My First Quilt

I got a wild hair this summer to make this quilt.  I had seen it on Very Prairie Blog, and then bought the book "Last-Minute Patchwork + Quilted Gifts " by Joelle Hoverson.  From this beautiful book I made my first project, and I blogged about it here. 

But I always had this one in the back of my mind as a doable first quilt.  A gift for someone having a baby.  It has lots of colorful bang for your buck.  So I ventured out to JoAnne's with a coupon and found 52 different fabrics to make my color wheel. Well, I had some fabrics from this project, and I used them where the could be fit in.  So I think I actually bought about 45 pieces.   And when I cut it out I cut 2 of each so I have another one ready to go when I want to make it again.

Here are all the pieces laid out on my kitchen counter and butcher block so I can get the look. Love the space in the new house.

You sew the wheel in quadrants.  Here I've laid out pairs and pinned them.

I took photos of each quadrant laid out so I could make sure I put the pairs together correctly

Here is the chaining method I used (learned from UTUBE) to continuously sew the pairs.

Here's what it looks like when you've chained pairs.  I used a leading fabric to start sewing, then sewed right onto my actual fabric. Then I clipped in between.

This is the back side of one quadrant.  I pressed the seam allowances toward the darker fabric where I could.

Meanwhile I did make a little blanket for my baby. A doggie blanket. Just a square of the fleece with binding.  They make a fleece binding now but it's only available in black or white at most stores.

My inspiration was a dog blanket from Old Navy that my other dog used to sit on in the car. Mochi loves this. one and we use it for training "go to your bed."
It has terriers but no Yorkie. Darn.

And in other news, Mochi graduated from "Good Puppy" school this week. He can sit and stay and lay down all with either verbal or hand signals.  He can come when called, walk by my side and "leave it" and "drop it".  The last two are marginal but today when he ran off with the directions to a new quilt I'm planning I said, "Drop It!" and he did.

Then, he waited patiently for his treat which I was glad to give.  No teeth punctures noted on the instructions. I wonder how well that would work with a piece of steak?  Wish I had that one when we found the dead squirrel in the back yard last weekend.

And here's the graduate.  3lbs and all hair.  He's attempting to sit/stay. 

More photos of the quilt coming later this weekend.  AND I bought a serger today (with my yet to be received bonus).  Yay!!!  Can't wait to fire that bad boy up and make some knits......

Oliver + S = Adorable Baby Gift

If some people call themselves "Selfish Seamstress," I surely should be called the "Crabby, Sassy, Bitchy, Sarcastic Seamstress."  Not all at once of course but at different times I'm each of these.  Overall, I think sassy says it all most of the time.   But one fine day I inadvertently lashed out at an acquaintance about why I don't attend baby showers (a reason I should just share with my inner-self during our constant dialogues about what's wrong with us and how we will fix it someday when we have time or more insurance for therapy).

Thumper

Olympia/Clairee

Often times, I should really just follow the advice of Thumper,"If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all."  However, in practice, I end up following the Olympia Dukakis/Clariee in Steel Magnolia's motto "If you can't say anything nice, come sit by me." 


The truth of the matter is that I love babies.  I love my nieces and nephews too and would shower them with gifts every moment and adopt them to live with me if their darn parents weren't so attached to them.  But they are older now and babies smell so damn nice and say goo goo and are overall just lovely, especially if you can hand them back to their parents when they cry or get stinky.

Anyway, although I don't like attending baby showers, I like making stuff for and buying gifts for babies and baby showers.  And that's what I really should have said to the mother-to-be (third time) who was very insistent that I should be ecstatic about attending her shower.  Instead I assured her that as a single woman, who has not been married, and has no children, who is about to turn 40 and who has attended over 1 million showers of all manner, that I have happily attended my lifetime fill of showers and would kindly decline attendance.   But, I made a gift because although I'm a sassy, bitchy, brat, I am generous.

So I embarked on the journey to make the Oliver + S Bedtime Story Pj set and by doing so completely ripped off (and or got inspired by)Amber who made such an adorable set with matching blanket.

And here's my finished set.  Fabric is Kitties wearing kimono's, trimmed with bright yellow.  I thought that was fun and cute considering it was a kimono style! Pattern Review click link.

Try not to be distracted by the tiny stain on my carpet.  Can you see the ginormous mistake I made?

Then, inspired by this Pairie girl's incredible quilt made from this beautiful book,

 I purchased the book  thinking surely someday I could make something as beautiful as that.  And the book itself is just so lovely.  I went with a 1 hour project to wet my feet, a bound baby blanket using the kitties with kimonos as the binding.

I've never made a quilt but my mother always wanted to quilt. She even bought a huge frame, and I'm sad to say never used it.  I'm even sadder to tell you that we got rid of it because it was ginormous.  I wish upon wish I had kept it even though fitting it into a tiny dorm room might not have been practical. 

So in my true, don't read the directions cause you think you know everything fashion, I prepped the binding the night before by pressing it into what would be like store bought double fold binding.  Then of course I read the directions the next morning that you don't press it if you are doing the hand stitched version.  DARNIT!  But, have no fear, there is a machine version, which is all I had time for anyway, using a folded/pressed version, so I zipped it together and it turned out pretty cute. I will say the directions weren't the greatest, but it turns out they are if you are doing it at the same time vs. reading it before hand.  And since I was wanting someone to better illustrate how to do the corners, I'll attempt to show it here:

Sew along one side till you get to the end.  Back stick and or tie off your ends, trim.

Then to miter the corner, the book says: "Fold binding strip straight down, with the two halves of the tape encasing the quilt edge."  I'll add that the corner becomes like a present, and naturally forms a triangle on both sides.  Pictures, are better..

Both sides will look the same. 

I have no idea if this is helpful to anyone.  I didn't quite get it when I read the book and looked at the pictures, but I actually instantly understood once the fabric was in my hands.  If you think this is daunting, think again.  It's really easy and what a cute finished product.

Folded blanket corners

Gift presentation. Blanket folded around pj set, tied with extra binding.  Card sewn with contrast thread and scrap of fabric.

And in the end, I packed the gift off to the hostess, collected her children, and while women sat together swapping gifts, eating artichoke dip and doing whatever else was planned at the baby shower, I enjoyed the latest installment of Toy Story with three of the cutest kids I know.   Getting to be Auntie Shannon is one of my greatest joys.