Libby's Orange Peel Quilt Fabrics

Tasha, Josh and family moved into a new house in January and have turned Libby's room into a princess castle -- what a girly-girl my niece is turning out to be (good thing there is still time for her to outgrow it)! Tasha asked me to make a quilt to match her window seat and curtains (that the best Oma in the world made). Here is Libby in her princess castle...

Tasha sent me a swatch of fabric from the window seat so I could match fabrics for the quilt. After trips to four different fabric shops, I came up with this collection of fabrics. The green/limey-yellow were the hardest to match. They were just a little different hue than most normal greens and yellows, but I think I did OK overall and the quilt won't be immediately next to the window fabric, so it'll look fine (I just have to keep telling myself that). It's a bright, cheery bunch of fabric, I really love the combination of colors!

I am going to make an orange peel quilt, which is an applique quilt. Here's an example of an orange peel quilt...

I have started making some of the peels already. It will be a lengthy process as this is going to be a twin size quilt and I need to make 252 peels. I am about 21 peels in...

Hourglass Quilt Finished

It took two sittings to free-motion quilt this small baby quilt. I had to stop out of frustration when I was about three-quarters finished because the backing kept bunching. It was hard to catch when it happened, so I would notice after I finished a section and then I had to pick out a bunch of stitches and re-connect the stippling lines. It was extremely annoying. I managed to finish the quilting today without much more bunching. I think next time I'll start in the middle of the quilt and work out to the sides. Most people don't think this is necessary for free-motion quilting, but I think it would help resolve some of my bunching issues. Anyway, it was a fun technique to use and I'll use it again, but probably only on small quilts. After washing, the stippling creates nice texture, but I really like straight line quilting for the simplicity of it. Anyway, here are a few more pictures:

Lime green backing! The quilt lines show up better on the solid fabric, but in my case, maybe that's not something to post a picture of. Most people recommend using the same color thread for the top and bottom because getting the tension just right is difficult with free-motion quilting. However, when people say you should do something because it's easier, I always choose the hard way, so I used green thread on the bottom and white thread on the top. It turned out just fine -- and not much of either color showed up on the wrong side, so I will continue to match my threads to the fabric, even if they are different!

 Close up of the stippling.

 

 Folded up and ready to be sent off!

Free Motion Quilting Practice

I'm finally getting the hang of free motion quilting. I still have moments of distraction where I end up making some strange jagged shape, too straight of a line, or cross my lines (gasp!). With some more practice on the 12x12 inch quilt sandwiches, I'll be ready to free motion quilt the hourglass quilt in the very near future!

Weekender Bag - Part Tres

My Weekender Travel Bag is done! This past week I spent several evenings hand sewing the lining to the exterior. This was a pain, but it really was the only way to attach the lining. It was time consuming, but I managed to get it done. It was dark by the time I finished tonight, so I will take some more pictures and post them soon.

Weekender Bag - Part Dos

 After a little rest, the main panels were sewed together as pictured in the previous post. Then it was time to construct the top/side panel with a zipper and two side pockets. I don't have much experience with zippers and thought the directions were sort of strange, but I managed to get the zipper sewed in without too much trouble. Sewing on the end pockets was just a matter of laying them on top of the top/side panel and sewing them on, so that was a cinch. 

Once the top/side panel was constructed, it was time to sew the bag together. This was tricky and frustrating! There were many layers of fabric, interfacing and peltex, so this was not a simple 1/2" seam to sew. You can see I had to use binder clips and clothes pins just to hold all the layers together. This 1/2 seam had to butt up against the cording to ensure a nice clean line around the cording. It took me several hours just to get the first main panel attached. I had to re-sew closer and closer to the cording in some spots to get the seam where I needed it. Luckily I got my adjustable cording/zipper foot in the mail on Saturday. It helped with getting really close to the cording. This was the most frustrating part of the bag construction, by far, and there were many choice words going through my mind while completing this step. After the first panel was sewed on, I unzipped the zipper, sewed on the second panel (which went much more smoothly) and turned it right side out. Viola... I have a bag!

   

But it needs a lining!

The pattern does not have any internal pockets, but I decided to make some anyway. I found a tutorial on how to insert a zippered pocket and made one on the first interior panel. Again, I am not very experienced with zippers, but the tutorial was great and now I have a nice interior pocket to keep things safe and secure!

On the other main interior panel I made a regular old pocket with accent cording at the top and a pearl  snap to keep it closed.

Next I need to construct the top panel, sew all the lining pieces together and then I have to hand sew the lining into the bag. I am not looking forward to that, at all...but I am excited to have this bag completed in time for my trip to Colorado next month!

Weekender Bag - Part Uno

I have been wanting a travel bag to use as a carry-on and on short weekend trips. Since I didn't get this one for Christmas, I am making my own. I found Amy Butler's Weekender Bag pattern and thought it would be just perfect -- even better than the Vera Bradley one. I have read a lot of blog posts on how hard this bag is to make and what a pain it is, but so far I have only found the instructions to be a little confusing and overall very time consuming.  I purchased the pattern, read through it and started gathering fabric and notions. This has turned out to be more expensive than the Vera Bradley tote. The pattern calls for home dec fabric, so even though I got mine on sale, it was still fairly expensive. Turns out that fusible interfacing and stabilizer are relatively expensive, too. Besides fabric, interfacing and stabilizer, I also purchased a 30" non separating zipper, a 9" zipper, cotton cording and pearl snaps. I still need to get purse feet, which are not required or called for in the pattern, but I think they might help keep the bottom of the bag a little cleaner. So now that I have most of the required fabric and notions I have started in on the actual construction.

It took 2 sittings to get all of the fabric pieces cut out. As you can see, I took the time to line up the pattern so the front pockets and panels match up. This wasn't that hard to do and I'm glad I took the time to do it because I think it will look a lot more professional once it's finished. From the exterior and lining fabrics I cut two pocket panels and two main panels (A&B), two side pockets (C) and two top/side panels (D). Then from the lining fabrics I cut bias strips for the cording (E) and strips for the handles (f). I am going to make some pockets for the inside as well (there are none in the pattern, but I want some), so I need to cut those pieces out still. After cutting all the fabric I had to cut a bunch of matching pieces of the interfacing and stabilizer. That alone was a ton of work!

Once I finished cutting I made the cording. I covered the cording using stitch witchery instead of machine basting it. I read on someone's blog that they thought this was easier and not having that extra set of basting stitches made it easier to attach later. So far I think that was good advice.

Finally I got to sew something after the cording was done -- the front pocket panels! This consisted of sandwiching the stabilizer between the fabric and the interfacing, sewing on the cording, sewing on the lining and then machine basting around the edges. I also top stitched along the cording to give the pocket a nice finished look.

After the pockets came the handles. This was simple -- it just required ironing the raw edges in a 1/2", inserting the stabilizer under one side, ironing the fabric in half and then top stitching down the two edges.  So after all of that, this is what I have now (these aren't sewn together yet):

I am now through 5 of 13 steps! I predict that things are going to get much harder, but for now, I am enjoying the simplicity!

What do you think of the pearl snap? I am thinking of using them as closures for the pockets because I couldn't find magnetic closures.

Baby Hourglass Quilt

It has been cold and wintery (as much as it can be) here in Santa Barbara for the past couple of weeks, so I've been hunkered down inside working on this baby hourglass quilt. I had a bunch of scrap fabric from a previous quilt, so I used the scraps to make half square triangles. I was bored with half square triangles, so I turned them into hourglass blocks for something new. It was a little tedious, but simple to do. I made the hourglass blocks over several evenings and then sewed the blocks together yesterday. It is a small quilt so I am going to try and free-motion quilt it. I purchased a book from Amazon (thanks, Grandma Hopp!) on how to free-motion quilt, so once it gets here, I'll be ready to practice! And luckily my friend's wife is not due until May, so I have some time to get the technique down before starting in on the real deal.