Author: Andrea R

On a bag making kick

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I don’t just quilt; I sew all manner of things and one I really like is making bags.

Before my trip to Miami last month, I had just finished THREE tshirt quilts in three weeks. I needed a break, so I dug out a yard of some fabric I bought waiting for something special, decided a bag was a great way to showcase it and cut it up using the Ethel pattern.

Oops. Started making another bag.

Yay for solids in my stash that co-ordinate.

While I did finish it in time for my trip, I didn’t take it because my laptop doesn’t fit in it, so I used a different bag.

The Ethel bag, free pattern from Swoon patterns.

After I got back, I used another Swoon pattern, the Rosie cross body bag, to make this one from a gorgeous border print. With careful cutting I was able to use the accent pieces from one section of the print and the rest for the floral sections. Everyone who sees it says I did such a great job in matching fabrics. This tickles me since it was one piece of fabric!

Working on another bag.

In the picture, the bag is not yet finished. I used webbing for handles, grabbed from an older laptop bag I made we rarely used. I was also not happy with the lining and how it fit. I have persistent issues where the lining winds up baggy, so I turned the back wrong side out again, slimmed the lining seams down by 1/8″ for both, flipped it back right way round, and FINALLY I could press it and the lining lays smooth inside. The opening is still open so I can add a magnetic snap when it finally comes in the mail. The bag really needs a way to close the flap.

Even though the Rosie bag is not quite finished (needs some fasteners) I continued on and made matching wallets for both bags, using the wallet trio pattern from Sew Sweetness.

Two wallets for two bags #sewsweetness patterns

Let me tell you – there are barely enough scraps from either fabric to do anything other than put in a scrap quilt. Since I had loads of the border print and it was in my stash for ages, I also cut out a Vivian travel bag in the largest size. It is… large. I haven’t started it yet, though. I just have all the pieces cut, the directions printed and everything in a bag waiting.

I must say, I have really stepped up my bag making game. With each one they get better and I’m learning more about what interfacings I like. I cleaned my sewing room yesterday, found a couple of early bags I made and started taking them apart to rework. They are just too floppy now.

Giggles quilt gone minimalist

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I have a whole pile of quilts I’ve started and finished since the last time I posted, plus some diversions into sewing bags. Like I keep telling others, just start writing.

I finally had a night with no plans and a need for mindless sewing. On a previous occasion, I had cut and bagged a number of planned quilts, so I grabbed the pieces for the Giggles quilt I had all ready to go.

Sometimes I look at stash fabrics I should use and patterns I wish to try and occasionally they line up magically. I had an idea in my head for this quilt to be very minimalist – mostly white and blue, with one single red arrow. I thought it would look striking.

I mostly just glance at patterns and skim directions. In this case I sewed too many diamonds one way. The illustrations made it seem like they were all sewn in one direction, but they are not. I love to batch sew, so I regrouped and set up batches, eventually lining up my rows correctly and making sure the red was going to wind up in the right place.

I didn’t stop to take pictures, I was half watching & listening to Hemlock Grove (of all things) on Netflix while I sewed and pressed, finding my happy place and just relaxing. I figure the piecing took 2 1/2 hours, including mistakes.

I taped it up in the only available place in my sewing cave and took this single shot.

modern solids giggles quilt. #gigglesquilt #quilting.

Afterwards I took a nice long hot soak in the tub. It was glorious.

Still deciding on binding – likely the blue – and the backing, which I can’t decide between the blue (because I have lots) or the white (of which I have enough for many quilts).

The quilting hasn’t yet been figured out. Lines placed 1/4″ from some seams would work but might be too sedate. I don’t quite want to do heavy custom work in each square either.

It will come to me eventually.

This quilt isn’t for anyone in particular, just an exercise in piecing and design. It will likely go up for sale.

Super Shoo Fly nap quilt

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Last year, we went on vacation to PEI and while there, stopped in at the Quilt Barn. The husband and I picked out some beach themed fabrics, thinking we’d make a nap sized quilt we could lie under and dream of the red sandy beaches.

Well, it took ages for me to decide what to do, and one wild afternoon, I figured one HUGE quilt block with borders would do it.

This is a super fast quilt top! It only took me 2-3 hours, but that included figuring out time. It should take you less, because I did all the math for you. Unfortunately, I did not take pictures during construction.

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Finished size: 43″ square (approximately)

Materials:

1/2 yard print A
1/2 yard matching solid
1/2 yard print B
1 yard or more print C. (mine was directional & needed more. I had 46″.)

A shoo fly block is four half square triangles and 5 solid blocks.

Cut 2 10.5″ squares from print A.
Cut 2 10.5″ squares from the solid.

Match up a print and solid, trace a line diagonally down the back for cutting, sew 1/4″ on either side, and make two HST blocks from each set. Starch and press. I use the Quick Quarter tool for marking accurately – super handy!

Cut one 10″ square from print A.
Cut 4 10″ squares from the solid.

Arrange with the HSTs in a nine patch for the shoo fly block. Sew together and press.

And now for borders! As my mom always says, “If your quilt isn’t big enough, keep adding borders till it is!” and that’s what we did here.

From the remaining print A, cut 3.5″ strips. 6 will be enough, with some piecing to fit. Sew these around the block -two for top and bottom, then two for sides.

From print B (finally!) cut 4 strips WOF 4.5″ wide. These should just fit when you sew them on, same manner as above.

From print C, for the finale – cut 8″ strips for the final round. My fabric was directional and I cut my strips lengthwise from a 46″ piece of fabric. If you cut WOF, you can get away with less yardage. I cut 5 strips and needed to piece a bit to get the right lengths. Sew strips like the previous – top, bottom, press. Then left and right – press.

You are done your Super Shoo Fly top!

Layer, baste and quilt as desired. Mine is still waiting. 😀

Isabella’s birthday quilt

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My number one granddaughter turned five this month, and I made her a special quilt!

I had a couple of bright but smaller charm packs on hand, ones purchased at Wal-Mart. They were cheap, partly because of fabric quality and party because they were half the amount of regular charm packs.

For last Christmas, Isabella gave me a fabric roll of 2.5″ strips, also from Wal-Mart. They weren’t the exact same prints as the charm packs I had, but they co-ordinated well enough.

One day when Izzy was over for a visit, I asked her to match up a strip and a square, to put together ones she thought looked nice.

Some of them were crazy indeed! Once I started piecing the blocks I had to match up more and also add some more strips from my stash. But there are a good number of blocks that Isabella can look at and say, “I did that!”

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I got the blocks pieced over most of one day. Over a couple other days, I picked the backing fabrics -two vintage small floral prints – and prepped the binding, one of the extra fabrics I pulled from my stash.

I also decided, since she likes heavy warm quilts, to use two layers of batting. I have a lot of battings scraps built up, so I pieced two layers. One layer is my 50/50 warm and natural, the other layer is Hobbs cotton, possibly with some 80/20 blends in there too. I didn’t get a picture of the battings I pieced, but it made a nice dent in the stash, and for a kid quilt will be fine.
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Basting went pretty fast, maybe only 20 minutes total. I quilted it on my Bernina 440 QE, with a meandering loop-de-loop pattern. It perfectly fits the bright spirit of the quilt and Izzy’s personality.

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I even remembered to label it this time.

Two more shots of the full quilt.

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Birthday girl opened it up and said “Awwww! I LOVE IT!” and cuddled it lots.

Finishing an old quilt top: Spools Blocks

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Yesterday on my day off I was super tired and worn out, so I didn’t want to work on anything client related unless I screwed it up. This is almost a given, if I sew when tired.

I went to my sewing cave and decided to look at tops I have waiting to be pieced to see which ones I could do some mindless sewing on. There is one top where all the rows are done, I just have to sew them together, and I had recently dug out a bag of 23 finished blocks that needed sashing.

Sorting out fabric and blocks is a good thing to do when you don’t feel like much else. I also dug out my box of white scraps and found suitable bits to use for sashing.

I cut out the short bits first and dint stop to think how many I needed and cut out far too much. Then I had to dig out more quite scraps for the longer pieces. I would up having to piece the long sashings anyway, but the less seams on those the better.

I also had to decide how to lay them out and with 23 blocks it was either give up some or add some. On a whim, I decided to try and find the original pattern I’d used. Still had the book because it was one of my grandmother’s. None of it was strip piecing, no. Just cut out these triangles and this trapezoid. I almost want to make an easier version for the precuts of today.

It was also super interesting to see how far I’d come with my piecing. Some of the blocks were made with leftover bits from garments I’d made in the mid to late nineties, so there were pieced scraps and bits cut off grain mostly so I would have enough to fit in the blocks themselves.

I also got way better at piecing in general – even if my newer blocks would up a good half inch bigger.

I ran into trouble with one row where I’d added two new blocks and of course hadn’t really trimmed to match. With seam ripper in hand (again) I had to fix some wobbly sashing. That was the fourth and last time I used the seam ripper on this top.

I’d miscounted and wound up with an extra block, then found a very unsuitable block done with rayon type fabric that would never have help up to daily wear. I had to excise it from almost the middle of the quilt. Not to mention whipping up 3 blocks and adding sashing took me well over 4 hours – something I can do in two on a good day.

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In the end I have a useable if not sellable quilt top – and one wonky block at the end with some spools cut almost in half to make things even.

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I left it on purpose. Sometimes you not only need a reminder of how far you’ve come, but on how you can still make the same mistakes. As my husband says, “Can you still nap under it? Then it’s fine.”

No idea how I’ll quilt this yet – probably something all over, just to get it done. For the backing I think I’ll go with an allover print from stash, just to keep up with the overall bright colors from the front. Then a scrappy or bright solid binding.

Things I’m working on

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I went and launched a service to make tshirt quilts from WordPress conference tshirts. That had suddenly taken off.

My mom’s local quilters are asking me for a price list of quilting services.

Everything coming out of the woodwork at once.

Yet, every so often, I get completely inspired and skip the list of must-dos and toss in something else. Like my list is short enough to do this. Oh, I also got some great forms to organize my quilt projects – except it made me realize the list was a total of 40. At least that’s where I stopped.

So. Since mid January:

I made and sold this Disco quilt from Glimmer fabrics. Sorry for sideways. Ready for @houseofgrays ! Will email in the morning. *yawns*

I made this minimalist yet Americana quilt designed by the web designer I work with at my day job. She hired me to make it for a friend.

Yep, job well done I'd say. #quilt #merica #old #flag #callmebetsyross #commision

I’ll be writing this up as a pattern, since I did all the math for you. Had a work trip to Dallas so I delivered it in person.

Did a Take 5 quilt top from stash.
Borders done! And I'm done. Made two flannel sleep sacks. <img loading=

Sewed some strips from a Moda scrap bag. Figured out what to do next – turn it into a Chinese Coins top. I need to order a matching brown solid to finish.
Mods scrap bag I pieced on Friday. It's so narrow. So my idea is to cut it in thirds or fourths and introduce brown sashing and borders. #quilt #create. #yearofmaking #design

Made a Log Cabin Hidden Stars top from a book.
Log cabin hidden stars quilt top I finished on Friday. Plus backing and binding.

Taught my youngest how to use the sewing machine so she could make some scarves and capes she designed, from Pokemon.
Teaching Emma to sew.

Made a scrappy strip quilt from Sunday Morning quilts. This was unplanned.
For girls who like pink. This wound up bigger than expected. #quilting #pink

Made HST blocks from a small jelly roll and extra solids. Lost motivation.
Will rearrange some blocks for color but yeah. Think I'm making one twin size instead of two baby quilts from these blocks. #yearofmaking

Made a tshirt quilt for a client. Still working on it. This is top of the list.
Thinking of adding borders. @suzettefranck ?

Designed a pattern to use the fabrics I bought on our summer vacation. Super Shoo Fly and I want to write up a pattern for it.
Super shoo fly lap #quilt Thinking of writing up the pattern.

Cut the pieces for a Northern Lights quilt that has been on the list for ages. Sewed the blocks together in strips.
Just one of the many #quilts in progress.

Made purse sized tissue holders last night with another daughter and now I want to make twenty.
Making tissue holders with my daughter meaghan.

Also pending is another tshirt quilt where the shirt arrived just yesterday, and a QR code quilt for a client. The fabric is on its way already.

Making a bag and purse for a friend (for money!) but she needs to decide what fabric. I introduced her to the world of designer fabrics so it could take a while!

Then this week my cheap iron that I bought last year, and had immediate regrets over, finally died spectacularly. It had seemingly one temperature – scorching. It would scorch cotton on the silk setting and melt things on the highest. Filling the tank with water for steam meant steam shot out constantly, even with the steam switched to off.

I was not sad to see it go, and replaced it with a much better brand. Lesson learned.

So, if that weren’t enough to keep me busy, I do all that around a full time job. No wonder that when I have time to quilt, I barely snap a picture, let alone blog about it.

The trouble with inspiration

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I spent a few days being sick, or working on other things, so I haven’t had a lot of sewing or quilting time over the last week. Then when I have had a little bit of time the sheer amount I could work on is almost overwhelming.

But today, some inspiration struck. I pulled out my bags of solids sorted by color and started sorting each colorway into scraps and 1 yard cuts or more.

This led to more inspiration from patterns I’ve wanted to do, but hadn’t yet matched up to fabrics I had.  Of course, now my problem is the pile of “quilts I want to make” has gone up by at least two – wait, three more.

And this leads to my conundrum. The reason I plowed through my finishes last year was to get through the massive amount of quilt tops that were sitting and waiting, some as old as four years. There are still tops waiting but the pile is much smaller now. I think maybe 5 or 6 need basting, all have backings now too. There is one quilt half quilted, one top near complete and maybe two or three in progress.

So, the largest pile at the moment is of quilts to make – fabric pulled, pattern chosen, just waiting for me to cut into it. And today I *really* wanted to cut into some fabric and get sewing.

But that is where I stopped.

And I had to examine why and talk it over out loud to figure it out. I stopped for a few reason – I didn’t want to get interrupted. It was later in the day and I had maybe an hour at most. Why start if I cant fully enjoy it and have to stop just when I really got into it?

Really this shows how spoiled I am at have a day or a two A WEEK to do nothing but sew. Sheesh. And if I enjoy it, I should enjoy whatever timeI have, right? I’ve been known to make sure I sew for as little as ten minutes to make sure I enjoyed a bit of sewing that day.

Another reason was I didn’t want to get stuck with a pile of mostly done quilt tops. Or do a bunch of quilts with no recipient in mind.

But – I have managed to finish a whopping pile of quilts in the last year. While musing out loud I said to my husband, if I do twenty quilts in a year, does it matter if I do them one at a time, after another, or all at once? Probably not.

I mean, maybe if I start all of the ones pending that might be a bit much. I do want to know what it’s like to work on one thing only, but I suspect I’ll get bored. And looking back, I *did* manage to start and finish multiple quilts in a short time frame because I was motivated and inspired. Part of Past Me had started so many quilts at once because I was terrified I was going to forget my plans. But this time, i have things all sorted – fabrics bagged with patterns. There’s no mistaking what I intended, especially with sticky notes left on bundle for backing, borders and binding too.

And so what if some have no intended home yet? some I’m making just for the joy of making that particular pattern, or using that fabric. Some I know I want to sell afterwards. I clearly love the process of it more than the finished object itself.

So why am I making it hard and over thinking?

Of course, now it is the end of the day and I’ve run out of time to sew or even play with fabric. Alas. Maybe tomorrow.

Working through it

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On Friday I got word that a good friend had passed away. The details don’t matter, I guess, but hearing the news as people discovered it was terrible.

Kim & I met online, but she wasn’t just my “online” friend. It didn’t matter that we hadn’t actually met in person until last October. We had a lot in common, and she always said she’d take me on a tour of quilts in Amish country near her home.

She wasn’t a quilter, but she loved my quilts and always encouraged me.

By Saturday, news was still spreading, tears were still flowing, and I was beside myself. I had to do something, but there was nothing helpful I *could* do.

So I quilted.

Because Kim was so encouraging and believed in me, I picked up a quilt I had set aside. It had been basted for a good couple of months, waiting for me to work on it.

The truth was, I was scared.

I had an idea and was unsure if I could execute it, even if it was half formed. But Kim knew I could do it. She’d kick me in the behind too, giving me a push whenever I sent long emails full of angst.

Another good friend of mine says everyone grieves in their own way, and for me, I need to keep busy. So I wound a few bobbins, picked up that quilt, put it under the machine, took a deep breath… and quilted.
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The design itself is an explosion of foliage trailing across the quilt top. Some sections are breaking out into the borders. It’s a celebration of life – a life well-lived.

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I only have a vague idea of what to quilt in the background, between the leaves and loops and fantastical flowers, but I’ll forge ahead anyway.

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I’m not even sure what will happen to this particular quilt when it’s done. I only know that every time I see I’ll think of it as Kim’s Quilt.

First Friday finish!

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I finished the Glimmer table topper last night, hand stitching the binding down.

I cut the binding 2.25″ instead of my usual 2.5″, on the straight grain.

Press, sew to front, fold to back and even pressed to help turn. Hand stitched in white quilting thread that was my grandmother’s. It still in excellent condition.

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Then I realized I’d made a lighter mostly red topper and had a matching mostly green topper from the same line of fabrics.

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They even stack nice! All ready for next Christmas.

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Linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts and her Friday finishes, which are hard for me to post to, since I do the bulk of my sewing on Friday/Saturday – my days off – and I try and spend little time on my computer. So I mostly forget by Sunday/Monday to go back and link up.

Trying out graffiti quilting

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I can’t remember if it was early in the last year or before that, but I first saw Karlee Porter’s graffiti quilting on Pinterest and was, quite simply, blown away.

So when she finally came out with a book, Graffiti Quilting: A Simple Guide to Complex Designs of course I put it on my wishlist and eventually bought it.  Shipping stuff to Canada is expensive, ugh.

Anyway, by the time I got my hands on the book itself, I’d practised on paper.

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And I practised on fabric too. But after reading the book I sat down with my large box of coloured threads and went to town, copying one of her pieces (which she highly encourages, for practise).

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In a way it’s hard, like any FMQ, because you’re not sure what to do next, or where to go. You have to really stop and think. So in one sense, you can’t really mark it on the fabric first, if you like doing that. You’d have to do some rough sketches first. Also, if you use thicker thread, you have to manage the thread build up, maybe incorporate it to look like thicker lines in the design itself.

But in the other sense? Oh boy, what creative freedom. It’s almost scary.

I have a quilt all basted and ready to go and has been sitting waiting for a least a month. I plan to do something similar to graffiti quilting but not as visible, just all white thread on a quilt with a white background.

And yet I still hesitate.

Looking over last year’s posts, I did see how I had issues working on one quilt and the gap of creative constipation in there is noticeable when I scroll through my photos.

I mean – what’s the worst that can happen? I hate it? If it doesn’t turn out as good as I see in my head, why does that matter? It’s not like anyone else can see what I see in my head, even if I sketch it out before hand. Right? And it’s going to be white on white for the most part… sheesh.

I need to take my own advice and just stitch it already.