100 quilts for Kids finish!

I finished attaching the binding to my Sock Monkey Jigsaw Puzzle quilt for 100 quilts for kids on Monday night after work.  Unfortunately I missed the link-up because I couldn't get any good pictures yesterday due to heavy storms last night, oh well.

I think this quilt turned out so cute!  The novelty prints really aren't my taste at all, but I think it will make a child really happy :)

I wanted something quick and easy for quilting so I chose to do organic wavy likes long-ways over the entire quilt.  I started quilting over the seam lines (every 3 inches) then went back and added a wave in between each.  In hindsight, I wish I would have used yellow thread (like I used to attach the binding) instead of white to make the quilting stand out a little bit more

I really need to seriously look into getting a heavier machine for quilting because even wrangling this small lap sized quilt through my little brother moved it all over the table (even though I have sticky shelf liner under it!)... Christmas is coming up ::wink::

The backing is the blue dots from DS Quilts at Joann's, it was on clearance for $7 a yard, so I finished off the bolt even though I only used about 2 yards on this quilt.

I had a little less than a half yard of the white banana print so I added a strip of that to the backing just for a little variety :)

The binding is a combination of Riley Blake and Robert Kaufman yellow dots that just happened to be the same shade as the solid yellow in the quilt!  I had a very serendipitous romp through my scrap bin and managed to find two different but very similar fabrics... You can't even tell they're different in the grand scheme of things.

I machine attached the binding using the tutorial at Cluck Cluck Sew.  I must be getting better at binding because I only had to go back and hand stitch over the section where the binding ends meet.  I ended up with a measly 15 inches of binding scrap, so it really worked out perfectly.

I'll be turning this over the Heather at our DCMQG on Saturday where our batch of quilts will be donated to Carpenter's Shelter in Alexandria, VA.  I hope the bright colors and happy monkeys can help bring joy to a child in need :)

Details:
Finished Size: 54"x45"
Fabrics: various scraps including Erin McMorris Funky Monkeys for Moda and Robert Kaufman Kona Solids; backed with DS Quilts for Joann's
Quilted with Gutterman

A Lovely Year of Finishes: Aeroplane Bag March Finish

Well ladies and gents, I finished myself a piece for #travelhandmade.  In the eleventh hour last night I was finished... too bad I finished it too late on March 31 to take satisfactory pictures and post to the link-up.

March really was just a whirlwind of activity... Lots of Master Gardener stuff gearing up... where the heck did the month go???  Lucky for me, the weather was super crummy and I had two glorious days of pretty much nothing to do except sew this past weekend.

Part of my goal this month was to make myself an Aeroplane Bag by SewSweetness so I would have something to tote my sewing machine with me to Mid Atlantic Mod.

I am so pleased with how it turned out!  And, with the exception of the AMH Dowry print and interfacings, I had all of the other fabrics on-hand.

Since I sew mainly at night, it's difficult for me to get good "in-progress" pictures, but I did end up posting a lot of my progress on my instagram

I pulled the fabric on our very rainy and gloomy Sunday afternoon, and started cutting around 4:30.  I kept sewing until around 11pm and got both outer and lining panels completed.  On Monday night after work I attached the zipper and finished the entire bag around 10pm.  So from start to finish the bag took me about 11 hours (including breaks)... not too shabby.

I still consider myself a "confident beginner" when it comes to projects, especially non-quilting projects.  This bag was definitely a challenge for me, but I wouldn't say that it was difficult, it just forced me to try new things (zippers still intimidate me).  I will definitely purchase more of Sara's patterns in the future.  Her instructions are amazing and made the whole process much easier.  The splitting zipper made installation  a breeze and also helped ease the assembly process.  I did end up having to do some hand stitching around the zipper ends, but I think that's more because of my lack of experience than anything else.

As I mentioned before, the outer main fabric is Anna Maria Horner Dowry "Postage Due" in Berry.  This is the only fabric that I purchased for this project.  The straps and bottom fabric are made from Anna Maria Horner Field Study "Fine Feathered" in Denim, and the yard I had in the stash is sadly now reduced to scraps because I made a booboo cutting the first time.

The lining is Kona Kale which coordinates pretty well with the green on the main print.  I was originally going to use a different Dowry print for the pocket lining, but settled on the cute navy dots from DS Quilts Blossom Reel collection at Joann's.

Since I chose to make the large size, it fits my sewing machine perfectly, with spare room on the the sides for my extension table, cord and foot pedal.  I may use some of the leftover Peltex to make a more stable bottom just to support the weight of the machine.  I don't think this is absolutely necessary, the bag construction is sturdy, I'm just not as confident in my bag-making abilities to trust my seams, lol.

I purchased this pattern and all fabrics with my own funds and did not get compensated in any way for this post.

TGIFF: SSM#4

Happy Valentines day Lovlies!  I was hoping to post this last week but we didn't have power... no power = no internet = no blogging = sadface :(

Have I mentioned how much I love swaps?  Well I am a glutton for swapping, so I had to participate in the Sew Sew Modern #4 Swap over on Flickr.  Check out the Flickr pool to see all the amazing goodies that have been swapped :)

I can't reveal who my partner was for this round, because she hasn't received yet (the snow + ice + no power made me a few days late sending).

This was my initial fabric pull (sorry IG pic).  I wanted my patchwork to mirror the Pennant print from KOI.  When I started cutting, I decided to take out the Salt Water print because it didn't look great cut into tiny 2.5" triangles, it was a little too olive drab to fit in with the other prints.  I also ended up adding two other KOI prints for variety.

In-progress (also from IG). I ended up staggaring the rows to try to mirror the inspiration fabric :)  And I went with a scrappy low volume background.  The flying geese are 1.5x5.5" attached to another 1.5x5.5" strip of low volume.

And here's the finished pillow.  I am so pleased with how it turned out.  Especially since I just cut and sewed, with no pre-planning.  It still ended up square!

I did an off center chevron following the point of one of the geese.  The lines are 1" apart done in a hot pink Gutterman thread.  I also zig-zag stitched the binding on, because inevitably I miss a few spots on the back when machine binding with a straight stitch.

I finished off the back with the Pennant print and did a simple envelope closure (I'm too much of a chicken to try an invisible zipper!)

For the "small item" I took my scraps and made some scrappy coasters, they're so cute :)

And what swap would be complete without some extras :)  I included a lil' twister ruler and a cute ball of variegated Perle cotton.  Since it's headed overseas I wasn't sure what the restrictions were on sending food, so I opted not to send any candy along this time.

I hope you like it partner!  I had a great time making it for you!!!

Linking up with Thank Goodness it's Finished Friday!

Mommy Plus One Quilt

I am so excited to share with you not only my first finish of 2014, but my first quilt finish ever!

My best friend, Laura is expecting a little girl March 4 and as soon as she told us she was pregnant, I knew I had to make the little one a quilt :)  The great thing is, with all the snow days we had in the beginning of January, I was able to finish it before her shower.

Laura originally told me that she wanted pink and purple as her color scheme, but when I started laying out the pluses it looked too two-dimensional with only two colors.  So I took a cue from the Erin McMorris fabric (lower right in the above pic) and pulled some peach into the quilt.

I tried to lay out the fabrics so that they were pretty evenly distributed between the different colors and shades.

I quilted it with a Pumpkin Seed walking foot design which took about 2 days, but mostly because I wasn't very comfortable with wrangling a quilt under my machine and it took me a few passes to get the hang of it.

It's backed with lavender Minky (you can also see the quilting better on the solid side) -- which is sooooooo soft!  I think I just might back all my quilts in Minky!

The binding is a Riley Blake polka dot that matched the Minky.  I machine attached it using the tutorial from CluckCluckSew.

There are a lot of firsts in this quilt for me, and I am so proud of it.  It has definitely given me the confidence to have a great (ahem lovely) year of finishes this year.  I hope baby girl gets lots of use out of it and that she loves it as much as I do!

Her mama was very happy with it :)

Quilt Specs:
36" x 53" finished dimensions (3.5" finished squares)
fabrics from a variety of designers including Riley Blake, Violet Craft, Heather Ross, Erin McMorris
backed in Minky
stitched and quilted with Gutterman thread







Linking up with A Lovely Year of Finishes! and TGIFF!