The Treasure in a Ziplock Bag

A couple of years ago I was the recipient of my mother-in-law’s fabric stash.  Some of it I used immediately and some of it sat patiently in my closet. 

Last week I pulled out a ziplock bag full of fabric and sorted through it.  It turned out to be the leftover bits from a project my MIL finished years ago.  I wasn’t sure it would be enough to make an entire quilt but once I got started I was pleasantly surprised-  There were enough blocks and strips to make a twin sized quilt!  Quite a treasure.

 


I had to visit the quilt shop to find a matching binding and backing – and even that went well.  You know how sometimes you have an idea of what you’re looking for and it’s just not there?  This binding that I found was just what I imagined for this quilt.  And I found it within minutes.  And it was on the clearance rack. 





This was a nice, quick, weekend project.  It is on it’s way to the LDS Humanitarian Center.  (They are still in need of full and twin sized quilts.)

I'm linking up to Sew and Tell Friday:

I {heart} Sweetwater

It is not often that I actually look forward to the arrival of a fabric line.  In fact I usually don’t pay any attention to what is “coming soon.”  This one however, has caught my eye and I cannot wait to see it in person.  I mean – just look at it!

(Photo from their Etsy site)

Anyone know of a good pattern that uses Jelly Rolls?  I need a reason to buy one of these babies to appease me until the yardage is available.

Silly Mental Games

I read on someone’s blog not too long ago that she doesn’t bother rolling up her bindings.  Why do I roll mine?  The short answer is that it’s a mental game I play with myself. 





Binding a quilt is probably my least favorite part.  (Spray basting USED to be my least favorite part, until I got this.)  To make the binding of a quilt less miserable for me, I now cut and create the binding FIRST.  Yep.  First.  As I am cutting all of the other fabric for the quilt top, I go ahead and cut the binding.  I get it sewn up, folded and pressed.  Then to keep it from getting tangled and super wrinkled from being wadded up somewhere, I roll it up and put it on my shelf.


It really does help.  When I pull a quilt off of the frame I know that the binding is sitting right there so heck- why not take a minute to stitch it on?  Weird I know.  I guess the only exception to this little game is when I am still hunting for the right fabric for the binding.  Then I have to wait and create the binding at the end as I marinate in misery.  No, it's not quite that bad.

edited to add:
hah!  I just noticed that the watermark on the photo is from my food blog.  Oops.  I recently re-installed Windows Live Writer (how I write most of my posts) and I bet my settings were a little mixed up that day.

Map of the States

This quilt has been finished (and in use) for quite some time, but I never did write a post about it.  (I did show two photos of the unquilted top here.)


Many moons (okay about a year) ago I was a member of the A Piece of Work quilting bee.  For my month I chose to do a quilt using the Map of the States block tutorial written by Elizabeth - who blogs over at Oh Fransson.  (Cool blog.  You should go and visit.)






I loved the look of the greens and grays that she chose to use in the tutorial.  I went a similar route, but also added a bit of orange just to keep things interesting. (Aren’t I edgy?)






I asked the group members to make me any size of block, rectangle or square, and then frame them in a thin black strip.  After I received the blocks I sashed them all with some Kona Ash.


For the backing I used this gorgeous green and gray print from Kate Spain.  I believe it is from her Verna line.


 



The quilt is quilted in your basic meandering pattern.  I thought about doing some straight line quilting, but I felt that all of the angular lines of the blocks needed some softening.  I love the end result.  You know, it never ceases to amaze me what the quilting step of quilt construction can do for the overall look of a quilt. 


Binding can also have an impact and it does in this quilt.  For some of my projects I prefer to have the binding visually melt into the quilt top.  For this one, I wanted a nice black frame for my quilt – to compete with the frames that are around each block.  The fabric I used for the binding is from the Haunted Mansion line by Sanae.





The finished quilt measures 58” x 67”  and it is currently folded over the back of my favorite reading chair.  A big thank you goes out to all of the women of the APOWA Bee that helped create one of my favorite quilts!

Thank you Harry Potter

The pattern for this quilt can be found here (Jack's Blocks pattern)


This quilt was designed and created for one of my little nephews.  His sister received her quilt over a month ago and I hear he has been patiently waiting for his.  (which reminds me… I never photographed his sister’s quilt.) 

My sis-in-law chose the fabrics (love them!) and found an inspiration quilt for me to use.  I really love how this quilt turned out.  I hope Jack does!





And why did I title this post “Thank you Harry Potter” you ask?  Because this quilt has been waiting for it’s binding for a few weeks.  I had the binding machine stitched to the front of the quilt but I didn’t have the time to sit and do the hand stitching to the back…  that is until my son decided to re-watch all of the Harry Potter movies.  We are eagerly awaiting the final movie and I thought his Harry Potter movie festival idea was a good one.  So I sat and finished this binding while watching The Sorcerer’s Stone. 

Thank you Harry Potter.  I have a feeling you will be helping me finish several quilt bindings in the next week.

 



The quilt’s finished size is 62” x 72”  It is all washed and ready for delivery!

The pattern for this quilt (called Jack's Blocks) is now in the shop!

Paper Crafting

I came across these two really great 4th of July projects and decided to take a break from working with fabric. 



This first one is a 3D star garland.  I found it as a kit at one of our local scrapbook supply shops.  It was super-simple, taking me about 30 minutes to complete.  The stars were all cut out for me – I just paired them up and stitched right down the center of each.  I left about a 1/2 inch of thread between each pair of stars as I chain pieced them together.  I also left 12”- 18” of thread on each end of the garland to help with hanging.  The next step was to fold each individual star in half to make it stand out 3D style.  Capeesh? 





30 minutes later I had my one and only 4th of July decoration!  Maybe next year I’ll add to it.  Possibly something like this.

The next project I did was originally found here.  My 9 year old and I thought that these would be fun to bring to our annual Cul-de-sac of Fire Celebration. 



The original rocket instructions want you to just print out the body and cone but I thought it would be more fun to find my own patriotic papers to use.  I also made our rockets a little longer to accommodate the particular type of candy we put inside.  (I can’t be more specific or I’ll give away the surprise!) 

My son helped me make these – he did a lot of the work – the folding, the taping, the filling…  and then I did the hot-gluing.  It took us a little more than an hour to make 14 rockets.

 



They were fun to make and now we get to enjoy them on our bannister for a couple of days. 
(Martha has several other good (and quick) ideas to spruce up your Independence Day celebration.) 

Happy 4th everyone!