and well, I hate to applique. So I'm tempted to skip that one for now. Or maybe I should just bite the bullet and get it out of the way. Kind of like eating the brussel sprouts first so you can enjoy the good stuff at the end of the meal?

So without further adieu, here are blocks 1 and 2.

This one is called Attic Windows

I had to be careful with those bias edges. I tend to not use pins, ever. So it tried to stretch on me.

Block 2 is called Autumn Tints

I like the fun colors I found for this one, I'm a sucker for blue.

I've decided to go completely scrappy with this quilt. I unfortunately don't have a lot of different fabrics in my scraps though since I've only been quilting for a couple of years. But since this quilt along will run the course of a year I'm sure I'll have more as I go along. 

That's it for now! I didn't have anything to show for WIP Wednesday this week, but I have been busting my hump since then and have lots of progress to show for next week. Which is good since I've committed to three quilt alongs all at once!

Tube Quilting - The Karen Way

Hey Y'all! I promised you'd learn how to make a gorgeous quilt top on Monday, and here it is!

This tutorial is courtesy of our friend Karen - for those of you that missed Julie's story of how we met, I'll link the post with the back story. Karen is also from our baby board. Her little dude is a few days younger than Bug and Kid. She's got the quilting bug right alongside us!

Without further ado.... Karen!

This is a fairly easy technique that comes together pretty quickly. It looks pretty impressive as well.
Fabric Requirements Needed for a large throw quilt (64 ish by 72 ish):

• 36 2 ½ inch strips WOF of patterned fabric (a jelly roll works very nicely here)
• 2 ½ yards of solid fabric. This is the exact amount needed, you may want to get a bit more to account for cutting oopsies and squaring up fabric.
• 4 yards for backing of your choice
• ½ yard for binding

You will also need your standard rotary cutting tools, mat, etc, and a square ruler at least 9 ½ inches.

1. Cut into your solid fabric. I trust I don't need to show pictures of this. You will need 36 2 ½ inch strips cut WOF (width of fabric). If you are changing up your quilt size, you will need an equal number of solid strips as you have patterned strips.
Making the strip sets:
(all seams will be ¼ inch throughout)
There are two different strip sets, we'll call them set A and set B. The first set will be patterned fabric, solid, patterned fabric like so:

The second strip set, set B, will be solid, patterned, solid like so:

You will need to sew 12 of each of these strip sets, pressing your seams as desired. I always press mine to the patterned fabric.
Take one strip set from the A pile and one strip set from the B pile.

Lay them right sides together, matching the seams.

Try to line up the ends of the patterned fabric together. You'll need the entire length of these strips when we get to cutting later on.

Sew ¼ inch seam along both long sides of the strip sets, forming a long tube.

Helloooooo in there:

You will end up with 12 tubes.

Making the Magic Happen:

This is so easy once you get the first couple of cuts down. Bear with me and read all the way through before you start cutting.
Take your newly minted tubes over to the cutting table now. Grab your square ruler and your cutter.

Line the 45 degree line on your ruler on your seam. NOT on the edge of your fabric. I'm not sure what will happen if you line it up on the edge of your fabric, but trust me, no good can come of it. Make sure to leave room for your selvage ends, but not too much. Trust me, you'll need every bit of this tube.

Closer shot. Yes, folks, it is that important.

Take a deep breath.

Cut. Along the edge of that ruler, going all the way up your tube. This bit is waste. (gasp, but throw it in your scrap basket.)

Slide your ruler up the the upper seam now, lining the 45 degree line up that that seam.

Make another cut. TA-DA! That handy little right angle triangle you just cut is, in fact, your first square! Yay! Go ahead, don't believe me, open that puppy up. Smile like you just invented the wheel. Or sliced bread. Or something equally as awesome.

Keep cutting in this fashion all the way down your tube. You'll end up, if you are lucky, with 6 squares per tube.

Aren't they fantastic? Isn't it crazy how easy that is?

Notice that you have two different blocks here, the ones with the yellow fabric in the corner and the ones with green in the corner.
Some notes about layout you might want to consider: The fabric that is in your solid, patterned, solid strip set (B) will never be in one of the small corner blocks, only the fabric that is in set A.

Here is the layout I prefer. I am sure you can find some equally awesome layouts:

After you are done cutting all your tubes up, you will end up with 72 squares. That's a lot of squares.

I always resquare mine. Its a sickness, I have to do it. My squares ended up being right around 8 ½ inches and I resquared them to 8 ¼ inches. I should have resquared them to 8 ½, but I realized that about ½ way through my pile of squares. Doh!

As far as layout for the quilt top is concerned, I did a 8 by 9 square layout. I did not border it. Unfortunately, this top is still in the “UFO” pile because of upcoming nuptials and births that are requiring my attention at the moment. I did finally get the back put together, I just need to find the time to baste it and quilt it.

Here it is hanging in front of my sliding glass door. I love the “stained glass” effect that it gives my tops.

 
THANKS, KAREN!
 
I'm thoroughly excited to give this one a try. I envision it in some manly colors for the husband, no?