Blogger's Quilt Festival: Pinwheels on the Playground

I am entering this baby quilt in the Blogger's Quilt Festival hosted by Amy, at http://amyscreativeside.com.
You can find information about the Festival HERE.
I am entering in the Original Designs category. Voting opens next week and if you like my quilt I would love to get your vote!

About the 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 when we though it was a boy.

 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 re-named it 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 home sewing 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 so I used  Pam's tutorial 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 pleased with how it came out and both the mom and the little girl LOVED 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)

 

Applique practice

I picked up a cute mug rug kit at the local quilt shop in November. I got it to make as a birthday gift, but ended up not having time to make it, so yesterday I made it for myself.

 It was quick and fun, once I figured out the applique order and chose an applique method. (Thank you Google and MIL!) The extent of the instructions for this kit were: "Your background fabric has been quilted... Sewwww all you need to do is add the applique, french knot for the bird's eye and place a button on the wing. Bind your mug rug and you're done!" The kit came with  ribbon and a piece of rickrack as well. Not sure what those were for. I took a photo of the sample at the suggestion of the shop clerk and those items were not on it. So I guess I got a bonus! :)

*Note for kit/pattern makers. It is my opinion that instructions should assume you know little to nothing about what you are doing. In fact, I think beginners pick up kits like these more often than experienced sewers. So even brief step by step instructions or tips would have been very much appreciated.  I summed up my process in 10 steps when I was done on the pattern sheet. Not too tough and now I know what to do next time.

 My applique is improving. I had some trouble with my Wonder Under. It did not want to stay on the fabric. I had to do the branch 2 times because when I peeled the backing paper off, the Wonder Under peeled off with it and also shredded the edges of the piece.

After listening to a recent podcast on mini quilts, I used MamaCJT's tips on using single fold binding to bind the quilt.

  I am not sure how big mug rugs run, but this seems a tad large for that category. It is closer to place mat size. It is now hanging on my wall with clips recommended by another podcaster (or 2) .