The Sew Together Sewalong

Have you heard about this fantastic thing called the Sew Together Bag?  This bag has been on my to-do list for months now, and when I saw that Heather from The Quilt Barn was doing a sewalong I knew this would be just the kick in the pants that I needed! 

So I joined in, and bought my pattern and zippers that afternoon.

Then came the hard part – deciding which fabrics to use for the main bag and the linings.  Let’s just say that I made a big mess of my closet as I dug around to find the fabrics to use. 

But it’s okay because the cleaning fairy is going to show up any minute now to tidy up for me. 

So this is what I decided on – I think.

And this afternoon I started on Day 1 of the sewalong.  I’m a few days behind, but it’s one of those things that you can join at any time.  That means that YOU can join in today and make yourself one of these awesome Sew Together Bags.  You know you want to.

You can get the pattern here.  I recommend buying your zippers from Zipit on Etsy.  Great prices, fast shipping and an amazing selection of colors and sizes. 

Being the overly practical girl that I am, I just chose very neutral zippers.  Boring ol’ white, gray and vanilla.  But check out this card – these are the gorgeous colors of zippers that Zipit offers.  Now I’m kicking myself for not choosing something more fun like “Monster Snot Green” or “Mango Smoothie”. 

Need more motivation to join the sewalong?  Check out the Flickr group to see the progress of some of the other sewalong participants.   

I’m going to admit right now that I’m most likely going to be making several of these bags.  It’s just too tempting when I see the pretty bags that everyone’s making!  Are you sewing along?

Vintage Verona hourglass quilt

Happy St. Patrick’s Day friends!  Hope you’re wearing green today.  I know I am.  There’s plenty of little pinching fingers around here ready to catch anyone NOT wearing their green!  As it so happens, even the quilt I’m sharing with you today has green in it.  How ‘bout that! 

Today I have a tutorial on the Riley Blake Cutting Corners College blog for this fun Vintage Verona Hourglass quilt. 

And as promised, a free printable version of the pattern as well!  You can find it here.

When I was adding the borders to this quilt, I felt it needed a little bit more navy to help frame center portion of the quilt.  So I decided to add a flange.  It’s quick and easy and I love the way it looks.  Want to know how to do it?

First, you’ll need to measure the length and width of your quilt top.  You will need to cut enough strips to go around the outer edge of the quilt.  For this Vintage Verona Hourglass quilt you’ll need at least 1/6 yard.  Remove the selvage and then cut 6 strips that are 1” x width of fabric. 

 

Now we’re going to sew those strips end to end but we don’t want to add bulk along that border so let’s join them with a diagonal seam.  Fold one end down to make a little 45 degree crease (just finger press – no need for an iron!)  Now sew along that line to join the two strips.

It will look like this – pretty!

Once all of your strips are joined, trim the excess fabric behind each seam.

Now head to the ironing board.  Press this long strip in half lengthwise (wrong sides together) just like you do when you’re making binding.

Time to sew the flange to the quilt top.  I like to add the flange to the sides of the quilt first and then the top and bottom. 

Start at the top right corner of the quilt.  Place the flange, raw edge facing out and lining up with the raw edge of the quilt.  That nice, folded edge of the flange should be facing in towards the middle of the quilt top.  Stitch, using about an 1/8” seam.  (If you were to use a 1/4” seam here, your stitching may show once you add the border.)

Continue stitching down the side of the quilt and backstitch when you get to the bottom corner.  Simply trim the flange even with the bottom edge of the quilt.  Then repeat for the other side of the quilt.

Now we’ll add the flange to the top and bottom of the quilt top.  Line up the starting edge of the flange like you did for the sides of the quilt.  The ends will overlap here like this:

Continue stitching along until you come to the next corner.  Trim the flange like you did before.  Your finished corners will look something like this:

Now repeat until all four sides of the quilt have the flange attached.

Now just as an FYI, you can add a flange to the inside of a border (like I’m showing here) or you can add it to the inside of a quilt binding.  Also cool.  If this flange were going to be inside of a binding, you would follow the steps above, and then add your binding as you do normally. 

For us, we will follow the instructions on the pattern to add the quilt borders.  Consider the flange just a part of the quilt top.

 

Sew the border on as you would normally do, using a 1/4” seam.

Continue adding borders, following the pattern instructions.  The flange (pre-pressing) will look like this:

Give the quilt top a nice press, especially right along that edge between the flange and the border:

And your quilt top is ready for quilting!

I love that little extra detail that the flange adds to a quilt!  I see more flanges in my future!

I’ve received a number of questions from this post about sewing equilateral triangles.  So this week I’ll have a quick project to show you that uses equilaterals.  For those of you that are new to Eq. triangles it will be a great way to get your feet wet without committing to a large, time (and money) consuming project! 

Happy sewing!

Thankful for Doors

I love that my sewing room as a door on it.  A locking door.  I haven’t always had a room to myself.  One with a door. 

Sometimes I use the door for heating purposes.  In the wintertime I know I can close my door and turn on the iron and within 10 minutes or so my room is toasty warm and ready for working.

My sewing room door also has a trusty lock.  On occasion Santa has had to hide a few things here and there.  And during the rest of the year I sometimes hide other goodies in my room.  For instance, right now I have a stash of those delicious mini Cadbury Creme Eggs that only appear one special time each year.  Shhh! Don’t tell my boys!

And sometimes I love my sewing room door because I can be in the middle of a project, walk away and close the door.  And I know that my project will stay just as it is for days and days if need be.

Then there’s days that I have to  lock myself in my room so that I can get my work done!  That was what had to happen a couple of evenings this week. But I had an amazingly productive week!  I’ll see you on Monday when I’ll be sharing a new quilt and a free pattern.  Have a wonderful Sunday everyone and thanks for being such great readers!

Sprouts Table Runners

Well, I think I can safely say that it’s springtime here in Utah.  My beloved lilac bush has buds, our grass is turning green and we are all spending a lot more time outside these days!

I’ve pulled out my spring door wreath and my spring table runner to help things feel more springy around the house. 

And of course my butterflies are still hanging out on my bookcase-

By the way, do you follow the Craftsy blog?  You should!  Recently my Sprouts Table Runner pattern made an appearance there along with some other really great leaf-themed patterns.  There was also a recent post about 10 great Spring inspired table runner patterns.  All great ideas for when your dining table needs a new Spring look.

The Sprouts Table Runner & Topper pattern is just $5 and is available in my pattern shop and in my Etsy shop.  The pattern has instructions for three sizes of runner and is a quick project.  Really!  It uses raw edge applique and is a great excuse to dig through your scrap bins.

Right now I have the longer (blue) one on my table but I’m thinking of making a circular topper using the coral scraps from these blocks.  Wouldn’t that be pretty? 

Well, happy Friday everyone and I hope you can find a little time to sew today! 

Equilaterals

I have (strangely enough) pretty clear memories of my first geometry lessons waaaay back in 5th grade.  I remember my teacher using an overhead projector and teaching us all about angles.  Acute.  Obtuse.  Right.  Then we learned about triangles.  Isosceles.  Scalene.  And my favorite – equilateral.  There’s just something so NICE about an equilateral triangle.

I started this quilt last fall at The Sewing Summit.  I worked on it very slowly over the next couple of months.  It just wasn’t my favorite thing to work on.  It started to feel like the never-ending quilt.  You know that type of quilt, right? 

Finally I finished the top, quilted it and then all it needed was binding.  I took it with me to Quilt Bliss in January and finished the binding there.  My motivation for finishing it was so that I could use it while I was way up there in the lovely, snowy mountains of Utah.  Worked like a charm- I finished it up the very first evening!

I had backed it with some gray minky and it has now become everyone’s favorite TV watching quilt.  That’s bittersweet, right?  I’m glad everyone loves it, but then I never get to use it.  Ever.  I even tried calling it “my quilt” but they’re not buying it.   

Linking up to Fabric Tuesday at Quilt Story!

Sweet Talk

It’s a bit of a blustery day here today. 

When it was time to send my kindergartener to school today he and I peeked out the window, saw the sunshine and decided all he needed was a hoodie.  Well, off he went on his bike to school.  Four minutes later he came running home.  He had gotten all the way to school and THEN decided that he needed his heavy coat.  So he had come all the way back home just to grab another coat and go all the way back to school.  Funny kid.  Glad we live close to the school!



This week I finished up this quilt top.  This is made from my Sweet Talk pattern (you can find it here or here.)  I’ve made two Sweet Talk quilts before this one (one with Noteworthy and one with Honey Honey) but I didn’t really love either of those.  One was made to be a display quilt for a local quilt shop and the other is my reading quilt (translation: nap quilt). 

A few weeks ago I was playing around in EQ7 and created this using the “Surrounded By Love” line from Moda.  Love.  Instant love. 

Lucky for me the Valentine’s Day fabric are all on sale right now, AND this is a fast and easy quilt pattern.  I got everything cut out one night while waiting for the kidlets to fall asleep.  The next afternoon I had the HSTs created.  Yesterday I arranged everything on my design wall and by last night I had a finished quilt top. 

This afternoon’s project is to piece together a quilt backing using the scraps. 

Have a wonderful Friday everyone!

Sun and Surf - a quilt block tutorial

So for our Imagine at Do. Good Stitches group it's my turn again to choose a quilt block and color palette.  I chose this block - which in one of my quilting books is referred to as a "ribbon star" quilt block.  Another book calls it the "ribbon quilt" quilt block and yet another says that it is a combination of the "friendship star" and the "snowball" block.  So there you have it.  

Since this one is a scrappy version I'm calling it the "Sun and Surf" block.  

Recently I spent a bit time in the Bahamas and was inspired by the gorgeous colors found in not just the buildings but also in (yep you guessed it) the colors of the ocean and the gorgeous sunsets.

So we'll be working with all shades of coral and mint for this block. 

Let's get started!
For one 12.5" x 12.5" block you will need:

1 @ 7.25" of low volume fabric
1 @ 7.25" of a coral print
2 @ 7.25" of mint prints
1 @ 4.5" of a coral print

Step 1:  Place the 7.25" low volume square right sides together with one 7.25" mint square.  Match edges.  Sew around all four sides of the square using a 1/4" seam.

Step 2:  Press so it lays nice and flat.  Then cut diagonally across squares twice.  This creates four half square triangles.

Step 3:  Repeat steps 1-2 using one 7.25" mint square and one 7.25" coral square.

Step 4:  You should now have a total of eight half square triangles.  Press all HSTs open and trim to be 4.5". 

Step 5:  Using all HSTs and the 4.5" square coral print, lay out block as shown below.  

Step 6:  Sew block rows together using a scant 1/4" seam.  Press seams.  Sew rows together, pinning at each intersection (again using a scant 1/4" seam).

Press the finished block.  

There you go!  One finished 12.5" x 12.5" Sun & Surf scrappy quilt block.  If you make a Sun & Surf block I'd love to see it!  And if you're on flickr be sure to add it to the Sewing with A Bright Corner flickr group.

Scrappy New England Quilt - all finished!

Waaaay back in July I shared a block tutorial for the scrappy New England block.  The wonderful women in the Imagine circle for Do. Good Stitches  made all of these lovely, scrappy blocks and I recently finished up the quilt.  

I went back and forth on what to do for the sashing.  My original plan was to use green scrappy strips as the sashing, but when I got everything up on my design wall the scrappy greens were way too overpowering and the reds, oranges and yellows got lost.  I swapped the green strips out for white and used green scraps as the posts.  Much better! 

I added a bit more green in the form of a scrappy green binding, which ended up being my most favorite part of the quilt.  I wish I could keep this one!

The backing is this yellow print which I found on sale at my LQS - love a great deal!  

Now the quilt gets it's DGS label and it'll be boxed up and sent off to Threading Hope!