Pinwheels on the Playground baby quilt

A WIP that lasted almost 2 years (first fabrics purchased 8/12/13) is finally complete. It took longer than that if you count the first top made for this baby. It is in the wash as I type and I will deliver it this afternoon.

I designed this one myself. I knew I wanted to do pinwheels and it had to have robots because our husbands worked for a robotics company so that was kind of a running joke amongst the wives. It was called the robot quilt through most of it's creation. I recently came up with Pinwheels on the Playground.
I found Funbots by Anne Kelle for Robert Kaufman to use for the focus fabric. The pink is Remix Polka Dots Pink also by Anne Kelle. The background is Kona White. The yellow is 2 different polka dot fabrics, one of which, the small dot, I no longer have the selvage for so I can't tell you what it is. The large dot is Fashion Plate by Barbara Jones for Henry Glass. I had to use 2 different yellows, because when I was doing the math, I miscalculated and when I went to get more, it was gone, so I had to substitute.

The backing fabric was very different from what I planned but I really love it. It is from the "Glamping" line by Mary Jane Butters for Moda. (side note: I love her Milk Cow Kitchen line!)

I used my newish Brother machine to do the quilting. I did free motion in the white areas with a few hidden messages and used decorative stitches to do the yellow and pink areas and also to attach the binding to the front. I did a bias binding since this is going to be a very used quilt (I hope). (I used Gene Black's Bias Binding Tutorial for cutting the strips.) I always have trouble meeting the ends of my binding and I used to use Pam's tutorial but the pictures aren't showing up. I was still able to use her directions though and got through it with only 1 seam rip. I have learned not to trim until I fold it back up to see if it is right. :)

I am super happy to have this done and even more happy to be able to deliver it.


 

Some crafting catch up

I have done a little crafting lately, both sewing and paper crafting. Now that my home is more livable, I feel okay spending more time on my hobbies.

I have been using Instagram a lot to share project I have been working on. I forget to post things on Flickr these days.

December:

I wanted to make a gift for my fabulous Grandma for Christmas. I thought the Open Wide zipper bag from Noodlehead would be perfect since she travels a lot. She also likes southwest stuff and I had some fabric I bought a while back that was just right.



Then I could not find my toiletry bag when I was packing so I took a moment (ha!) and made one for myself, in a larger size. I love it!

While in Utah, I made a port pillow. My dad was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer in November. He was getting chemo and radiation in December and had a port* in his chest. They can be very uncomfortable, especially when wearing a seat belt. My dad apparently frequently removed his seat belt when going to his appointments because of this. I found a couple of tutorials (here and here) for port pillows and made him one (as well as a couple more to donate to the chemo center). He used it while I was there and told me it helped.
These are made with charm squares and finish up about 4 1/2" x 4 1/2".



I also finished the baby quilt that our Young Women had tied for a baby in our ward. I had made the top a while ago. I donated it to the group along with binding. They tied it at church one Sunday during their lesson. Then I brought it to my mom's during Christmas break to trim and bind it.

 



 January:
More cord wraps. Some really big ones for extension cords and some regular ones for regular cords and a couple of short ones for my earbuds and charging cords.


February:
 Valentines!
I have been following a Stampin' Up! gal on YouTube, Wendy Cranford and she made a really cute little candy bar pocket for a valentine. I made one like hers which was not great, and then went my own way a bit with them color-wise.


Blue for my boys.

 
Pink for my girls, some teachers and the gals I Visit Teach.

 And throughout January and February I have been alternating quilting on the robot baby quilt and piecing this Trip Around the World quilt I started at a historical textiles class given by Leah Zieber at Fat Quarters Quilt Shop. I used fabrics from a fat quarter stack I had of Tidbits by Kari Ramsay for Henry Glass.  It was really hard to do the strips. I could not keep them straight, even using my walking foot and marking my machine with a tape guide and pinning the heck out of them and starching the heck out of them.
That said, I still like how it turned out. Very pretty.

 And that is my 3 month summary!
Have a great day!

 * Implantable ports or port-a-cath. A catheter connected to a port is surgically inserted (tunneled) under the skin of the chest, or sometimes the upper arm, by a surgeon or radiologist. You will receive either local anesthesia or be consciously sedated. Unlike the other two types of catheters, a port sits entirely underneath the skin. You may be able to see and/or feel a small bump in your chest or arm, but you won’t see the tip of the catheter outside the body. Before each “access” or needle insertion, the skin over the port may be numbed using a cream. When treatment is given, the skin is cleansed and a special needle is inserted through the skin into the rubber seal. This allows blood to be drawn or treatment to be given into the catheter that is connected to the port. (http://www.cancer.net/navigating-cancer-care/how-cancer-treated/chemotherapy/catheters-and-ports-cancer-treatment)

 

Some projects during May-hem

I have been working on things here and there during "May-hem". The last month of school is always a little crazy.
I have been trying to keep my littlest miss occupied and she has wanted to make a Tooth Fairy pillow for a while. I saw a cute monster pillow on Facebook, posted by Erin Schlosser and it was a free tutorial on her blog. I showed it to my daughter and she loved the "robot" tooth fairy pillow. (We like robots around here; my husband works for a robotics company.) She chose fabrics, then she traced the applique parts and cut them out with some guidance from me. Then she sat on my lap and guided the fabric through the machine with a little more guidance from me. She drew the smile on and then I stitched across it. The most amazing thing to me was that she stuffed the legs. It was a bit hard and even I was frustrated doing it, but she stuck it out and did great! After I stitched the body together, she stuffed it and we put a little fabric heart in (like at Build-A Bear) and I stitched it shut. She LOVES it and sleeps on it instead of her regular pillow.

It has a little pocket for her tooth and a quarter from the Tooth Fairy.

 I have also been working on quilting the robot quilt. It is going well. The white is done and I am moving on to the yellow. I plan on leaving the pink un-quilted.

 



I have made some good progress on the laptop bag. I got the pouch mostly figured out other than I either cut the fabric too big or did the math wrong. It was HUGE. But that is an easy fix I think so I have one more test sleeve and a test bag just for sizing purposes and then I can get going on the real deal.





 I just had one teacher gift this year since my other 2 kids in school have multiple teachers which, I don't really do. I got my son's teacher an Amazon gift card and made a card and holder for it.

Quilting

Sorry, this might be a downer post. It has been one of those days/weeks/months.

I mistyped quilting in the title at first and it was quitting. Which was fitting. (Which rhymes with quitting.) Because lately I have felt like quitting.

I am working on a commission bag. It is not going well. I want to quit. I can't quit since I committed to making it. I have been working on it since the beginning of March. Which seems to me like a long time to work on one bag. Especially when I have made smaller similar bags. It is the zipper pocket that is causing problems. I can't get it right. Also, snap placement has become an issue, as has finding a nice lining fabric. 

Then I have the baby quilt that I meant to give as a gift last year when the baby was born. The baby has now been one for a month. I finally got the backing fabric at at 25% off sale Saturday.

On top of that, our rent is being raised so we are house hunting and that is not going well at all. And our last rent check bounced thanks to the bank putting a hold on my husband's paycheck until tomorrow. And now we have to pay a late fee and  2 bounced check fees.
So yeah. I am ready to quit.

Instead of wallowing today, I pin basted the baby quilt and started quilting it. I tried out the stippling stitch on my birthday present, a Brother CS6000i we found at Target on Clearance.The stippling was way too dense. It looked cool, but took too much thread and time both, so, I will be ripping out stitches already. I moved on to FMQ and it is going well.
Then came the call about the bounced check. Now I am unwinding from talking to the very firm and stickler-for-the-rules leasing agent who would not budge on the late fee even though we have never been late on rent in 3 years except the time they lost our check. Sigh. And they want a cashiers check from our online bank. So we have to overnight it. Sigh some more.

And so I give you a pretty picture of the baby quilt being quilted to hopefully brighten a dreary post.

I'm going to go look for some chocolate.

Aaahhh... a lovely little quilt top

I spent a fair amount of time sewing over the weekend. We don't do the whole Superbowl thing, and we stayed home from church since 4 out of 6 of us were sick. That meant lots of free time.

I was able to finish the baby quilt flimsy that has been on my plate since last January! Woohoo!  I will need to get more backing fabric since I used about half of what I had purchased for it in the top. And I need batting as well, so it is back on hold for the moment.

I am just so glad I finally made it this far! Yay!

 

Baby quilt progress!

After nearly a year, the baby quilt is finally making real progress. It took ages to just get the pattern sketched, then purchase fabric. I think I started actually making blocks at the end of November (2013). Then I got hung up on 2 things.
1: I did not like my fabric I had chosen to frame one set of the fussy cut blocks. It was not working in the layout like it did as yardage in the shop.
2: I made one pinwheel and it was too small by 1/2 an inch.

That brought me to a screeching halt.

I took the project with me on Christmas vacation hoping to get some help and/or inspiration. I didn't even take it out of the bag.

I got home and finished making the half square triangles and squaring them up, then set it aside for a couple more weeks. Last week I took the time to make half pinwheels (2 HSTs sewn together.) This afternoon, I finished up the pinwheels and then put everything out on the floor to see what inspiration hit.
What I came up with was:
Just use the yellow blocks and eliminate the green fabric altogether. But without those green blocks the quilt would be tiny.
So then I would to add a border to the yellow blocks using my backing fabric (UGH!)to make them bigger.
Then I would add a white border to the pinwheels, making them sort of float and making them the same size as the yellow blocks.

I needed a couple more yellow blocks to finish off the layout and I had just enough yellow to do it. IF I had cut it right that is. I stitched up two more blocks, added them to the stack and they were too small. I had cut the borders a 1/4 inch too narrow. I had enough yellow left for one and a half blocks. I needed 2 more.
I ran to the quilt shop and of course they were out of my yellow. They had another fabric so I decided to just have one extraordinary yellow block in the quilt. :)

Brought it home, bounced the idea off my daughter and she vetoed. I decided against stitching scraps together to make the rest of the block and instead made 4 blocks with the new yellow and took out 2 of the old yellow blocks.

Now I am chain piecing borders and I might even have a flimsy by next week!  It feels like a weight has been lifted now that this quilt is moving forward with real momentum. I might even get it to the baby before she turns one at the end of March.

Baby Quilt done!

Quilt pattern is a disappearing nine patch, machine quilted with straight line quilting in a super-size crosshatch with squares in the centers.
I used a marker directly on the quilt to label it, though it faded a lot in the wash, it was still legible.
It says: Made by Amy W.... for E.....H.....W...... Vista CA, 07-16-2013

This quilt was machine quilted originally with a meander in the blue areas, with some custom doodles, like the baby's name, but it had to all be un-sewn due to major folding and bunching of the backing fabric. After hours of ripping stitches, I had to walk away from it for a while. When I came back I decided to go with straight lines instead.
On the first try it had just been pin basted. Second go round, I tried basting spray with a few pins around the edges. Not sure I like the spray much. See how wrinkly the back is? This is before I washed it. It helped up nicely for quilting and I had no trouble at all with bunching or folds in the back. But, it also gummed up the needles.
I actually hand bound this one, even though it is going to used. I usually prefer to machine bind for sturdiness but I had some down time at the dentist coming, so I used the opportunity to improve my binding talents. :)

One more UFO off the list.

WIP update

**Go HERE for the giveaway post.**

It has been a while since I posted anything about Works In Progress. I am not linking up anywhere, this is just for fun.

I haven't made a lot of progress on any of these since February.
 Yesterday I decided to get some stuff moving forward.

The Baby 2 quilt needed to get off the back of the chair in my bedroom and get done so I could put it away. The baby turned out to be a girl and this quilt leaned heavily in the male direction. So I wanted to finish the top and pack it up so I can focus on doing a girl quilt. I have fabric chosen, just need to click the purchase button. :)

Dots 'n Tots Quilt Pattern by Debbie Taylor (It's Sew Emma Little P). Print fabric is Going Coastal and Shore Thing, both by Emily Herrick for Michael Miller fabrics. I added the extra little stripe in the center corners.

 

 

Beginners Quilt Along sampler quilt.

I have more sashing and borders to add to these blocks before I can quilt it. It is pieced in four rows of three blocks at the moment. I haven't ever sewn blocks together in rows and then added the cornerstone-ed sashing. I usually do it block by block. I hope it lines up okay.

My current WIP/UFO list

To Start:
Beach Blanket
Come What May
Coins
Crayons Box
FQS BOM
Halloween
Sewing Machine Cover
Teal and Brown Sleepytime
T-Shirt gift quilt


Finish Piecing:
Lavender Sampler
Alford BOM
Doll Quilts
Hot Wheels
MOTP QA
Supernova
Tree Skirt quilt


To Quilt:
Baby Quilt
Baby 2
Bliss
Candy Land
Log Cabin Topper
Neutral Mediterranean
Sliced Coins
Spools Table Runner
Very Hungry Caterpillar



In other sewing news, my husband surprised me with a tablet for my birthday last month and I needed a stand for it to rest on while I was cooking and sewing. I found a tutorial here, that looked simple enough. I made it even simpler by not cutting out her pattern pieces, but instead used my sour cream pouch tutorial and just added the extra stitching across the bottom and filled it in the same places as she showed in her photos. It works great!

 

Baby girl quilt finished

Pattern is Crisscross by Fresh Cut Quilts Pattern Co. Fabric is Tidbits by Fresh Cut Quilts Pattern Co. and Kona Snow.

 
I finished the girl baby quilt last night and got some photos this morning. This one will be gifted tomorrow. There were supposed to be 3 quilts being gifted at the luncheon, but the boy quilt only made it as far as piecing the top. The recipient does know she is getting it now though, because I brought it to her first shower yesterday to give to her. Then I took it back. :)
It is for my brother and sister in law, who I see frequently, so I knew I could get it to them easily. I pushed the baby girl quilt to the front of the line, since I rarely see the recipient. The surprise baby quilt's fabric has not even arrived yet, so that friend is getting an IOU. :)

 
I tried a couple of new things on the quilt. The first was Fusiboo Batting. (It is pricey but on sale at Joann's it was about $13 for a 60x60 packaged piece.)

It was awesome! NO BASTING! Well, you have to iron the layers together, but that was a breeze. I did have to re-iron one time when it started to come apart in a couple of places, but overall it was great to work with. It washed up nicely too.

The second thing I tried was Quilting Made Easy: Stipples Made Easy, the larger size stipple. My mother in law gave this to me a while back and I finally remembered to use it!



 It is a roll of printed paper with adhesive strips on the top and bottom.



You apply it to the quilt, one row at a time, and follow the dotted line.



 I still have issues with my FMQ, keeping my stitches the same length, but since I didn't have to think about where to go, I did a little bit better. It is still very amateur-ish , but it got the job done.



Here I applied the paper wrong so when I quilted I went into the "no-no zone". Oops! I thought I was supposed to match up the dotted lines one on top of the other. Nope. Match edge of paper to dotted line on the other paper.  Yeah, I broke a needle thanks to that mistake. After that I also switched to a universal 80/120 needle.

As I quilted, I used my Wonder Clips (another gift from MIL and also Missouri Star Quilt Co. daily deal) to hold the layers of the quilt. I accordion folded it which worked better with the paper than rolling. The clips held the layers.

Sorry about the out of focus photo. This is 2 folds I think, 3 paper strips quilted, and one ready to quilt.

 Then came the ripping off of the paper. Not such a fun job, especially with my inconsistent stitches. I had to be really careful not to pull those big stitches out, and the paper got stuck in the tiny ones.

 One row's worth of paper.

Below is how long it took me to take all the paper off. The laps are the rows. One lap is not shown. I had 5 rows. Yes I am a nerd. :)

 All quilted and no more paper. (Mostly)

 I LOVE the backing. I found it on the clearance shelf at Fat Quarters Quilt Shop in Vista. It was perfect! They had just enough to fit the quilt too. It was meant to be. :) (Fabric is from Hello Betty by Chloe's Closet for Moda) When I laid out the quilt on the backing for fitting, I was sad I didn't have more of it because a border with it would have really looked amazing.

Still not great at machine binding, but getting better. I am going to try binding with 2 1/8" in stead of 1 1/4" strips and see if that cuts back on how much edge there is on the back. The binding fabric was pretty cute too. Polka Dots AND Stripes! Sweet! (My selvedge did not have any info on it. Boo!)

This week I will be quilting the Laura Tote and the baby boy quilt and hopefully making an apron for littlest miss.

Have a great week!


 

More sewing stuff

My sister received her Infinity scarves in the mail, so I am free to post the photos now. I say scarves, plural, because I made one for her as well, which was a surprise for her. So I had to keep it to one scarf when I talked about it/them before. :)

Her friend likes frogs and while my sister may have been thinking fun or cutesy frogs, I immediately thought of Tula Pink's Prince Charming fabric. I tracked some down, emailed her a pic and got the okay to proceed. It turned out really cute and her friend liked it.
For my sister, I used Nest by Valorie Wells. (I love that line.) My sister had said she liked turquoise, although, when it came, it was pretty light for turquoise, even the darker leaves. But she still liked it even though it wasn't a true turquoise color.

I have also been working on that girl baby quilt. I finished the top and am trying to get it quilted today. I have less than a week now to finish it. I got super lucky at the quilt shop when I found a pretty pink fabric for the backing in the clearance section, 40% off, and there was just enough on the bolt for what I needed. I will show a photo of the back when I get it quilted.

I have to say that I love the fabric line, love the fabrics especially the pink tone on tone. Every time it came up on deck to sew I would get a little giddy. :)
But, I should not have used the green. I really didn't have any other options to get enough blocks using what I had on hand. My daughter and I re-arranged the blocks over and over and there really was no good way to get a balanced look. I also had trouble getting over the bulk at the places where the white met the setting triangles. They are pretty bad. Don't look too closely. Definitely an area that I need to work on. :)
The photo looks really green to me. I will take a photo of the finished quilt outdoors to get a photo with truer colors.

Have a great day!