Sticks and Stones topper, take two

Posted on September 7, 2015 by Andrea R — Leave a comment

I have made this topper before, following the directions, for Christmas. It’s a great little topper for the middle of my table.

My mom liked it a lot, especially the size. So, while I was at her place sorting her fabric (I’m the best daughter ever) I pulled out three fabrics that I thought would look good.

So, even though I used the same Sticks and Stones pattern, I had to adjust it slightly for cutting the same pieces from yardage. You can be very efficient by cutting strips the width you need and not 5″ squares that would come in a charm pack.

I sewed it up on one of my mom’s machines and had it done by dinner. I did straight line quilting just in the cross sections.

And here’s the back.

You could easily use 3 fat quarters for this instead of a charm pack, with a fourth FQ for the backing.

Three green baby quilts

Posted on September 4, 2015 by Andrea R — Leave a comment

A while back, I found a great quilt pattern in a magazine for 3 fast baby quilts from 3 one yard cuts of fabric. You can download the pattern here from Quiltmaker magazine.

I have made this a few times before, and it’s great to make baby quilts when there is a boom or just to have on hand for gifts. The finish up really fast and can get quilted in no time.

Well, in the company I work for we had babies popping out all over, so one day I grabbed three nice co-ordinating fabrics. I’m not sure of the line, since Mom bought them, but they had bunnies and carrots and garden implements. I also couldn’t find the pattern, but figured I could wing it from memory.

WELL.

I cut the fabric wrong.

I did manage to get two quilt tops from it, which technically was what I needed. The inner square wound up smaller than it should have.

On one quilt, I did huge swooping feathers all around, with the baby name stitched in the center.

And of course I can’t find a picture of the second quilt, but it was similar to the one above, just different fabric placement. Edit: found some progress pictures from August 25th 2014!

The recipient of this particular one asked if I used some sort of pattern for the stitching design. He was floored when I said no – it was freehand!

Since I mis-cut fabrics, with the rest I simply cut them all into squares and laid them out with each print on the diagonal.

I know I’m using the same picture as the last entry, but you can see the baby quilt here, folded in half. I just did all over stippling on this one. It is currently without a home and I will likely list it in my Etsy shop.

Oversize log cabin

Posted on November 7, 2014 by Andrea R — 4 Comments

I made this oversize single log cabin block quilt way back in May of 2012.

I just pulled pieces of kid prints from my stash and went to town, building up a block until it was a decent size. I did very little cutting of fabric.

This summer, I finally got around to quilting it. I backed it in a cheery dinosaur print and did an allover stipple. It was fast. Then I bound it in this great lime green solid.

You can buy this quilt in my Etsy shop too.

Summer quilt

Posted on January 19, 2014 by Andrea R — Leave a comment

I made a summer quilt and started last summer, but that’s not why it’s called a summer quilt. A summer quilt is a quilt with either lightweight or (in this case) no batting.

I decided to make a large queen sized lightweight quilt for our bed for those times we just needed something to nap under, or for not very cold nights. Also, I had a lot of light to medium value floral fabrics in my stash that I wanted to use up. My mom had hit a sale at a fabric store that was closing and bought half-yards of seemingly everything.

Going though my stash, I picked the fabrics I wanted and cut 10″ squares out of everything. In my case, I did not care if I had doubles or even 3 or 4 squares of the same fabrics – I just wanted to use them up. You could also use a layer cake or two instead.

I cut and cut and cut. And stacked.

Eventually I decided to start laying things out to figure how many squares I would need. I cut some more.

For this quilt, I decided it would be more interesting to place the 10″ squares on point and piece the strips diagonally. I also laid out the squares on the floor multiple times to make sure I didn’t have matching fabrics too close together, or all the pink ones crammed on one side.

Finally I started piecing, which was easy enough. Keep track of where I was seemed to be the issue. For the half triangle on the sides, i just cut the 10″ squares in half. Technically they should have been a bit bigger so I fudged the seams a little. I also took one square and cut it into the four corner triangles.

When the top was all done, I found a nice and worn flannel top sheet in our cupboard. We had already worn out the matching bottom sheet, which got a large hole when someone put their foot through it. It was a well-loved set. I did have to unpick the top deep hem of the sheet and piece a bit on the side, since the sheet was rectangular and the quilt top was square.

Since there was no batting, it did not take much to baste it together.

The only quilting I did was a stitch in the ditch along the seams. You can get away with doing it this wide because there is no batting at all. I used my walking foot and the quilt was thin enough that rolling it up and moving it around was much easier than even a double sized quilt with batting.

For the binding, I had cut out 2.5″ strips from my favourite scraps as I cut the blocks and set them aside. I did the machine sewn method where you stitch the binding to the back and pull it round to the front and sew it down. Any slightly off seams were also covered up this way.

This is really a quick quilt – despite how long it took me to finish, and it really is great for when you don’t want a blanket that is to warm or too heavy. Plus it uses up a LOT of large stash pieces in a hurry!

My husband gives it two thumbs up – both for fabric selection and ease of napping.

Appliqued baby name quilt

Posted on October 20, 2013 by Andrea R — Leave a comment

When I heard I was going to be a grandmother for the third time in four years, well of course my first thought was what quilt I was going to make.

Okay, maybe that was my second thought.

After I made this baby quilt, I figured you would love to have this free baby quilt pattern. It was super fast and easy to make.

I had a yard or two of a lovely fabric with dancing bunnies in pretty pastel Easter gowns. It was perfect after we knew we would be expecting another girl. I pulled some somewhat matching tiny prints for the letters for the front of the quilt.

For the front piece of the baby quilt, I used about a yard of a tone on tone off-white print. It’s about 30-36″ by the 42″ width of the fabric. Then I cut the letters freehand from the fat quarters I had chosen to complement the print on the back.

The letters could also be done with a large thick font. My size was about as big as a regular sheet of printer paper, so you could draw them out on paper first and then cut them from the fabric.

It would be smarter as well, to fuse some fusible web to the back of the fabric before cutting out the letters. I didn’t, and it made my work a bit harder.

Also if you have a name with a lot more letters, you will need to make the letters smaller so they all fit. If you’re not sure, do a test with paper letters first.

You can see here how I didn’t like the original fabric for the letter A and swapped it for a yellow instead.

Here’s the quilt on my design board with the letters pinned in place to test placement. You can go vertically in a straight line – mark a guide line if you like – or go all funky and wonky.

Fuse the letters in place. This is mostly to hold them down before appliquéing. I used a blanket stitch that came on my Bernina Aurora 440 Quilter’s Edition. A zig zag will also work perfectly fine.

Baste the top and bottom together with your favourite batting and quilt away! I used an allover paisley design, and went around the letters entirely, adjusting the design to fit. This is great practise for any allover design you want to try. And a baby quilt is a great size to practise on.

I also used a pretty Sulky variegated thread in pink / green / yellow. It matched perfectly.

You can see here how puffy the letters look. The only thing I would do different now is to outline quilt the letters.

I bound the quilt in a jade green dot that was actually from a line of Christmas fabric. It works though!

I always pre-wash my quilt, so after coming out of the washer and dryer, the cotton fabrics and cotton batting crinkled up so nicely. It looks like a family heirloom already.

This is a super easy and fast quilt to through together. Just make sure the parents don’t change the name before birth, if you are making one ahead of time. 😉