Southern Quilter » Layer Cake

Ethan’s Quilt: Make Life

Rachel — Mon, 23 May 2011 13:53:06 +0000

Here is Ethan’s quilt. He and I started this quilt back in January during snow days. 4 months is a long time from start to finish for a 7 year old (I actually finished the binding on April 2, which is Ethan’s birthday, but I didn’t label and wash it until this weekend), so he didn’t really recognize it. But once I refreshed his memory he got really excited and he slept with it last night.

I tried something new with this quilt. I used a sheet for the backing because I liked the polka dots (shocking, I know, but I love me a polka dot quilt back!!!!). But, the sheet was not 100% cotton, but since this quilt was for Ethan and I could test it out, I decided to give it a try. I must say it was nice to lay the sheet out to sandwich the quilt rather than to piece the backing (although I do love a pieced back).

Here’s my review on the cotton poly blend sheet backing: I don’t think it shrunk at the same rate as the quilt top and the batting. But I think the biggest drawback is that it didn’t give me the super crinkly look that I so love. So I think I’ll stick with 100% cotton for the backs (unless of course I find some really cool blend fabric) whether it be from sheets or quilting fabric. I’m working on one more quilt with a cotton poly blend back and that’s Ellie’s quilt. It’s been quilted for some time, and I just need to bind it.

Fabric is Make Life by Sweetwater for Moda.

Post wash measurement: 55.5 x 64.5.

I also made this quilt super special for Ethan by quilting his name. He loves that!!!

Be Giddy

Rachel — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 13:57:08 +0000

My Be Giddy quilt has been complete for some time, but it took awhile to actually snap some photos. I absolutely love this quilt (don’t I say that about all of them?!?), because the colors are so cheerful. I used the Piece of Cake 2 Pattern, by Camille Roskelley @ Thimble Blossoms. It’s a great layer cake pattern, and I love how the pattern shows off the fabrics.

The post wash measurement is 56 x 66.

And this yumminess is all for me!

When I washed the Black, White, and Red All Over quilt, a bit of the red bled onto the white. I was able to get most of the bleed out with stain stick and multiple washes, but ever since that experience I’ve used 2 or 3 Shout Color Catcher each time I was a quilt (especially quilts that have red and white). Boy am I glad I did this time. The backing for Giddy is red with pink dots and the front has lots of white. I’m certain had I not included the 3 color catchers, some of the white would’ve turned pink or red.

2 color catchers from the wash load sandwiched between a fresh out of the box sheet. They definitely caught lots of color!

Ethan’s Quilt

Rachel — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 04:07:45 +0000

Today was Ethan’s turn to layout a layer quilt for his quilt. Boy did he have a blast! I helped him out in the beginning by talking to him about mixing up the squares so that not all the yellows are together etc. Once he got comfortable with the idea of randomness (he’s pretty linear and really wanted to make a pattern with it like, one green, one yellow, one red, one blue etc, but I told him that was a great idea, however, we didn’t have the same number of each color), he did awesome, and loved it!

Ethan’s layout.
(Fabric is Make Life Sweet by Sweetwater)

Helping to pin the fabric.
(the black on his right forearm is from last week’s swim meet with his heat info)

Helping to sew.

I will never hold back on buying layer cakes and just having them. It has been wonderful to just pull one out and have the kiddos design their quilt without having to wait for them to arrive in the mail. So here’s to not holding back on fabric buying!!!!

Ellie’s Blush Quilt

Rachel — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 17:22:13 +0000

My 5 year old princess has gotten really interested in quilting, and she said she wants to make a quilt. Wanting to nurture this interest I decided to pull out a layer cake (Blush by Basic Grey for Moda) I already have and let her arrange the squares any way she wanted. She’s helped me arrange blocks before, but she was so excited about this being her quilt. I did give her a few tips about not putting all the squares that are similar in color together. She wanted me to help her with the first few squares, and then she wanted me to go back to my sewing machine and work on something else while she finished arranging the squares.

Princess Ellie’s layout.

She loved every minute of it, and she did a great job!!!

She “helped” me sew the squares together into rows and then sew the rows together, and by “help” I mean she stood right in front of me as I sewed. One of these days I’m going to give her some fabric and let her practice sewing.

Giddy Makes Me Happy

Rachel — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 01:58:44 +0000

Oh it’s so good to be home. I missed my sewing machine! I missed being creative. This afternoon I was able to retreat to the playroom/sewing room and I continued to work on the blocks for my next quilt. I started the blocks before we left for vacation, and it was nice to get back into the swing of things.

This is going to be a fun quilt. How could it not with this very fun, happy fabric called Giddy by Sandy Gervais?!?! It makes me happy just looking at it. Best of all, this quilt is for me, and it’s been quite awhile since I made something for myself. I have a (long) list of quilts to finish or make for other people, but I really want to make this one for me first.

The blocks are done, and now I just need to arrange them and sew the top together.

30’s Squared

Rachel — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 20:25:54 +0000

I am so in love with this quilt!!! The pattern is so easy, I and am loving it. It simply uses a layer cake plus yardage, and since I’m always looking for patterns to use with layer cakes, this one is definitely a keeper.

The post wash measurement is 52 x 63.

For the label I incorporated it into the backing design. I used a Sharpie and wrote on the white fabric.

I don’t often get pictures of my finished quilts with their recipients, but I am hand delivering this quilt to the recipients tomorrow, so hopefully when I get back from vacation I’ll post some pictures of the hopefully delighted recipients with their quilt.

A Breath of Avignon

Rachel — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 03:53:35 +0000

I started a new project (I really shouldn’t have, but I couldn’t resist). I’m using a layer cake of A Breath of Avignon by American Jane for Moda. I so love the colors of this line, and this fabric line definitely brings me back to France…love it!

I’m using the Sweet Garden pattern by Carolina Patchworks. This pattern requires a good bit of organization and planning, so I organized my layer cake and then cut all the pieces. I then laid out the pieces to my liking. Now I just need to find the time to piece the top, but something tells me that this project is going to have to wait until July when I get back from vacation. Before vacation I have so much work to do (you know for my part time job that actually pays me to do work), and I have to finish the binding on the 30’s Squared quilt. Oh, and I also have to finish the binding for the Black, White, & Red Allover quilt. I think a baby quilt for a friend may also sneek in the to do list. Sheesh I have a lot to do!

30’s Squared Quilting

Rachel — Tue, 18 May 2010 13:30:15 +0000

I managed to hammer out the quilt top using the Snippets layer cake 2 weeks ago.

The quilt top stayed nicely folded for some time, because I couldn’t find the time to actually quilt it. When I quilt I like to have a big block of time to just sit down and quilt. Sometimes those big blocks of time are few and far between. Most of the time I quilt when Steve is out of town on business. He had a series of canceled trips, so no quilting time for me. But now he’s on a trip, so after my kiddos were in bed last night I decided to quilt.

Today’s project is binding.

Slicing the Layer Cake

Rachel — Mon, 03 May 2010 03:47:39 +0000

I stocked up on Snippets layer cakes when they were in closeout at Cotton Patch Quilting. I knew I would eventually put them to good use. I broke into one of those layer cakes this weekend and can’t wait to to get the quilt top together. I’ve got the blocks done, but I still have to lay them out. I’m excited about this quilt. For starters, I love the fabric…the 30’s reproduction that reminds me of feed sacks. And secondly, it’s a super easy pattern that uses 1 layer cake plus some yardage of a neutral, and the pattern is all mine!

Hopefully I’ll make good progress in the coming days, that is of course as long as my 4 year old gets over the virus she has.

Scruffily Snippets

Rachel — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 19:26:08 +0000

Rachel of PS I Quilt had a tutorial for raw edge applique at the Moda Bake Shop. Then when The Quilt Shoppe had a coupon, I used the coupon to buy the Scuffily kit in the Snippets line.

The kit came with a layer cake, charm pack, and a jelly roll.

The concept is simple: layer cake, top with charm, top with 2.5″ square (cut from jelly roll strip), and this is an easy quilt to piece. This was my first attempt at raw edge applique and I really like the fuzzy raw edges. It’s so darn soft!!!

The backing fabric is from my stash, but it certainly looks like it’s part of the line. I decided to straight line quilt this one, and straight line quilting was not nearly as enjoyable as an all over meander or stipple, but it did get the job done relatively quickly, and after washing it, I really really like it.

The binding is scrappy…I chose 7 strips from the jelly roll. This was my first scrappy binding, and I love how it goes with the scrappy feel of the quilt.

Note: the kit calls for using 36 layer cake squares, but I went ahead and used all 42–making the quilt longer. Since the charm pack came with 40 charms, I ended up using 2 5 x 5 squares from my stash and I also threw in some of that stash fabric for the 2.5 x 2.5 squares for good measure.

Post wash measurement is 54 x 64.