A Sneak Peek

Here is a sneak peek at my next big project.  (I'll give you a hint, it's not the awesome vintage shirt.)

Special thanks to Theo for being an adorable model and tester :)

Even Exchange of Goods and Services

It's nice to have different types of artists as friends.  My friend Jackson is a hairdresser who is in need of a t-shirt quilt.  I am able to create a t-shirt quilt and have a head full of grey hair that needs attention.  Bam!  We have a deal.  I am making Jax his t-shirt quilt and he is helping me have confidence to go out in public again :)

I began the slightly ghetto way I began my own t-shirt quilt, by creating a sketchy patten by cutting and pasting and Sharpie and a little math...

To continue being super high tec, I did this to all of the shirts:

Jackson picked out a sashing fabric and I have placed and order for it and also more interfacing, since I don't have much in my stock.  I have started with some of the shirts with the little that I have.  I am also using the erasable pens for the first time.  If you haven't used them they seem pretty amazing so far- I'll post about specifics later if I think they are worth it.

 I finished up a lot of little projects last week- pot holders I've been working on forever, whipped out my screen again, and started making some little bags that I'll hopefully have posted soon.  Anyway, lots of new stuff up in my Etsy store, so take a look!

Productive Day

Well, I finally buckled down and got a lot of work on two project done today.  First, and most importantly, I made major headway on my mom's (belated) Birthday gift.  Since she knows all about it, I think it's safe for me to post at I'm making her an iPad case.  She's a horse lover and I found this really wonderful horse fabric at on the Fabric Shack website (I cannot say enough good things about this store, other than the fact that their website isn't super user friendly).  I probably would have finished the whole thing today, but I realized that I had forgotten to attach the elastic, so I have some stitching to take out and, more importantly, some elastic to find...

I also started an other project.  I know, I know, the last thing I need is a new project, but this is actually been in my head for awhile.  When I went to Fabric Shack over Christmas, I found this great fabric that would be perfect for a baby/kid quilt for Jess and Nate.  Of course, I had just finished a baby blanket for them a couple months before, but this was too good to pass up.  With no pattern, or even ideas, I got a couple yards of three different fabrics.  Yesterday I got a few books out of the library and found a great pattern for this fabric.  I bought a couple more pieces online, but I have started cutting what I have.  I think it's going to be super cute.  My plan is to have it done by Theo's 1st Birthday.  This gives me a little more than 6 months... I should be able to pull this off :)  Photos of the start of the blocks to be posted in the next couple of days (hopefully tomorrow, but let's be honest, I might get side tracked!).

I'm an Aries

One of the trates of an Aries is starting grand projects and abondoning them for other projects, which in turn get abondoned to other projects- it's a nasty cycle.  This is also the story of my life (you should see my half organized closets).  I have so many projects that I'm supposed to be finishing right now (my mom's Birthday gift, Courtney's Thank You Quilt, Brown Bag Quilt (which has been disqualified for being late), and my baby blanket recreation) and what am I doing?  That's right, I'm starting a new quilt...

I bought this pattern off Cluck Cluck Sew and am using only fabric from my stash to complete the top- money is tight, so I'm going to try to keep my fabric shopping sprees to a minimum.  I've cut all of the pattern fabric and half of the solid, but I am going to force myself to get a big chunk of my mom's gift done before I work on it anymore.  I'm very excited for this quilt though- I think the pattern is lovely.

I Must Be Crazy

My childhood best friend's sister Rachel, and her husband Ami, are expecting their first child about a month after my 30th Birthday.  Of course I'm making them a baby blanket, but decided that instead of doing the simple little ones I normally do, I'd do something creative, fun, modern, gender neutral, detailed, and stash busting and, evidently, super hard!

I'm not sure what possessed me to think that my skill level is up for this adorable pattern from Fresh Quilts, but I'm determined to do my best!  I've begun cutting the 100s of pieces that will go into this quilt- it is, by far, the most detailed I have ever attempted- in piecing as well as in quilting.

The cutting of the cute pieces of fabric has been a lot of fun.  The center pieces are an Olivia fabric I picked up at Fabric Shack.  The rest of the pieces are from my stash or fat quarters I just picked up while on my "vacation" in Ohio.  I have also ordered some off white fabric for the back ground and some fun dots for the back and binding.  Just cutting this is going to take forever and I have actually lay awake in bed thinking about how to actually piece this together, but I am determined.  You will all be impressed if this is ever when this is done.  Impressed.  It'll be all worth it.

New Year, New Projects, New Look

With the new year, comes a whole new list of projects to dive into.  (And a new look for blog!)  Here are the projects that I have to complete before I turn 30 that I will blog about...






1. Rachel's Baby Blanket
2. Brown Bag Quilt
3. Courtney's "thank you" Quilt
4. 1-3 Custom Ordered T-Shirt Quilt(s)
5. Disney Themed surprises for my crew on my Birthday trip
6. Various Pot Holders by request and also just to put on Etsy

I have a Bengal's quilt on my year to-do, but I certainly don't anticipate that happening soon.

Looks like I'm gonna be super busy until April!

A Quilter's Requirement?

I feel like it's a requirement as a quilter to do at least one t-shirt quilt in your "career."  This is pretty perfect for me too; my whole life my mother has been telling me to get rid of my t-shirts.  Many of my t-shirts (much like my baby blanket) are worn out and were loved for a few too many years.  It turns out that once I start making stuff for myself I can't stop-- plus, I'm an Aries and we are really good at starting new projects, but very bad at finishing them...

I wasn't really sure how to go about making a t-shirt quilt for myself for many reasons.  First off, I don't have enough of any particular type of t-shirt to do a full quilt out of one type (I am very close with gymnastics t-shirts, but some of my oldest have mysteriously disappeared and there are some that I still wear to the gym).  Also, it would be hard to do the same sized squares for each t-shirts because they range in size from a kid's medium to a men's XL.

I decided to do a little online research to see some of the quilts that others had done, and I came across this pattern of sorts.

It is definitely too big for what I want 1) I want a lap quilt, not something you could put on a king sized bed and 2) I don't have the many t-shirts that I'm willing to cut up, so I printed it out and cut and taped it until I thought that it looked good and doable.

I have begun to cut the t-shirts, which is proving quite hard.  I hate squares to begin with, but with no salvage and with 15 year old jersey knits, some of them look a little wonky.  I'm going to have to get some interfacing if I actually ever want to finish it.  An other problem that I am encountering is that many of these t-shirts were retired because they were either so worn out that they have holes in them or I spilled something and stained them, or I used them in grad school as painting shirts.  For these reasons, cutting them is even trickier.  Obviously, I cannot have any holes in the quilt and I'm trying to keep it so there is also no paint, or food or hair dye stains.  I'm clumsy.

On a side note, does anyone know if you can recycle cotton?  I don't want to throw of the fabric that I cut off of the t-shirts and I can't imagine choosing to work with jersey.

I Have A Plan, I Swear

I'm in the process of cutting the fabric for the first quilt that I'm making for myself.  This picture sorta make it look like I don't have a plan, but I swear, I know what I want it to look like in my head.  I laid it out to see how many more strips I need in order to make it and I'm really glad that I did because I'm rethinking that size.  I looked up how large a quilt should be for a double bed and it said a minimum of 80" wide.  I laid it out of my queen size bed and it looks huge, but I may make it a bit smaller than planned, especially since the cool part of the quilt is going to be the detailing on the sides (trust me).  I also learned that I need some more neutral-y fabrics.  I chose these fabrics because most of them have meaning for me (duvet covers from years past, my love of football, gifts from friends, the first vintage fabric I ever bought), but it's starting to look large pattern heavy even busier than I thought it might.

I won't be posting completed photos of this one until October because after seeing it on my bed, I don't think that there is room for me to lay out the whole thing in my apartment (which I'm really going to need to do for this one), so I may have to wait until I'm in Ohio to put it together.  If I get anxious, I may be after to move some furniture in my living and dining room sewing room.  I hope this one turns out well!  I also want to get a darning foot for my machine and try to do something a little more interesting than a straight line for the actual quilting, but I won't be surprised if I ended up scratching that idea and just doing what I'm comfortable with (and have the materials for).  Time (hopefully not too much time) will tell.

Guys, I'm Getting Better At This!

I saw the idea for this quilt in a book I got out of the library (how awesome is the library, right?).  I have this great robot/space fabric that I haven't figured out something fun to do with it- well, a picture from Piece in the Hoop gave me an idea (which is pretty odd, since I don't piece in a hoop...).  It's a little small (around 26x32) and there are a few little imperfections so I can't sell it (it's going to Project Linus), but I just love it, so I'm going to make it again and also use different fabric and try to sell them.  This is my favorite I've made yet!

Here are pictures documenting the quilt.

  

 

 

 

  

Finished!

 

Front

 

Back

First Blocks

I just started my first true attempt of block work thanks to a friend who leant me Quilt Block Bonanza.  The verdict?  Eh.  There are some great ideas in the book, but not a ton of instructions so I'm just sorta winging it.  Because of that, the points are not as sharp as I would like.  Still, it's turning out well enough to make a baby quilt out of them.  Here's the progress so far:

                    

The exciting news for the day- I just "won" what I believe is the final fabric I need for the recreation of Banky from Ebay.  Fingers crossed that it's right!

I also finished quilting the New Wave Quilt (finally); just the binding is left!

Setbacks, New Goals

Well, folks, after trying to teach myself some new stuff, I have some bad news: I may not be very good at quilting- yet.  I decided to give finishing full, detailed quilts a little bit of a rest and try things on a smaller scale, so I'm making (drum roll please)... pot holders.  I figure that this is a good, practical way to teach myself how to finish quilts without the pressure of having spent hours upon hours on it already.  This way, if I mess up, it's not such a big deal.

The first pot holder I attempted to make today was also my first attempt at a pinwheel.  As the picture shows, it did not go well.

What I learned: think before you cut; think before you sew.  And, if you don't know how to do something, maybe look up how to do it instead of just diving in and thinking it'll be a snap.

The second attempt actually worked, even if there are some imperfections.  I have some Alexander Henry baseball fabric left over from a blanket I made for Project Linus.  This was my first time doing actual binding on a quilt, including a mitered corner!  So, even though it's not perfect, I think it's a good step forward.

front

back

Anybody want a pot holder?