Gulp

I donated the Chocolate Covered Raspberries quilt to the silent auction at my daughter’s preschool.

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I’m not sure how much I thought this sweet homemade baby quilt would fetch for, but I wasn’t prepared for this.  The starting bid was $5, and with increments of at least $5, after 6 bids it was up to $35.  Now the auction doesn’t end until 6pm tonight, but I could barely stomach seeing the $35.  That’s just about the cost of the materials, which means my time was worth $0. 🙁

Gulp.

I just swallowed my pride.

Urban Nature: Final Quilting

It’s been taking me a long time to quilt the Urban Nature quilt.

It’s big.

It’s heavy.

Today was the home stretch.  One row 19 x 95 left to quilt.  Almost there…that’s what I kept telling myself.  Here I am about to quilt the very last corner and remove those last 3 basting pins!  I could barely contain myself.

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It’s big.

It’s heavy.

Binding is next, and oh how that scares me!!!  To think that I’ll be working on the outer 1/4 inch edge of the quilt with all the quilt’s weight pulling against me as I sew the binding is really intimidating.  But I’ll have plenty of time to frett about the binding, because I need to put this project on hold while I get a couple others started and completed.  When it rains it pours!

Joining Edge Foot

The joining edge foot is a time and life saver!  I talked about the foot here, and last night as I pieced the batting together using the joining edge foot I (well my husband actually took the picture) took a picture for you to see how it works.  The concept is pretty simple: set your machine to a zig zag stitch (or similar stitch); take two pieces of batting and place under the presser foot; one piece to the left of the straight metal joining piece and one piece to the right of the straight metal joining piece; stitch.  The end result is a straight flat seam joining the raw edges of both pieces of batting.   Absolutely perfect for joining batting, using up those scraps of batting, and saving money!!!

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In this picture I’m piecing the last batting strip (36 x 108) to the rest of the quilt batting.  The quilt is so heavy that I use the chair beside me to support the weight of the quilt so it doesn’t pull on the needle as I quilt.  This chair has been my life saver too! 😉

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Urban Nature: Ready, Set, Quilt

I have been a bit intimidated really freaked out about finishing the Urban Nature quilt top, and that’s why I’ve been busying myself with other projects.  But this week I got the urge to complete this project, and much to my surprise, the quilt top actually came together quite nicely and pretty quickly, especially considering the 95 inch square size.

Then it was on to getting the quilt top ready to quilt.  I decided to do straight line quilting with some outline quilting and some other stuff.  So to make it more manageable I figured on piecing the batting.  I cut a piece of batting about 35 x 108, and pinned the center of the quilt.  I then folded both sides very compactly and pinned them down so they wouldn’t turn into a ridiculous pile of fabric.

I started my straight line quilting and while I think straight line quilting can look really cool, I absolutely loathe doing it.  So I ripped the little bit of straight line quilting out and decided I would do an all over meander.  So I quilted the center section.  Tonight I pieced the batting on the right side and quilted one more row (totally recommend the joining foot for your machine…makes piecing the batting pretty easy and there’s no bulky seam…think zig zag stitch to to join the edges of the batting together, and the result is totally flat).  For some reason I broke 4 needles…I rarely break needles so this was strange, and I can’t figure out why the needles were breaking…I wasn’t running over pins, so by the time the 4th one broke, I decided that enough was enough for tonight.

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It’s taking A LONG time but it’s coming along and it looks really good.  I honestly never thought I would be able to quilt something this big!

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Far left row: pin basted and ready to quilt.  Middle 2 rows: quilted rows.  Far right row: neatly folded top and back pinned down to make it a more manageable size.  I cannot even imagine how heavy this baby would be if I had sandwiched the whole thing and pin basted the whole thing!

Vintage Rose Flirty Skirt

I made my daughter an adorable layered skirt.  Each layer has a dropped gathered waist…big accomplishment for me seeing this was my first time gathering!  The top layer is a vintage rose floral pattern and the bottom layer is a dark and light pink stripe.  I love the fabrics together, and the skirt is super cute, but too short for my princess.

Live and learn.

I bought lots of different fabric to make skirts, so more are definitely on the horizon.

Vintage Rose Flirty Skirt:

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Chocolate Covered Raspberries

My daughter’s preschool is having a silent auction, and I volunteered to make a baby quilt.  I love baby quilts, because they are quick to make and oh so satisfying.

I chose 2 charm packs of Sultry by Basic Grey for Moda and set them 8 x 10.

No matter how many quilts I do and new styles I try, I absolutely love the simplicity of the 5 inch squares.  It’s probably quiltmaking at its simplest, but I’m so drawn to these quilts.

The post wash measurements are 33 x 42.

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The back of the quilt is white muslin, and I quilted with Sulky Blendables Vintage Rose (#4030) thread.

Caterpillar’s Meadow

Thanks for all the votes for naming this quilt (both in the comments section and in person).  While I liked both names best I think that Caterpillar’s Meadow fits both the quilt and the new mama the best.

The post wash measurements are 33 x 41…just the right size for a new baby.

I think this quilt is really pretty and the new mama is going to love it! 🙂

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Front

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Back

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If you remember I used the Sulky Blendables thread…see how nicely it blends

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This is the back and you can see how nicely the thread blends into the blocks at the top, but in the rest of the white backing you can see the color variations, which I think looks really cool.  And since I used a light blendables thread it still hides mistakes on the white fabric.

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Which Name Do You Like Better?

It’s been a while since I’ve worked on quilting.  I’ve been so busy…we had house guests and then my oldest was sick.  I do most of my quilting in the evenings after the kiddos are in bed, but with the start of the fall tv season, I’ve discovered a few new shoes that I just love, so that means there is even less time to sew and quilt.

Anyway, I finished quilting the baby quilt, (still without a name), and last night I prepared the binding and sewed it to the front of the quilt.  Now I’m on to hand stitching the binding to the back of the quilt—a good task to do in front of the tv! 😉

Thanks to Jen and Emily for their suggestions on what to name this quilt.  I’ve narrowed it down to 2 options: (1) Caterpillar’s Meadow (2) Pink-A-Boo.  Which one you like best?

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For the quilting I used Sulky Blendables Thread…I so love this thread!  I used #4026 Earth Pastels.  I’ve used the blendable thread before: Butterfly Fling Squares (#4102 Spring Garden); Mod Quilt Sampler (#4030 Vintage Rose); Red, White, & Bold (#4105 America).   If you’ve never used the blendales thread I totally recommend it as it blends really well when you have a top with lots of different colors and if you use a light solid back, the back looks really cool.  When I’m done with the quilt I’ll take some closeups of the back and post the pictures.

Baby Quilt-Needs Name

I love making baby quilts!

One of my best friends is having her second baby.  She’s having a girl.  My friend doesn’t really like girly colors or baby colors (ie, no pastels and nothing overly girly).  She likes earthy colors.  So I dug deep in my collection and came across a fat quarter bundle I had of About Town, by Monaluna for Robert Kaufman.  Perfect.

I chose the Sanpshots patern from the Happy Hour (by Atkinson Designs) pattern book.  I love all the patterns in this book, and can’t wait to try them all!

So loving how this baby quilt is turning out!  It’s girly, without being overly girly and it’s also earthy with the browns and greens!

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I need help naming this quilt!!!  Any suggestions?

Scruffily Snippets

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.

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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!!!

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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.

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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.

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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.